[00:00:00] Hello everybody. And yeah, welcome again to another fantastic career con. I'm joined today by Owen Healy. Uh, Owen, could you give us a brief introduction to yourself? Sure. Um, thanks for your time today, much appreciated. Uh, so in short, I work in blockchain, uh, recruitment and. I guess it's, um, yeah, you get, it's, it's, um, for many, it's a new iteration of the internet and yeah, it's, uh, hiring everything from developers, marketers, business development professionals, all across the globe.
It's a very. It's a very global marketplace that I recruit for, um, because such talent is, um, so niche, um, compared to other [00:01:00] industries and so new and yeah, so obviously I run my own recruitment firm. Um, and I've been. Yeah, very fortunate, um, to do so, um, working for some great clients, meeting some great people on a day to day basis, understanding clients needs, understanding candidates background, and yeah, it's, um, been very rewarding.
Get to work, um, remote. Um, which is obviously huge too, and obviously there's great flexibility, um, regarding that as well. Yeah. Fantastic. I think it's a really interesting space to be working in right now as well. I mean, given the, you know, the blockchain industry is relatively new still. And it's certainly a lot of people in our audience are unfamiliar with the sector.
You know, could you describe, you know, the industry and. You briefly mentioned some of the cool jobs that you can get there, but some of the, the cool jobs that are emerging in the, this sort of blockchain sector. Sure. Uh, so I guess, yeah, I guess so from a development point of [00:02:00] view, um, I would say, uh, Um, developers learning on Ethereum, um, that the programming language predominantly used is, um, solidity in the blockchain space, um, developers with a couple of years experience can earn quite, um, substantial salaries.
Um, if they're proficient at writing smart contracts, um, which is, um. Obviously great because, um, a lot of these developers are self taught, um, they've understood the basics of programming languages like Javascript and they've done it via Udemy courses and online resources. Some of them don't necessarily have the formal four year degree, but that isn't, if they're good enough and they have a good online [00:03:00] portfolio, um, their coding efforts can be seen, um, in public eye and they have good references.
It's yeah, employers are very receptive to self taught professionals and the same can be said across all disciplines like marketing, business development, dev rel as well. And I suppose the industry is so small still that it's very much a network based effect in terms of getting various different employments.
And. Yeah, it's, um, I guess in terms of cool roles, um, yeah. So again, a lot of these communities, a lot of these blockchain projects, they're really trying to win the hearts and minds of the developers at the moment. So developer relations is a huge, um, area, um, it encapsulates both marketing and technical writing.
And yeah, some degree of marketing, no, [00:04:00] noose is required as well. Yeah. Business development roles as well. Um, are. Yeah, are very common. Uh, yeah. And what, yeah, um, yeah, like again, there's rules across every discipline really, I suppose. Obviously naturally enough to just nuance to blockchain tech. So that's understands having a good understanding of the underlying technology, understand how various different blockchains themselves differ from each other and.
Yeah, I think it's, um, I think you're right in that the, you know, certainly blockchain is a sector, you know, I often get asked the question, you know, what type of skill sets do you need? And you talk a lot about there about, you know, the likes of you need to learn solidity. Obviously, if you, if you're a developer side, you're working on a smart contract, so we tend to be rusted depending on what side of the, um, which chain you're working with.
Um, but most of the roles are much broader than that. You know, you're still speaking about, um, marketers, you're still speaking about community. [00:05:00] Builders, community managers, you're still speaking about people that do all the operation functions like any other business. And obviously you need a slightly different mindset in terms of you, there's, there's different technical abilities and understanding what the blockchain is and its capability and its use case.
Um, and. But anybody with a focus on, you know, learning and adapting quickly in these kinds of environments, um, is definitely, you know, there's definitely available jobs, even if you're not a developer. And I think that's the kind of key takeaway there is, you don't, you don't have to be a developer to be working in this space.
Um, as you just kind of touched on, um, you know, and on the, And what I find is, sorry, just to elaborate, what I find is a lot of, um, marketers, for example, they'll take on multiple projects at the one time. Yeah. It's, um, yeah, like fractional work is really booming within the industry at the moment and yeah, it's, yeah.
So, um, again, a lot of these startup projects, that is projects are effectively in startup mode. So they're trying to preserve runway and it gives the, [00:06:00] um. Individual working for them, a lot of flexibility. If things don't work out, they can move on to another project. But if things are going great, then they can move over full time and they know the culture, they know the people before joining them on a full time basis then as well.
And that's so important. Certainly for anybody starting out is, you know, understand the culture of the people you're working with before you, you, you commit to going in like with both feet, I think you're absolutely right as well about the, that fractional work is something that certainly within this industry, I've seen.
It's almost becoming the de facto, you know, it's, as you say, everybody is in startup mode or early stage growth mode, even the bigger players in this space are still relatively new. They're at best, they're only a few years old. They're still in hyper growth stages. Um, really getting a feel for the types of people they need themselves as organizations.
And I think as a young person getting into this space, it gives you the opportunity to say, well, actually I can work for three or four different. Um, you know, three or four different companies. I can work on three or four different [00:07:00] projects. Um, and that's not frowned on and that's actually seen as a benefit because it means you're learning, you're building your community, you're building your skill sets.
And when the time is right for you in an organization, then you can have a conversation about moving into a permanent role potentially, uh, but many people don't, and many people stay working across multiple different projects and that is absolutely fine. Yeah, no, absolutely. Um, I, yeah, and. Even for those people that, um.
Like, again, in some respects it's out of necessity as well. There is a bear market. Projects are, those projects that, uh, projects that even are, have, um, funding behind them, uh, are trying to preserve their, um, runway, because a lot of reckless spending, um, occurred in 2021 and 2022. And, yeah, it's, um, yeah, so, again, some, some of the fraction boom is, um, out of necessity.
But that being said, um, I think a lot of, um, [00:08:00] It's great to see so many good marketers out there and even developers as well. And just really kind of, um, get a good client list and you'll see the network effect. Your network is your network and in a fractional economy as well. I feel that, um, personal brand building exercises is, um, essential to, um, uh, effectively accelerate your career, get your name out there.
And especially in a tight knit industry that is remote first leg. Yeah, that leaves quite nice on to the next question, actually, which is, you know, what, what soft skills do you think that people need to be developing? Yeah, we touched on the sort of harder skills that depends on the type of role you're going into.
But in terms of those soft skills, in terms of those personal branding, in terms of, you know, how you interact with people within this space, what kind of skills should people be looking at amplifying? Yeah, so communicative ability, um, obviously that [00:09:00] in real life interaction isn't as, is, is, is, um, rare, um, in the vast majority of team settings in blockchain tech.
So, um. How you communicate the messages, how you, um, speak to your colleagues is, um, of vital importance, um, and how the message is delivered is not so much, it's not so much the message sent, but how the message is received and, um, obviously regular check ins as well with, um, various different, um, yeah, with various different colleagues on a regular basis as well to see how you can support your colleagues and how, um, and then from a management point of view.
Thank you. Check in with the employees working with you as well. It's huge. So because again, things can get misinterpreted. Um, and. Yeah, people can develop situations or, um, scenarios in their mind, um, when working remote I find, and they misinterpreted things, uh, whereas if it was in an office based system, they would [00:10:00] be able to pick up on various different cues a lot easier, and maybe there isn't, and oftentimes there isn't a problem, but if they, they mightn't have.
I've heard from a colleague for a couple of days and they might have perceived that something is wrong. Often isn't the case. Yeah. Um, and almost nine times out of 10, it isn't the case at all. Um, and I haven't thought about you at all in that scenario where, you know, it's, I think that's vitally important to say communication skills, certainly in this hybrid world, where either sometimes in an office, we're working with community, you know, at Hundo alone, we have a network of people that are across the globe at any one given time.
