Finding opportunities in a recession and the importance of doing research during the interview process with Evan Walden of Getro

Maren Kate
Howdy folks, welcome to Inde on Air. My guest today is Evan Walden, who's currently the CEO at Monday.vc and recently launched Getro.org, which is a nonprofit aimed at helping people find jobs during the COVID crisis at companies that are still hiring. So Evan, I'm super happy to have you on the show. And just looking through your experience, you and I have talked over the years, I was thinking, it's kind of fair to say that you have been focused on connecting people with meaningful work most of your career.

Evan Walden
That's true.

Maren Kate
So, first of all, how and why were you drawn to that?

Evan Walden
Yeah. it's kind of a funny story to tell in in retrospect. But my first job out of college was selling pesticides. So I was a pesticide salesman for almost two years. And it was actually a great job, I learned a lot. But what I realized is that meaningful work was so important to me, and I didn't feel it where I was. And I started reaching out to all my best friends from college and kind of saying, Hey, what are you guys up to, and everyone was, like, work is supposed to suck, deal with it. And for me, that was the first time I really realized that in my career, I would need to have meaningful work to be satisfied, and I wanted to help other people find it. And that was the spark, the initial spark that led me to starting my first company, which was a recruiting agency, to help people find more meaningful jobs.

Maren Kate
I love that. I remember similarly, my first office job, it was the summer of my senior year in high school, I was 18, or 17. And I was just doing paperwork for some dude from my church. And I remember thinking, this is the most unhappy I've ever been in my life. And it was because I was stuck at this desk, there were no windows. And I remember just being like, I just, I literally cannot. So it's interesting what pushes you into that. So just quickly with what you're doing now, first of all, with Monday, just in 60 seconds or less, tell our audience why you founded the company, when you founded it, and kind of what you guys do?

Evan Walden
Sure. Yeah, the company was founded around 2017. And in a way, it came out of the work that I was doing in my first company. So we realized that it was challenging to scale the recruiting business model, and we were inspired to help more people. We also started to notice that the best candidates, we were connecting companies were coming through referrals. So we were wondering, why is it so hard for companies to find referrals, and as a professional, you tend to go to your network first when you're looking for a new thing. So how do we help people do that better And that was the initial spark for Monday VC. And we initially wanted to build a talent marketplace. And we asked ourselves how we were going to get started and why people would care about a little startup from a marketing standpoint, how to launch the company. And we had the idea to work with investors, because investors tend to have strong relationships with their portfolio companies. And we thought that if we could help them solve their problems in connecting talent to the portfolio, then eventually, we might be able to work with our portfolio companies and that would be a great way to start the business. So that's how we got started. And today, our main focus is working with venture capital funds and other kinds of professional networks. And we build job boards and private talent networks that help them connect talent to the portfolio companies.

Maren Kate
So how big are you guys right now?

Evan Walden
We have 15 people full time on the team. So we're remote,

Maren Kate
Pre COVID remote, though?. Yeah. Nice. Okay, so you guys were already doing this before it was cool.

Evan Walden
Yeah, we started the company remotely. My co founder Raul was from Spain. And we had some folks in Spain that we really wanted to work with. And we realized that talent was all over the world. And if we wanted to be competitive in the future, we thought it would be important for us to be remote. And from a lifestyle standpoint, it was also something that we were interested in.

Maren Kate
Absolutely. So with the VCs that you work with, are they all over the world? Are they in North America, Europe?

Evan Walden
They're all over the world. About 70% of our customers are in the US and the rest are international. Canada and Europe I'd say are the two two biggest markets for us outside of the US.

Maren Kate
Okay, cool. So tell me about Getro.org. When did you guys spin that up? And how are you helping people actually get work right now?

Evan Walden
Yeah, so we started thinking about this pretty early on. Obviously, the health care element of COVID-19 was the thing on everyone's mind. But pretty soon after things were happening, my co founder and I realized that this is going to have a huge economic impact, and a lot of people are going to lose their jobs. And we started wondering whether or not our software could support and help people get back to work when the time was right. So we started brainstorming that we ended up launching a few small projects. With this in mind, and then we ended up getting approached by a woman named Ashley Nuikki, she's a career recruiter and had built a pretty big community of people who were laid off and looking for opportunities, and asked if we could support the list that she had built, and really just collaborate to launch a project around this. So we decided to do something bigger and launched Getro.org. And the intention really is to, in a way partner with our VC customers and other folks in our network to source companies that we know are still hiring. And our job board on Getro.org that has hundreds of tech companies that are hiring, and we have their jobs there. So that's a free resource for anyone to go take a look at and search and browse and go through and apply to those jobs. We're also working directly with hiring managers from those companies, and building talent newsletters so that they can see folks who have been newly laid off and are looking for work. We're also making direct matches between people who sign up on the website and the companies that are hiring.

