welcome to service sharp this is a podcast all about service now we'll be talking strategy architecture technology and everything service now this podcast is not affiliated with ServiceNow the opinions expressed are our own we're just people that are very passionate about the platform join us for every episode [Music] welcome back this is Jason Gibson with service Sharpe with me today is Avery Williamson and Randy Haas Randy of course you know pretty well but Avery tell us a little bit about yourself uh yeah no I appreciate you having me on today I'm very excited to be here yeah my name is avery I work at a Nelson Frank we're a service now recruitment group here and I'm based in the Philadelphia office here pretty much my job is to connect service non-professionals with opportunities that forward their careers in their lives and that's that's what I do on a day-to-day basis and I have an absolute blast awesome no Nelson Frank they're there they are they the largest service now recruiting company yeah so we've worked with over 30,000 organizations worldwide you know we have thousands and thousands of service not professionals in our database and actually interestingly we work with nearly three-quarters of ServiceNow partner companies so yeah and interestingly unlike other IT recruitment groups we focus specifically on service now so other IT groups might do you know everything under the Sun right but our goal is to is to only find service not professionals opportunities and and also help our clients find great talent right and that's you know that's all we focus on so that's kind of the the interesting thing about our group here you know and and we have a true passion for the platform on but I'm blown away by the commitment to the to the platform that some of the people on the team have I mean even going so far as to have your own developer instances you know it's it's pretty remarkable stuff actually nice very cool so you know I was looking on LinkedIn and Avery I was reading a couple of articles now you've put out quite a few but I think the most recent one I was reading was about micro certifications I think that was very interesting because I never thought about micro certifications that way but but showing that they have a greater benefit could you kind of go over that real quick and what you found absolutely yeah so you know I you know I started writing articles and then doing the videos on LinkedIn because I saw a pretty clear opportunity here in the ServiceNow community to provide actionable information for people you know to give them tools that they would need in their job hunt to help them you know find positions that they loved you know my whole thing right did I say in every article is I'm gonna help you tell your story right because that's what's important to find that position you love the micro certifications actually was a tip from a colleague and he was like you know I see you're writing these articles and a lot of them you're focusing on more soft skills it's like you know how to present yourself in an interview and what to talk about and what not to talk about why don't we write about micro certifications because those are something that you know I think are not really spoken about as much in the ServiceNow world and I think they deserve a little bit of a shout so I actually cut took a little deep dive into them and I you know I I myself signed up for the fundamentals of ServiceNow course and of course taking the admin certification course here at the end of the month but I was blown away by the amount of information that you can access about the platforms through the now learning portal and I realized hey this is something that would really help my candidates and it would also help them distinguish themselves you know so one thing that I wrote about was you know the HR right so there's a little micro certifications you create a chart and I think that that's you know that's something that that shows people that you have a commitment to learning this platform and a commitment to growing with it as it grows for the course as we're all familiar it's you know expanding expanding expanding and there's so many different things happening with it it's it's hard to kind of calm the chatter and have you know a voice in that crowd as a professional and say this is what I do with this platform here's how I do it yeah and that was kind of my goal with the micro certifications little article was to teach people that these are out there for you they're a free tool for you to access and they're they're a really great thing that kind of grow as a professional absolutely you know and I and I have a lot of us have put a lot of focus on the main specifications which are great generally as general certifications you know it is whether it's admin or developer or ITSM or you know one of those different certifications but you know I really hadn't thought about the micro search that way and I'm and I'm glad you wrote the article because that sparked me to think okay maybe I need to get some of these micro certifications just if nothing else that I have them say I do most certifications because I want them not because I'm looking for a role but I could see how if you were looking for a role that really valuable yeah and you know what the other thing is is that they're just fun I mean you just get to learn a new skill and a new thing and that's you know one thing that I really appreciate about this community is that everyone's you know thoroughly dedicated to growing you know and that's that was you know that was kind of my goal was to explore that topic and learn more yeah so we asked you a question real quick what do you think the very top skills that you need to to really land that good role what are the the top skills you would need to to get the I guess it would read the dream job sure yeah so that's a that's actually a pretty pretty complicated question because as I've recognized it and you know everyone has different goals within the platform and your dream job might look radically different than someone else's you know a lot of people love going out and doing requirements gathering and then going home and doing the hard coding