#275: The Modern Data...Job Search with Albert Bellamy

It’s a process few people genuinely enjoy, but it’s one which we all find ourselves going through periodically in our careers: landing a new job. We grabbed MajorData himself, Albert Bellamy, for a wide-ranging discussion about the ins and outs of that process: LinkedIn invitation etiquette (and, more importantly, effectiveness), how networking is like spousal communication (!), the usefulness of reducing the mental load required of recruiters and hiring managers, and much, much more! You might just want to drop and do twenty push-ups by the end of the episode!

Links to Resources Mentioned in the Show

Photo by Thriday on Unsplash

Episode Transcript

00:00:05.75 [Announcer]: Welcome to the Analytics Power Hour. Analytics topics covered conversationally and sometimes with explicit language.

00:00:13.80 [Michael Helbling]: Hey everybody, welcome to the Analytics Power Hour. This is episode 275. A long time ago, it seemed like all you had to do was put analytics somewhere in your LinkedIn page, and that would kind of ensure a steady stream of recruiters emailing you about job openings. I don’t think that’s been true for quite some time now. And, you know, honestly, today, all too often, people you’d least expect it are showing up with that green open-to-work badge on their LinkedIn profile. And even if you have a job, maybe you’re looking for something else, and it just seems like every place you apply just ghosts you. I mean, the truth is the job search in the data analytics field, it’s changed. And you know, while a lot of the data is anecdotal, the trends certainly feel real. And so how do you do a job search the right way today? I think we should talk about it. Let me introduce my co-host, Tim Wilson. How’s it going?

00:01:10.83 [Tim Wilson]: It’s going great. I’m ready to learn all the ins and outs of this. Yeah. Your topic. It’s not for me personally. Let’s say.

00:01:19.78 [Michael Helbling]: Well, that’s the thing is like our job search skills are very antiquated. I would imagine you and me just because of how old and unemployable we are. Speaking of employable, Julie Hoyer. Hey.

00:01:37.92 [Julie Hoyer]: Hey, can’t wait.

00:01:40.01 [Michael Helbling]: You’re the next generation. And so I’m glad you’re here. Me too. And I’m Michael Hobley. And we wanted to have a guest, someone who kind of makes their business to understand the ins and outs of the modern job search. Albert Bellamy is the Marine who smiles at spreadsheets. After a distinguished career in the United States Marine Corps, he transitioned into analytics where he’s held roles with intellect and currently works at Altrix. He also coaches people through their career growth and transitions with his company, Major Data. And today he is our guest. Welcome to the show, Albert.

00:02:12.34 [Albert Bellamy]: Thank you very much. It’s awesome to be here. This has been a bucket list thing for me for a while. Well, you should have reached out. Why did you wait for us to reach out to you? You know, I didn’t want to… It’s a thing. You want to play hard to get.

00:02:26.37 [Michael Helbling]: I like your style. I like your style. But let’s just start with you need a bigger bucket. And…

00:02:33.52 [Tim Wilson]: I didn’t say this was the entirety of the list. It’s one on there. Yeah. Or it is a really big bucket. Maybe that’s what it is, right?

00:02:41.23 [Michael Helbling]: It’s a… Bucket list B. It’s a catch-all. No, it’s great to have you. And honestly, you’re someone I’ve sort of kept track of on LinkedIn for quite some time and sort of seen sort of what you post and things like that where you’re helping people. Question for you maybe just to get us started. What took you down a path because you obviously have a long career in the Marine Corps, but then jumped into analytics as a career after that. Why the additional work helping people with careers and things like that? What was the impetus there?

00:03:14.24 [Tim Wilson]: Just analytics just doesn’t pay. You had to have a site as well.

00:03:18.68 [Michael Helbling]: I don’t think you make a ton of money helping people find jobs. I mean, I don’t know. Not yet. Okay. Not yet.

00:03:28.48 [Albert Bellamy]: Give it time.

00:03:28.92 [Michael Helbling]: Not more than you make in analytics anyways. I was just curious. This is sort of an intro question for you, I guess.

00:03:34.75 [Albert Bellamy]: Yeah. The nine to five does still pay the bills. Career coaching is supplemental as of yet. Yeah, it’s kind of antithetical to a military career. I hesitate to call it a long military career. It really wasn’t really that long. So 24 years in the military, most people get out and they kind of leverage that to do something sort of defense adjacent and stay in the industrial complex. I found that was there for me and it was there for me in an analytic space working for contractors. I had a couple of offers and I just felt like it was something I wanted to get away from and sort of really go into the analytic space and totally get away from people leveraging things that I already knew. And yeah, so it was funny because I decided to retire and you have to put in for it, career service member, you have to put in for it several months up to like over a year ahead of time. So I did that. And so I knew I was transitioning out. But I still had this very time-consuming, very overwhelming job. And also, we were leading during COVID, which you can imagine was kind of a nightmare. And so we were there in the office. We were the only people that didn’t ever take a day off during COVID. And so I just had a little time and little snippets, you know, five, 10 minutes here and there between tasks or, you know, I could listen to a podcast like this one, Drive Into and From Work. That was about all the time I had. Everything else was either for my marines or for my family. And I started going to these webinars on how to use LinkedIn. And I found that this is actually, I was not a social media guy, but like this kind of works because I can just find a contact or two and fire off a message or, you know, or make a quick post in 10, 15 minutes, get on there, respond to a few people. So networking was one of the few things I could actually do in the time that I had and then the fast-forward and this was never really the plan but I wound up getting working on a podcast myself after connecting with the podcaster and saying I’m a big fan and and then you know he said hey you’re kind of good at this LinkedIn thing can you run my page for me as a project and that wound up going for like six months and you know one thing led to another and then it that led a couple steps down the road to a connection that got me my first job, which was in marketing analytics, which is why I started listening to marketing analytics podcasts. Hence, bucket list, you know, fast forward three years. Very cool. Yeah. I don’t know if that answered why people come to me for advice. I think that’s kind of the next step, but that was sort of how the, you know, the LinkedIn presence and network and all of that sort of stuff came to be.

00:06:39.68 [Tim Wilson]: But it is actually interesting because I don’t know exactly where you came onto my radar, but whether it’s the LinkedIn algorithm or just the volume and quality of content that you’re producing. So it’s kind of fascinating to me to hear you say the way you weren’t really networking or on LinkedIn and I think there is some natural kind of charisma and motivation that you have and I mean you are kind of a model This gets a little meta because a lot of what you talk about, you put some of the alt-trick stuff on there, but a lot of what you talk about is the using LinkedIn and you are prolific, you have a point of view, you do video, you do different formats and it certainly, I mean, my perception is Yeah, you could say you’ve been doing the LinkedIn for 20 years because it seems like you’re kind of a machine on it. So if nothing else that I’m sure will get into some of this is like establishing a network and establishing credibility and establishing some currency, you can’t do it tomorrow. I think we were I have had the experience of being at meetups when the first time somebody comes is after 10 years after they’ve been at their job and they never had time to come to the meetup and then they left their job. They got fired. Not on their own terms and then they came and it’s fine like you’re welcome but it’s not like come to a meetup and get a job. build the community, build the network. So what was that, Michael? You’d said the warning about three or four part question. I guess I’m trying to kind of head into that, like how one piece of the doing a job search does seem like it’s that building a network, maybe that’s separate from building credibility. You seem to have done both kind of in a couple of areas. And is that a good starting point for people who are in a job search to say, I can’t I can’t have no presence and no meaningful network.