So, you know, we have to factor in. working in different time zones, we have to factor in the fact that if someone doesn't reply in two hours, that's because they may still be in bed because it's that time of day. You know, it's, it's allowing for those types of considerations, being very clear with the communication, um, trying not to leave any ambiguity there.
It's those types of skills that become, you learn very fast if you don't already know them because those, those mistakes will soon come up and you, you can soon it's right. Yeah. And especially from the communication [00:11:00] Uh, communication side of things, uh, I guess, yeah, like earlier this year about a lot of major employers within the space had to do significant head cutting, um, um, yeah, around often times around 20 percent of headcount, um, so obviously, uh, yeah, um, people are fearful that they're next.
So, um, yeah, clear communication. Um, and just, um, like there's often times candidates reaching out to me, um, curious to know what's out there. Not because they don't necessarily not like their role. They actually do enjoy their current role in the vast majority of instances. But they don't know whether or not they're next, uh, which is kind of sad in a way.
Yeah. Well, everyone always has that plan. And to be fair, it's actually sensible, you know, in this market is always sensible to have that kind of, to, to have one eye on what's next, you know, be dedicated to what you're doing, obviously. But it even goes back to what we said about fractional work. You might be working 100 percent on one thing.
That doesn't mean you [00:12:00] can't put an extra 10 percent on something else, you know, so you've got, you've got that kind of flexibility. Um. And I guess, you know, building on that, and you touched a few times on almost like a personal brand, um, what type, you know, when you are working with a, uh, somebody who's looking for a role, you know, what are you looking for?
Are you looking at their LinkedIn? Are you looking at their Twitter profiles? Are you, how are you, what kind of brand, when you first connect with somebody, how should somebody be positioning themselves in what is actually quite a very noisy? Space, even though it's still quite a small space, it's still a very noisy space.
So how do you, as an individual, how does an individual stand out, you know, and get noticed by, by the likes of you, but then also by the other people, the companies you're working with, what would make them stand out, um, from a sort of personal brand perspective? Yeah, so, um, that's a great question and from a personal brand perspective, I look at personal brand, um, from first of all, the profile, um, and then, [00:13:00] um, and obviously, uh, their profile, um, how they're positioning themselves, what type of roles they're going for based on their profile, um, maybe it could also their publishing efforts, um, their GitHub accounts, their Behance portfolio if they're, if they're a designer, um, um.
Like I think everyone should, everyone working in a remote first economy, um, and a remote first industry such as blockchain tech should have a portfolio of some description, some proof of work to say this is what I've done with X project, this is what I've done with Y project. And, yeah. So, and again, often times then it could be a case where somebody, um, participates in LinkedIn, um, conversations and, um, publishes, um, insightful posts and you say, okay, this person may have, um, potential, maybe worth speaking to, may not have this necessary experience, but might be, uh, might, [00:14:00] might be worth having, uh, on my radar for future, um, roles that are suitable as well.
So again, Thank you. Personal branding is a funny one, I find, and I am going a bit off topic here, I understand, but it's as much offline as it is online, and it's not about posting and having lovely profiles, albeit they are of vital importance, um, it's how we can cultivate those relationships offline, um, then thereafter, but yeah, to come back to your point, um, um, Yeah, having the profile having the right keywords on LinkedIn and having the right experiences down if you're lacking experience have your feature your feature your github account or your Behance portfolio or Any marketing product or any and like if it could be something like a simple PDF have it featured on your LinkedIn profile have [00:15:00] those posts featured so that people can People can see your, um, work as well and don't be afraid to put yourself out there as well.
Um, if you are looking for, um, short term gigs and blockchain tech, network with the right people, connect to them. The great thing about blockchain as well is that people will be willing to help. Um, so if you send hypothetically, maybe 20 messages to. Um, a senior marketing executive at a blockchain firm, I guarantee you that five of those people will reply because people in this industry do want to help each other.
And then what you're doing is those five people that you connect with thereafter will effectively, um, be headhunting nearly for you and they will have their best interest. They will want to help you as best they can. And after getting on the call with them. So again, yeah, your network is your network to a large [00:16:00] degree in this industry.
Um, obviously you have to have the skills as well, of course, but, um, you also have to have a, a reliable, a good, strong network I find as well. Um, simply because, um, you could be an amazing marketer, um, dash. You, but, but, but if, if, if you're not, if it's like a shop, if, if, if you don't know what's inside the shop, you're not going to necessarily go in.
And that's what I find. I like that. You know, you can have the best products in the world in that shop, but if you don't know, if you don't know, you're never going to find them and you'll walk straight past it. Um, yeah. And it's funny because I put a lot of effort into content on LinkedIn and people will.
Gregory kind of come to me and said, I've been following your post X, Y, Z. And I'm curious to know what is out there at the moment. Um, if you have any skills for my profile and their profile on LinkedIn, for example, it [00:17:00] might be very bleak, but if, but then when you see the resume, the resume is absolutely fantastic.
And you're like, okay, you are doing yourself a serious disservice here. So yeah, get the LinkedIn's, um, proper prim and proper. Yeah. Yeah. So as you know, as you'll be often as a recruiter, you're often focused on, you know, specific aspects of evaluating, um, both tech and non tech roles. So when, how would you advise the applicants, um, position the information that they're, that they're presenting to you in a way that will help you one assess how good they are.
So going back to that brand and that portfolio piece, you know, how do they best present that? To one you, but then also to the potential employers that they can be connected to. Um, that you work with. Yeah, well, I suppose I'm in the. LinkedIn PSAM, you can feature, um, your various different posts, um, on LinkedIn.
So that is featuring, if you have [00:18:00] a strong GitHub portfolio, you can feature it, or a repository that you're particularly proud of, or a Behance portfolio, you can, um, effectively feature, um, your portfolio, um, prominently on your LinkedIn can jump in and out of it. Um, Whenever they're best pleased and when they're visiting your profile, and yeah, that's absolutely Fantastic so that people can see the proof of work before I'm engaging with you and Then on the call itself I would say to people that especially people that are maybe lacking that little bit of experience as well If you have a strong portfolio but may lack that experience in terms of years or in terms of major or well known companies that you may previously work for, keep referring back to your portfolio and keep, [00:19:00] again, keep going back to the Idea, um, in an interview setting of situation, task, action, and result, um, the star format.
And again, there's a lot of people in blockchain tech that will say, I've helped X project raise X millions. Um, I've helped. X project gain, X number of followers on socials, um, but they don't, they, they, they tell, they don't, they tell the result, um, they tell the glory, they don't tell the story, and I'm not really interested in the results because if somebody told me they grew, um, a project's followers on Twitter from 1, 000 to 10, 000 or whatever.
How am I not to know that those 9, 000 extra followers are all bots? I don't know. So I want to know how you necessarily achieved what you're claiming to have achieved. And, um, [00:20:00] Like I think a lot of people in blockchain tech as well. Um, and I am being specific to blockchain they speak in the I rather than the we format and again, I would rather people um, I Again, we're working on we want um, we want people who can work as part of a team at the end of the day as well so, um, don't be reluctant.
Don't be afraid to um, say how you collaborated with others and how It was a joint effort rather than an individual effort sometimes in interviews as well. But yeah, always, I would say to any, anyone regardless of any industry that you're in, make sure that if you're, when you're in an interview setting and presenting yourself to companies on the initial call, always ask any questions that you're Or ask most questions in the form of S T A R, um, Situation, Task, Action, or Result.
Yeah. And it's great interview prep as well. If you can get maybe 50 sample [00:21:00] questions that you can quickly cite, um, in that format, you'll be very well prepared for any interview or any question, um, that may come your way. So, it just. I just want people, when you're answering questions in that, and when you're prepared to answer questions in that, um, format.
You're in a position where you can deeply reflect upon your, what you've previously done and where you can add value specifically. I think that's really good advice because you know, one of the challenges of being on either side of an interview is, you've got a very finite amount of time to convey quite a lot of information.