and producing outputs you know based on based on their customer requirements you know those positions are out there people love that you know that stuff this kind of remote developer rules a lot of people you know maybe say you're a Solutions Architect right and you just want to go on-site every day have your team and work together towards a goal um you know so when you say you know how do you find your dream job I think the question can mean kind of needs to invert itself and we need to look okay like what exactly our goals with our career you know what do we want to do to make us happy what what fulfills us and how do we get there you know and that's part of what I love about Nelson Frank as I get to have these conversations with people all day about their goals you know just the other day I was speaking to a two young gentleman who recently had a had a kid and now he wants to switch to a more remote role right which is you know the the neat there's obvious you know he wants to to be there for his family and he's gonna try to utilize his skills to develop you know a strategy for for his you know well-being and I think that that's one thing that I really appreciate about this community is and and here at Nelson Frank that I that I love kind of exploring and learning more about is that everyone has different goals and I get to help them get there you know so you know that's so it's really mostly just about highlighting people's skills you know and just learning what they've done and what they want to do and how I can help them get there you know and that's so that's kind of what I would say that well and I think you touched on it earlier when we're talking a little bit about soft skills or mention any soft skills I think that's probably of all the things that are most uncommon I know that sounds strange but I think that those soft skills the communication the presentation the you know conversations those things are I think those are the the more difficult ones to find do you find that to be true or you know is it just a perception I'm having yeah I mean you know the IT industry is is unique in a lot of ways you I think that you know so here's here's my background right I actually have a degree in poetry so I'm like you know I'm like you know I'm the soft skill person yeah right you know interestingly I don't actually think IT professionals lack soft skills I just think they have a difficult time translating the work that they do to people that don't do that work right which is often a necessary part of kind of breaking into that dream role and one thing I love doing at Nelson Frank is is helping people tease out the intricacies of of the work that they do and and help them communicate to people around them you know here's my story here's what I do with service now here's how I do it you know that's that was kind of a goal with the article series as well was you know I noticed a pretty clear lack of instruction about how to how to go into an interview you know things you want to avoid talking about right I mean just like you know what do you wear like how do you approach something like that you know what I mean and I noticed a lot of anxiety in my candidates about you know hey I have an on-site interview like what do I do you know and it was kind of like for me too it was a challenge it was like you know I have to learn with you you know and we have to discover together the solution to this challenge that you're having so that was that was part of the goal with the article series you know is how do you how do you do these kind of more you know of course like you could be a JavaScript wizard right like you can be the best developer ever and then like it but if you can't tell your story to an employer you know you're kind of in a hard position there you know that's my goal is to kind of mitigate that impact right was to help people who I saw as you know being really amazingly talented and just needed a little little extra help kind of telling their story [Music] you know personal growth plan or they're in a company and they chart out their their development and you know people tend to forget that communication is a skill that needs to be practiced updated polish just like every other skill yourself absolutely and we continue to grow in that way and and I and even those that might like like you that you know you have that and like natural ability you still have to work at it you stopped improve you stopped keep going you still have to try it's not like you can sit back and and say okay I've made it there with all my soft skills you know and and just let that go it's like any of the skills that you're going to need to do these jobs you're gonna need to practice them and to stay on top of them just like you would my thinking those micro search right you're going in and you're saying I want to learn something new where you got to do the same thing with the soft skills as well to kind of gain that extra extra skill that you might need in the extra communication layer that you might not have had before absolutely so I have actually interestingly enough I have some questions here that I have been sent that a couple of people were asking and so I wanted to kind of go over a couple of these I think it would be and it's good to have your input on and so the first question I've got a guy that is that works for me interestingly enough he was a front-end web developer a super great guy ain't just they didn't have the the work form at the organization I was at and we had lots of ServiceNow stuff to do so they cinema were to help build some stuff on the ServiceNow side and I trained him from to do the ServiceNow type of development it is a little bit different than what your normal you know full stack developer is going to be doing and so he ended up loving it and just absolutely falling in love with the platform and now he is the team lead for the organization that I'm no longer with he took my place when I left and so that what I'm finding though is front-end web well four people have never been in service now they start with this resistance I don't like it followed up by well this is kind of cool to just fall in love with the platform the