Eddie: Welcome to episode 20 of the Web Joy podcast.
I'm your host Eddie, and in this podcast we interview guests about their origin
story and what makes them excited and joyful to be part of the tech community.
I hope you enjoy today's episode.
Everyone can do it with tailored Desen.
Welcome to another episode of Web Joy.
Today I'm excited to have Taylor Desen with us.
Taylor, say hi to the community.
Taylor: What's going on?
Y'all?
Super excited to be here.
Thanks for inviting me, ma'am.
Eddie: Absolutely.
Thank you for coming.
So I guess to just get started, How about you just share who you are, what
you do, where you work, brief intro?
Taylor: Yeah, absolutely.
So again, my name is Taylor Desen.
I work for a company called Vaco, V A C O.
The company I work for, we're a billion dollar recruiting and staffing
consulting company, so we do it all.
And, uh, me, myself, I have been with Vaco for going on 11 years this year.
I joke with a lot of people that recruiting years is like dog years.
It exponentially ages you.
So I'm actually 121 years old.
I'm not 33.
I'm 121 years old.
My focus for the last seven years has been engineering recruiting, so
software engineering, data engineering.
All the way from UI front end to all the way backend, data engineering, DevOps.
You know, that's kind of been my focus and, and my team specifically, you
know, I, I lead a team of seven, um, at Vaco and we help staff up organizations
across the country in a fully remote environment with top engineering talent.
So that's what I do and, uh, I'm just again, thankful to be on the pod.
So thanks for inviting me.
That sounds really
Eddie: interesting.
I guess, how did you.
Get into right.
This recruiting world.
I mean, did you kind of grow up and you were like, I know I always want to
be a recruiter, not just a recruiter, I wanna be an engineering recruiter.
Or did you take a little bit of a different path to find your way here?
Taylor: Yeah, definitely a different path.
Nobody, The ongoing joke with the, with the recruiting world is nobody
actually dreams about being a recruiter.
We just literally stumble into it.
. So a little bit about my story.
So I grew up in south.
Uh, I went to University of South Carolina.
Go Gamecocks.
I'm a big Gamecock fan.
I was in the drum line.
Um, and I played music all my life.
So, um, start in fifth grade playing drums and basically middle
school band, high school band.
You know, I was first chair, wind ensemble for a bit.
And so, you know, definitely knew what I was doing.
At least I, I think I knew what I was doing.
Um, and then I was in a church band and I, uh, I basically
ran into my future lead singer.
So he was playing bass and he was like, Man, like we should start, He
was like, Do you wanna be in my band?
I was like, Sure.
I was like, I've never been in a band.
Right.
I grew up like Southern Baptist.
Like, I didn't even really like go out to shows.
I never went to a show.
I, I was like, Sure, I'll be in a band.
Why not?
Like what?
Sure.
I, I, in my head I was like, This isn't gonna, I started playing with these guys
and then we ended up playing together for golly, I, I've been friends with this guy
probably for about 11 or 12 years now.
Wow.
And we played music together from junior year in high school up until,
So how old are you in high school?
You grad?
18.
You graduated high school when you were 18.
So I was probably 17.
Yeah.
When I, when I started and I didn't stop playing music with
this one guy I met until I was 20.
22, 23.
Wow.
So I played in a band with him for about six years, basically our senior
year in college at South Carolina.
You know, we were drawing around two to 300 people, um,
whenever we played locally.
And we, it was, it was a small college town, so like, I mean,
it was, it was pretty awesome.
And, uh, we did a tour to Nashville the summer of my senior
year and we played the Bluebird.
So most people know what the Bluebird Cafe is in Nashville.
It's kind of like where a lot of people get their start.
We played Sunday nights, so Sunday nights fun.
Little fact about Bluebird Cafe is you only get full bands on Sunday nights.
I don't know if that's changed now, but when we played.
It was only a Sunday night thing.
And so we, so we played full band and one of my lead singers, dad's friends,
who is an old school country artist, basically came out and watched us
and he came up afterwards and he was like, Hey, like I really like y'all.
Like I think you guys could make it up here.
And we're like, We're from South Carolina.
And so I'm like, Country were song where I was like, You can make it.
We were like, Holy cow.
So our heads were buzzing and we basically, we, so we went home and
we decided to travel to Nashville once a month for our senior year.
So we came up once a month.