00:08:48.80 [Albert Bellamy]: Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s a bad time to plan an apple tree when you’re hungry. You know, you kind of got to plan ahead for that. Yeah, I did a course recently where I have my wife on co-hosting, really just managing the chat. And I sprung this thing on her. gave her zero warning and I just started asking her questions. I was like, hey, how often like we live in the same house. We both work from home. How often do we talk? And she kind of said, 10 times a day. I’m like, OK, if I stop talking to you for a day, how are you going to feel? And I’m like, well, mad? You’re probably mad at me about something. I’m like, OK, how about a week? If I stop talking to you for a week for no reason, how are you going to feel? I’m like, mad? OK, how about six months? If I stop talking to you for a year, what are you going to do? And she didn’t want to answer that. I’m like, you’re probably going to be calling a lawyer. And I say, after a year of not talking to you, if I just suddenly wake up one morning and I’m like, Hey, how’s it going? Give you a kiss and just go on like nothing ever happened. Like you’re going to be a bit freaked out by that. LinkedIn is an attempt to approximate in real life human interaction. Maybe not with a spouse, but it’s just like anybody that you don’t talk to for a year. If you suddenly show up a year later like, hey, sorry, I haven’t called, but I’m fired. And, you know, I see you got a job at this place. Can you give me a referral? They’re probably going to help you out, but it’s not going to be like, hey, we’re friends. Can you vouch for my work ethic and, you know, what you know of me as a person? Like it would be if you kept that relationship going. So it seems creepy and weird to say you’ve got a relationship with a social media platform, but you kind of do if you’re doing it right. And so if you ghost LinkedIn for a year, when you come back a year later, LinkedIn is going to be like your wife if you don’t talk to her for a year. Like they’re not going to be super friendly to you. And so you’ve got to kind of make amends, if you will. So with the people and with the platform and with your network.

00:11:07.11 [Tim Wilson]: I’m trying to think, if I asked one, sent my wife through that, and the question was, how long until you noticed? How long until you wanted me to talk to you?

00:11:15.25 [Albert Bellamy]: Like, how long?

00:11:16.34 [Tim Wilson]: Like, when would the euphoria end?

00:11:18.66 [Albert Bellamy]: I didn’t ask those questions, man. You don’t want to. Some things you don’t want to know the answer.

00:11:24.72 [Tim Wilson]: But it does seem like LinkedIn, it’s And there’s creating content, there’s engaging with content, and there’s connecting with people that I’m sure there’s lots of other ways to kind of frame it. I get a lot as much of people as people like to kind of it’s easy to kind of crap on LinkedIn and AI generated stuff and all it’s just self promotion. But I still regularly find stuff that I think is useful. And I feel like I have, whether it’s a like or whether it’s some comment of a, Hey, that made me think. I mean, I’m not, I don’t get into the kind of flaming words, but I, but I hear people who will say, I don’t have the time or I’m just not, that’s just not me. And I don’t have a good answer because I’m like, well, apparently that is me. It’s like an introvert extrovert type question. Do you have people who say like, I’m so uncomfortable doing this? It doesn’t feel natural. Yeah. Or I don’t have the time.

00:12:32.75 [Albert Bellamy]: Is that that four-part question?

00:12:34.88 [Tim Wilson]: Yeah, that was seven-part question. And I was, yeah, I was making, I was definitely looking straight at Julie for all of that, saying it for her. Was it, was the hand raised that I identify with that, Julie?

00:12:45.01 [Julie Hoyer]: I feel very, very seen by those statements. I’m a little scared.

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00:14:41.01 [Albert Bellamy]: Yeah. Well, and I get a lot of people, people are afraid to post content for valid reasons a lot of time because they’re, they’re in a job where their boss doesn’t know that they’re not super happy and they don’t feel comfortable telling them So they’re definitely not going to raise the old green banner, but even starting to create content, even if it’s not, I’m looking for a job content, just any kind of content. They’re just like, hey, my boss is watching my account. And the minute I start posting, there’s going to be questions asked about whether I’m fishing for another job. That’s a real concern. I’ve never found a great answer for that other than just like, well, kind of kind of kind of make your decision there. Big dog like stuck it up, I guess. Yeah.

00:15:28.62 [Tim Wilson]: So except, except to me that the answer there is like, there’s value in building the network, even if I’m trying to draw people in like, like there is valuable content and there is reason to be You know, I didn’t, I don’t, I don’t know where I met Michael Kaminski, but I’ve learned a lot just from kind of following him about media mix modeling, not when I was, you know, remotely looking for a job.

00:15:52.66 [Albert Bellamy]: Yeah. So it’s, I think there’s so many reasons. I mean, we already hit on reasons to be consistent with presence on there, with keeping your profile up with content creation. Not everybody’s going to be a content creator, especially on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a maybe the most content-poor platform that there is, even with the wave of AI content now. You think about the average person on Facebook, they’re on their posting consistently. The average person on Instagram is on their posting consistently, TikTok, all of these. You know, and you do have kind of mega creators, but most people with those accounts, they’re putting stuff out there, or at least a significant percentage. It’s estimated of active LinkedIn accounts, like not even the ones that have been like ghosted or started 20 years ago and never checked. Active LinkedIn accounts, people that get on there consistently less than 10% create any content at all. And so it’s a tiny minority of the, I think they’re getting close to like a billion accounts now, but it’s a tiny minority of those accounts that create any content. So you’re really, it’s like the David Goggins, like it’s so easy to be great. It’s really not that hard to be a good content creator on LinkedIn because all you really have to do is put stuff out there and hopefully not kind of wholesale AI generated. And to me, again, the cure to my bosses watching my profile is just put out content regularly, and then your boss won’t think anything’s weird when you start.

00:17:35.08 [Julie Hoyer]: Good point. Get ahead of it. And so when you say to like, nurture the relationship. Are you saying nurture the relationship with the platform? Because we’ve been talking a lot about interact with it, put out content, do something. So are you saying, yeah, keep the relationship up with the platform itself? Are you saying the people on it? Or is it a mixture?

00:17:56.68 [Albert Bellamy]: Yes, and also yes. Okay. Yeah, for sure. The platform itself is trying to mimic in real life human interaction, an actual networking space where you’re going in and having a martini with the people and circulating around the room. It’s doing its best always to approximate that as best it can. So anytime you go into the group’s function or a page or a It’s trying to encourage the kind of behaviors that you would have talking to people in real life. So you think about walking into a live networking event. You’re not going to walk up to someone, look them dead in the eye, slip your business card in their pocket, turn around and walk away. You’re gonna get arrested if you do that. And so they discourage that kind of impersonal connection in that that connection is not gonna be Super rewarding when, you know, Julie, if you and I connect on LinkedIn, we never exchange a message. It’s just a, you know, easy connect, blue button, and we accept and that’s it. And then six months from now, I like one of your posts. You’re not going to get much boost from that just because we’re not engaged connections. Whereas if we were talking, you know, as Tim and I engage on each other’s posts fairly regularly, Then when I talk on Tim’s post or he talks on mind, that gives the post an increased boost. So it’s like, hey, Tim and I are friends in real life. Julie and I, you and I don’t talk. So one relationship is more productive than the other.

00:19:35.87 [Julie Hoyer]: Interesting. Wow. Okay. I have so many questions.

00:19:44.77 [Albert Bellamy]: Yeah. And we’ll bore everybody to tears. I can geek out for a long time talking about the different interactions and how they increase engagement and distribution. That will make for a dull podcast, I think.

00:19:59.84 [Julie Hoyer]: There are two directions that my brain is going simultaneously. Yeah.

00:20:05.15 [Tim Wilson]: One is… See, if you ask both of those questions, if you go in both directions simultaneously… Then I can just pick which one I want to answer.

00:20:11.66 [Julie Hoyer]: Yeah, can we just choose that? We’ll get to the other one later.