Maren Kate
Okay, great. So just to spell it out, it's g e t r o.org. For anyone who wants to go check that out, I was just checking it out earlier. So one of the reasons we're connecting is I'm in the midst of writing this book, and it's called Going Remote and the one of the main themes is helping job seekers in today's economy, not only find work, but stand out and land interviews, and then that leads, ideally to meaningful work. One of my businesses, we have a boutique recruiting agency, and we're focused on remote and one of the things we always saw is, in before COVID, there was, I would say on average, depending on the role, anywhere from a few hundred up to one thousand applicants for remote roles. And now, the majority of them are not a fit for a variety of reasons. But often that amount can break people's hiring process. It can overwhelm hiring managers. So from the candidate’ss perspective, you have so much experience in this, what do you see the best candidates doing that most others are overlooking?

Evan Walden
It’s a great question. It's really hard to differentiate, especially in a market like this where there is so much competition, There's a few things that I would recommend, one is trying to do enough research about the company so that you understand at least the mission of the company, why the company exists. And not only that mission really aligns with what you're excited about. And it's not just because that will make you happier in the job, which it probably will. But when a company is evaluating a candidate, it's important that they have the skills, but it's also important that they really are bought into the mission of the company, especially for smaller companies. And that can really help folks stand out right out of the gate. As a hiring manager, if I believe that a candidate is really bought into the mission of the business that stands out to me compared to others. So that's a big one. And it's fairly straightforward to do. The second thing I see that I don't think many folks are doing is basically front loading the reference. So in other words, the resume is a document that we create about ourselves. And we are incentivized to tell the best possible story. And so as a hiring manager, I only have one point of information. But you have lots of people who you've worked with in your past career, who may be willing to vouch for you. And even if it's just a paragraph or two, write about their experience. And if you include something like that, in the application, in a cover letter, or at the bottom of a resume, it gives a little bit more context for the hiring manager about folks you've worked with, who's willing to vouch for you, and it ends up being one step beyond and helps the recruiting manager, bring you further down the funnel in the way that they're thinking about you compared to other candidates.

Maren Kate
It's social proof. It's so interesting, I actually did that when I was in between gigs and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do next. I'm an entrepreneur, I've had an interesting nonlinear path, but I've worked with some really interesting people. So I reached out to a previous investor, Jason Calacanis. I reached out to Alex at Calm who I worked for for a while and I was like, Hey, would you guys mind throwing together a sentence or two on what I'm good at? And those two little pings at the top, especially since I'm in the tech industry made such a difference. And that's something that when I'm telling people about resumes, I'm like, think of it in terms of components. If you've worked for yourself a lot, your resume, whatever, it's going to look different than if you've been, it may be larger companies, but maybe phenomenal references. Maybe you have all these side projects. So it's really getting creative. I love that idea of front loading resume references and putting it up front, before someone has a chance to DQ you or whatever.

Evan Walden
Yeah, you could think of think of yourself as a product that you're essentially trying, like your landing page. So you can take a lot of best practices from online marketing, in a lot of ways.

Maren Kate
Yes, that's exactly what me and my co founder have been talking about. How do we build products? How do we have professionals understand their the product and then build a product marketing suite for that, especially nowadays? Okay, so I guess another one would be, what are the biggest mistakes you see candidates making, especially when they're applying for remote roles? And obviously, everything's remote right now, some things are going to go back to an office, but there's already a surge in companies shifting to remote. And as we already spoke about that, that adds more competition. But also, I think sometimes the mistakes people make are different, and especially because it's new to navigate if you haven't done it before.

Evan Walden
Sure. Yeah, I mean, we could talk about the mistakes in terms of how to position yourself well, for my job, versus the actual challenges of working remotely. If you have worked remotely before, I think it's really important to showcase that and be really clear about, number one, the fact that you have worked remotely, what was the context of you working remotely? And did it energize you and why and I actually think it's worth, a whole paragraph around that in a cover letter or in an email to the hiring manager. Because as a company, ourselves, who's been doing a lot of hiring, and looking for folks with remote experience, there actually isn't that many folks who have truly worked remotely for multiple years. So if you have that experience, showcase it. If you don't have that experience, and you think it's something you might love to do, but you haven't had a chance to do it yet, I would recommend thinking about the qualities that you have that make you think you'll be good at working remotely.

Maren Kate
It's like remote fluency, how can you show off your remote fluency?

Evan Walden
Imagine someone asks you the question, why do you think you would be good at working remotely? And just answer that question upfront? Because that's what the hiring manager is trying to figure out.

