The Breakthrough Hiring Show: Modern Recruiting, AI, and Talent Strategy
Welcome to The Breakthrough Hiring Show: Recruiting, AI, and Talent Strategy, a podcast for leaders building better hiring systems and stronger teams.
Hosted by James Mackey, the show features conversations with founders, CEOs, talent leaders, and recruiting experts on how great companies hire, scale, and adapt as technology changes the talent landscape.
Episodes cover talent acquisition strategy, recruiting operations, AI, automation, candidate experience, hiring analytics, and executive decision-making.
You will learn how to build scalable hiring systems, use AI and recruiting technology effectively, improve the hiring process, and make talent acquisition a competitive advantage.
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The Breakthrough Hiring Show: Modern Recruiting, AI, and Talent Strategy
EP 171: AI talent pipelines: Strategies for sustainable hiring in an era of rapid change with Lupe Colangelo, Director of Alumni Engagement & Employer Partnerships at General Assembly.
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In this episode host James Mackey sits down with Lupe Colangelo, Director of Alumni Engagement & Employer Partnerships at General Assembly.
They provide insights into the evolving tech talent landscape with a special focus on AI hiring trends and challenges faced by employers and job seekers alike. Lupe shares key findings from GA's State of Tech Talent report while discussing practical strategies for building sustainable talent pipelines in a rapidly changing tech environment.
For more insights, check out General Assembly's State of Tech Talent report HERE.
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Welcome to Breakthrough Hiring Show
Speaker 1Hello , welcome to the Breakthrough Hiring Show . I'm your host , james Mackey . Today we have Lupe Colangelo with us . Lupe , thank you for joining me on the show today .
Speaker 2Thanks so much for having me .
Speaker 1Yes , and very excited to learn more about you . I know you do a lot of work with General Assembly and we're excited to learn more about your role and point of impact as Director of Alumni and Employer Engagements and Affiliate Partnerships . So and employer engagements and affiliate partnerships , so it sounds like you got a lot going on over there and very excited to learn about what you're doing at General Assembly .
Speaker 2Just to start us off , we'd love to learn a little bit more about you and how you ended up at General Assembly . Yeah , thanks so much again . So I started out as a career coach , actually , and I did this for a couple of different startups . I really enjoyed helping people find jobs and eventually the opportunity came up at General Assembly to be on their coaching team , which was after folks took our courses , and so that's where I started out .
Speaker 2General Assembly , for those who don't know , is a global tech talent and training company .
Speaker 2We actually started as a co-working space back in 2011 . And different entrepreneurs would teach each other different skills and eventually we grew into a tech training program and now we support large enterprises as well as they upskill and reskill their teams , and we also have consumer courses if people just want to learn different technical skills to help them in their careers . So that's where I started as a career coach , helping folks after they took our program while they were in their job search . I eventually really enjoyed talking to employers and figuring out what they were looking for and bringing that feedback back to candidates , and so that's where how I ended up in the employer partnerships role and then , most recently , have built out our alumni program , which just makes sure we're putting out the right resources in front of our candidates as they're in their job searches in the tech space , getting them connected to employers wherever we can and just
General Assembly: From Co-Working to Tech Training
Speaker 2trying to keep those different people talking to each other because it's a very volatile market . So the more resources we can put in front of folks , the better .
Speaker 1Okay , that's really cool . I'm curious to learn more about the types of services that you're offering to folks once they have done a course or certification program through General Assembly , because , I'm not mistaken , that was , at least at one time , the core business in which you had like boot camps , essentially to help folks learn engineering skills and programming languages and things of that nature . So that's where you started , right . That's where General Assembly started .
Speaker 2Yeah , it started as mainly a consumer business and very shortly after that's where enterprise business really took off , because employers were realizing that they could invest in that talent . But as far as the courses that people take themselves , we have work short workshops so you can literally just come for a day , learn something quickly and skill up a little bit . We also have short courses , which are great for kind of part-time folks that are just . I recently took our data analytics short course while working full-time , and so I think that's a great chance for someone to upskill while they're on the job . And then we also have full-time boot camps . So those are three-month programs that are more designed for career changers , and so those folks look for their first full-time role in tech after the program .