00:20:13.63 [Tim Wilson]: Was that Julie or was that Tim?

00:20:15.09 [Julie Hoyer]: Yeah, here, I’ll take your burden from you, Tim. Okay. Door one is… Can we talk about then choosing? You said the informal blue connection button. Honestly, that’s again, man, I’m like, you know, it’s good that I’m on this one because I am the worst. Yeah, I get a list of people that want to connect. We were chatting about this a little earlier. I’ve tried to think of criteria to actually connect with people, but I’ve definitely fallen down the hole. I don’t know these people. I’ve never interacted with them. They want to connect there in the field. Maybe I have one mutual connection. Sure, but then we don’t talk. So door one is, how do you choose one to connect or not? If you have guidelines on that, I would love to hear. Door two, is it sounds like you can tell a lot about a person by looking at their LinkedIn profile. And I’d be curious to hear your yellow, green, and red flags when you look at someone’s LinkedIn profile. Which door do we want to go down?

00:21:18.40 [Albert Bellamy]: I think you can infer a lot with some degree of probability by their profile. There’s exceptions to everything. What was the first part? I already forgot.

00:21:31.49 [Julie Hoyer]: Oh, you see, I think you just want to go down door for what you find. The first one was criteria like on connecting and stuff like that.

00:21:37.44 [Tim Wilson]: Which really could have two doors because it’s when do you accept and when do you, when do you initiate one versus also when do you accept one?

00:21:43.34 [Albert Bellamy]: Which door do we want to start? I would just say, I mean, I tell my students, like you decide who gets in your sandbox and you don’t have to be nice about it. And you don’t have to be consistent about it either. There, some days you’re feeling nice and you’re just like, yeah, you can all come in. And some days, you’re just like, okay, well, if I don’t feel… Honestly, the criterion now is like, is there any advantage to connecting with the person? If not, don’t bother. Clearly, they seem some advantage to connecting with you. But if they haven’t taken the time to express that to you, then why? So yeah, a lot of times, sometimes if it’s someone, if it’s someone I’ve heard of, then yeah, absolutely. Sure. Um, I think, um, is it Zach? Exactly. I can’t remember. Is it Zach Wilson or is that the actor? Anyway, Zach, he’s a programmer guy, data engineer. He and I just had never, I’d seen his content and for whatever reason, we’d never connected. And then recently I commented on a couple of his posts and he sent me a connection request and he’s, big name, well-known influencer, got probably half a million connections. That was an immediate, he didn’t have to send me a message. Like, if I’ve heard of you and I know who you are by your brand, it’s a yes. Anybody else, it’s like, I always tell my people, send a personal message and make it about, you know, it’s the Dale Carnegie thing, like to be interesting, be interested. If you make it about the other person and you say, I’m interested in connecting with you because something about them that is not, you know, it’s advantageous to me. But Tim, I see you’re from Ohio. I’m also from Ohio. Hey, O-H, you know, whatever. And you can… O-H. Yeah, whatever. I didn’t expect an answer. I don’t even know if he’s a Buckeye fan. Yeah, I know. I know he loves the sports ball.

00:23:38.75 [Michael Helbling]: That would so work on Tim. Tim would love that, everybody. Big University of Texas. Yeah. So, no, no, that’s why I’m encouraging everyone listening to throw out the O-H to Tim.

00:23:52.42 [Tim Wilson]: It’ll totally work. Albert had an OSU thing in the background and I was like, what’s your Ohio connection then?

00:23:58.63 [Albert Bellamy]: And so it actually went the other way. But yeah, you can see, you know, if they’re went to your alma mater or that, you know, I’ve got, hey, if I see they’re a veteran, that’s a touch point. But just show that you’ve expressed some interest in something about them, and that gives them incentive. You’ve got skin in the game, and you’ve gone and shown some interest in some aspect of their personality. As far as red flags, I mean, it’s just, you know, if you’ve got a headline that says you’re about to pitch me some business deal the second I accept, if it says, you know, I help people with financial, no.

00:24:35.95 [Tim Wilson]: Is there anything about people start franchises? Yeah.

00:24:39.37 [Albert Bellamy]: There’s anything about like overt politics in the headline. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of illicit substances. Let’s say anything like that. It’s like not on Bitcoin. Like they’re just they’re going to try and sell you something if they have a super creepy looking profile. If they have if they’re the there was a wave for a long time of bots that were like the CEO of L’Oreal. And they had 10 connections. Yeah, doubtful. And they went to Stanford, Harvard, and MIT. So anyway, yeah, the bots got real weird for a while there. I haven’t seen too many lately. Yeah. And the picture is like clearly an Instagram model or something like that. It’s like, I don’t think you’re interested in me if you actually look like that or the CEO of a major You know, company, anyway. But yeah, anything that raises like makes your spotty sense go off, just say no. Life’s too short. It’s the odds of it being productive. Even any connection you accept, the odds of it being productive are slim.

00:25:43.99 [Julie Hoyer]: Yeah.

00:25:44.71 [Albert Bellamy]: So if you go out there and you find 100 people that look interesting and you send 100 connection requests, you’re going to get 75 yeses. And then from that, half of them won’t talk at all, like even to respond to an intro message of the 30 or 40 left. Half of them won’t talk to you beyond great connection or nice to meet you. So you’re down to like 20 from your original 100. And then half of those, it’ll be like a two message conversation. So you’re already down to like single digits that have any potential of becoming a productive connection. So yeah, the odds of any one person being like the big winner for you, like your lottery ticket, it’s slim and none. So yeah, better to default to no, I find.

00:26:34.56 [Michael Helbling]: Alright, let’s switch gears a little bit because I want to dive into resumes a little. Okay. To reuse the phrase, back in my day, like a resume was… There was only one? Yeah. I had one day. I capitalized on it. Here I am. No, but it’s just very, very different. So back during COVID, I was helping running a networking group for people who were looking for work. And we brought in some folks to talk about this. And this is kind of where I first learned about how to make your resume machine readable and those kinds of things. But the state of the yard has shifted in resume building quite a bit in the last 10 years.

00:27:15.74 [Tim Wilson]: We’re not worrying about the weight and the quality of the paper that was printed on as much as we used to.

00:27:20.40 [Michael Helbling]: Yeah. That kind of stuff, like the weight of the paper, like Kinko’s you use to print it out. Like that’s how long ago my resume was filled in. Exactly. So anyway, so let’s dive into that a little bit because I think people apply. Like that’s one thing I hear from people all the time is like they apply for positions and just never hear anything back. Um, and it’s sort of like, okay, well, then resume has to be something to that. Um, so what do people need to do? Just leave it wide open. Yeah. More specifics, but like maybe pick a, pick a point of entry and then we’ll dig into it more.

00:28:01.53 [Albert Bellamy]: Let me answer your question with a question. How are they applying? I don’t know that’s a hypothetical, but that would, that’s what I usually ask them when they say, I’ve applied a hundred times. Cool. How?

00:28:11.44 [Michael Helbling]: Yeah. And I don’t know the answer to that for everybody, but a lot of people I talked to, like they apply via LinkedIn, which I, my first advice to people is like, never go through the front door on a job search. You get, you look at any job posting on LinkedIn, you’ll see right at the top is like 500 applicants for this role already after 24 hours. It’s like, okay, your resume is not going to stand out at all. If you just go straight through that process, it’s like playing the lottery at that point. So you should do something different than just send your resume through that portal.

