BSidesCharm 2026 - Job Hunt Like a Hacker

Hi everybody. Yeah. Let me Why don't you start talking? I'll mess around with this here. >> All right. Yes. Uh, you figured that out. Thank you. Uh, can everyone hear me? I will project. Awesome. Hi, welcome. My name is Jason Blanchard. I'm going to do this talk on how to job hunt like a hacker. Raise your hand if you've never ever ever ever heard this before in your entire life. Okay, so there's some people in here who have no idea who I am. Fantastic. Uh, so what this talk is about is how to job hunt like a hacker. It is different than job gathering like what you may have been doing. All right, raise your hand if

you're currently looking for a job. I would love to see every hand go up. And the only reason why I'm going to ask for every hand to go up, there's the some of you like sit next to a coworker. You're like [laughter] uh, we should probably not have come to this together. So the reason why I want every hand to go up is because every hand goes up because every person is looking for a job all the time. Right? So the first takeaway from today's workshop or today's talk is this. Always hunt for a job. You're always hunting for a job. Always hunting for a job for the rest of your life. You're always hunting for a job. You're never like,

"Oh, I've got a job. I'm fine. Think we're good." It is. Yeah. Awesome. It's chat GBT. Yay. [applause] Uh, also raise your hand if you've never ever ever ever ever used Chat GBT before. >> Okay, so a couple hands going up. Cool. All right, so I'm going to use Chat EBT today. I'm going to use a couple things today, but for the most part, I'm using LinkedIn today. Uh, this is a six-hour talk condensed into 50 minutes. All right, I'm doing the six-hour talk in about uh 10 days from now. So, if you want to attend, that is a totally free workshop for you to attend. It's virtual. It's online. I go into a massive deep dive into every single

aspect of things I'm going to talk about in this really brief set. For a moment, I was like, what do you all see? All right, that's fine. That's fine. Uh, so the main takeaway, first takeaway is you're always hunting for a job. I tell everyone that I hunt for a job 10 to 15 minutes every single day because I do hunt for a job. Really? Okay. >> Really? >> Okay. >> Oh, because of the online people. Because of the online people. >> There's no online people. >> There's no online people. >> Okay. Uh, >> so I job hunt 10 to 15 minutes a day because I work for a man who likes to mountain bike

[laughter] and he likes to mountain bike in very dangerous circumstances. And so he'll come back and like, "Oh, I almost slipped off this mountain." And I'm like, and that's why I job hunt 10 to 15 minutes a day every day because I I do like my job, but I also like working for him, right? So, if there wasn't him, I may not want to work there, right? So, we all have circumstances that if something changed in our work environment, if it got bought out by a bunch of VCs or things changed, we'd like, I don't want to work here anymore. And let me tell you right now, the the worst time to hunt for a job is when you

need one. The worst time to write a resume is when you need one. The worst time to build a network of other human beings that you can rely on in a time of like distress and like job lossness is when you need it. And the reason why is very simple. Because you ain't real good when you're out of work. And what I mean by that is when you get laid off, you get fired, what the circumstances change, and you're sitting there looking at a blank screen trying to figure out how to build a LinkedIn profile. Internal, you're like, I suck. I don't even know why anybody would hire me. I'm so bad at this. That that's

okay. That can go like that for now. And so, I don't want you to be in that mindset of like, I'm not very good at my job. That's why I got laid off. I'm not very good at my job. That's why I got fired. I'm not very good at my job because I chose to leave. Whatever it is, it is the worst time for you. I want you to build a resume when you're at your peak confidence level. I want you to build your resume when you just got the best damn performance review you've ever had in your entire life. I want you to build it then instead of when you're down on yourself and you're not feeling

good about your prospects and you're like, I think AI is gonna take my job. And I'm like about to tell you how to use AI to help you get a job. And you're like, but why would it need me? Okay. So, first thing is we got five things to do today. So, five main topics to to cover. And the first topic to cover is hunt for the job you want. And I know that sounds weird and I'm going to write it down in a second. I don't really do a lot of slides. It's a lot of uh demo. The reason why I'm telling you to hunt for the job that you want is because when most people find