question came that says basically I've been a front-end developer for five years what path of transitioning toward service now development looked like so how would you recommend somebody go from being a front-end web developer if they like the platform how to get into becoming a ServiceNow developer sure yeah no I appreciate the question from what I've seen you know in my brief time here I you know my candidates that have very little experience I wouldn't say very little right but some experience can still get positions in the ServiceNow world it's just a different kind of fight and it's also one that requires a really specific job to come across my desk you know I think I think as far as that question is concerned I would hit up the nail learning portal and I would just start you know just for racially consuming material on that and just like you mentioned just getting those certifications and attending I think you know the snug groups are a great thing you know the ServiceNow user groups are great places to go out and meet other professionals and you know maybe kind of network with them and discover some perhaps there's a contract or like a part-time thing that you can do and you're in your area just start getting some hands-on experience with that platform and then that would that would be a perfect way to kind of kind of find your way into the ecosystem from what I've seen so far and one of the things that I found as kind of a good way to get in there is to go to you and go to the snugs go to the developer meetups meet some of the people the people in our community the ServiceNow developer especially if you come to the service now developer meetup and you meet some of these guys and you in and you talk to you know somebody like Heather or Melissa or you know anybody who's been working with the platform they want to show you and to teach you and they are so willing to answer any question you have and so I would say one of the the best things it is like you said go try and get as much knowledge on it as possible but I would say reach out to the community and let them help you fill in the gaps of knowledge that you don't have and then believe in yourself enough to go sit in front of AI to somebody and say hire me because I'll get the job done sometimes that's all it takes [Music] there's some things you have to pick up the service now because service now from a technical perspective takes what you write and say JavaScript or something like that and it does stuff on the back end and so what I have seen when I hire people that have been full-stack and brought them into stores done environment is having to learn what ServiceNow already does for you instead of assuming that you have to write the whole thing yourself and yeah so just being willing to come in and unlearn a few things and not assume that you know how to do it just because you've built it you build those pieces before because there's no may already have it you may just be delicate and I think that's why when they come in initially they don't like the platform because they don't understand that portion of it but as they develop and they spend more time in the platform why they end up loving it is because on some of the heavy lifting is done by ServiceNow and it makes their job a lot easier and they can move they can move quicker to to to get their solutions out versus you know regular front-end web development me do you have to connect everything builds everything and there's no there's no doubt that you're not getting as much completed and out to the customer so so the next I think when it comes to the number of jobs is there any trends going on right now I know that there's been a big push for ServiceNow servers now it's growing real bad real big but is there any kind of trends for specific roles or anything like that but you're seeing yeah so that's actually kind of the topic of a an article that I'll release next Wednesday but I think with the release or Orlando we saw some pretty good indicators about how the job market is gonna shift and change and I think a lot of that is gonna move towards automation so you know there's always always always always a demand for really skilled developers you know what I mean and and that's just that's not gonna change but I think as ServiceNow becomes more specialized you know people are gonna want to kind of take a look and and kind of take inventory of their skillset and discover what they specialize in and start working really hard on that too because I think that you know as as things shift and change you know with the platform a different kind of landscape of talent is gonna need to appear and I think you know the amazing thing that I've seen already is that people are already approaching tackling that problem you know so I think you know if I were to say you know what you know what is in high demand it's always developers it's always just hands on keyboard you know can you write a code like can you produce custom applications that's you know you know that's what I would say this is always kind of needed sure all right so let's let's do this we're gonna need to take a quick commercial break and listen to our sponsor and then we will be right back with more questions with Avery Williamson and we'll look for that in just a second so listen to our sponsor and that's how we pay the bills in wool this podcast was made with anchor anchor is the easiest way to create and publish your podcast it's free creation tools with it allow you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer helps you distribute your podcast it's super simple to publish to Spotify Apple podcast Google Play any of the major ones you can make money from your podcast there's no minimum listenership so they make it super easy to monetize it's really everything you need to make a podcast in one place so why don't you go out and download the free anchor app or go to anchor fm and get started all right we have Avery Williamson on the phone call with us and of course Randy Haas so I just wanted to kind of fill everybody in we are having a quick conversation with with Avery about lots of different things of course with the recruiting side of things so I do have