Um, and any projects is complicated. It doesn't matter how, how small or big a project is, there's always still a lot of detail there, particularly when you're working with a team. So if you can be very precise about the story, about what you did, about, I'm really interested in hearing about what people, how they interacted with people, you know, I'm interested in hearing about what went wrong as well.
You know, that's something I always push people on when I'm, you know, actually no project has ever been perfect [00:22:00] ever. If anyone tells you it was absolutely perfect, they're lying or it was a fluke. Um, So tell me, you know, why it went wrong. How was it dealt with? How was it, how did the team react to it? How were you working with it?
Cause that then helps me understand how people solve problems, reactive pressure, resilience, and some of those other things that you're looking for in somebody. It's particularly in the startup world, which are vitally important. You know, it's, it's nothing will be perfect. There'll always be a new challenge.
Um, and you know, understanding how that works and is super important. And again, if you just tell me that you, you know, you, you boosted your Twitter profile from one, one follower to 10, 000, I'm like. Okay, that sounds brilliant, but there's, you know, there's nobody, nobody ever has that smooth transition unless it's a, you know, unless there's a lot of other stuff going on, it's very unlikely one individual did that themselves.
Um, without ton of content, without working with the product teams, without potentially buying bots, you know, and if you did that fine, tell me, you know, at least at least someone up to it and say, well, we tried this, but it didn't work. And, you know, we got caught out and we had to apologize to the [00:23:00] community.
You know, that's the kind of story that I want to hear, you know, cause it's like, what tells me how you deal with situations and how you're trying to problem solve things. Yep. Um. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I guess with regards to, um, elaborate on what you just said there as well, you learn, especially in such a nascent industry where there is an abundance of startups and projects do a lot of projects can go by the wayside and it is effectively made.
Very, yeah, it can be very hectic, um, in a lot of, um, job work settings in this industry, I've learned kind of not to dismiss job hoppers at face value. Um, whereas when I worked as an internal, when I worked in internal, um, talent acquisition as part of, um, broader HR roles that I previously [00:24:00] had, um, in years gone by, um, you'd say, okay.
Maybe three employers in the last 18 months. What am I missing here? Whereas in blockchain tech I would You'd be less reluctant to dismiss that person as a job hopper, and you'd be willing to, you'd be very receptive to getting to know their story, again, whether it could have been a fraction of work, or it was a specific assignment, and yeah, obviously, maybe their previous employment, their project ran out of funding.
Their, um, their, again, from a token point of view, their, their, their token could collapse, their treasuries could be decimated. Um, there's a whole host of various different reasons as to why people can leave various different, um, job settings, psychological contract violations as well. There's a whole host of reasons.
Yeah. Yeah. And especially in this helter skelter Type of [00:25:00] industry where people seem to be working all hours of the night to achieve deliverables Yeah, I just learned not to dismiss job hoppers face value as best I possibly can unless it's Very obvious. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, I'm, I'm the same now from speaking to somebody.
If they tell me they've had three different roles over the last year, I'll always ask, you know, the story, but I'm going into it with a very open mind as of 10 years ago when I was working at bigger tech orgs, it might send an alarm bell ringing. It's like, why is this person not at least stuck around for a year as is now that's very different.
I'm like, okay, there's very, you know, it's a very different space. First company, you know, first company ran our runway, second company on the other two month project, but then the conserving runway, they might bring him back later. You know, there's all sorts of different reasons why I, you know, I'm always, I actually find the storage fascinating normally.
Cause it's, it's, it's, it's a good study. Everyone's got a great story from the spending, you know, two, two or three months working with a startup. You get a lot of great stories from that. Um, and I guess thinking about, you know, people [00:26:00] going into roles and the next question here is. In light of like the increased amount of one remote work, but also decentralized technologies, the amount of new projects that are coming onto the scene in blockchain and the amount that are actually disappearing, you know, how do you anticipate that the, the HR packages will evolve?
You know, are blockchain companies, you know, beginning to offer. You know, unique incentives to try and get the best people and to try and bring the best people onto their projects. Yeah, so, um, I suppose from a package point of view, it's a very interesting, um, question because a lot of work is done on a business to business type basis rather than an employee, um, so
Again, a lot of the, a lot, a lot of times the, um, the developers or the marketers working for these projects will have their own company effectively, and they'll be paid into that company. And I would [00:27:00] say that as well, um, in terms of the actual packages, I would say that vesting schedules can be a huge part of the, um.
Um, package, so to speak, um, so effectively the average or the standard, um, vesting schedule in blockchain tech would be four years with a one year cliff. Um, so effectively that would mean that after one year, um, the person would start getting their, um, token, token bonuses, um, deployed to them after that one year.
And. Again, people have made millions of vesting schedules, but people have also signed up thinking that their vesting schedules were X when it wasn't. Worked whereas whereas now it's probably not even worth the price of a [00:28:00] pint so it's yeah fencing schedules can make up a huge part of the Package and it's funny because I think now we're kind of in a stage where the job market is a little bit more It's a bit more difficult, um, for Web3 native talent.
Uh, our industry was very much leveraged on venture capital funding for two years and a lot of projects enjoyed that and it was cheap money gushing throughout the industry. Now it's obviously, that's obviously not the case as much. Um, so projects thankfully have to be more resourceful and it's funny because.
In respect to, now that cash is king with job seekers and both employers a lot more, um, employers are more willing to offer up more attractive vesting schedules in lieu of [00:29:00] salary, whereas Employees, on the other hand, or candidates are a lot more concerned about the cash, whereas they would have wanted a tasty, um, divesting schedule during the better times when things are more optimistic and some candidates would have seen, um, divesting schedule as if it was their pension, so to speak, um, in that this is where we can, this is what we can retire on.
So, um, but obviously, yeah, obviously it's a different mindset now. So, um, Obviously, things like package wise health insurance, things like that, you often have to look after that yourself, um, in a stronger
HR presence, especially in things like onboarding, realistic job previews. Oh, there's a whole host of ways. Um, we just, um, in terms of employer attention and satisfaction as well, [00:30:00] there's a whole host of ways that, um, HR could be integrated into web training. It hasn't necessarily been introduced to space as of yet, to be honest.
I think there's, it's a maturing industry and it will start to start to bring in much more of that as certainly as businesses start to scale, um, there'll be different models, I'm sure, you know, if you're a decentralized business and you're. You know, you're working in a decentralized way. HR might mean something slightly different.
Um, but I think that we're definitely going to see more bigger organizations as they grow starting to have, they're going to have to bring in more of what the more traditional ways of thinking about some of the HR, as you say, in order to keep people for the long run. Um, I think it's really interesting as well, the points about vesting schedules, because I think certainly if you're, you're new to the industry, it's, they can be very exciting, but at the same time.
You know, treat that like you would if you were an investor because you're investing time and potentially salary, you know, a sacrifice on the amount you can make on actual cold, hard cash. So think about it in those terms. You have to look a bit [00:31:00] more critical at the company that you're potentially working with.
If it's a four year vesting schedule, there's a one year cliff. Do they have a runway for a year? Are they still, what's their, if they don't, how, you know, how are they raising cash? You know, ask those type of hard questions and it can be tricky, particularly if you're young and you're new, it can be tricky to ask those, but I recommend to everybody ask those questions.
You know, you're a startup, you've been around six months. How much money do you have in the bank? What's your runway now, they might not give you concrete answers, but at least you get a sense of how optimistic they are That they can deliver against, you know Those those schedules that they're giving you and I think you'd be very critical of it Like you would do if you were taking some of your money and buying those tokens, you know And educate yourself as much as you can do about what that actually means for you and don't get swayed by A potentially big pay packet in four years time.