Speaker 2But , to answer your question , what we put in front of them really just depends on the resources that the different folks need . I focus a lot on different partnerships . So we recently launched a partnership with Upwork , which is a freelancing platform , and so GA grads can sign up to be freelancers and get featured on our page . We have partnerships with Prentice , which is a job search platform . It has a job board . It has AI resume support , so I'm trying to put a lot of resources in front of our alumni to help them pick and choose what they might need at any given moment .
Speaker 1Oh , that's awesome , Okay , cool . So once people have taken a course , for instance , what services do you have for helping them land their next role ? I know you so it sounds like on the enterprise level you do upskilling and reskilling of existing employee bases for enterprise companies , but I don't . Maybe it's through like a partnerships channel , or how are you actually helping folks that maybe are career changers or whatnot find a role once they complete courses with your team ?
Speaker 2Yeah , so we have . So I would start with our bootcamps , which have the most comprehensive support , because they're obviously geared towards a full career change . So for the boot camp grads for around six months currently our sister company , lhh , has a really great candidate platform that folks can have access to and there's content on there . There's limited coaching on there and different resources that they can tap into for the first few months of their job search . We also have career coaches who teach live workshops about tons of different topics and , depending on what they need , candidates can opt in and learn from those coaches live and ask questions in that kind of workshop type of setting .
Speaker 2We also have different communities . So we have a Slack community where we share resources and share opportunities that might come in through our network of employers , and we also I mentioned
Post-Course Services and Career Support
Speaker 2the partnership with Prentice , which is a really cool job search platform that actually scrapes opportunities the second that they're posted , so hopefully it helps people save time instead of spending hours browsing for open job posts . They can use this platform pretty quickly , and we have some different partnerships , like we are recently working with Jobscan , which is AI resume support . So we have a lot in place that can help people , depending on what they're looking for .
Speaker 1Okay , that's really cool . That's really cool . And so with the affiliate partnerships , could you tell me ? So that is , for instance , like , when you say partnerships , is it similar to this AI tool that you were just referring to ? What are all the different types of partnerships that you're building out ?
Speaker 2Yeah , as long as it's a company , as long as it's something that's helping people on a job search , we usually find a way to partner with them . So the ones I mentioned are a little bit more candidate facing . We also have some great partnerships with companies like Career , karma and Course Report , which are review websites , and so a lot of the times we try to partner with them to share our alumni stories , because we have some really great people that take our courses . So it's like what course did they take ? What was their experience like ? What are they doing now in the fields ? Because I think for us , storytelling is really important and just elevating our alumni as much as we can to show that you can do it is really cool . So that's what we try to focus on with our affiliate partners .
Speaker 1Got it Okay , cool . And so I know that your team just released the state of tech talent report , which we wanted to touch on , and we are going to hopefully find some link to a summary of the report or publicly facing version of the report that we can maybe put in the description of this episode , which would be great , so folks tuning in you can take a look at that . But I would love to get an overview of the findings for a state of tech talent and maybe some of the key stats or key findings . And then also I would love to just riff with you on that , just based on what I do , which is run an RPO company with 200 tech customers and then also run a software company that's building an AI solution for the recruiting space . So I think we could have a really good conversation about this and add a lot of value to the audience . So , anyways , just to get started , I'd love to learn more about the key findings that GA found .
Speaker 2Yeah and would love your take on it , because you're actually in the field doing it . So I'm curious what resonates with you . But I'll start with why the report exists , which is that with GA , because we hear so much from candidates and so much from employers , we like to be the thought leaders in the space and say , ok , here's what we're hearing . It sounds like people are talking about how they're integrating AI , they're talking about hiring trends , they're talking about the perceived shortage of tech talent . So we did this study and we surveyed so many different people in the industry and hiring leaders and just to understand how they think about building talent pipelines in 2025 and how they think about AI .