And the reason why I'm passionate about networking, to be totally
honest with you, is I didn't network.
I missed out on a huge opportunity.
I didn't know how to network at all, so I really did not take advantage of
coming up to Nashville every month.
And so when we graduated, me and my lead singer are the only ones that moved.
Our lead guitar player moved.
He's not doing music anymore.
He's an upstate, He's actually a data scientist now, which is funny.
, and then all of our other guys kind of stayed in Columbia, so
it's just me and my lead singer.
We moved up to Nashville.
We started to play together and it was really funny.
I know it was a long winded story, but actually I've never told this in
depth of a story before on any podcast.
So basically moved up to Nashville.
There was a group of us in my hometown that actually all
moved to Nashville together.
Not like together in a van, but like around the same time.
And so basically it was the best of the best.
So our bass player, Who joined up with us up here in Nashville.
He now does, or he still does, he does front of the house audio for Dan and Shay.
And then our league guitar player basically was in a band that beat us
at Battle of the Bands in college.
And then he joined up with us.
So we kind of like developed like the a team up in Nashville, which
kind of what happens up here.
Cause you gotta be, I mean you gotta be good enough to cut it up here,
Um, and we started to play music and, and, and we went on a few tours and
the last tour, unfortunately, We drove.
It was a summer tour.
We drove from New York City to South Carolina over.
Not showering in a Nissan era.
We broke down in the middle of nowhere, South Carolina on a Sunday, and if you've
ever been in in the south on a Sunday, nothing's open until noon or one, so we
gently got towed to an advanced auto.
and essentially stayed like sat in the heat cuz the car
was dead so there's no ac.
And I said, I'm done . So no one's gotten that story.
Very few people have gotten that story.
So basically I was serving tables and my dad calls me, he goes, You need a day job.
I said, You're right.
So I networked, right?
I leveraged my network.
There was one girl that I knew from our hometown, she was nannying for somebody.
I was like, Well if somebody can afford a nanny, I wanna do what they do.
And then I got connected up with my first boss at Vaco.
I interviewed three days later, got the job offer and have it looked back.
Eddie: Wow.
That's
Taylor: crazy.
That's my story.
How I got into engineering recruiting is, the first department I started in
was kind of not, when I say a junior department, I mean like the kind of the
model for that department was like, let's hire like young talent, train them up,
high volume, high metrics, kind a little bit, call center type vibes, and then
basically what happened was, is that.
Like there was a tech project, like a, it was Java Engineers.
It was Java project back when, like old Java.
Right.
And basically nobody like raised their hand to take on the project.
And I basically was like, All right, well I'm gonna raise my hands.
That's just who I am.
And I fell in love talking with developers.
I think.
I think developers do really, really cool ship.
I think they're fascinating to talk.
And they're really willing to talk to you.
And, uh, I just kind of fell in love with tech.
And then I moved to the Raleigh office.
I was in Raleigh for a year doing more local recruiting.
Um, and that's when I really got, really invested in the local engineering scene
and then moved back to Nashville and have been recruiting engineers ever since.
And then pretty much the last two or three years have been fully remote,
fully remote engineering searches.
So that's
Eddie: a, that's a fun journey.
So have you found that.
, you're doing fully remote like positions lately just because there aren't as
many local positions because of the pandemic or is this like a intentional
change, like you now are like focused on helping remote positions?
Taylor: Yeah, it was an intentional change.
So basically, um, when Covid hit, so I started to really kind of pick up
some steam with the speaker circuit speaking at code conferences across the
southeast and essentially I then covid.
And I was like, Well, shit, that was short lived.
And so basically I was like, Well, what do I do now?
And it, it got to the point.
So at that point, I've been recruiting for eight years and I
just got really, really tired of just recruiting, to be totally honest.
Like the, like the dms, the emails, Please work with me.
I promise I'm different.
Like that just really, really started to wear.
. And so I essentially was like, All right, there's, there's gotta
be something else out there.
And so I started following Gary Vaynerchuck like most people have,
and he started talking about content.
And I was like, What the heck is content?
Like what is this thing?
And so essentially I was like, Well, maybe I should just start posting the
things I talk about in conferences.
Because when I was speaking at conferences, I was getting like
rave reviews, like, you know, they felt conference cards and like all
of my talks I gave were like five star, like very little critiques.
And I was like, I may be onto something here.
And so I started to put that on the internet.