Maren Kate
You know, another thing that I've seen at my agency over the years is when one of the filter questions we will often have clients use is What draws you to this job, this specific position and this company? And if it's a remote job, I wouldn't say nine times out of 10, people will say I really want to work remote, and it's just instantly kind of a deal killer because at the end of the day, you know hiring managers don't care about you, they care about this pain they have and they need to fill. The equivalent is if you went on a date, and someone's like, so why did you ask me out or blah, blah, blah, and you're like, I really want a girlfriend. It's like, wait, no, that has nothing to do with me, you're making it about you, Oviously, you want to work remote, you're applying for a remote role, but don't lead with that, lead with what interests you about the company and the job, speak to the person, like sell it a little bit.

Evan Walden
Totally agree. If you can, the best way to do it is to try to frame your background, as pieces of evidence that you you can solve the problem that the company is trying to solve. So like a company hires a new person when they have a set of problems that can't be solved by the current team. So understanding what those problems are, and then positioning as much evidence as you can, ideally, quantitative data of things that you've done, that create evidence that you can solve that problem is a very concrete way to present yourself.

Maren Kate
What about referrals? Obviously referrals are such a huge way of getting a job. And if you have a strong network, the better but what if you don't have a strong network? What if you're just starting out? What if you're getting back into it for whatever reason, how would you approach that if you were the one looking for work right now?

Evan Walden
Yeah, well, one thing that just blows my mind is that I think rejection is really scary for the human brain for everybody. And anyone who says it's not scary, as you know, they may be lying. Maybe they just figured out some secret, but I think it's hard. And so in thinking about reaching out to people who you don't know, it can be intimidating, but because that's true, not many people are actually doing it. So there's actually a lot of competition. And in other words, reaching out to people cold on LinkedIn, or over email, actually has a pretty high response rate, if you can craft an email that's personal, and that actually gets people inspired to help. So what I would recommend is thinking about where you want to be in your career, three years from now, five years from now, and writing some qualities down and then just starting to search LinkedIn and trying to find people who are already there, and reaching out to them just with like an InMail, or an email and asking them if they'd be willing to call and give you some advice about how they got to that place. And from there, you're starting to build your network. And once that person gets engaged with you, if you're asking really engaging questions, people love to help and you start to onboard, new people with their networks onto your team to help you find a job. And that ends up being the kind of individual who could help you with a reference or a referral. If you don't have as big of a network as you'd like to have.

Maren Kate
The world is so connected, often, there might be a few few layers of connection, you can actually get directly to that person. And you're right, people don't reach out. I mean, I am doing a call with a woman later who reached out she's going to Oxford about some, some app she's building and I was like, I don't really know if I can offer much. She's like, Yeah, this is why I would love your help. Oh, well, it's like, sure. Like, why not? I'll give you 30 minutes. And it's authentic. And if you can understand kind of the thought process. So slightly random question. I'm just I'm asking this a lot, because it's interesting. What costs have you cut personally or professionally since all this started? If any?

Evan Walden
Huh, interesting. Well, I mean, one natural thing is that I'm just eating a lot more at home. Like I'm not running around as much.

Maren Kate
It's crazy how much that saves.

Evan Walden
Yeah, that's been huge. That's definitely the biggest thing.

Maren Kate
Especially as New Yorkers, I'm like, Ididn't realize how much money I spent on food.

Evan Walden
Totally, food, transportation, Ubers, and all of this. I think the amount of traveling around that I was doing, and am no longer doing. So yeah, it's funny. I don't have a lot of major expenses. Maren Kate
What about professionally?
Evan Walden
Yeah, professionally. You know, we've been we've been fortunate that right now, we're seeing growth. We’ve been expanding actually. Our major customer is our VCs. And so from a budget standpoint, they tend to be locking in their operating budgets over six, seven years, or the lifecycle of the fund. So they're not the short term, and it's a really good time for VCs to help the companies that are not doing as well. And also to really throw some gasoline on the companies that are doing well. So if they're not doing as many deals, they have a little bit more bandwidth to be supporting with things like recruiting.

Maren Kate
Interesting. So even if their companies may be aren't hiring as much as they were six months ago, they're planning for the next several years.

Evan Walden
In the VC world, if this is interesting to you, I guess. It's very polarized. Like I've heard folks say somewhere between 50 to 60% of their portfolio companies they think will fail because of this. But 10, 20% depending on what markets you invest in, are just rocket shipping. exploding. Like telemarketing food delivery, health care.

Maren Kate
Anything remote or supporting the remote ecosystem.

Evan Walden
Yeah, so there's some industries that are that are growing really fast still.

Maren Kate
That's actually a perfect segue. What are the silver linings or opportunities that you see for individuals specifically for professionals right now?