Yeah, make sure you've looked at it very very critically And it was crazy now in hindsight, um, somebody could be, uh, somebody in November 2021 could be offered a hundred thousand of a [00:32:00] base salary and then by March of the following year could be getting an offer of a hundred and fifty. The thing was completely boiling out of proportion, um, but thankfully, uh, I think the industry needed a a blowout really, um, of bad actors, cheap cash, and I think now the industry is building and maturing, um, but, um, I guess with respect to, um, I suppose from a other perspective as well, I'm just, um, I would just like to mention as well that like for people getting experience in this space as well and just having to elaborate on it because I'm conscious that there's a younger audience listening in.
Um, there's a lot of DAOs out there as well. Um, you can participate in various different DAOs. Um. Out there and it could be a great way to fast track your career in blockchain tech, participate in various different DAOs, or look at projects building, [00:33:00] um, you know, and then you can build street credibility within those DAOs as well, get to know the main participants, and there's DAOs for literally just about everything as of now, and it's a great networking tool as well.
There's also. One other way that I'd say like fast tracking your skills in blockchain tech is, um, find a Ecosystem in blockchain that you're particularly interested in. It could be Cardano, Avalanche, Algorand, whatever. And find projects building within those ecosystems and effectively find, help out those projects, um, pro bono for a while and build credibility within those ecosystems.
And you'll find that these blockchain ecosystems are very tribal. And if somebody has a reputation for, or have been known for helping a project within an ecosystem, um, a lot of these projects will stick to that ecosystem and give preferential treatment to somebody that has already [00:34:00] contributed and showed passion to that ecosystem.
And I know I'm just going a little bit off topic there, but I just thought that'd be important to get in given the demographic of person listening. I think it's very important actually. And for those that, for those that don't know, you know, what is a DAO? A DAO, a Decentralized Autonomous Organization, um, in the vast majority of cases, it's just a discard, um, server, but, um, uh, yeah, again, it could revolutionize the future of, um, um, the DAO economy as one that is infinite possibilities, um, going forward in DAO economy.
I describe those effectively to many as a digital co op effectively. So everyone is contributing, everyone has voting rights, everyone can delegate voting rights. And yeah, they can effectively. take control and it means um, it allows more um, like minded [00:35:00] people to get together and work on things as well.
So for the creator economy, I think that um, DAOs are going to be huge and It's an interesting time as well for DAOs as well because could AI help scale DAOs going forward? It'll be very very interesting, but how can they be decentralized when um, AI Um, relies on, um, um, centralized learning the whole time.
So, um, yeah, it's, um, yeah, there's a whole rabbit hole there about. Yeah. Um, no, I think you're, you're right. Dows are a fantastic opportunity for people to get involved, particularly as you, you find projects that you're interested in and you join the discord or you're joined the community, but however, that community connects with each other and you can just start getting involved in the conversation.
So I think that's, what's fantastic about it. You know, it's the commitment is relatively low, but if you then find one that you're quite passionate about that you care about, you can get involved in the conversation. You can see where they need help. You can [00:36:00] see where you can provide something could be helping with the community.
It could be moderating the conversation. You know, there's entry level things you can do quite easily. There's and starts to get you recognized in that community. You start to become, as you say, one of that tribe. Um, So then when you've got skills you can offer, you can offer help, you can fix little books here or there, you can find books even, you know, there's bits you can do to support and straight away that community starts to know who you are.
When a bigger project comes up, you can put your name forward for it to say it can be, you can get involved quite easily then in a very different way to sort of the traditional applying for thousands of roles, seeing what happens, you know, it's, um, it's working with people that you've built a relationship with.
Yeah, no, 100 percent and, um. I guess, um, with regards to your audience as well and the college going folk as well. I would say that, um, if there's any hackathons in your, um, region as well, um, go to them. Fantastic, um, networking opportunity. Any [00:37:00] blockchain meetups, go to them as well. Um, the hackathons, you don't have to be a developer to go to the hackathons.
There are some good talks there, um. And even if you're a marketer, for example, you can go there and help out a team, um, with their presentation, for example, you don't need to be a developer because at these hackathons, the projects do need to present as well and give a presentation for, um, a couple of minutes as well.
So you could be the person that makes the, you could be the one presenting, you could be the one designing the pitch deck, you could be the one, um. Advising the developers with low communicative ability, um, as to how to, um, do the storytelling around the, um, the proposed offering. Yeah, so go to Hackathons 100 percent and thousands of people in blockchain tech will be hired through Hackathons over the next few years.
I can be certain of that. Oh, absolutely. The reason why. I was going to say, it's one of the best ways [00:38:00] of showcasing your skill sets is to be, you know, involved in a project for two days. Yeah, absolutely. And there's a lot of, what I would say, closet, um, Web3 enthusiasts out there that have the knowledge, they just don't necessarily have the experience.
And that knowledge and expertise just comes to fore in real life. And yeah, sometimes just can't be replicated on a LinkedIn profile, for example. Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. And that leads quite nicely actually onto my, you know, my final question is. Um, you know, as a parent or an educator, you know, of our audience, you know, how can they be helping to introduce, you know, the potential and the impact of blockchain and the careers available, you know, to the young people that they either work with or they're a, a parent of, how can they help get people involved in this space?
It's a very interesting question, um, and like, again, it could be something as simple as, um, turning on a [00:39:00] YouTube video. Um, I think that in blockchain tech, we are, um, we kind of have a misinterpretation or, um, we kind of don't fully understand or appreciate maybe a lot of us working in blockchain and how.
It's going to revolutionize everything. Um, like I suppose, um, it's, yeah, like again, we've just touched the tip of the iceberg, to be honest. Um, in terms of decentralized operating systems, decentralized social media platforms, um, again. It could be just something as simple as, uh, If you want your child to earn a lot of money, basically, you'll, you'll get him, um, You'll, you'll get him, um, learning, um, You'll get him learning, um, um, The basics of JavaScript, which will give you to, um, Hopefully getting an interest and passion, um, for Solidity, Um, in the next couple of years, but, uh, [00:40:00] And again, there's, I'm sure, as you're better versed than I am, but there is a lot of, um, resources out there for coding for young people out there as well.
So, um, I guess another aspect that I would maybe look at, um, as, as well, would be kind of, um, there's free courses online as well. Um, there's a. 12 week program. It might be more so for the adolescents rather than the children, but um the University of Nacoa should do a 12 week free program Introduction to digital currencies.
It gives a good history. It gives a good oversight of what blockchain is and what Yeah, just it's a great um, I suppose catch all 12 week program that can be done with two or three hours per week independent study and Yeah, all you need to do to sign up to that is have an email address and[00:41:00]
well, like for somebody that might be on a gap year, for example, or somebody that might be, um, be able, for a student that might be able to want an extra, an extra thing to look into at the weekend. It could be a good course to do, uh, Nicosia introduction to digital currencies. I think the first, the next onboarding is in a couple of weeks.
So now is actually good timing as well. And. Yeah, the cool thing about that as well is that you get a unique certificate of completion on the Bitcoin blockchain as well, which is, um, a nice little feature too. But, um, it's a nice touch. Yeah. We're, we're the, um, moving all our, uh, on Hundo. And when you get achievements and skills in your past courses, we now, you know, we now.
Have a blockchain version of that, which will be translating those onto blockchain. So you can prove in a verified way on chain that you actually did this and who it was for. So that's the way forward. I think that of course is, you know, it's a fantastic call out for, you [00:42:00] know, courses like that that you say are free.
You just need an email address and that gives you access to some fantastic resources. Um, likewise, check out what we're doing as well for anyone listening, you know, you can see, um, follow what we're doing for, you know, for potential to be able to learn more in this space. Um, but Owen, thank you very much.
Our time has come to an end, but thank you very much for that. I think it was very, very enlightening, very useful for everybody that was listening. Um. If anybody listening does have any questions and wants to reach out to us by all means do you can either Contact me on my linkedin and i'm sure the same for owen And we're always more than happy to answer questions, but thank you very much everybody.