I put out content on the internet a year later and I wanted to give a plug
to my buddy Brandon Arve at Brandon 78.
Um, he kind of helped take over my content strategy.
He's really, really good with audio editing, video editing,
really understanding how content works and how people need.
How people want to consume content.
So he was like, Hey, I want to help you, and basically headed up
my content strategy for a year.
A year into my content journey, I had a handful of companies across
the country call me and wanna work with me to staff up their teams.
At that point, I had to make a decision to leave recruiting manager
of 12 recruiters and start on my own.
And I have, and a year later, uh, we're a team of seven.
And, uh, we're doing pretty well.
So
Eddie: that's awesome.
That is, uh, an amazing journey.
Uh, congrats.
I mean, you know, just finding all of those different
changes and flexing, right?
And like trying something out, saying, Hey, like, this
stuff worked in conferences.
Like, I wonder what it'll do online and.
Yeah, that's great.
So I want to zoom in a little bit on, you know, you mentioned
like you kind of got a little bit burned out of recruiting, right?
Like Yeah.
Doing the same old thing.
What do you think it is that by engaging with content online, right?
Engaging with people on the internet, What is it that kind of stirred back
up, um, your excitement and passion for recruiting and, and networking.
Yeah.
And, and all
Taylor: of that stuff.
Well, I have a passion for helping people.
I think that's kind of my motto and, and the reason why I have
such a strong passion for helping people is one, I moved to Nashville.
I didn't know how to network.
I didn't know about LinkedIn.
I didn't know that there were jobs nine to five.
I mean, I did know there were nine to five jobs.
I didn't know how you landed them.
I didn't know how you found them.
I've had to help my dad a few times on his job search journey.
I love helping people in their careers and, and for me, what
content creation has done.
So I, I'm also an insurer and this job, recruiting is hard.
It is so hard.
So, The best way to say it is like, think of college recruiting, college
football, recruiting, like it's kind of that, but without a lot of the egos.
Cause we're not dealing with 18 year old high school students right now.
There are a lot of egos in tech.
They're just more like 35, 40 year old like nerds.
But, But basically, and I'm a nerd too, so I can say that.
So I just, it wears on you.
And I got to the point.
I mean, and just, you know, in full transparency, I'm totally
fine talking about this.
I'm really big on mental health.
I clinically hit depression for the first time in my entire life
in 2018, it really hit hard pretty much a year and a half before Covid.
It took three to six months to kind of dig my way out of it with counseling and,
and, and I'm just a huge fan of therapy.
I actually had it today.
Nice.
For me, what I've realized with content is it helps scale your time
and it helps scale who you are.
It's kind of like, I've started, use this analogy, most old school people.
Love thank you notes or thank you letters or just postcard, right?
You know, like mail or what if I just send you a thank you note email or
thank you text like to me that means the same if somebody texts me and
go, Hey man, I really appreciate it.
I actually got a thank you email today from somebody.
Hey, I just want you to know I appreciate all the content you're putting out.
I admire what you're doing in yada, yada, right?
That to me was the exact same as a handwritten note.
So what content is, is content is like going to conferences and meetups, but
it's like 10 x when I, What I mean by that is like, so when you go to a
conference or meetup, let's face it, you probably meet, So if you go to a
meetup one night in your city, you're maybe meeting five people, 10 people max.
And even if it's 10 people, you're probably not remembering
exactly what their first and last names were, what they do their.
You don't have any of that.
You're just like shaking hands and hopefully you run into them again,
but you're not connecting with them.
What content is, is content allows me to have those conversations at scale, so I
can say something on the internet that I would say to you if you're on the job
search, but now everybody sees it, right?
And so what that does is it 10 Xs your reach to where now I do this full time
and then when I go into conferences, Then the relationships are so much
easier because they've seen me online.
And then now I can have a better conversation.
Cuz now I'm not going, Hey, my name's Taylor.
Well people, I don't mean this to be bragging.
People know who I am because they've seen me.
Right?
They like, they followed me.
So when I go in person now, now it's a, hey, so what do you do?
And like we immediately hit it off like on our second and third conversation.
That would take two or three months if you were doing that for a meetup.
That's awesome.
And so that's what content has done is it basically has, I
was thinking about the driving.
The biggest mistake of my career is not starting this sooner, and
I'm gonna be honest with you, everybody who does content, and you
can probably say the same thing.
We all wish we started sooner.