themselves out of work, they start looking for the job that they can find. and that they can just fill in the moment and that's not what you want. And so there are some people when I'm I've been doing this for like six years. I've been helping people find jobs. Currently we're at 309 people that have come back to let me know that they found a job. It's 309 people over the years. I don't keep track of that number for me. I keep track of that number for you that you know at least 309 other people have found success using some of this methodology that they applied, they used, they used themselves and they got the job. So 309 people have found

opportunities this way. Step number one, hunt for the job you want. And I'm going to talk about the difference between gathering and hunting. You're a human being. Your ancestors have been around for a very long time. They survived long enough for you to be sitting in this chair right now. So there was your ancestors either hunted or gathered over time in order to survive for you to be sitting in this chair. Some of them gathered. Does everyone know what gathering looks like? It's where you walk around with like a basket and you're like, "Ooh, berries. Oh, berries. Ooh, mushrooms." And then some of your ancestors died that way. They're like, "Oo, mushrooms." and then they're

dead. Uh, but enough survived, right, for you to be here. But gathering is very different than hunting. Here's what gathering looks like in 2026. You go to a website like this. You type in the job that you're looking for and then you go to jobs. This is the modern-day version of gathering. What is available to me? And you start looking through each section and you're like, "What about this one?" And then all of a sudden you're like, "60 applicants, Drats. Moving on. >> Secret clearance drats. Secret clearance. 39 applicants. 39 people have clearances." And then you get to this like 38 people three weeks ago. I bet someone else already got that job. S like this is the modern equivalent of

gathering. And you're like, "Ooh, berries. Ooh, berries. Ooh, berries. Ooh, berries." Right? What I'm asking you to do is hunt. It's different. Like when you hunt, you train to hunt. You figure out what you want to hunt. You get the right equipment to hunt the thing. And there's a few of you in here who may be vegans or vegetarians. You're like, "O." But yes, I want you to find that beast and I want you to kill it because hunting is different than gathering. Hunting is like, "Let's prepare. Let's go out early in the morning. Let's sit still in the stillness of night and wait for that thing to come by. And then we attack it. And then we kill it. And then

we carve it up into pieces and then we haul it out of the woods." I know that got a little graphic, but do you see the difference between hunting and gathering? And some of you for a long time or right now or your entire life has just gathered. Don't gather, hunt. When you decide to hunt, you look at job hunting differently. And so I want you to hunt. And so what hunting looks like is you get a spreadsheet together and you start figuring out where do you want to work based on who you are as a person, based on your desire for mission, based on where you want to actually work. Do you want a two-hour I talked to someone

today who had a 2-hour commute. Do you want a 2-hour commute? Because if you don't, don't hunt for a job that's two hours away, right? Like you where do you want to work and you put a list together. I've done this enough over the last seven, eight years where I go, "Hey, I I am the worst person in the hiring village. They don't ask me back anymore because people normally get up and cry and leave." And it's not because I said anything that was mean. I was like, "So, where do you want to work?" [gasps] And I was like, "Oh, he's okay. you haven't thought about it. I see. Okay. All right. Let's let's talk through that

part, right? Because some of you, if I ask like, "Where would you want to work?" Like, "Wherever someone will hire me." And I'm like, "Oh, where do you want to work?" Like, and and so what happens is you walk into the job hunting process going, I'll just take whatever I can find. No. Hunt. Hunt for what you want. And so what that looks like is you put a list together of all the companies you want to work for. And then right now there's some of you struggling to think about where would I want to work. So there's a fantastic prompt you can put in the chat GBT or Google or whatever you want to do and

say tell me a list of companies thriving in 2026 and going forward because remember you want to work for a company that's thriving in this environment with the way the world is right now. you were like, "Hey, give me a list of companies thriving in the way the world is right now." And it's going to give you a list of companies that are thriving. And you're like, "Cool. Give me a deep dive. Tell me about Maryland." Like, treat Chat GBT like a career counselor. Like, tell me more about Maryland. Tell me about my area. Tell me about this. Tell me about that. And it'll start giving you a list of companies. And then you start to

research those companies. You start to learn about the management of those companies, the mission of those companies. And you figure out where do I want to work? Here's another really quick tip if you don't like that suggestion is you go to LinkedIn and you see how I put sock analyst and then I chose jobs. Don't choose jobs, choose people. When you choose people, it's going to give you all the sock analysts in your area. So, you can do it search by your area and it'll give you all the companies that have a sock analyst on staff now. And then you can like, oh, I didn't know that bank had a sock team. I didn't know that healthc care op company