some more questions about the the person who is the self-taught programmer and these to that effect where should they focus first if they're wanting to say get into doing some ServiceNow stuff what is their initial focus where should that go oh yeah sure so you mean like somebody who's kind of just taken like no code Academy classes or something like that or like you doing yeah so actually Nelson Frank has an entire office dedicated to contract work which I think they do a really remarkable job over there and I think it's a great place you know a lot of the tactics that I've seen by some of the candidates that I speak to is you know maybe they don't have enough experience like your friend who's a full-stack developer right one thing that they'll do is they maybe you'll do like a six month contract or something like that with a with the ServiceNow client and then you know kind of get into the platform that way contacting the Nelson print contract team is a great way to kind of find the find some you know short term like you know entry-level work into service now again you know I'm gonna sound like a broken record here but I think we're now learning platform is a great tool I think if you can you know it's like learn and get those micro certifications get that admins started through the developer cert you know those are great ways to demonstrate to people that you're ready to tackle their needs on platform and then the final thing that I would say is is produce your own instance I mean that's a really amazing tool that you have access to right now that you can go in and play around with and start learning a platform today you know so those are the three strategies I think I would approach that problem platform to it they always did a great job trying to get that information out there but that personal developer instance that you have access to that is an amazing opportunity I don't know I honestly I don't know a single developer that develops on the platform that doesn't have his own personal instance as well as all of the company instances so he can go check what the base platform is and make sure that there's no customization that's causing a problem and things to that effect we made it really is a good tool to use even for experienced developers one of the things I find about this this particular question though is they don't know where to start but right now ServiceNow with that from learning portal has basically the Foundation's class and in avery tell me if i'm wrong isn't it aren't they able to take a test take the admin test i think until March 31st the class yeah so that's actually a colleague sent that to me every day when I get home from work I watch videos or podcasts or read the forums you know about ServiceNow just so I can get second speak to people properly and you know colleagues sent out to me and said if you take this fundamentals course you know before March 31st you get a free voucher and take an admin cert and then that's you know that's pretty much all you're gonna need to know you know it's like once you once you have that sir you know you take I think it's like six hours of video seven hours of video courses then you you learn I mean it just a ton about the platform and I think typically the admins start you know you and if you didn't take it with this course is relatively affordable I think it's like $75 and you get a you get three free tries or there's three tries with that I believe I might be wrong about that but yeah until March 31st you can take this course yeah about her for that admin cert and for me if you're just getting into it and you want to get that first job you know getting that admin sir and getting a little knowledge around that and my first job in back in error in IT interestingly enough I was at ran companies for 15 years before I got into IT and so when I got into IT and I decided that I wanted to be a developer I went I went to to somebody that knew fairly well do happens to be on this call and I said you know I want to get into IT and well I'm hired a developer that's okay I'll do it and he says well what's your experiences that I don't have any needless to say it just - I went had to go prove myself so I went out I built through stuff that he liked then I got an interview and we got in the interview and they're like you know hey what are you doing here basically I mean you don't have you know any experience I'm like well I can do the job you know and the reality is they didn't hire me full-time they went you know what we're kind of like this guy let's give a chance and they gave me a six-month contract yeah so if you want an opportunity you have to take that risk and to take that first initial six-month contract like you said you know you know and then you're taking a risk and it's scary but I've I've never been sorry that I took that first step absolutely and yeah like I mentioned Nelson Frank we have a whole entire group here that's just dedicated to finding people contracts within the service net world that's a remarkable resource for people to use you know if they have you know kind of anxiety about starting that search because they have you know proprietary connections and relationships that that can help you find that initial stuff you know and in over here on the perm side to everyone's more I'll get a junior developers role maybe an admin role you know and those are great opportunities to explore and learn about others there's no reason not to have that information right absolutely absolutely is gonna be here for a long time so what are you seeing as far as like the growth of jobs like this is there a shortage of people in the ServiceNow Market is there is it flooded but or is it just kind of no limits for the next several years yeah I mean I think that's a complicated question and it's you know that's kind of like predicting the stock market right you know but I do think that there's some pretty remarkable growth happening and we can refer to the ServiceNow stock just to see what that would you know look like you know that's one thing that I love to look at just to see the growth of the company you know so I can get a better understanding of the ecosystem that it's produced