Speaker 2So some of the key findings were not surprising somewhere , but just some stats that stood out to me were that 75% of tech hiring leaders at companies using AI said that they're hiring AI talent too quickly without taking the time to build a sustainable pipeline , which I thought was interesting , because it seems there's this race to find good talent , but there needs to be more thought put into longer skill talent strategy .
Speaker 2The majority of recruiting leaders so 63% say that hiring candidates with AI skills is more challenging than non-AI roles . The majority also say that they're agreeing to higher salaries during negotiations with
State of Tech Talent Report Findings
Speaker 2AI candidates . So 95% actually say it's harder today than three years ago to find qualified candidates with both the soft and technical skills needed . So all of these stats are really saying that there is a race for talent . It's forcing companies to think about their strategy long-term . We also saw that 61% of organizations that are using AI say that the increased focus on AI skills has heightened the need for DEI , which is really interesting because there's a lot of conversation going on about that . So we found a lot of really interesting stats here , but I think the common thread is that having a long-term , sustainable talent pipeline is so important right now , even though you know you want to make an AI hire tomorrow , of course , but what does that mean for you five years from now and and what roles are you going to need filled ?
Speaker 1Okay , got it . And most of this data is coming from enterprise tech companies , or is it a combination of SMB and market and enterprise ?
Speaker 2It's a combination .
Speaker 1Okay , but is it bent one way or another ? I'm just curious , cause I've just , in terms of some of these stats , is it like a ? Just how is it weighed ? Are most of your customers in the enterprise space ?
Speaker 2Most of our customers are . I think the actual report will have a better breakdown than my brain will .
Speaker 1Yeah , sorry , there's a lot of content . I know there's a lot there .
Speaker 2Yeah , no , but to answer your question , yes , we do have mainly enterprise customers on that side of the business , because typically , when you're thinking about reskilling or upskilling , that tends to happen at scale , and so usually the companies that are willing and able to invest in it have a larger team at least that's already existing .
Speaker 1Exactly Cool . Just looking over some of these things too . Yeah , I mean it's definitely interesting , right ? The technology is evolving so quickly with LLMs , and a lot of companies are looking for folks that are very knowledgeable and working with AI and for folks tuning in . A lot of the hiring for engineers with folks with experience with AI it's not necessarily machine learning engineers where they're actually building algorithms . It's more at the application level , where they're leveraging open AI and different APIs from existing LLM models to create automation .
Speaker 1Work with creating assistants and agents , right , ai agents are essentially going to be the big thing in 2025 in terms of product startups that are created , as well as internal agents created by enterprise organizations . Internal agents created by enterprise organizations . And one way you can think about a definition of an AI agent is one that acts autonomously , so it's an assistant , might provide some automation , maybe like a co-pilot , for instance , right , or something that helps create content . That'd be considered an assistant . An agent is one that actually acts independently and takes action based on what they're pulling together . So an example of an agent would be recruiting somebody who does an agent that does an interview , qualification and then moves the candidate to the next round would be an agent versus an assistant would be a co-pilot that joins a recruiter on an interview and essentially helps with the note collection . So there's finding folks that truly understand even , for instance , like the difference of what I just said . It could go the layer deeper in terms of building these applications .
Speaker 1It's very hard and 80% of what makes a good like AI engineer right , like at the application level , it's still just like a solid engineer . Right , like at the application level , it's still just like a solid engineer . Right , like somebody who's just like down the pipe really , good . But there is this layer of this need for , hopefully , have you know , can we find engineers that have experience with AI native products , right , or that are leveraging AI from the ground up ?