had a sock team. I didn't know that these people had a sock team. I didn't know that they had a sock team. So you can go through and look for people and then once you start to find people you can research what companies they work for and then decide is that a company I want to work for too. And then they go on your list and so you start putting a list together of all the companies you want to work for. And it's going to be a spreadsheet. I'm not showing you the turkey that's been cooked. And I also have a microphone in my hand so I can't actually type right now. But can everyone just picture a list right now

of companies? Can you start to picture your list of companies here? Do you also internally start to feel like I don't know how to do this? I So step one is just to write companies in this list. It's okay to dream. This is your list. It's not your parents list. It's not your spouse's list. It's not your partner's list. It's your list. Where do you want to work? And that like sometimes exposes our insecurities, exposes who we are as people. We're like, I don't know where I want to work. So, put the list together. Now, once you put the list together, you put it in order of desire. Top is where you want to work the most,

the bottom is where you want to work the least. But here's the thing about your list is wherever the bottom is is still where you want to work. Does that make sense? It's not like your mom said, "Why don't you go work at the like state department?" You're like, "No, it's it's where do you want to work?" So, it's in it's in order of importance. So, quick question for the audience. If you were going to start hunting for jobs on your list of companies that you want to work at, do you start at the top of your list and work your way down hunting for jobs or do you start at the bottom of your list and work your way

up? Just yell at the words top or bottom. One, two, three. >> Bottom. >> Bottom. Fantastic. Whoever said that, genius. All right, >> for those of you that said top, here's why I think you said top. You're like, "Well, go for what I want." And that makes sense, except you suck at job hunting. So, you start at the bottom of your list. Why would you start at the bottom of your list? >> Practice. Practice. Why don't the So, I always like think of it this way. Let the bottom of your list get the worst version of your resume. Let the bottom of your list give the worst interview you've ever given in your life. Let the bottom of your list

get this like weird outreach message from you where you're like sir or ma'am. And you're like, "Okay, I wanted to know if I could work at your company." Like, let that bottom of your list get the worst version of you doing this. And then as you get better at it going up the list, then when you finally get to the top, here's the other part that human beings are like when you really want something, you know what you do? You freak out about it. So instead of sending the message, you're like, you start to like question it. You start to double think it. You start to like, "Hey, can you look at this message real

quick and see if this makes sense to you?" Like you start to freak out. My daughter is 20 years old and she has me check every email before she sends it because she's still inexperienced in this. She still feels insecure with the way that she's messaging people and you will too. So let the people at the bottom of your list get the worst version of you doing this and you'll get better and better as you work your way up. All right, so that is step number one is to figure out where you want to work and then you start researching based on the bottom of your list and you work your way up. Now what is

researching look like? Let's say the company on your list is Crowdstrike. So I'm going to use Crowdstrike because I use CrowdStrike a lot. They had a a little incident last year. Everything seemed to all work out just fine. Stock price went back up. All right. So, Crowd Strike is a company. And so, whenever you have your list, right, you got Crowd Strike, you got this other company, other company, right? Whatever the list it is that it is that you want is that you go here and most people don't know there's this other tab over here. Does anyone ever like click on the people tab? Okay, there's a people tab on the LinkedIn page, right? And that people tab will

help you search for people. And there is a group of human beings out there who are magical job fairies called recruiters. A magical job fair is a person who helps you find a job to fill a position. A magical job fairy sole purpose in life is to fill open positions. A magical job fair's sole purpose in life is to take you and put you in an open role so that they feel successful on the inside. And so what you're doing is like, "Hey, magical job fairy. I see that you have a dilemma. You have this dilemma that you need to fill this position. I would love to help you with this dilemma that you have and help you feel successful in

your role as a magical job fairy at this company by telling you all about myself so that you can fill that position here at the company. So the other main takeaway today and I'm going to write this down so you see it. Don't say no on behalf of behalf damn it someone else. Don't say no on behalf of someone else. If you take nothing from today, it is this mindset. Do not say no on behalf of someone else. And what this looks like is when you're getting ready to reach out to a magical job fairy internally, fear kicks in and you go, "No, no." Cuz if I send this message, they're going to know that I'm weird.