Yeah, that's true.
. So again, that's why I'm passionate about one, cause I'm an introvert
and I hate talking to people all day.
And I'm really bad in big groups.
Like I'm speaking at code on the beach in Jacksonville next week and I'm, I'm
a little nervous to like be in front of all those people cuz it's overwhelming.
But again, so content has allowed me to, to be myself my whole self online
and allow for people to find me, like find their tribe type situation.
Eddie: Yeah.
I, I love Right.
Kind of that point.
In real life, irl, like the introverts, all of us introverts are kind of at a
disadvantage because we start getting in our head, um, when we're in large
groups of people and when we're in areas where we can have a large impact.
But, Even things like this podcast, right?
And I'm sure we'll talk about, you know, closer to the end.
Like you have a podcast, right?
And you can have these conversations that feel one on one, like it's
no pressure, it's us just talking.
And yet, like you can have tons of people hear these conversations
and you can have those larger.
, even though you're tricking your brain, right?
Your brain, the introvert says, Oh, it's cool.
I'm just chatting with someone else.
. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, so yeah, I mean, one of the main things we like to do on this podcast is
talk about, you know, what brings us joy.
And I, I'm sure as a surprise to no one that's listening to the podcast thus
far, networking brings you a lot of joy.
Um, as well as like branding for job searches.
Kind of talk to us about what does that mean for you and like
what about that brings you joy?
Taylor: What brings me joy when it comes to helping people is to
watch people level up their career.
People don't realize that they can level up their career so easily,
but people don't know where to get started, and I'm able to do that.
Yesterday I had a conversation with a green, a former green be.
In the military, who's now, I mean, it was a while ago, but
like he's on the job search.
You know, I get to, I get to help him.
I, I get to, you know, help people's families, right?
Help people get raises, help people accomplish things in their life that they
never would've thought they'd been able to because they didn't know any better.
I'm speaking at Magnolia JS down in Mississippi in September.
The conference organizer said, I need you to speak.
I didn't even apply.
She was like, I just need you down there just to talk about what is out there.
Because people in Mississippi don't know what's out there.
And so that's what brings me joy, is showing people like a whole
other world, like you can have total control over your career.
And that's what brings me joy.
Eddie: I love that.
Well, so if someone's listening to this and they haven't done
anything, no networking, no.
Trying to up level their career, I.
How could they get started, right?
Like, what's one thing that they could do to like say, Hey, I'm gonna take a step.
Taylor: So I, I think if you're listening to this and you know, you're
like, This sounds great, Taylor.
Like, what's step one?
Right?
Like, I actually gave a presentation this morning and one woman said that.
She's like, Everything you're saying sounds great, but
it sounds so overwhelming.
Here's what I do.
One vaco.com/.
I have a free resource page and I have a 30 minute video that you can
watch on how to build your LinkedIn.
Go watch that immediately and build out your LinkedIn.
Then what I would do is I would stay on LinkedIn.
I would delete all social media apps off your phone, TikTok,
Twitter, Instagram, you name it.
Only use LinkedIn and start networking with people on there.
Now, when I say network with people, there's two main ways, right?
There's posting content, documenting your job search
journey, but there's also the DM.
People are more kind than ever, especially online.
And if you message people and you start engaging with people or liking and
commenting on their statuses or DMing them or posting content that allows you to open
up doors that you never thought, right?
So I tell this story all the time.
I.
Is my 55 year old dad at the time.
He quit his job in the restaurant industry, right?
My dad does not do tech.
My dad is, I dad, if you ever listen to this, I'm sorry, but
you are computer illiterate.
I mean, he's terrible.
He's kind of one of those angry texts, you know what I'm saying?
Like dads that don't really know how to text, he just sounds angry all the time.
Dad, again, I love you if you listen to this.
I'm sorry, but it's just a truth.
My dad called me after he quit his job and he goes, Taylor, what do I do?
And I go, What?
I go, What do you, I don't know.
What do you what?
What do you mean?
What do you do?
He goes, How do I find.
He goes, because the last time I was on the job search, get this,
he said the internet did not exist.
Wow.
And I was like, Guy, I just got goosebumps saying that.
Right.
To think about being in a job for so long that the internet was not around.
When you were on a job search, you had to fax shit.
So I was like, Dad, I'm gonna need a day.
I'm gonna need a day to distill this down where my technology
illiterate dad can understand.