00:28:49.30 [Albert Bellamy]: Yeah. So on the mass applications, a couple of ways you can go on that one. So the don’t fret way is if you see a thousand applications for a job on LinkedIn, assume that at least half of them are wildly unqualified. Like not even in the industry, not even relevant to that job title, they’re just clicking the blue button as many times as they can hoping to get lucky. I’ve heard estimates 50 to 75% of online applications have no business even being in the conversation.

00:29:29.54 [Michael Helbling]: I literally have not posted job postings in my career that I’m hiring for simply to avoid the deluge of resumes. It’s sort of like figure out who we want for this role and then use our network. That’s way better than putting it out there. And eventually you do have to if you can’t find the right person or whatever, but it’s pretty crazy how many resumes you get. Yeah.

00:29:56.78 [Albert Bellamy]: I would say that, so my answer to the, you know, what hope do I have is if you’re generally, if you’re in the ballpark and opinions vary on what percentage of the requirements do you need to get considered, it probably depends on the job. You know, there’s a lot of myths out there. The other myth is apply if you’re 70% qualified because job listings are kind of pie in the sky, unicorn qualifications, and they don’t really mean anything. My experience has been the total opposite, that while job listings may have skills that you don’t wind up using on a constant basis, They are, by and large, accurate descriptions of the skills that they want to see in an applicant and the skills that you might use in the job, maybe not all the time. And, you know, the kind of counter logic is hiring is terrible. I mean, you just talked about it. It’s awful. Hiring managers don’t like hiring. HR people, they don’t like hiring. It’s not fun. It’s not the part of their job that they like. So when you have a job that sucks, but has to be done, your incentive is to get that done as quickly and efficiently as possible. And in such a manner that you don’t have to do it again anytime soon, which means hire someone for that job that’s gonna stick and that’s gonna be competent at it. And the one that you can get quickly and efficiently. So what incentive would any business have Excepting maybe the cream of the crop, fang jobs or whatever they’re calling it now. Those can charge whatever they want. But standard analytics jobs, why would they list a bunch of qualifications that don’t matter? That’s going to make their hiring process more difficult. And that’s the last thing they want. So you should look at a job description and assume, if there’s a must have and then a nice to have, those are accurate. Must have means if you don’t have these, You’re hoping to get lucky at that point. Now, depending on what kind of candidates they get, they may pull in people that have 80% of the must haves or 90%. But again, you’re taking a chance there. There are plenty of jobs out there that have a skill set that matches your, or a description that matches your skill set. If you’re shooting for kind of pie-in-the-sky dream jobs, just assume that those are probably going to people that have the full list of qualifications if they can find those people. But a lot of the jobs listed online are, they’re listed there as a formality. and that employer may still intend to give the job to either an internal candidate or an internal referral, but due to some policy restriction, they’re required to list it online. So there’s a certain percentage of jobs that you see on Indeed or LinkedIn that I don’t know that they won’t read any applications, but the online applicants don’t really have much of a shot.

00:33:15.39 [Tim Wilson]: So does that get us back to, now I’ve got two doors because one door is, I kind of want to do a lightning round of when you’re, everything the user said, does that say you really do need to get the discipline to take a good hard look at your resume and tailor it to the job you’re applying for. The other path I want to go down is, well, wait a minute, if lots of people are applying for jobs where the likely candidate is already, the likely person getting the job is already determined, is that, does that get us back to saying, yeah, the resume matters, but it doesn’t matter when you’re doing a cold application to a job. It matters when you’ve made a connection into a company and found an opportunity and are already two steps into the process. Like, I know somebody who said they made like an Uber resume, like a way, way too long resume and the way they’re using AI is saying they put that resume in with the job description and say, help me shrink down to what’s relevant, which doesn’t have to be AI, but that could also be the I mean, I remember going through that, I’ve got my perfect, I’ve captured everything, but that’s in the abstract for the general type of position I was looking for, not for the position being hired, which means I may have left out relevant details for a specific position, but that takes more time and work. So is that, do you recommend when you’re doing resume coaching, or are you saying, this resume should be different for every job you apply for?

00:34:50.47 [Albert Bellamy]: I highly recommend that you can succeed with a volume approach. People get jobs that way. My advice would be tailor your searches very well, get good alerts that pin you when target companies are hiring or when jobs come up that match your skill set. But yeah, people can get hired with a volume approach if that’s how they want it. pros and cons to both. Jobs do still get allocated that way. My advice is, hey, if you want to, if you want to get a job that is really well suited for you and your skill set, then I would tailor resumes. And you just, you know, don’t only take the sniper shots, not the, uh, the spray and pray. Um, what was the second part? No, I forgot Nana.

00:35:39.83 [Tim Wilson]: Yeah, not doing the volume approach. Is the target approach going to companies and finding postings or is the target approach building a network and making sure people that you’ve got relationships with are aware that you’re looking and therefore you’re on their

00:35:57.53 [Albert Bellamy]: Yeah.

00:35:58.55 [Tim Wilson]: Radar, I guess.

00:35:59.39 [Albert Bellamy]: I would say Michael nailed it. I mean, don’t, you don’t want to be going, the guy going in the front door or the gal. I mean, just because that’s where the mass is going in. If you can, if you can find an in or if you can kind of, you know, do both at the same time. So, you know, you submit your application at the same time that you’re looking up a couple of people on LinkedIn. If you don’t already have connections at that company, look up a couple of people and just and be upfront about it like you don’t want to be and people think it’s some sort of like spy operation but you know be upfront about it just just be like hey i’d love to connect with you i’m interested in this company um you know if you have time i’d love to ask you a couple of specific questions And then just make sure they are specific. Nobody wants to sit there and try and work out essay answers to why do you like working in Altrix or what’s the best and worst thing about the company? It shows no effort. But if you’re saying, hey, what department do you work in, it seems like there’s a job listing there. And you ask specific questions about certain jobs. Okay, then you’re taking a lot of the mental energy away from the recipient that they have to put out and much easier to answer specific questions. But yeah, I would say like make the connections there, you know, see if there’s a relationship there that you can leverage. And yeah, and try and hit up people that are kind of at your level or slightly above that could maybe put in a referral for you or at least let HR know that, hey, we can flag your resume or something like that. And then they can, you know, most companies have a bonus for that.

00:37:36.97 [Tim Wilson]: So they’ve got a vested interest on the most tricky thing there is that it’s like you You don’t if they’ve got a referral then they need to be the one who submits it so it’s not as useful to have applied now you will you submit it and it’s just there their attribution mechanism is such that they’re like, no, no, no, that person needs to drop it in through.

00:38:01.36 [Albert Bellamy]: Some companies want the referral first. So if the application hits first, then there’s no referral bonus, which is unfortunate. But yeah, I’d say that’s kind of luck of the draw.

00:38:12.28 [Julie Hoyer]: Why is it that sparking a thought for me that I heard people that have referral programs, they’d almost be like, hey, I know you have a referral program. I just put my application in. If you give me a referral to bump me up knowing they would get a bonus, but they don’t actually know the person. Why did I hear that? That was a thing for a while, so they were trying to

00:38:35.60 [Tim Wilson]: No, that was definitely something in Morning Brew. There was some sort of scam that was happening where it was, yeah, now we will track it down.

00:38:46.55 [Julie Hoyer]: It was like fake and they were like, you give me 10% of your referral bonus, but I’ll help you get the bonus. Or like they were working the system, something crazy. Straight up fraud.

00:38:54.60 [Tim Wilson]: There was a total scam going on that, yeah. Sorry, that was a rabbit. I remember that as well. So therefore I know what the source was.

00:39:02.93 [Albert Bellamy]: I’ve definitely had people hit me up and, you know, there’s that thought in the back of your mind like, hey, I could get an easy whatever. And, you know, at the bottom line, you got to decide what your word is worth and.