Thanks very much. Cool
[00:00:00] Hello everybody. And yeah, welcome again to another fantastic career con. I'm joined today by Owen Healy. Uh, Owen, could you give us a brief introduction to yourself? Sure. Um, thanks for your time today, much appreciated. Uh, so in short, I work in blockchain, uh, recruitment and. I guess it's, um, yeah, you get, it's, it's, um, for many, it's a new iteration of the internet and yeah, it's, uh, hiring everything from developers, marketers, business development professionals, all across the globe.
It's a very. It's a very global marketplace that I recruit for, um, because such talent is, um, so niche, um, compared to other [00:01:00] industries and so new and yeah, so obviously I run my own recruitment firm. Um, and I've been. Yeah, very fortunate, um, to do so, um, working for some great clients, meeting some great people on a day to day basis, understanding clients needs, understanding candidates background, and yeah, it's, um, been very rewarding.
Get to work, um, remote. Um, which is obviously huge too, and obviously there's great flexibility, um, regarding that as well. Yeah. Fantastic. I think it's a really interesting space to be working in right now as well. I mean, given the, you know, the blockchain industry is relatively new still. And it's certainly a lot of people in our audience are unfamiliar with the sector.
You know, could you describe, you know, the industry and. You briefly mentioned some of the cool jobs that you can get there, but some of the, the cool jobs that are emerging in the, this sort of blockchain sector. Sure. Uh, so I guess, yeah, I guess so from a development point of [00:02:00] view, um, I would say, uh, Um, developers learning on Ethereum, um, that the programming language predominantly used is, um, solidity in the blockchain space, um, developers with a couple of years experience can earn quite, um, substantial salaries.
Um, if they're proficient at writing smart contracts, um, which is, um. Obviously great because, um, a lot of these developers are self taught, um, they've understood the basics of programming languages like Javascript and they've done it via Udemy courses and online resources. Some of them don't necessarily have the formal four year degree, but that isn't, if they're good enough and they have a good online [00:03:00] portfolio, um, their coding efforts can be seen, um, in public eye and they have good references.
It's yeah, employers are very receptive to self taught professionals and the same can be said across all disciplines like marketing, business development, dev rel as well. And I suppose the industry is so small still that it's very much a network based effect in terms of getting various different employments.
And. Yeah, it's, um, I guess in terms of cool roles, um, yeah. So again, a lot of these communities, a lot of these blockchain projects, they're really trying to win the hearts and minds of the developers at the moment. So developer relations is a huge, um, area, um, it encapsulates both marketing and technical writing.
And yeah, some degree of marketing, no, [00:04:00] noose is required as well. Yeah. Business development roles as well. Um, are. Yeah, are very common. Uh, yeah. And what, yeah, um, yeah, like again, there's rules across every discipline really, I suppose. Obviously naturally enough to just nuance to blockchain tech. So that's understands having a good understanding of the underlying technology, understand how various different blockchains themselves differ from each other and.
Yeah, I think it's, um, I think you're right in that the, you know, certainly blockchain is a sector, you know, I often get asked the question, you know, what type of skill sets do you need? And you talk a lot about there about, you know, the likes of you need to learn solidity. Obviously, if you, if you're a developer side, you're working on a smart contract, so we tend to be rusted depending on what side of the, um, which chain you're working with.
Um, but most of the roles are much broader than that. You know, you're still speaking about, um, marketers, you're still speaking about community. [00:05:00] Builders, community managers, you're still speaking about people that do all the operation functions like any other business. And obviously you need a slightly different mindset in terms of you, there's, there's different technical abilities and understanding what the blockchain is and its capability and its use case.
Um, and. But anybody with a focus on, you know, learning and adapting quickly in these kinds of environments, um, is definitely, you know, there's definitely available jobs, even if you're not a developer. And I think that's the kind of key takeaway there is, you don't, you don't have to be a developer to be working in this space.
Um, as you just kind of touched on, um, you know, and on the, And what I find is, sorry, just to elaborate, what I find is a lot of, um, marketers, for example, they'll take on multiple projects at the one time. Yeah. It's, um, yeah, like fractional work is really booming within the industry at the moment and yeah, it's, yeah.
So, um, again, a lot of these startup projects, that is projects are effectively in startup mode. So they're trying to preserve runway and it gives the, [00:06:00] um. Individual working for them, a lot of flexibility. If things don't work out, they can move on to another project. But if things are going great, then they can move over full time and they know the culture, they know the people before joining them on a full time basis then as well.
And that's so important. Certainly for anybody starting out is, you know, understand the culture of the people you're working with before you, you, you commit to going in like with both feet, I think you're absolutely right as well about the, that fractional work is something that certainly within this industry, I've seen.
It's almost becoming the de facto, you know, it's, as you say, everybody is in startup mode or early stage growth mode, even the bigger players in this space are still relatively new. They're at best, they're only a few years old. They're still in hyper growth stages. Um, really getting a feel for the types of people they need themselves as organizations.
And I think as a young person getting into this space, it gives you the opportunity to say, well, actually I can work for three or four different. Um, you know, three or four different companies. I can work on three or four different [00:07:00] projects. Um, and that's not frowned on and that's actually seen as a benefit because it means you're learning, you're building your community, you're building your skill sets.
And when the time is right for you in an organization, then you can have a conversation about moving into a permanent role potentially, uh, but many people don't, and many people stay working across multiple different projects and that is absolutely fine. Yeah, no, absolutely. Um, I, yeah, and. Even for those people that, um.
Like, again, in some respects it's out of necessity as well. There is a bear market. Projects are, those projects that, uh, projects that even are, have, um, funding behind them, uh, are trying to preserve their, um, runway, because a lot of reckless spending, um, occurred in 2021 and 2022. And, yeah, it's, um, yeah, so, again, some, some of the fraction boom is, um, out of necessity.
But that being said, um, I think a lot of, um, [00:08:00] It's great to see so many good marketers out there and even developers as well. And just really kind of, um, get a good client list and you'll see the network effect. Your network is your network and in a fractional economy as well. I feel that, um, personal brand building exercises is, um, essential to, um, uh, effectively accelerate your career, get your name out there.
And especially in a tight knit industry that is remote first leg. Yeah, that leaves quite nice on to the next question, actually, which is, you know, what, what soft skills do you think that people need to be developing? Yeah, we touched on the sort of harder skills that depends on the type of role you're going into.
But in terms of those soft skills, in terms of those personal branding, in terms of, you know, how you interact with people within this space, what kind of skills should people be looking at amplifying? Yeah, so communicative ability, um, obviously that [00:09:00] in real life interaction isn't as, is, is, is, um, rare, um, in the vast majority of team settings in blockchain tech.
So, um. How you communicate the messages, how you, um, speak to your colleagues is, um, of vital importance, um, and how the message is delivered is not so much, it's not so much the message sent, but how the message is received and, um, obviously regular check ins as well with, um, various different, um, yeah, with various different colleagues on a regular basis as well to see how you can support your colleagues and how, um, and then from a management point of view.
Thank you. Check in with the employees working with you as well. It's huge. So because again, things can get misinterpreted. Um, and. Yeah, people can develop situations or, um, scenarios in their mind, um, when working remote I find, and they misinterpreted things, uh, whereas if it was in an office based system, they would [00:10:00] be able to pick up on various different cues a lot easier, and maybe there isn't, and oftentimes there isn't a problem, but if they, they mightn't have.
I've heard from a colleague for a couple of days and they might have perceived that something is wrong. Often isn't the case. Yeah. Um, and almost nine times out of 10, it isn't the case at all. Um, and I haven't thought about you at all in that scenario where, you know, it's, I think that's vitally important to say communication skills, certainly in this hybrid world, where either sometimes in an office, we're working with community, you know, at Hundo alone, we have a network of people that are across the globe at any one given time.