Speaker 1And there definitely is a gap , a talent gap , at that level , because a lot of companies are looking for experts Right , but the tech hasn't been around for years and years , right . So it's how to find those top people . Curious like that's probably . I would think a big focus of GA right now is how can we upskill folks so that they're qualified to take on this , almost like a strategic point of impact , because that's really what this is about . They already have the solid coding skills , hopefully , if they're being considered for these roles , but there's like this strategic motion of understanding how to incorporate , like API plugins , essentially to create these agents .
Speaker 2Yeah , you said it perfectly . Like I think it's it's still at the core of it . Like you need to be a good engineer to be a good AI engineer , because you need to know the right prompts to put in and you need to know , like , how to spot the errors , because it's gonna they're going to be errors . This is not a perfect technology , so , like you still have to know the ins and outs of the role , and I think there are so many candidates that are worried about AI taking over their jobs . But I think the position that we've taken is really that it's not necessarily going to eliminate the need for specific tech talent , but the talent just has to integrate it and understand , and different companies will treat it very differently , which is fine . Some companies will not allow their employees to use it very differently , which is fine . Some companies will not allow their employees to use it , but it's still important to understand how you're using it , when it's ethical to use it . When it's not .
Speaker 2What your company policy looks like . And I think there are a lot of companies that are hiring talent at the top to inform that policy , because you need the CTO to be able to say here's our policy around using AI and I think , as far as training goes , we were ahead of the curve in terms of we've already incorporated how to use AI within all of our courses , ensuring that , regardless of the discipline that we're teaching , that we're talking about it and we've also a sneak peek we're going to be putting out more courses around how non-technical employees can leverage AI as well , because that's important too . Like you said , a recruiter is not necessarily a technical candidate all the time , but they're going to be using AI . We're trying to think about how to upskill non-technical employees as well .
Speaker 1Yeah , it's definitely . It's really interesting and I'm sure from a content generation perspective for GA that's going to be a very heavy lift because things are moving so fast . I feel like as soon as you guys create a course , there's going to be like some new iteration of open AI is like operator version right , or just something right where it's like just constantly evolving and changing . So I'm sure you're going
College Degrees vs Skills-Based Hiring
Speaker 1to be putting out a lot of courses on this .
Speaker 2Yeah , I think that's what I will say too is GA is not an asynchronous course , and I think that is what's going to set us apart , I think , as AI goes forward , because we have instructors like that's our .
Speaker 1Oh , so all the bootcamps are like their actual , like teacher , professors or teachers . Okay , so it's not . None of it is . Or maybe you do have some recorded courses , I don't know . Or is it all interactive ?
Speaker 2We have a little bit of everything . So if you were to take a bootcamp , for example , there's recorded content that supplements the in-course experience and then our instructors . Obviously we have a core curriculum , as any live course would have , that they follow . But I think what makes GA stand out in the market , especially in a changing market right now , is that our instructors are industry practitioners . So our instructors are lead data scientists , like they're doing it on the job . So I think they can provide more than what you might see in an asynchronous course that went out a year ago , which is , hey , I'm on the job . Actually , here's how we use AI in the real world . So , on top of your lesson that you're getting from GA , they can answer students' questions about what it looks like in the workplace , which I think sets us apart because we have such a diverse group of instructors and we're really leaning into them during a moment like this where you need to adapt quickly .
Speaker 1Yeah , it's essentially like you have on-call advisors , like you have people , exactly To me that's so I'm really glad I asked for clarification there , because , thank you , because that's like way more valuable just given how fast things are changing , right , because the asynchronous approach where it's like recorded coursework , it's like as soon as you get something out , it's just going to have to like rerecord every quarter and it's also . This is also way more helpful for folks that maybe are upskilling within organizations . So it's like you have somebody who's on the job and they're trying to figure out how to progress in their career , get the promotion or just curious , they just want to be good at their job , right . Like just having that live information on the latest stuff would be , I would assume , being like way more valuable .