00:39:17.15 [Julie Hoyer]: Yeah.

00:39:18.22 [Albert Bellamy]: And even just in referring, even if you take the money out of it, even if there was no bonus, don’t you want the referral to mean something? So it’s like, if three people I’ve never met that just connected with me say, hey, refer me for a job at Altrix and I do, and then they either don’t get hired or worse, they do get hired and they’re terrible. And then Tim comes to me for referral. Now I’ve used up all my best bullets and HR is like, yeah, we heard of you.

00:39:46.29 [Tim Wilson]: There’s the unintended effect, the negative, like, oh, those… Oh, yeah, it’s easy to… It’s easy to crap on your reputation, especially internal to a company, for sure. So, how do… So, from an in-person networking, and this is where I feel like I’ve been on the receiving end of them a lot, And occasionally there have been points in my career where I’ve done them, be like, let’s just meet for coffee, whether in person or virtually, just kind of a, I want to stay connected. I’ve known you, we haven’t caught up in a while. I guess, because I hear what you’re saying, like you don’t want to have it, you need to go in with a plan, but if you go in with too hard of a, of an agenda, then that can kind of undermine the… Some level of sincere, I’m trying to maintain a professional connection. Like, do you have… Like, what’s good versus what’s bad if somebody’s doing a so-called informational interview or a coffee catch-up?

00:41:00.93 [Albert Bellamy]: My question is what’s the nature of your relationship? If it’s a friend-friend, that you also know in some sort of professional context, that person’s going to anticipate that a coffee chat is just a catch up. So if you have something else in mind, you probably want to be upfront about that. I’ve had it the other way where people will get a coffee chat with me and they’re not personal friends, they’re connections or fellow veterans or something like that. And at the end of it, it kind of gets awkward because I’m fully expecting that they’re gonna ask for something. And if they don’t, then it’s like, all right. I don’t know what to do with my hands now. But it’s like, okay, well, I expect you to ask me for a referral or, you know, who can I connect you to or something like that. So, you know, as much as I like to talk to people, At the end, it’s like, hey, we’re professional connections, and this is clearly a networking meeting. Let’s do something. And if at the end it’s, again, it’s some kind of vague, non-specific question, like, is there anything I can do for you? I don’t know, man.

00:42:16.93 [Tim Wilson]: Is there? That’s the one where I’m like, I’m like, oh, that was read in a book somewhere. That guidance was given. I’m like, yeah. It’s so bad. That was going to be cringe.

00:42:26.18 [Albert Bellamy]: Don’t make everybody’s only got so many mind bullets to fire. Don’t make the other person waste their mind bullets on you. Like set it up for. Like, here’s what I can do for you. Is that good yet? Check yes or no. That’s an easy to answer question. Give me a true false or multiple choice. Don’t give me an essay.

00:42:43.54 [Tim Wilson]: Okay. So, I’m going to run down. This is cheating because we have sort of a list. But yeah, give it a little commentary if you need to. So, some resumes headshot like a picture. Is that an include? Don’t include? Doesn’t matter.

00:42:57.27 [Albert Bellamy]: Never ever. Hell no. Why? I have to know why. So first of all, some scanners are still a little antiquated, and any graphics will throw them off. I say no logos, no pictures, no nothing. Second of all, it can introduce bias, and there’s no reason for it. Yeah, there’s just no upside. It kind of relates to, and I’ve totally derailed the lightning round already, but it kind of relates to, I tell people, never put a date on your education. Because whether you’re too young or too old, it just gives somebody an opportunity to say not this person. If the requirement is you need to have a bachelor’s degree and you have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited university, that’s all they need to know. They don’t need to know the date. And same thing with your picture. Like, don’t give them a reason to say, oh, I don’t like his face or her teeth or, you know, whatever.

00:43:52.32 [Tim Wilson]: I mean, that’s actually, I mean, that’s a, you’re, you’re providing data that could introduce bias that is not relevant as objectively should not be relevant. Um, and that’s a good point. Okay. But you added a bonus one that I had not thought, should you put dates on your education? Cause I’ve, the older I get, the more I’ve started noticing when people don’t have a date. And I’m like, Oh, that’s because, I mean, I find myself doing that math when I’m looking, just trying to get an under, I mean, snooping on LinkedIn.

00:44:19.28 [Albert Bellamy]: Um, so. It’s out there and you could find it if you want to go looking for it. But yeah, when they read the resume, there’s no upside to it.

00:44:27.43 [Tim Wilson]: But some people have the headshots, I mean, on LinkedIn, because then I get kind of like a little weird when I’m like, I don’t even know. You’re just an avatar or or. Oh, yeah, that’s a killer.

00:44:38.27 [Albert Bellamy]: That’s an absolute. Yeah. Denied always for me. But if you only put a picture of your face on, done. Nope.

00:44:49.53 [Tim Wilson]: So how is that different? Because I agree, but… And we’re losing the lightning.

00:44:54.96 [Julie Hoyer]: Because it’s social media. We’re losing it quick.

00:44:57.06 [Albert Bellamy]: Like, we’re trying to establish a relationship. I’m not hiring you. You know, you’re getting out there making some friends.

00:45:03.05 [Tim Wilson]: Okay, well, Julie’s just jumping in on the… Okay, what about an objective statement? at the top of the resume.

00:45:10.69 [Albert Bellamy]: I don’t like those because that’s about you. All of job seeking is sales. You’re selling yourself as the talent, your ability to do a job and make money for a business. And so, an objective statement to me makes the resume about you. The resume, ironically, is not about you. It’s about the value that you present to the employer. And so putting a summary or a highlight section, that is about value that you present to the employer. Objective is, here’s what I want. Nobody gives a fuck what you want. It’s just like your commodity. You’re there to do a job.

00:45:45.81 [Tim Wilson]: I like that distinction. I feel like people can torque themselves into that because they say, oh, the objective, you want to make sure that that person’s objective aligns with what we need, but that’s back to putting that mental burden on them to say, oh, I’m going to talk about what I want and then I’m going to put the burden on whoever’s looking at it to say, does that align with what we want? I don’t know if that’s a fair guess, making them work too hard.

00:46:10.46 [Albert Bellamy]: Yep. They want a person to do a thing. Show them that you can do the thing and you’ve done the thing before. End of story.

00:46:16.51 [Tim Wilson]: Okay. So I’ll combine like black and white versus color, highly stylized, like, like really working on some beautiful Canva created resume versus just the facts.

00:46:32.32 [Albert Bellamy]: Yeah. I don’t want to, I love Canva. I don’t want to dog on Canva because I use Canva constantly. The one thing I will never ever use Canva for is a resume. They just their templates are just wacky. No, there’s no upside to having it look like your A ballerina or an interior decorator, it’s like, get the information out there. Now, there is, you know, if you’re using like the standard word template with like the Calibri or the aerial font, yeah, okay, you can, you can graduate from that. Like you’re not in kindergarten. Yeah, no, no comic stands.

00:47:08.88 [Michael Helbling]: What about charts that showcase your skills? Oh my gosh. No.

00:47:15.13 [Albert Bellamy]: Just know. Yeah. And that’s actually an awesome point though. Yeah. Absolutely not because to me that’s quantifying skills. My clients always tell them skills are binary. You’ve got it or you don’t. And the rubric for do you have it is if I give you a task right now and said go solve this in Python, you have two days to come back to me. Could you pull it off? Do you have to go like hand it off to somebody else? Or could you, you know, with a kind of limited rush off the rust time, could you accomplish that? If that’s a yes, put Python on your resume. You don’t have to use it every day, but if it’s a kind of rusty-ish skill and you’ve got some skills, because people will sit there and be like, intermediate Excel, advanced Excel. That’s all relative to something else that you’re, that you’re measuring. We all know a guy or gal that can like do excel in their sleep and never touch the mouse.