So, you know, we have to factor in. working in different time zones, we have to factor in the fact that if someone doesn't reply in two hours, that's because they may still be in bed because it's that time of day. You know, it's, it's allowing for those types of considerations, being very clear with the communication, um, trying not to leave any ambiguity there.
It's those types of skills that become, you learn very fast if you don't already know them because those, those mistakes will soon come up and you, you can soon it's right. Yeah. And especially from the communication [00:11:00] Uh, communication side of things, uh, I guess, yeah, like earlier this year about a lot of major employers within the space had to do significant head cutting, um, um, yeah, around often times around 20 percent of headcount, um, so obviously, uh, yeah, um, people are fearful that they're next.
So, um, yeah, clear communication. Um, and just, um, like there's often times candidates reaching out to me, um, curious to know what's out there. Not because they don't necessarily not like their role. They actually do enjoy their current role in the vast majority of instances. But they don't know whether or not they're next, uh, which is kind of sad in a way.
Yeah. Well, everyone always has that plan. And to be fair, it's actually sensible, you know, in this market is always sensible to have that kind of, to, to have one eye on what's next, you know, be dedicated to what you're doing, obviously. But it even goes back to what we said about fractional work. You might be working 100 percent on one thing.
That doesn't mean you [00:12:00] can't put an extra 10 percent on something else, you know, so you've got, you've got that kind of flexibility. Um. And I guess, you know, building on that, and you touched a few times on almost like a personal brand, um, what type, you know, when you are working with a, uh, somebody who's looking for a role, you know, what are you looking for?
Are you looking at their LinkedIn? Are you looking at their Twitter profiles? Are you, how are you, what kind of brand, when you first connect with somebody, how should somebody be positioning themselves in what is actually quite a very noisy? Space, even though it's still quite a small space, it's still a very noisy space.
So how do you, as an individual, how does an individual stand out, you know, and get noticed by, by the likes of you, but then also by the other people, the companies you're working with, what would make them stand out, um, from a sort of personal brand perspective? Yeah, so, um, that's a great question and from a personal brand perspective, I look at personal brand, um, from first of all, the profile, um, and then, [00:13:00] um, and obviously, uh, their profile, um, how they're positioning themselves, what type of roles they're going for based on their profile, um, maybe it could also their publishing efforts, um, their GitHub accounts, their Behance portfolio if they're, if they're a designer, um, um.
Like I think everyone should, everyone working in a remote first economy, um, and a remote first industry such as blockchain tech should have a portfolio of some description, some proof of work to say this is what I've done with X project, this is what I've done with Y project. And, yeah. So, and again, often times then it could be a case where somebody, um, participates in LinkedIn, um, conversations and, um, publishes, um, insightful posts and you say, okay, this person may have, um, potential, maybe worth speaking to, may not have this necessary experience, but might be, uh, might, [00:14:00] might be worth having, uh, on my radar for future, um, roles that are suitable as well.
So again, Thank you. Personal branding is a funny one, I find, and I am going a bit off topic here, I understand, but it's as much offline as it is online, and it's not about posting and having lovely profiles, albeit they are of vital importance, um, it's how we can cultivate those relationships offline, um, then thereafter, but yeah, to come back to your point, um, um, Yeah, having the profile having the right keywords on LinkedIn and having the right experiences down if you're lacking experience have your feature your feature your github account or your Behance portfolio or Any marketing product or any and like if it could be something like a simple PDF have it featured on your LinkedIn profile have [00:15:00] those posts featured so that people can People can see your, um, work as well and don't be afraid to put yourself out there as well.
Um, if you are looking for, um, short term gigs and blockchain tech, network with the right people, connect to them. The great thing about blockchain as well is that people will be willing to help. Um, so if you send hypothetically, maybe 20 messages to. Um, a senior marketing executive at a blockchain firm, I guarantee you that five of those people will reply because people in this industry do want to help each other.
And then what you're doing is those five people that you connect with thereafter will effectively, um, be headhunting nearly for you and they will have their best interest. They will want to help you as best they can. And after getting on the call with them. So again, yeah, your network is your network to a large [00:16:00] degree in this industry.
Um, obviously you have to have the skills as well, of course, but, um, you also have to have a, a reliable, a good, strong network I find as well. Um, simply because, um, you could be an amazing marketer, um, dash. You, but, but, but if, if, if you're not, if it's like a shop, if, if, if you don't know what's inside the shop, you're not going to necessarily go in.
And that's what I find. I like that. You know, you can have the best products in the world in that shop, but if you don't know, if you don't know, you're never going to find them and you'll walk straight past it. Um, yeah. And it's funny because I put a lot of effort into content on LinkedIn and people will.
Gregory kind of come to me and said, I've been following your post X, Y, Z. And I'm curious to know what is out there at the moment. Um, if you have any skills for my profile and their profile on LinkedIn, for example, it [00:17:00] might be very bleak, but if, but then when you see the resume, the resume is absolutely fantastic.
And you're like, okay, you are doing yourself a serious disservice here. So yeah, get the LinkedIn's, um, proper prim and proper. Yeah. Yeah. So as you know, as you'll be often as a recruiter, you're often focused on, you know, specific aspects of evaluating, um, both tech and non tech roles. So when, how would you advise the applicants, um, position the information that they're, that they're presenting to you in a way that will help you one assess how good they are.
So going back to that brand and that portfolio piece, you know, how do they best present that? To one you, but then also to the potential employers that they can be connected to. Um, that you work with. Yeah, well, I suppose I'm in the. LinkedIn PSAM, you can feature, um, your various different posts, um, on LinkedIn.
So that is featuring, if you have [00:18:00] a strong GitHub portfolio, you can feature it, or a repository that you're particularly proud of, or a Behance portfolio, you can, um, effectively feature, um, your portfolio, um, prominently on your LinkedIn can jump in and out of it. Um, Whenever they're best pleased and when they're visiting your profile, and yeah, that's absolutely Fantastic so that people can see the proof of work before I'm engaging with you and Then on the call itself I would say to people that especially people that are maybe lacking that little bit of experience as well If you have a strong portfolio but may lack that experience in terms of years or in terms of major or well known companies that you may previously work for, keep referring back to your portfolio and keep, [00:19:00] again, keep going back to the Idea, um, in an interview setting of situation, task, action, and result, um, the star format.
And again, there's a lot of people in blockchain tech that will say, I've helped X project raise X millions. Um, I've helped. X project gain, X number of followers on socials, um, but they don't, they, they, they tell, they don't, they tell the result, um, they tell the glory, they don't tell the story, and I'm not really interested in the results because if somebody told me they grew, um, a project's followers on Twitter from 1, 000 to 10, 000 or whatever.
How am I not to know that those 9, 000 extra followers are all bots? I don't know. So I want to know how you necessarily achieved what you're claiming to have achieved. And, um, [00:20:00] Like I think a lot of people in blockchain tech as well. Um, and I am being specific to blockchain they speak in the I rather than the we format and again, I would rather people um, I Again, we're working on we want um, we want people who can work as part of a team at the end of the day as well so, um, don't be reluctant.
Don't be afraid to um, say how you collaborated with others and how It was a joint effort rather than an individual effort sometimes in interviews as well. But yeah, always, I would say to any, anyone regardless of any industry that you're in, make sure that if you're, when you're in an interview setting and presenting yourself to companies on the initial call, always ask any questions that you're Or ask most questions in the form of S T A R, um, Situation, Task, Action, or Result.
Yeah. And it's great interview prep as well. If you can get maybe 50 sample [00:21:00] questions that you can quickly cite, um, in that format, you'll be very well prepared for any interview or any question, um, that may come your way. So, it just. I just want people, when you're answering questions in that, and when you're prepared to answer questions in that, um, format.
You're in a position where you can deeply reflect upon your, what you've previously done and where you can add value specifically. I think that's really good advice because you know, one of the challenges of being on either side of an interview is, you've got a very finite amount of time to convey quite a lot of information.