Speaker 2Yeah , and we also . We do have some content . That's supplementary , like you said , like there is reported content , there are decks , there's we have all of that . But the great thing is that we have skills boards that inform those courses Every couple of months . We make sure that it's super relevant , and those skills boards are also industry leaders . So we have folks from top companies . We have an AI skills board , we have one for engineering . They're coming to us and saying to our product teams here's what we're looking for as we build out our talent pipeline . So we can always make sure that our course is actually meeting the needs of what the market's looking for .
Speaker 1Yeah , definitely , I'd say it's really fascinating . I'm curious . On the employer side it sounds like they're basically saying of course it's harder to find folks that have the qualifications , they're of course offering higher salaries , all of that tracks Okay . So it says 53% still rely on college degrees , which that must be in the enterprise space , because that's definitely not startup or growth stage . So that must be more so enterprise . But I would assume that's going to drop significantly . But I would assume that's going to drop significantly , like not just single digit percentage points . If folks want to hire in this space because it's going to be so competitive and there is still going to be a talent gap and they're going to want to hire great people quickly , like they have to hire very fast or they're going to get left behind , so I feel like they're going to have to more enterprise companies are going to have to drop that requirement .
Speaker 2I would say this has been a debate for so long and , like I've been in it for the last five or so years , I've always felt the debate that I've heard has always been college degree or no college degree . I actually don't feel that it's one or the other . I've always been of the opinion that a really competitive company is going to have their talent coming from everywhere . I think that the companies that have a very diverse talent pool are the ones that are going to stay ahead , because there's still a need for a computer science grad . I would never say that a bootcamp grad and a computer science grad are going to satisfy the same need every single time . There are totally there's . There should always be a place for a computer science grad , because they focus so much on backend , for example , they go super in depth on certain fundamental things that you would need your technical talent to know .
Speaker 2At the same time , a bootcamp grad has a complete , like a completely unique skillset as well . Right , these folks are , for the most part , career changers , so they're coming in with really transferable soft skills . They learn extremely quickly , at least at GA . The bootcamps are so difficult and so it's constant learning , and you want a talent , especially for engineering , for example . We focus a lot on front-end development . You want talent that can pick different languages up very quickly , so I think there's a need to have pipelines coming from all those different places , because you never know who's going to fit a need at a certain point . You want to have talent that's constantly learning and evolving , so I've been of the opinion that if you have a diverse talent pool , you're going to be more competitive yeah , for sure .
Speaker 1I think for me and what I advise my customers on , I really I don't put a lot . I don't really hardly ever want there to be a requirement for a college degrees , for instance , like if somebody has a computer science degree from MIT and they graduated with honor , yeah , that's great , that's impressive , right , I'm going to consider that . But typically what I'm really looking at is past work experience . I'm looking at what they can do and for me , I put a massive emphasis on references being able to verify performance , verify projects , verify the coding languages , for instance . In this case , like , what have they done ? Can they get references from several previous direct managers , not just like a peer or somebody they were loosely connected to within the organization , but have the people they worked for said , yes , that person did a really incredible job and I can confirm that they're an expert in X , y and Z .
Speaker 1To me , that's way more important . So in some cases , I would honestly like the idea of somebody who's a lifelong learner , somebody who's ambitious and career driven and focused , often for these roles , because these are challenging , demanding roles that we're talking about here , and so we need people that are really like this they're laser focused on their career to be able to take companies from zero to one with AI . I would prefer to have somebody that's like doing the job , hands on , doing the extra , the certifications or the boot camps , incorporating that into their work , even if they're not doing all of it in their current role side projects , right , can they take what they're learning at GA and take on some contracting on the side ? I would probably I'd have a bias , honestly , toward that type of experience , particularly if I can validate it through references , because it's really okay . This person literally just did this .
Speaker 2Exactly .