Are they? Or is that just the story you're telling yourself? So, I'm I'm telling you right now, I've gotten where I am in life and I'm doing really well because I don't say no on behalf of someone else. I let them say no on behalf of themselves, which they do all the time. They say no all the time. But I we taught this to our daughter. My wife is sitting here in the front row. We taught this to our daughter and it is annoying when it's coming from her all the time. She's like, "Dad, can I like no." But she doesn't say no on behalf of me. She lets me say no on behalf of me. And

some of you in this room have been saying no on behalf of people your whole lives. And when it comes to job hunting, you do not say no on behalf of someone else. You send the message, you apply, you do all the things, you let them say no on behalf of themselves. You do not say no on behalf of them. And what that looks like is when I'm about to ask you to reach out to a magical job fairy and say, "Hi, this is who I am and I'm applying for this position. I would like to get to know the position better. Would it be possible to talk to you?" Everything in you is go like, "No,

abort." But I want you to just let go. Don't say no on behalf of someone else. Don't say no on behalf of someone else. So, what this looks like is I go to CrowdStrike and I see all these magical job fairies here and all these people want to fill positions, but what positions are they? So, we go over here to jobs and they currently have 897 open positions at Crowdstrike. There's that's an we all all of us could go work at Crowdstrike at this point, right? Like plenty of opportunities. So there's 897 jobs available at Crowdstrike pretty much all over the world. And there's those magical job fairies that sole purpose in life is to

fill those 897 positions. So what is step number two? So if step number one is to figure out where you want to work and start from the bottom of your list and work your way up. And let's say CrowdStrike was at bottom of your list and you're starting to research. Next step is to go to the company's website, crowdstrike.com, I believe, and then Huntress. Good job, Huntress. Way to take over that ad spot there. Uh, and then once I get past all those ads for other companies, we get down here to CrowdStrike. Well done. Uh, so I get a crowd strike and and how many of you who are currently job hunting, do you go to

the company's websites to apply? Okay, couple of you. Fantastic. All right, so next step is go to the company's websites to do everything else. You can find things in LinkedIn, you can find things in Monster, you can find things in Indeed, but you do not apply at those websites. And the reason why is because mon or LinkedIn, let's go back over here in LinkedIn. You know what they did? They made this easy apply button. So we go over here to sock analyst. Go to sock analyst. We go to jobs and sock analyst. And then we get over here to sock analyst. And then it says apply. They also have like an easy apply. You see this one? Do you know why

they created the easy apply? because they didn't want you to leave LinkedIn. That's why they wanted you to do the easiest, laziest version of job hunting. And I'm not calling you lazy. I'm just saying that you're doing the laziest way of job hunting. And I I fear whenever I say the words lazy that what you think you hear me saying is that I'm calling you lazy and I'm not calling you lazy. I'm just calling you human. Humans. This is one of my favorite things I learned a long time ago. I was reading this book and it was a book on storytelling and all this other stuff. But it had this one obscure line in there and I'm going to write it up on

the board for you so you can remember it. It's fantastic. It's like really applied like to my life and it makes a lot of sense. Here we go. Okay humans [clears throat] will use the least amount of calories to accomplish their goals. I'm not even going to fix that. [laughter] Humans will use the least amount of calories to accomplish their goals. And what my favorite thing in life is is when I see a sidewalk and I see a walking path right next to it. Anyone here ever seen a sidewalk with a walking path right next to it? It's my favorite because it's like human nature will not stop because of your stupid sidewalk. I will take the

quickest path I possibly can to accomplish my goals. And so humans will use the least amount of calories to accomplish their goals, which also means your recruiter is doing the same thing. Your hiring manager is doing the same thing. So not just you are using the least amount of calories to accomplish your goals, but every human is using the least amount of calories to accomplish their goals, which is why you're like, "Is that why I get ghosted?" Yes, it is why you get ghosted because to do more would be ridiculous. Why would I do more when I use the least amount of calories to accomplish my goals? So, going back to job hunting when we're over here to this job, using