00:48:11.20 [Tim Wilson]: But I wonder, I mean, okay. His name is Tim Wilson. No, well, that’s right. I mean, take Python or SQL. Oh, yeah. It’s fascinating as they treat it as a Python or SQL or R, even Power BI, like people who have used Power BI, but they have no idea what DAX is or what Power Query is. Like it’s a, I’m struggling with the little bit of how do you represent the, I’ve had to dabble in that. So, and I’m comfortable that I could ramp up and learn it versus. I’ve done pretty detailed stuff in that just not in a while. I guess if I’ve done pretty detailed stuff, it should be captured in the experience. That should be reflected that, you know, you were a real Jackie in sequel.

00:48:56.88 [Albert Bellamy]: I’m out of this Excel, but I’ve never messed with PQ or VBA or anything like that. So again, I know a dozen people that can run circles around me in Excel, but I can do Excel and I can do more than the average bear. So, you know, if you give me an Excel project, I can figure it out.

00:49:13.83 [Tim Wilson]: Got it. Maximum page count.

00:49:16.47 [Albert Bellamy]: Two. Ten years or less, one page. Ten years or more. I know there’s, you know, you have the greater than or equal to, but over 10 years, you get two pages. I’m of the opinion you should always endeavor to get it on one page. And it just goes back to that Mark Twain. You know, if I had more time, I’d have written you a shorter leather. Yeah. The more, the better you are at it, the shorter it’s going to be.

00:49:39.71 [Tim Wilson]: I like that too. If that forces you to condense it down and if you had to cut the stuff that was painful, one, that means when you’re tailoring your resume for specific jobs, you have more to draw on. Two, it means when you’re actually in the interview, there’s stuff that wasn’t on the resume that you can bring to bear that’s relevant to a conversation.

00:49:58.46 [Albert Bellamy]: I’m just thinking about how much more powerful and impactful the things. If you’ve got four pages worth of stuff and you have to cut it to two, oh my god, that’s going to be the greatest two pages ever written in the history of data analytics. So why wouldn’t you want to do that? Yeah, I’ve heard it from hiring managers. They’re like, hey, if I get anything more than one page, I freak out, especially for entry level. It’s just a kiss of death.

00:50:24.60 [Tim Wilson]: That’s fast because that’s actually back to the point you made earlier about putting the… If you give somebody a… We tell ourselves I gave somebody four pages so that way they can find anything they possibly want to hold on to. You burden them with having to sift through four pages and try to figure out what they care about. Yeah, that’s a homework assignment. Nobody wants that. Skill section? Should there always be a skill section? I mean… Always. And should you mention that you have a podcast?

00:50:50.83 [Michael Helbling]: No reason. That’s a maybe. I would agree. That depends on the job you’re going for. It would help you to get the job if you had a podcast then.

00:51:04.29 [Albert Bellamy]: See, I was doing analytics of followers and metrics and KPIs for the podcast that I was working on. That was my project. Now, it just drew through your heads and became everything else as well. As podcasts do only have so many people working on it. So, but yeah, I definitely, I think I still have it on mine. I list the parent company, but I do list the name of the podcast and, you know, that I tracked these metrics for it.

00:51:30.23 [Tim Wilson]: What about when it comes to the professional history and one, it’s if somebody’s kind of long in the tooth and they’ve gone, they go way back, but also what if somebody has changed jobs and maybe only the last one or maybe two roles are seen directly relative. They went from being a teacher to being in analytics. What’s kind of the include versus not criteria there?

00:51:57.53 [Albert Bellamy]: It still always comes back to making about them and making about the value you can provide. So is there something that communicates the value you can provide if so included? You got to get into, yeah, sometimes there is a concern of age discrimination if you’re showing 35 years of professional history, they’re going to start wondering about if they offer healthcare and what that’s going to cost them. So fair, unfair, it just, it enters into the calculus and therefore it’s something that you should be mindful of. So I would say minimum, if you have more than 10 years of relevant experience, you should include at least 10. The one thing I would say is, I think, I don’t know if it’s Russell Brunson or who, somebody in marketing says, confused mind always says no. Maybe when you all know who that’s attributable to. But yeah, confused mind always says no. So if you put things on your resume that generate more questions and you’re not there to answer them as you aren’t in a cold application process, you’re gonna be sunk. So if you put stuff on there like additional experience available on request, nah, you’re generating more questions about you and why you didn’t put it on there in the first place. So just, you know, if you’ve got 20 years, 10 of it’s relevant, put the 10 on there, and you’re not lying, you’re not saying this is every job I’ve ever had. I interned for a minor league baseball team for a summer. I don’t put that on my resume, it’s not relevant. Half of the things I did in the Marine Corps, not relevant to the business I’m in now, so I don’t list them.

00:53:31.09 [Tim Wilson]: That actually is okay. That’s going to be my last one is the kind of personal interests, fun facts, hobbies, the sort of thing that people I’ve heard, I’ve known, maybe I’ve even was this a bit like Yeah. For years early in my career, I put, you know, I hiked, hiked the abolition trail from Georgia to Maine, you know, upon college completion. And I told myself, I’m like, well, that’s something that if they’re, they’re interviewing, they can’t, they have. That is why I hired you, Tim. There you go. That was, that was the thing. I mean, I also told myself, I’m like, well, it shows that I’ve got the ability to like kind of get something done. But it feels like from your criteria, you’d be like, no, generally don’t do that. Cause. It’s not necessarily helping them.

00:54:12.35 [Albert Bellamy]: No, don’t make them. You don’t want them to interpret metaphors either. I mean, that’s the same thing. You’re making them do homework and fire mine bullets. Don’t do that. Yeah, listing hobbies, interest, skills. I’m a dog dad or whatever that is. Even, even I’m a human dad, you know, I’ve got three wonderful kids. Nope, nobody cares. It doesn’t add to your value in the workplace. It doesn’t. Yeah, it doesn’t demonstrate that you’re responsible or that you have interest. No, it’s that’s always buying a lottery ticket to me. It’s like a you’re wasting space and space is valuable on a resume. So, you know, if nothing else, you could take that off and make the font bigger and make it easier to read. B, you’re buying a lottery ticket. Like I put on there, oh, I’m an avid road cyclist, which I’m not. I hate road cyclists. So if anybody here is one of those, I’m sorry, but I just despise them. But avid road cyclist.

00:55:05.44 [Tim Wilson]: Nancy Dooley, no offense.

00:55:08.07 [Albert Bellamy]: Yeah, I’ve known good people that were road cyclists, but they were the exception, I feel. But you put that on there, you’re buying a lottery ticket. It’s like, I’m hoping maybe somebody in the hiring chain is interested in that and interested enough to say, oh, let’s put this guy at the top of the stack because we share some hobby. I just don’t see it happening.

00:55:29.85 [Tim Wilson]: Here’s a bit for photos of my field trip to Washington, DC, January 6th, 2021. It would not be a, you would not recommend that either.

00:55:38.48 [Albert Bellamy]: Okay. No, it’s not good. Don’t give them a reason to say no. That’s all there is to it. Like if it doesn’t add value and it could give them a reason to be like, you know, if I, if I get a resume that says avid road cycles, I’m like, oh, I hope this guy, like, get out of here. I hate those people.

00:55:57.00 [Tim Wilson]: But it’s interesting. It’s like if you get into the process and you know who you’re actually interviewing with and you can suss some of that out and you have something that’s a connection, that’s an arrow you can have in your quiver.