Um, and any projects is complicated. It doesn't matter how, how small or big a project is, there's always still a lot of detail there, particularly when you're working with a team. So if you can be very precise about the story, about what you did, about, I'm really interested in hearing about what people, how they interacted with people, you know, I'm interested in hearing about what went wrong as well.
You know, that's something I always push people on when I'm, you know, actually no project has ever been perfect [00:22:00] ever. If anyone tells you it was absolutely perfect, they're lying or it was a fluke. Um, So tell me, you know, why it went wrong. How was it dealt with? How was it, how did the team react to it? How were you working with it?
Cause that then helps me understand how people solve problems, reactive pressure, resilience, and some of those other things that you're looking for in somebody. It's particularly in the startup world, which are vitally important. You know, it's, it's nothing will be perfect. There'll always be a new challenge.
Um, and you know, understanding how that works and is super important. And again, if you just tell me that you, you know, you, you boosted your Twitter profile from one, one follower to 10, 000, I'm like. Okay, that sounds brilliant, but there's, you know, there's nobody, nobody ever has that smooth transition unless it's a, you know, unless there's a lot of other stuff going on, it's very unlikely one individual did that themselves.
Um, without ton of content, without working with the product teams, without potentially buying bots, you know, and if you did that fine, tell me, you know, at least at least someone up to it and say, well, we tried this, but it didn't work. And, you know, we got caught out and we had to apologize to the [00:23:00] community.
You know, that's the kind of story that I want to hear, you know, cause it's like, what tells me how you deal with situations and how you're trying to problem solve things. Yep. Um. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I guess with regards to, um, elaborate on what you just said there as well, you learn, especially in such a nascent industry where there is an abundance of startups and projects do a lot of projects can go by the wayside and it is effectively made.
Very, yeah, it can be very hectic, um, in a lot of, um, job work settings in this industry, I've learned kind of not to dismiss job hoppers at face value. Um, whereas when I worked as an internal, when I worked in internal, um, talent acquisition as part of, um, broader HR roles that I previously [00:24:00] had, um, in years gone by, um, you'd say, okay.
Maybe three employers in the last 18 months. What am I missing here? Whereas in blockchain tech I would You'd be less reluctant to dismiss that person as a job hopper, and you'd be willing to, you'd be very receptive to getting to know their story, again, whether it could have been a fraction of work, or it was a specific assignment, and yeah, obviously, maybe their previous employment, their project ran out of funding.
Their, um, their, again, from a token point of view, their, their, their token could collapse, their treasuries could be decimated. Um, there's a whole host of various different reasons as to why people can leave various different, um, job settings, psychological contract violations as well. There's a whole host of reasons.
Yeah. Yeah. And especially in this helter skelter Type of [00:25:00] industry where people seem to be working all hours of the night to achieve deliverables Yeah, I just learned not to dismiss job hoppers face value as best I possibly can unless it's Very obvious. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, I'm, I'm the same now from speaking to somebody.
If they tell me they've had three different roles over the last year, I'll always ask, you know, the story, but I'm going into it with a very open mind as of 10 years ago when I was working at bigger tech orgs, it might send an alarm bell ringing. It's like, why is this person not at least stuck around for a year as is now that's very different.
I'm like, okay, there's very, you know, it's a very different space. First company, you know, first company ran our runway, second company on the other two month project, but then the conserving runway, they might bring him back later. You know, there's all sorts of different reasons why I, you know, I'm always, I actually find the storage fascinating normally.
Cause it's, it's, it's, it's a good study. Everyone's got a great story from the spending, you know, two, two or three months working with a startup. You get a lot of great stories from that. Um, and I guess thinking about, you know, people [00:26:00] going into roles and the next question here is. In light of like the increased amount of one remote work, but also decentralized technologies, the amount of new projects that are coming onto the scene in blockchain and the amount that are actually disappearing, you know, how do you anticipate that the, the HR packages will evolve?
You know, are blockchain companies, you know, beginning to offer. You know, unique incentives to try and get the best people and to try and bring the best people onto their projects. Yeah, so, um, I suppose from a package point of view, it's a very interesting, um, question because a lot of work is done on a business to business type basis rather than an employee, um, so
Again, a lot of the, a lot, a lot of times the, um, the developers or the marketers working for these projects will have their own company effectively, and they'll be paid into that company. And I would [00:27:00] say that as well, um, in terms of the actual packages, I would say that vesting schedules can be a huge part of the, um.
Um, package, so to speak, um, so effectively the average or the standard, um, vesting schedule in blockchain tech would be four years with a one year cliff. Um, so effectively that would mean that after one year, um, the person would start getting their, um, token, token bonuses, um, deployed to them after that one year.
And. Again, people have made millions of vesting schedules, but people have also signed up thinking that their vesting schedules were X when it wasn't. Worked whereas whereas now it's probably not even worth the price of a [00:28:00] pint so it's yeah fencing schedules can make up a huge part of the Package and it's funny because I think now we're kind of in a stage where the job market is a little bit more It's a bit more difficult, um, for Web3 native talent.
Uh, our industry was very much leveraged on venture capital funding for two years and a lot of projects enjoyed that and it was cheap money gushing throughout the industry. Now it's obviously, that's obviously not the case as much. Um, so projects thankfully have to be more resourceful and it's funny because.
In respect to, now that cash is king with job seekers and both employers a lot more, um, employers are more willing to offer up more attractive vesting schedules in lieu of [00:29:00] salary, whereas Employees, on the other hand, or candidates are a lot more concerned about the cash, whereas they would have wanted a tasty, um, divesting schedule during the better times when things are more optimistic and some candidates would have seen, um, divesting schedule as if it was their pension, so to speak, um, in that this is where we can, this is what we can retire on.
So, um, but obviously, yeah, obviously it's a different mindset now. So, um, Obviously, things like package wise health insurance, things like that, you often have to look after that yourself, um, in a stronger
HR presence, especially in things like onboarding, realistic job previews. Oh, there's a whole host of ways. Um, we just, um, in terms of employer attention and satisfaction as well, [00:30:00] there's a whole host of ways that, um, HR could be integrated into web training. It hasn't necessarily been introduced to space as of yet, to be honest.
I think there's, it's a maturing industry and it will start to start to bring in much more of that as certainly as businesses start to scale, um, there'll be different models, I'm sure, you know, if you're a decentralized business and you're. You know, you're working in a decentralized way. HR might mean something slightly different.
Um, but I think that we're definitely going to see more bigger organizations as they grow starting to have, they're going to have to bring in more of what the more traditional ways of thinking about some of the HR, as you say, in order to keep people for the long run. Um, I think it's really interesting as well, the points about vesting schedules, because I think certainly if you're, you're new to the industry, it's, they can be very exciting, but at the same time.
You know, treat that like you would if you were an investor because you're investing time and potentially salary, you know, a sacrifice on the amount you can make on actual cold, hard cash. So think about it in those terms. You have to look a bit [00:31:00] more critical at the company that you're potentially working with.
If it's a four year vesting schedule, there's a one year cliff. Do they have a runway for a year? Are they still, what's their, if they don't, how, you know, how are they raising cash? You know, ask those type of hard questions and it can be tricky, particularly if you're young and you're new, it can be tricky to ask those, but I recommend to everybody ask those questions.
You know, you're a startup, you've been around six months. How much money do you have in the bank? What's your runway now, they might not give you concrete answers, but at least you get a sense of how optimistic they are That they can deliver against, you know Those those schedules that they're giving you and I think you'd be very critical of it Like you would do if you were taking some of your money and buying those tokens, you know And educate yourself as much as you can do about what that actually means for you and don't get swayed by A potentially big pay packet in four years time.