you know it's when you when you look at a company that has exponential growth like ServiceNow has and has seen and will continue to see you know I I don't doubt that there will be opportunities plenty for people you know in the coming years I do think like I mentioned earlier you know they're gonna be new challenges that are gonna kind of rise up with new releases you know like like Orlando having all these AI functions you know it's still something I'm exploring and learning about but those are things that everyone's gonna need to kind of grow and adapt with and one thing that I about the community is that everyone's really excited to do that stuff you know what I mean it's like yeah you know when something like that starts happening and the new tool comes out or a new like you know a system that people need to learn they're so excited to tackle that problem and just approach that head-on so I think that you know if people are concerned about jumping into this headfirst I would just say to them that there's no reason to at the ServiceNow world is you know rapidly growing and Nelson Frank and I get to monitor that just you know see all that all the physicians you know and and help people find the dream goes well and that's one thing I like about knowledge right is is is it's that it basically shows me that this is bigger than I ever thought it was and it's just every year it keeps getting bigger and bigger and the one thing about knowledge for me as well as is I just absolutely love you know the the you know talking to the different developers and taking the classes and going through all of that but it's 20,000 people that are fairly like-minded that like the same thing and it's just it's it's amazingly yeah I mean it's it's an incredible event I can't you know I can't think of another of another of another product that has an event like that although I'm sure there are a few but it's like you said it's massive I mean it's huge you know so I think it's pretty remarkable too so I do I know this is a question everybody knows that we're gonna ask but so if you noticed any difference in anything when it with the whole coronavirus thing has there been any any talk about hey we want more remote people or we want something different is there any anything changing because of the corona scare yeah absolutely and I think you know I actually have been running around the office all day and I you know I just have a you know we have a lot of work going on here because of I you know much of my focus with my social media presence and and my content campaign with articles and videos was to talk about remote work because I see that as a unique facet with with the ServiceNow community and with the IT community as a whole you know that is something that is growing quickly you know I I think the corona saying it kind of shed some light on the possibility that hey you know these cloud platforms are perfect tools to allow us to work remotely and I think that people are starting to explore that I haven't really seen anything from that yet but definitely when I speak to you know my friends and my candidates in the community and talk to them about what's going on many of them are working from home now and you know and I think that that's a developing situation that we're gonna kind of CH see how it impacts the courses service now which I'm actually pretty interested to see I think that's a good for you service now because the platform is capable of automating just about easy you can really increase your flexibility as a company by going in and doing some implementation using the platform it's so flexible you could really make your company resilient by fully using a totally and and and to be honest you know the platform itself being that a cloud service is is very unique in the fact that not only can all the developers do it but there's so many things that you can do to allow things like a service desk to be all about or you know there's there's so many areas of the business especially an IT that can just be remote and that could shrink some of your overhead with you know when it comes to facilities and things like that so I kind of see that as same as you do I see it coming obviously it's not here yet but I kind of see it coming you know who were right because I think it makes it more efficient but what would you say to that manager that leader who says I don't want remote people I don't want to do remote I don't like remote what would be your recommendation to somebody who's who is like that yeah I mean you know I typically don't do the business development side of things here at awesome Frank you know just from a personal standpoint I you know I I think that that's just a preference I mean it's you know it's if that's how you want to run your organization then that's that's your call I mean it's not really one way or the other I do think you have a good point though that you know hey the platform is a cloud service it doesn't need to be in one space you know you don't need I mean you can you can develop ServiceNow and uh you know on a subway you can develop ServiceNow in a coffee shop you can you can make custom applications on the beach I mean you can do and you can that's that's kind of the beauty of these tools and a lot of cloud services are like that but you know it's it's not for everyone um so I wouldn't stress that that needs to charge and like happen if that's not the right fit for your organization but I definitely think it's something that is worth exploring because a lot of candidates that I speak to want that remote flexibility like the gentleman I spoke about earlier who just had anymore you know and that honestly makes a lot of sense for him you know I you know you have a three-month-old at home why why would you want to go into work five days a week that's a lot of stress on your family yeah well I'm speaking as a manager and as a businessman I think that from what I'm saying the trend is going to be that that's where your competitive edge is going to because how mature your your flexible policies are going forward because I don't see the trend reversing as far or such a mobile community I mean most everybody lives off their phone