Speaker 1You know what I mean . So , versus an education of 10 , 15 years , which is a solid foundation , right , like it's all , as you said , like having a diverse candidate pool employee base is great , it's just yeah , I can't . I think for this type of talent , if you're just going to stick to that as a hard requirement , a pass fail requirement , you're just going to . I think you run a greater risk of falling behind , unless you're just going to throw like $400,000 salaries at everybody and then get away with it Just like Stanford , mit grads or something .
Speaker 2Yeah , I think that , like the references , is a great way to go about it .
Speaker 2I think what hiring teams are realizing is that education can only go so far and I think , going back to the report , that's why we see an increase in skills-based hiring methods as well . I've heard from a lot of employers pretty similar to you . Like I look at their resume and work experience , but then how do I know they can actually do what's written on the resume ? So we see a ton of like technical assessments go out and I think that makes it a pretty even playing field , because you're not saying do you have a degree or do you not have a degree . They're saying can you do the technical task that we are putting in front of you ? Great , then it doesn't really matter where you came from , right , like , as long as you have the references , the soft skills , the technical skills , I think it makes it a little bit more equitable , because there's something to be said about someone that goes out of their way to learn or make a career pivot because they really want to be there . Like that drive is really important when you're hiring talent as well .
Speaker 1Yeah , I couldn't agree more . I think both are very valuable and I'm curious to learn from if you have any data on the candidate side some of the do you happen to know , like when they're interviewing with companies , anything on the AI side , like what are they being asked or like what are the biggest challenges they're encountering on the job market ?
Speaker 2Yeah , I hear a lot of anecdotal data from candidates . I would say the biggest trends with that would be like one an employer I would say employers are assuming at this point that candidates know how to use AI . So the assumption is there . They know that candidates , if they're going to hire someone , this candidate should know , like , the ethics of using AI . They should be asking questions about it . They should know how it's going to help them in a day-to-day capacity , be more efficient in their jobs . So I think the assumption like we're already past that I think in interviews candidates are being asked to disclose if they use AI .
Speaker 2If it's part of an assessment , some companies are prohibiting it . Some companies don't care , as long as you're disclosing that you used it . If it's not an AI focused role , there's a lot more leniency there and it probably just depends on company policy . But if , for example , if it's an AI engineer type of role , then they are being grilled on necessarily how they're using it , how they would think about approaching it for different technical tasks . And then whiteboarding , virtually at least , is still pretty popular for technical assessments . So there are some cases where I've heard of candidates being asked to use
AI Skills and Career Advancement Tips
Speaker 2different AI tools in a technical assessment just to show if it's like a prompt engineer type of role . Obviously , now that's part of the hiring process .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , I mean , there's still this hurdle , sometimes even with boot camps , where sometimes employers are looking for the real world experience that is , still there are some biases toward that and frankly , even you know , at times , like for certain roles , like that is still even my preference , right , it's hey , because there's the messiness of actually working within projects and things coming up and the collaboration piece and just like the random kind of wrenches that get thrown into stuff right , and how you solve problem solve for those situations when everything gets off track . But it's still like incredibly valuable to have people that just like at least fundamentally understand and have some experience and again , like with a real world . Guidance to me is a lot , it makes it a lot more valuable and I think that's one thing I would . If I was a GA candidate for a job and I had a boot camp , I would .
Speaker 1I would probably emphasize the fact that it's a live course with a instructor . It's not asynchronous . It's like we literally were talking about strategies last week that were being implemented at their employer . I talked to the teacher about what they're doing at whatever their employer is and how they've gone about problem solving , and I have access to this community that I can like tap into and really talking about . Uh , I think that'll help overcome if there are employers that are skeptical or they're like prioritizing like the actual work experience . I feel like referencing the fact that it's yeah , it's a bootcamp and it's a very interactive and I have access to these resources and these people to advise me , and it's like very kind .