the least amount of calories to accomplish my goals is the easy apply button. So, what does that look like next? Okay, so we're at CrowdStrike. We go to CrowdStrike's website. We're now at CrowdStrike's website. And some of you, right, like every once in a while someone gets up and leaves my talk and I'm like, "Is it me?" Or they have something else to do. But the other part is they're like, "This sounds like a lot of calories." When I'm teaching people about job hunting, it's a lot of calories. It's way more than you ever thought to expend. And there's a part of you goes, "There's got to be an easier way. There's got to be some easier way." And

there is. For sure. There is. I don't know what it is, but I'm going to tell you this one. Uh, so you go to CrowdStrike's website and at some point you find the careers section. And the other reason why I want you to Okay. [laughter] All right. Uh, the other reason I want you to go to Crowd Strike's website is because there's a ton of OSENT and reconnaissance and information you can learn at the company's websites that you would not learn by just doing it through LinkedIn. And this is job hunt like a hacker. So we're in phase one. We're doing recon. We're doing research. and we're trying to figure out a way to penetrate into this company so that we

can work there. It's not job hunt like a farmer, it's job hunt like a hacker. It's different. So, what are you starting to learn when you go to a company's website? You're like, okay, so we got join our talent community. What's a talent community? And you're like, oh, is it just workday? I guess. But when you get to this and you're like, what is all right, let me let me learn more. One of the things that I do is whenever I come to a company's website and I start looking through their sections of the company's website, there's a you can sometimes find what's like a blog and there say here's the community. Oh, anyone here currently a student getting

ready to graduate? Oh, okay. I'm going to give you a real quick tip before I move on. I don't want to move past this without telling you. Uh, every student in here, uh, any veterans, current veterans, anyone getting ready to transition out of the military. Okay, so people transitioning out of the military and students have this one superpower. The rest of you, sorry. Okay, sorry. Uh, but students, you can reach out to anyone in the entire world. Anyone, and I do mean anyone, the CFO, the CEO, the C siso of any company. You can reach out on LinkedIn or you find their email address, you can send that email. And here's the message that you send. Ready?

Hello, fill in the blank. My name is and I'm a student of at right. I'm a student of AT and I'm getting ready to graduate in 2028 and I'm currently reaching out to people I find admirable in the industry I want to be a part of and I wanted to know would you have the opp would you have the time to talk to me for 10 to 15 minutes to tell me how you got to where you are in your career and what advice would you have for someone like me? Oh my god, it works like 70% of the time. You can reach out to anyone in the whole world and say, "Excuse me, pardon

me. Would it be possible, hello, hi, I'm a young student. Would it be possible if I could talk to you and find out how you got to where you are in your career and what advice would you have for someone like me?" You know what every person who gets that message does? A, that's so cute. Of course I do. and they might reach out to you like, "Hey, can you contact my assistant? We'll set up a time to talk." And then all of a sudden, it works. There's a person who spoke at this conference. Do you remember his name? The 17-year-old. >> Oh, no, I don't. But I need to talk. >> Ah, they it'll come to me. There was a

17-year-old that spoke at Bides like a couple years ago, and I was like the 40th on his list of people to talk to, and he he'd heard this advice. He started reaching out to people, and I was like, "Who else have you talked to?" And he's like, "Well, the CEO of this company and the CEO of this company and the CEO of this company and the and the SISO of this company and the SISO of this company." And I was like, I'm just honored to be on the list at this point. And then he spoke at Bsides about his journey about finding work and like he's at leos lidos right now and he's like building he's like 20 years

old, right? Like he took this and just operationalized it and scaled it and it is fantastic. So all of you in here can do that. Uh it also works for people transitioning out of the military because we love our troops and so it works for you too because anyone that gets it like I'm going to feel patriotic today and I'm going to help this person. Um so it works for you. The rest of you it also works for you but about 10% of the time. So about 10% of the time for the rest of you it will work for students and people transitioning out of the military it works a whole lot more. All right the other people. All right.

Uh also students students. students. Uh there are certain recruiters that are dedicated to you. First-time employment, people getting ready to graduate from college. There are specific recruiters just for you and you can reach out to them. And what most students don't know is that that exists, right? So, you know it exists. All right. So, we're at CrowdStrike and and do you see this name here LP? So, whenever I go to a company's website, I'm looking for any name whatsoever. Do you see the name Elo? Is that common? No. So, I'm going to take this over here. I'm going to go back over to my LinkedIn. I'm going to type in the word LP and then Crowd Strike.