I know people that don't even open up a laptop that just user they're their eyes phone for everything now and then what their work to be the same way you know it when you make be the same as accessible as what you know what people are naturally doing then that just increases job satisfaction and allows you to have you know like I said a competitive advantage Plus you can recruit from limited to your local talent pool you can recruit from a long run no distance so you can actually find that one specific skillset history and I think there's a lot of I think a lot of their fear is revolves around productivity you know how is somebody we're gonna be productive when they're not sitting at their desk in their office and in my response to that would be I'm more productive when I'm out of the office because I have less people bothering me typically and so it works very well I think for a lot of our IT people because they don't really it saves an hour I guess in a lot of people's case an hour to drive time a day so they can dedicate that time it's just there's lots of reasons but I don't think the productivity issue that is would be that what what they think it's going to be much integrity and Trust areas within their team and there's definitely things you can do to increase that to prepare for that but I mean also the reality is on the other side there are some jobs that you keep remote and there are some challenges you have to think about a plan that does allow that but there are some challenges when you're doing a remote workforce as far as community goes that you don't have to think about when you have an office I wanted to ask wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about some of the work that Nelson Frank's doing the veterans this is a program that I love that Nelson Frank house that I've hired from and very pleased with so I think if you don't think about that if you want yeah yeah I mean so you know it's called a revelant now it's a new kind of initiative that you know the PR team is working on and they're they're doing an absolutely incredible job with it you know the the prima Jam their efforts at people with a background in tech and they're looking to kind of cross trained people into the new career in an ecosystem that is just hugely lacking in talent you know ServiceNow professionals are in huge demand like we've been talking about so being able to create new talent is the kind of solution there and that was kind of the the goal of the initiative and I think it's really incredible work and I think you know as as you know I know some Frank grows you know the opportunities in that realm grow as well and that's you know the coolest is to find people their dream jobs like we've been talking about and you know I think that that community initiative is valuable and I think that it's it's only gonna continue there to get bigger so you know I guess one of my favorite things that you guys do every year is the salary survey oh yeah you that I see that every year every year I download it I don't know I'm obsessed with it I love it I think the fact that you guys do the salary survey is amazing the information in it is is awesome could you tell me you know what is your favorite part about about the salary survey yes I was actually just kind of flipping through that actually just yesterday I think it's a really well-designed document just just from like an english nerd perspective right because it it allows transparency of information in a way that I don't think is is really a parent in a lot of industries you know one one markable thing that I love about that is that it gives people all the tools they need to make informed decisions you know and I think that that is something I greatly value and I think that you know that's kind of the purpose of that that survey and I think that you know that's that's what I really appreciate about I do think it's really popular and I also think it's just really well-designed you know and I like that it covers more than just a the salaries or this for this area there there's lots of information in it it's not then it's - yeah it gives you a lot of information making and paint and to help you decide do I even want a career in this right and it's a free resource and and and that's and keep in mind I mean obviously with salaries are raiser like he needs are either averages and there's a little medium - I think so if you don't fall in the high category don't be don't be upset with your boss but it is really neat to see that you have the kind of commitment to the employee to be able to push this out so they know how they rank and how they how they look at it and go wait a second there really this much opportunity out there you know maybe I should write and that's I think that's part of the reasons why you know Nelson Frank does it but I really think it's a great tool for everybody absolutely yeah I think there's no reason not to at least peruse look through it precious and thank you for is there anything else no I mean I you know I know I have some commitments here and I do apologize but I I really appreciate you having me on and allowing me the opportunity to kind of talk about all the all the great work we do here at Nelson Frank and you know should should you all ever need anything or anyone in your community feel free to reach out to Mount lint and and you know or even buy from that's fine you know I'm always here to help the ServiceNow community it's something that I actually really enjoy doing and I'm passionate about so I appreciate your time and thanks for having thank you very soon yeah that would be awesome all right until next time see you guys yeah thank you we want to thank our flagship sponsor for this show the sharp stone group LLC sharp stone is your source for all of your service now needs implementation development administration strategy and architecture contact the sharp stone group today at info at sharp stone group comm or four oh five five nine four zero one hundred we'd love to answer your questions or have you on the show contact us at service sharp at sharp stone group comm or find our LinkedIn info in the notes additional sponsorship opportunities are available you