So like I, So I took the night, I was like, Taylor, how in.
Can I explain this to my dad to where he can take like a piece of advice from me?
So I called him the next day.
I was like, All right, dad, I got it.
He goes, All right, what do you got?
I said, One.
And he goes, I'm sorry, what?
He goes, What do you mean one?
I said, One conversation a day with a complete stranger or
somebody in your phone book.
He goes, That's it.
I said, Yes, that's
it.
Taylor: I said, Go in your phone book.
Invite people out to lunch, coffee, dinner, FaceTime, phone call.
I don't care.
Try to get in front of.
And just get to know them and ask, Hey, is there anything I can do?
Is there any place I can get involved?
And he said, Just one a day.
I said, Just one a day, that's it.
But I said, It's gonna take a lot of work and the front end, you're gonna be
on your computer a lot cause you got and And I told him, I said, I said LinkedIn.
I said, Just get on LinkedIn.
And then we talked about the search filters and how to
filter stuff and all that.
So my dad would call me over the next three months saying, Hey, I got a lead.
I said, I said, Okay.
And in the back of my mind I'm like, It's not gonna pan out cause most leads don't.
Right?
Let's just face it.
And then finally my dad calls me after three months.
He goes, You won't believe this.
I said, What?
He goes, I just got an offer.
I said, You're kidding me?
He goes, I guess, where did you find it?
He goes on LinkedIn.
Hey, my dad messaged a guy he used to work with like 15
years ago and says, Hey, what?
Didn't know what you're up to.
Well, this guy he did not know had opened a new restaurant franchise and
they were looking for somebody in his hometown to take over that restaurant.
And then now my dad's been there for six years.
So again, like I said, I tell that story all the time because if my 55 now, 62
year old computer that dad can find a job in the restaurant industry on LinkedIn.
I'm gonna be honest with you, Nobody's got an excuse, nobody's got an excuse.
Everyone can do
Eddie: it.
Well, no, that's, that's great.
And I think as we kind of wrap up each episode, one thing we like to
do is, As a community, we love to support each other and so really
we want to hear, you know, is there anything that we can do to support you?
You know?
Is there anything you're involved in or anything you've worked on
that you'd like to share with the community that they might find
Taylor: helpful?
Yeah, definitely.
So I have two podcasts cuz a man can have too many podcasts.
So , my first podcast is Guidance Counselor 2.0.
It's obviously in every app store.
It's actually a live show.
It's a morning show that happens every morning.
I mean, that was stemmed outta Covid basically.
I was so tired of having the same conversations over and over again
that I essentially started this live show so I can communicate at scale.
So I interview hiring managers.
I'm actually on a job seeker kick right now, um, of like, Hey, listen, like I'm
interviewing Job Seeker specifically.
And so I do that.
My other podcast is the Unicorn Finders, where basically we go and
highlight companies doing really cool shit that you probably never heard of.
And so that's my other podcast.
And then website vaco.com/taylor.
And then I do have to say I do have a texting community.
That's pretty cool.
I'm pretty proud of.
So basically, If you text me 6 1 5 2 3 5 5 6, 5 0, join my texting community
and I send out a job tip or trick daily to you, directly to your phone.
So I'm a part of, uh, this app called community.
It's really cool.
Gary Vanderchuck piloted it and basically think like email.
And text kind of meet.
Um, and so I have like three to 400 people on the texting community,
but you just hear from me.
But I'm able to communicate at
Eddie: scale.
That's really interesting.
I haven't heard of anyone doing anything similar to that.
So that's, that's really original
. Taylor: Yeah.
But anyways, yeah, that's what I've going on.
And, but if email is your old fashioned way, hit me up at Taylor vaco dot.
Nice.
Eddie: Awesome.
Well, Taylor, it's been such a pleasure just kind of hearing your
story, hearing about networking and kind of how people can get started.
Love the story about, about your dad.
I think that's really inspiring.
So yeah, thank you so much for joining the episode today.
Really appreciate it.
Taylor: Absolutely.
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate
Eddie: it.
Yeah, have a good one.
Thank you for joining us for episode 20.
Everyone can do it with Taylor Desen.
You can find out more about Taylor on his Twitter at t desen, or his
website solo dot two slash esson.
You can find links to everything we talked about in this episode,
as well as a link to Taylor's Twitter and website in the show.
Nuts.
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