Evan Walden
Well, I think anytime there's a crisis, it's an opportunity to take a step back and evaluate what really matters. And when we see how easy it is and how fragile life is, It's sad. But it can also be a moment to inspire us to understand how we want to spend our time. Yeah, I think there's going to be a lot of pivoting that happens, career wise for folks after this. And right now, there's a lot of people who are feeling some really immense pain from what's happening. But we're gonna get through it. And on the other side, I think there can be some really beautiful things that come from slowing down.

Maren Kate
Where do you see the the future proofed careers in the next 10 years? Where people are going to be shifting towards from where we have been?

Evan Walden
Great question. Well, I mean, in 10 years, I think we'll see the automation just continue around things that are easily repeatable. So I think that creative work that's challenging to automate will always be available, but also will become more competitive in a lot of ways. So finding something really specific that you're really good at. And then doing that for yourself, I think ends up being probably the easiest way to future proof. Being on the cutting edge of technology, and where technology is going is also something that I think is fairly reliable, but I think we'll just continue to see it will get easier and easier to be a freelancer and easier and easier to source new gigs or manage healthcare, all the all the logistics that are just really challenging around being a freelancer, I think will get easier. You see platforms like Etsy, for example, where you can make things and build your own business. I think in the knowledge work world, we have platforms like Upwork, that you could kind of say are doing that right now. But I just see that getting bigger and bigger.

Maren Kate
I hope so. I think the other thing to think about exactly ties into your point on, in times of crisis we have time to pause and think about what's important. What I think about is the idea of independence. Especially in the last 20,30 years, we've racked up so much debt as a society, we've lived beyond our means. Even I just closed on my apartment in New York, and I was like, I can't believe I pay this for this space. And, you think about especially with remote work, with just technology, people have an ability to live in different places, you know, maybe after this, people choose to save more, or downsize or spend less or live more within their means. And when you start doing that, when you live under your means you you have a lot more freedom and independence, versus if you're in the middle of Manhattan, and you have to make a crazy wage just to keep up and you're always falling behind. You could live in Waxahachie, Texas, have,some side gigs of freelance, you know, do your own woodworking and you could have a great life. It's recalibrating what really matters, like what drives us both personally and professionally. And then building our career from there. But no matter what, in terms of future proof, creativity, technology, and more than anything, the ability to learn new things, to constantly adapt like that. It's like adapt or die as professionals.

Evan Walden
I would add to that, and say that believing in yourself is really the currency. Because there’s nothing special about entrepreneurs, you know people just decided to start things, they just decided to do it. And for folks who haven't had the opportunity to start something, there can be a mindset around like, I'm not really someone who could do that. The only difference is that you haven't tried to do that yet. It's I don't think it's really like a special gene. I think that, you know, if you find something that really gives you energy that you see people light up for, you know, follow that and double down on yourself. And that's how any of these things happen. It's just totally, and that's any first step.

Maren Kate
It creates energy too, which is great. Okay, final questions. Last minute. So really quickly, what does independence mean to you? When you think about it personally, professionally.

Evan Walden
To me, independence is the feeling the freedom of making decisions that are in alignment with my values.

Maren Kate
Do you feel like you've achieved that?

Evan Walden
I think it's a mindset.

Maren Kate
So it's kind of a continual thing?

Evan Walden
Yeah, I think it's always something that I try to check in on. But I do. Yeah, I do feel like I've achieved that.

Maren Kate
That's rad. What's your favorite book or podcast in the last six months?

Evan Walden
Oh, man, there's this book called The Great CEO Within that was written by an executive coach. And I can't remember his name off the top of my head. It was circulating around Silicon Valley, in a word document for a long time. And then someone finally made it into a book. You can buy it on Amazon. It's by far the best business book I've ever read. It's like 100 pages, concise just aggregating lots and lots of lessons that I'd seen in other places into one little book. So I'd highly recommend it.

Maren Kate
Oh, awesome. Okay, what is a business tool you couldn't live without, but not one most people know.

Evan Walden
We have started doing all of our urgent communication over Telegram. We were using Slack and then we started using WhatsApp voice notes. And now we use telegram voice notes because you can play them at 2x. So my co founder and I are constantly sending each other telegram voice notes as a way to just asynchronously move balls forward without having to do as much typing.

Maren Kate
I love that. I'm actually gonna try that because I definitely love those notes. And lastly, how can people find out more about you? Monday.vc and Getro?

Evan Walden
Yeah, so Monday.vc is our website Getro.org I think would be probably more relevant to folks who are listening if you're looking for an opportunity you can always find me on LinkedIn or find me on Twitter at Evan Walden @itsevanwalden. drop me a note I'm always happy to help if I can. Awesome, Evan, thank

Maren Kate
Awesome, Evan, thank you so much. This has been awesome.

Evan Walden
Yeah, thank you. This is really fun.