Yeah, make sure you've looked at it very very critically And it was crazy now in hindsight, um, somebody could be, uh, somebody in November 2021 could be offered a hundred thousand of a [00:32:00] base salary and then by March of the following year could be getting an offer of a hundred and fifty. The thing was completely boiling out of proportion, um, but thankfully, uh, I think the industry needed a a blowout really, um, of bad actors, cheap cash, and I think now the industry is building and maturing, um, but, um, I guess with respect to, um, I suppose from a other perspective as well, I'm just, um, I would just like to mention as well that like for people getting experience in this space as well and just having to elaborate on it because I'm conscious that there's a younger audience listening in.
Um, there's a lot of DAOs out there as well. Um, you can participate in various different DAOs. Um. Out there and it could be a great way to fast track your career in blockchain tech, participate in various different DAOs, or look at projects building, [00:33:00] um, you know, and then you can build street credibility within those DAOs as well, get to know the main participants, and there's DAOs for literally just about everything as of now, and it's a great networking tool as well.
There's also. One other way that I'd say like fast tracking your skills in blockchain tech is, um, find a Ecosystem in blockchain that you're particularly interested in. It could be Cardano, Avalanche, Algorand, whatever. And find projects building within those ecosystems and effectively find, help out those projects, um, pro bono for a while and build credibility within those ecosystems.
And you'll find that these blockchain ecosystems are very tribal. And if somebody has a reputation for, or have been known for helping a project within an ecosystem, um, a lot of these projects will stick to that ecosystem and give preferential treatment to somebody that has already [00:34:00] contributed and showed passion to that ecosystem.
And I know I'm just going a little bit off topic there, but I just thought that'd be important to get in given the demographic of person listening. I think it's very important actually. And for those that, for those that don't know, you know, what is a DAO? A DAO, a Decentralized Autonomous Organization, um, in the vast majority of cases, it's just a discard, um, server, but, um, uh, yeah, again, it could revolutionize the future of, um, um, the DAO economy as one that is infinite possibilities, um, going forward in DAO economy.
I describe those effectively to many as a digital co op effectively. So everyone is contributing, everyone has voting rights, everyone can delegate voting rights. And yeah, they can effectively. take control and it means um, it allows more um, like minded [00:35:00] people to get together and work on things as well.
So for the creator economy, I think that um, DAOs are going to be huge and It's an interesting time as well for DAOs as well because could AI help scale DAOs going forward? It'll be very very interesting, but how can they be decentralized when um, AI Um, relies on, um, um, centralized learning the whole time.
So, um, yeah, it's, um, yeah, there's a whole rabbit hole there about. Yeah. Um, no, I think you're, you're right. Dows are a fantastic opportunity for people to get involved, particularly as you, you find projects that you're interested in and you join the discord or you're joined the community, but however, that community connects with each other and you can just start getting involved in the conversation.
So I think that's, what's fantastic about it. You know, it's the commitment is relatively low, but if you then find one that you're quite passionate about that you care about, you can get involved in the conversation. You can see where they need help. You can [00:36:00] see where you can provide something could be helping with the community.
It could be moderating the conversation. You know, there's entry level things you can do quite easily. There's and starts to get you recognized in that community. You start to become, as you say, one of that tribe. Um, So then when you've got skills you can offer, you can offer help, you can fix little books here or there, you can find books even, you know, there's bits you can do to support and straight away that community starts to know who you are.
When a bigger project comes up, you can put your name forward for it to say it can be, you can get involved quite easily then in a very different way to sort of the traditional applying for thousands of roles, seeing what happens, you know, it's, um, it's working with people that you've built a relationship with.
Yeah, no, 100 percent and, um. I guess, um, with regards to your audience as well and the college going folk as well. I would say that, um, if there's any hackathons in your, um, region as well, um, go to them. Fantastic, um, networking opportunity. Any [00:37:00] blockchain meetups, go to them as well. Um, the hackathons, you don't have to be a developer to go to the hackathons.
There are some good talks there, um. And even if you're a marketer, for example, you can go there and help out a team, um, with their presentation, for example, you don't need to be a developer because at these hackathons, the projects do need to present as well and give a presentation for, um, a couple of minutes as well.
So you could be the person that makes the, you could be the one presenting, you could be the one designing the pitch deck, you could be the one, um. Advising the developers with low communicative ability, um, as to how to, um, do the storytelling around the, um, the proposed offering. Yeah, so go to Hackathons 100 percent and thousands of people in blockchain tech will be hired through Hackathons over the next few years.
I can be certain of that. Oh, absolutely. The reason why. I was going to say, it's one of the best ways [00:38:00] of showcasing your skill sets is to be, you know, involved in a project for two days. Yeah, absolutely. And there's a lot of, what I would say, closet, um, Web3 enthusiasts out there that have the knowledge, they just don't necessarily have the experience.
And that knowledge and expertise just comes to fore in real life. And yeah, sometimes just can't be replicated on a LinkedIn profile, for example. Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. And that leads quite nicely actually onto my, you know, my final question is. Um, you know, as a parent or an educator, you know, of our audience, you know, how can they be helping to introduce, you know, the potential and the impact of blockchain and the careers available, you know, to the young people that they either work with or they're a, a parent of, how can they help get people involved in this space?
It's a very interesting question, um, and like, again, it could be something as simple as, um, turning on a [00:39:00] YouTube video. Um, I think that in blockchain tech, we are, um, we kind of have a misinterpretation or, um, we kind of don't fully understand or appreciate maybe a lot of us working in blockchain and how.
It's going to revolutionize everything. Um, like I suppose, um, it's, yeah, like again, we've just touched the tip of the iceberg, to be honest. Um, in terms of decentralized operating systems, decentralized social media platforms, um, again. It could be just something as simple as, uh, If you want your child to earn a lot of money, basically, you'll, you'll get him, um, You'll, you'll get him, um, learning, um, You'll get him learning, um, um, The basics of JavaScript, which will give you to, um, Hopefully getting an interest and passion, um, for Solidity, Um, in the next couple of years, but, uh, [00:40:00] And again, there's, I'm sure, as you're better versed than I am, but there is a lot of, um, resources out there for coding for young people out there as well.
So, um, I guess another aspect that I would maybe look at, um, as, as well, would be kind of, um, there's free courses online as well. Um, there's a. 12 week program. It might be more so for the adolescents rather than the children, but um the University of Nacoa should do a 12 week free program Introduction to digital currencies.
It gives a good history. It gives a good oversight of what blockchain is and what Yeah, just it's a great um, I suppose catch all 12 week program that can be done with two or three hours per week independent study and Yeah, all you need to do to sign up to that is have an email address and[00:41:00]
well, like for somebody that might be on a gap year, for example, or somebody that might be, um, be able, for a student that might be able to want an extra, an extra thing to look into at the weekend. It could be a good course to do, uh, Nicosia introduction to digital currencies. I think the first, the next onboarding is in a couple of weeks.
So now is actually good timing as well. And. Yeah, the cool thing about that as well is that you get a unique certificate of completion on the Bitcoin blockchain as well, which is, um, a nice little feature too. But, um, it's a nice touch. Yeah. We're, we're the, um, moving all our, uh, on Hundo. And when you get achievements and skills in your past courses, we now, you know, we now.
Have a blockchain version of that, which will be translating those onto blockchain. So you can prove in a verified way on chain that you actually did this and who it was for. So that's the way forward. I think that of course is, you know, it's a fantastic call out for, you [00:42:00] know, courses like that that you say are free.
You just need an email address and that gives you access to some fantastic resources. Um, likewise, check out what we're doing as well for anyone listening, you know, you can see, um, follow what we're doing for, you know, for potential to be able to learn more in this space. Um, but Owen, thank you very much.
Our time has come to an end, but thank you very much for that. I think it was very, very enlightening, very useful for everybody that was listening. Um. If anybody listening does have any questions and wants to reach out to us by all means do you can either Contact me on my linkedin and i'm sure the same for owen And we're always more than happy to answer questions, but thank you very much everybody.
Thanks very much. Cool
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