Speaker 2And , like when I took the course , I was embarrassed because I had worked at GA for so long and I had never taken a course , and I regret it because it took me so long . But when I finally took our analytics course , I was so shocked at how I would say like the structure was really important to have . But I really valued that one-on-one time with the instructor during office hours just to say , okay , because you're working on projects and you have to present the projects and the instructor gives you feedback for each project , and so it's not just hearing how they use it on the job , it's having the chief data scientist from this company look at your work and say does it track with how we would use this in a real world setting ? Here are the things you should work on . So just the value of having feedback when you are looking to upskill like you just simply don't get that from an assessment the same way that you would from someone who's in the field every day .
Speaker 1Yeah , absolutely yeah , I think that's that's . It's really solid , it sounds really and it's a lot better than a lot of the programs out there , I think .
Speaker 2You have me sold .
Speaker 1If I decide to become an engineer , which I don't think I will , but definitely I think that this is the way to go , and in fact my brother many years ago he was doing a career change and he actually used GA Really , did a boot camp and he landed a great job and now he's a senior engineer and he's doing great . So that's how he started and he was able to find a job , I think pretty quickly after .
Speaker 2Yeah , you see , that's one really great to hear . That's . Yeah , I love hearing like that alumni or when they end up really happy with the career change because it's a big risk and I respect everyone that does it because it's a ton of work . But yeah , even in a market like we are in right now there's so much . There's a lot of kind of anxiety because we're hearing about what they offset different companies , hearing a ton of different conversations about AI , but there's still a lot of growth and even if someone's doing a career change now , there are companies that are hiring at scale . There are companies that are opening up junior level roles . It might take a little longer depending on the industry , but there's so much growth out there , especially now with AI . I still feel very encouraged about where the market's going .
Speaker 1Yeah , I think so . I think for candidates out there , if you're in engineering or I suppose even if you're not , if you're in HR , it really doesn't matter anywhere . Particularly if you're in engineering and your current role is not incorporating AI to any extent , I would see that as a pretty big threat and I would see it as okay . You need to really prioritize upskilling to make sure that your skillset is as in demand as possible , and I think GA could be a huge part of that . And I would just put an emphasis on side projects as well going and proactively applying to jobs that are incorporating AI and then taking on maybe some side projects to get some real world experience that you can leverage as well . Just so you have both . You have GA , then you also have , hopefully , references from side projects and then references from past employers , and try to make as compelling of a case as possible that you're qualified for some of these roles that require more of an AI background .
Speaker 2Right , yeah , I'm a big fan of freelancing . I always encourage it , even if our candidates are looking for full-time jobs , because I do see a lot of companies even if they have hiring freezes , they're always looking for freelancers . They have contract roles that come up . So it's a great way for someone getting started to just earn money , work with some clients , and it's also great job security . Like worst case if there are layoffs . It's so nice to have freelancing skills in your back pocket if you ever need them to just keep some job security in the meantime and for tech roles . It definitely can't hurt to be open to both .
Speaker 1Oh yeah , for sure , for sure . Particularly , while you're gaining experience , you just you got to find a way to get the experience as fast as possible . Just add it to your skill set . So yeah , lupe , this has been a really fantastic conversation . I feel like this has been very valuable to our audience . I'm looking forward to promoting this and getting in front of people Before we jump off . Is there anything else that you wanted to mention today ?
Speaker 2I would just highlight the State of Tech Talent Report . I think there are a lot of great nuggets in there and just different feedback from , especially if you're a candidate or an employer that's just looking to get feedback from how other folks are thinking about this . I think there's a lot of great research in there that I'm going to be using in my day to day role , so definitely would point people to that .
Speaker 1Absolutely . We're definitely going to put it in the description . So everybody tuning in make sure to check it out there . Lupe , thank you so much for joining us . You're welcome to come back on the show anytime you want to , anytime you put out new reports or you have any more updates on what GA is doing and any changes , We'd love to hear from you .
Speaker 2Thanks so much for having me .
Speaker 1Absolutely , and everybody tuning in . Thank you so much . We'll talk to you next
Value of Live Learning and Closing Thoughts
Speaker 1time , take care .