00:56:07.29 [Albert Bellamy]: That’s all interview fodder. Human interest stuff. And if they say, you know, tell me about yourself, you can throw in there that, you know, you’re a family man, family woman, whatever. Opinions vary on that. I still would keep it kind of value oriented maybe towards the end of an interview if they say, so, you know, tell me about your personal life. Like what are you into outside of work? You know, then they’ve opened the door for that. But yeah, that’s all interview fodder.

00:56:30.98 [Tim Wilson]: Dancing with the HR. Yeah.

00:56:33.02 [Julie Hoyer]: Yeah, but you bring up a good point. What is the what’s the role the resume itself has to play? It’s different than the role LinkedIn is playing. It’s different than the role that the interview is going to play. And I think it’s kind of nice because it can cut away the noise that a lot of us have probably fallen into the trap of thinking, oh, we should include that. And that’s like you’re saying, like, it’s not useful for the goal of the resume itself.

00:56:55.31 [Albert Bellamy]: The metaphor that I love is we had, there’s a standard obstacle course in the Marine course, you know, like blogs and you have different obstacles. So at the end, there’s this high rope to climb, but you have all these things you have to jump over and walk on one log and you’re going to fall off. And so there’s like, There’s like 10 elements to it. The very first thing is a log that’s literally like two feet off the ground. So there’s no obstacle at all. The only thing it does is it slows you down so that you’re not taking like a screaming sprint directly into the first bar, which is like you have to jump and grab it and pull yourself up and over. So that’s the low log is just put your hands on it and you’re over. To me, the resume is somewhat akin to that low log. It’s just the thing that gets you into the process. And so once you, and it may not be the thing that gets you into the process. I’ve definitely gotten jobs where my resume was, hey, do you have a resume? Okay, turn it into HR, because that’s a requirement. And that was after I already knew I had the job. Because that’s internal referral. Somebody is like, we specifically want you to interview. And then sometimes you find out you’re the only person that interviewed. And then your resume is just, that’s gotta go in work day because paperwork. Yeah, that’s the ideal. But yeah, even in a standard interview process, you’re cold applying, you’re submitting your resume, they call you, you get a call screen, you get an interview. The resume is just, it’s the low log, just jump up and over and then you’re into the actual process. And then the job is earned face to face in an interview.

00:58:38.70 [Tim Wilson]: We should probably mention, we haven’t actually said that you’re… We alluded to you have this kind of side thing of coaching, but there is themajordata.com is your website.

00:58:49.07 [Albert Bellamy]: Hey, why don’t you let me… Okay. I’m like… Rolls, Tim. We have rolls.

00:58:52.82 [Michael Helbling]: But I’m glad you did mention it, Tim. Unfortunately, we do have to wrap up. I feel like we could do like a whole other hour on this, though, so this is good. And certainly, at least the door opened to future conversations, I hope.

00:59:03.91 [Tim Wilson]: We’ll have Mo on for an episode where we’ll talk about the shortcomings of Canva’s resume templates specifically.

00:59:08.84 [Albert Bellamy]: Absolutely. That’s why, yeah. So when you were talking about question hijinks, I was going to say, I didn’t squeeze it in, but I was going to say, hey, we don’t have Mo here. I was really looking forward to that. And then the long pause as she mentally formulates the question, that is my absolute favorite. Yeah. And you know she’s just sitting on it for like 10 minutes. Like, I’ve got to ask this. Yeah. Shout out to Mo.

00:59:40.11 [Michael Helbling]: No, this has been a great conversation. And, you know, just a note for next time, Albert, like, don’t feel, feel afraid to say exactly what you think.

00:59:49.12 [Albert Bellamy]: I’m pretty sure I dropped the only F bomb in the episode.

00:59:52.24 [Michael Helbling]: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for holding up the standard.

00:59:54.89 [Julie Hoyer]: I kept us explicit.

00:59:55.71 [Albert Bellamy]: We appreciate it. But you don’t have to take off the disclaimer.

00:59:59.92 [Michael Helbling]: That’s right. Yeah. That’s how that happened one day. Very good. We’ve covered a lot of ground, but I think there’s a lot of really useful stuff in there. So, Albert, thank you so much for coming on the show. One thing we do is we go around the horn and share last call, something that might be of interest to our listeners. Albert, you’re our guest. Do you have a last call you’d like to share?

01:00:20.56 [Albert Bellamy]: So this is a book that I have been, if I really enjoy a book, and I mean enjoy it to the point where I’m like, I need this by my bedside. I put these tape flags all over it. If you open it up, you’ll notice there’s stuff shoved in the pages. There’s things written on almost every page. And also my dogs chewed on it, but that’s neither here nor there. This is called Reverse the Search. This is by Madeline Mann. If she is very present on LinkedIn, she has like hundreds of hours of content on YouTube. This is absolutely my Bible right now as far as career search. It’s confirmed a ton of things that I was already teaching and putting out there. It’s challenged a few things that I’ve had to reevaluate. But yeah, reverse the search, metal and man. If you’re in the career space, she’s a must follow LinkedIn and YouTube for sure. But yeah, the book, she doesn’t, we’re not like friends. We are connections. She doesn’t give me anything for the book. But yeah, every once in a while, I find a book like that and I’m like, I got to reread this like as soon as I’m done with it.

01:01:23.88 [Michael Helbling]: Outstanding. Thank you. All right, Julie, what about you? What’s your last call?

01:01:27.89 [Julie Hoyer]: Mine is a little left field, not connected to our topic at all, but I love a good Freakonomics podcast. They are like, me and my husbands go to road trip. We’re like, all right, you know, what’s the list? What can we choose there? And so the latest one I listened to, it was episode 633. The most powerful people you’ve never heard of, which like the title alone hooked me, I was like, oh, I gotta know. And it ends up, the whole episode is about commodity traders. And it was so interesting. Never thought of them. They are very powerful. And especially back in the day, they pulled some strings. They did some shit. And I found out the one guy. Fun fact in there. I won’t give it all away. I guess his name was Mark is maybe he’s still alive. Mark Rich. Um, ends up though, he helped Jamaica like in the middle of the night and then ended up having a long standing relationship with Jamaica, good and bad. I heard there were ups and downs, but he ended up funding the Olympics team that the movie Cool Runnings was made about. Like he funded that. Um, I just, I love that movie. So that’s a fun fact that’s.

01:02:36.37 [Tim Wilson]: Not a good guy. No.

01:02:39.15 [Julie Hoyer]: Yeah, no, no. We’re not praising him, but like cool connections, things I didn’t know about, things that have affected the world, pop culture, cool runnings, like commodity traders. Didn’t know about them. They’re this underground world, and it kind of got me hooked. And they referred to a book they had the two authors on for this episode, and I am tempted to attempt to read it.

01:03:02.81 [Albert Bellamy]: Tempted to attempt.

01:03:05.09 [Julie Hoyer]: Yeah. So at least listen to that episode.

01:03:07.17 [Tim Wilson]: So, yeah. I mean, cause I actually do like the defining of commodities and why, like why commodities traders can be.

01:03:17.49 [Michael Helbling]: So Tim, do you want to do last call between behind door number one or your last call behind door number two?

01:03:23.83 [Tim Wilson]: There is no door three. I’m just going to endorse, just endorse Julie’s last call and just kind of call it. No. Never. That would be a first. So I’m going to quickly open door one, which is completely whimsical and had very little thought behind it. But I’ve definitely become that. Thank goodness it’s not road writing, but it’s running. So I’ve become the running guy, my Instagram. I am the the casual runner. I’m running a race every month this year. Very annoying. Lots of Instagram stuff makes fun of the running stuff. So I got into it four or five years ago, but kind of inspired by Michelle Kiss and Michelle Kiss, Moe’s sister and Lee, I since he’s recent presentation at Marketing Analytics Summit about the history of Measure Slack, I created a Strava Measure Club. So if you’re a Strava user in any sport, it’s set up for all sports, but strava.com. Strava.com slash clubs slash measure. It’s a public club. I have no purpose or goal for that, but there were people like Ben Gaines and Jim Janolio and Ben Woodard who I was, and Will Reynolds who I was connected with on Strava. And I’m like, this is kind of fun to see who’s doing what. So if you’re at all interested, if you’re a Garmin person who says, I’m not that self-flagellating, I don’t need something telling me all the time that I’m performing. So this is just a nice little casual group. That was my quick one. My other one will be kind of quick.

01:05:05.64 [Albert Bellamy]: What’s your distance?

01:05:07.06 [Tim Wilson]: I’ve run one half marathon and I did not manage to complete it without walking a little bit at the end. So that’s my goal for this year, this fall to try to actually run a complete. Yeah, as I’m talking to it.

01:05:20.68 [Albert Bellamy]: Oh, it’s been a while for me and that kind of distance. I’m a I’m a shorter distance person.

01:05:25.76 [Tim Wilson]: No, but you and your wife have done like you’ve done like create like adventure race stuff, haven’t you?

01:05:30.67 [Albert Bellamy]: Yeah, we just did a Spartan. Yeah, OK. It was a 5k, though. It was the easiest distance.

01:05:36.31 [Tim Wilson]: Yeah. Nice last call, Tim. Nice last call. Okay. My other one’s going to be a quick one, which is just another actual listener of the show. Somebody who I’ve actually gotten to know through LinkedIn, he met Joe Sutherland somewhere. So I think we connected around, and it looks the right way, available in bookstores now by your book. Joe Domoreschi, he’s been working, I think, on his masters in analytics. He runs an agency, but he puts up posts. The one that I thought was pretty interesting, or they’re all interesting, but he did a linear regression versus XGBoost, which predicts sales better using R. It is just a simple, he was like, I want to understand the differences between these and he kind of does these are pros and cons here’s he links to his github repo it’s in our it’s very it’s a lengthy read but a very interesting read and one like i’m always kindred spirit, somebody who’s like, I just want to try that out. So I’ll understand it better for myself. And then plus one, he actually sort of wrote it up. So I didn’t have to go through and actually explore it. I could follow it and sort of see it. And it was kind of what I expected, but it was pretty interesting. So yeah, that’s it. I got a couple more, but I’ll, you know, save them for another time. What about you, Michael? What’s your last call?

01:07:05.63 [Michael Helbling]: It doesn’t. Thanks so much for asking Tim. Sometimes I’m tempted to do mine before yours, but it’s okay. No, actually, sort of relevant today’s topic. Through the years I’ve found attending conferences and participating them have been really helpful in networking and building my network that can lead to jobs and things like that. I recently came across a conference that’s already happened for 2025, but I’m going to mention anyway, because they put all the talks out on their YouTube channel. It’s called Data Council. And I think it was out in Oakland this year. It just happened a couple months ago. But if you go to their website, which we’ll have in our show notes, you can see all the talks on YouTube. And it looks like a great conference in terms of speaker quality, things like that. And I’m always kind of keeping my eye open for good conferences in our industry. So, in addition to, obviously, Measure Cam Chicago this September, stormed out the Preval, and I’ll be there too, and we will be there. Data Council just had theirs and their talks are on YouTube, so you can check them out as well. That might be a good conference to check into as you go through your career. All right, I’m sure you’ve been listening and you’ve been intrigued, you’ve been thoughtful, you’ve been inspired. So how do you reach out? Well, it’s really easy and we would like to hear from you. Go to the Major Slack chat group or LinkedIn and or email us at contact at analyticshour.io and Albert, people can find you probably on LinkedIn pretty easily out at LinkedIn. Absolutely. it with your content. So just go search for Albert Bellamy on LinkedIn. You also have a website I think called the major data.com the major data.com. See Tim, I was getting to it. And so people can find you there as well. And so there’s a number of different services and cohorts and different things that you run through with people that I think could be very valuable to some of our listeners. So definitely worth checking out. I think everyone can kind of get a taste for kind of some of the things that might go on in those kinds of situations. And, you know, that’s something probably be a great resource to check out sometime. So thank you again, Albert, so much for coming on the show. We loved having you. This is really good. Thanks for having me. And now I’m like, I need to work on my living profile. It’s been years. So we want to say thank you. And of course, as we go through this process, we want to encourage our listeners, if you enjoy the show, but a review out. We appreciate seeing you review the show and it helps us algorithmically in this world of AIs and machine learning to get promoted on the various channels wherever you listen. So thanks for doing that too. All right. Well, I know no matter where you are in your career, my two co-hosts would agree with me, Tim and Julie, that whether you’re looking for a job, whether you’re trying to find a new job or whether you’re happy in your career one, keep analyzing.

01:10:21.31 [Announcer]: Thanks for listening. Let’s keep the conversation going with your comments, suggestions, and questions on Twitter at atanalyticshour on the web at analyticshour.io, our LinkedIn group, and the Measure Chat Slack group. Music for the podcast by Josh Grohurst.

01:10:39.21 [Charles Barkley]: So smart guys want to fit in. So they made up a term called analytics. Analytics don’t work. Do the analytics say go for it, no matter who’s going for it? So if you and I were on the field, the analytics say go for it. It’s the stupidest, laziest, lamest thing I’ve ever heard for reasoning in competition.

01:10:58.75 [Julie Hoyer]: Albert, I’m curious. Do you usually listen to the end to the rock flag?

01:11:02.75 [Albert Bellamy]: Yes. As a matter of fact, I had to look it up because I’m not an always sunny guy. And so, yeah, I think I actually asked him one time in a LinkedIn message, like, what is the rock flag thing? And he just sent me the link to the video. Do you guys know why I found the podcast? No, beyond what you said. So think about what I was doing at Anilect. Think about your least favorite marketing analytics topic. I don’t know, I’m putting you on the spot here.

01:11:30.25 [Tim Wilson]: Attribution.

01:11:31.77 [Albert Bellamy]: That’s what I was doing at Anilect. So I went searching for like, is anybody talking about this stuff? Super valuable. And that’s why I originally became a fan. So it’s funny that every episode you were like, oh God, do we have to talk about this crap again? I was like, I get it, I get it.

01:11:49.61 [Michael Helbling]: I have a set of rules, which probably should not be talked about on a part of that.

01:11:54.03 [Albert Bellamy]: Yeah, that definitely is. Yeah.

01:11:59.56 [Julie Hoyer]: I think there’s a ghost that messes with the tiles, but we figured out which one. That is the most likely answer. So, yeah, at this point, I swear.

01:12:08.70 [Tim Wilson]: That guy wanted to put a full-sized digital billboard outside. We put a billboard up in his hometown in Dodgeville, Wisconsin that said stew for a cat sheriff.

01:12:20.86 [Michael Helbling]: Yeah. The best part about that prank was that there was a Facebook group for that part of that area where people were just freaking out like, what is this billboard for? What is it? Yeah. And the best comment was no one would just waste money on a random billboard. You weren’t like, oh, yes, we.

01:12:38.31 [Albert Bellamy]: Oh, yes.

01:12:38.97 [Michael Helbling]: Yeah. All right. Let’s get going.

01:12:48.75 [Tim Wilson]: Rock flag and limit the middle bullets. Hurrah! That was great.

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#275: The Modern Data...Job Search with Albert Bellamy

#275: The Modern Data…Job Search with Albert Bellamy

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