And let's find LP. Nope. People. There we go. Nope. Darn it. Let's do this. There we go. So, this is Elodie Perez. She at one point worked at CrowdStrike. And the reason why I'm even showing you this is because every time I find a blog, I find a press release, I find anything on the company's website to list a human being by name at a company I want to work for, I will then find that person. I will then do my oent on that person. I'll research that person. and I'll learn everything I can about that person and then they will go on my list of people at that company that I am I don't want to say this word targeting,

right? I'm job hunting like a hacker and I'm trying to figure out a way to get into this company. I'm looking for any opportunity I can possibly find for to do that. So now we're back over here. So I'm at Crowd Strike. Nope, we're over here. And let's say we find a job. Here's the next part. I'm going to focus on this for a bit of time. Uh, yes, I will accept all your cookies. Thank you. All right. So, a lot of times what you'll do is you'll find a job at CrowdStrike here. So, you'll find a job. Let's say it's the analyst one falcon complete. And we find this job here. Does everyone see this part here, the

job description? All right. How many of you when you find a job description for a job you're interested in, jump straight to the bullet points, find the one you can't do and then move on? Anybody? Like you look at the list, you're like, "Got it, got it, got it." Ah [groaning] damn it. All right, so let's do a real quick poll in this room. Uh, on a count of three, I want you to just yell out the answer. Do you think you should have a 100% of the bullet points, 90%? Just just shout out how much percentage of the bullet points you think you should have for a job before you feel confident to apply for it. On a count of three.

One two three. >> Nobody knows. Thank you so much. I uh no one knows. And so when you go through this list of things, you're like, "Do I want to do this job?" Here's This is going to be fun for me because it's going to be like this moment where you're all like, "Oh, damn it. This is the job. If you've never noticed, this is the job. The rest of it's a bunch of HR wishlist stuff, but the job is that part. How many of you just skip that part? Yes, we all just skip that part and we just go straight to the bullet points and we find the one we can't do. But generally, that's the job. That's

the job right there that we can do. So, here's my thing. If you ever come across a job that you feel you can do, right? like you feel you can do it. You read that part right there. You feel pretty good about it. You see a bunch of the the bullet points and you're like, I could do that. I could do that. Here's the next part. If this is what they're looking for, right? And and here's the hard part. I'm going to write something down on the screen real quick so that you get this. Okay. Here's another takeaway from today. Okay. Humans suck at describing themselves. They are much better at finding something that describes

themselves. This really bugging you all, isn't it? [laughter] >> All right, I'll fix it. [laughter] I highly recommend whispering. >> All right. So, humans suck at describing themselves. They're much better finding something that describes themselves. It's why um it's why horoscopes work, right? It's like I'm a Virgo. I read the description of a Virgo. I'm like, that's me. All of it. Yeah, it's accurate. Uh and so I suck at describing myself. So, if you were to ask me, Jason, what do you do at work? and you're like, "Shit. Um, damn it." Right? Like, and so what a resume is is literally you describing yourself in a way that feeds your family. And if you suck at it, you don't feed

your family. And so, I don't know about you, but if you've ever looked at a resume and you're like,"All right, let's go ahead and build this resume. What are we going to put on here?" At this point, it falls apart. Once I put my name on a resume, I'm like, "What is next?" Like, "What job title do you put? What this? What that?" So, the the next takeaway, and this is going to be really quick, but I want you to get this real fast. The way that you put a resume together is built on what the job is, right? I get the question a lot of times like what should my resume look like? I

don't know. What does the job description look like? You take what the job description is and then you build your resume based on what the job is asking for. And this might be new to you. So there's this thing called cognitive dissonance where you have a certain belief of information and new information is then introduced and then your brain fights in the middle. And so that might be happening for some of you right now, but you build a resume based on what the job description is, not based on what you want to say. You base it on what the job description is. And watch this. If this is the job right here, and I'm going to take this, I'm

going to copy this part right here. So we take this and it says, "Crowd Strike is looking for highly motivated, self-driven technical analysts dedicated to making a difference in global security by pro protecting organizations against the most advanced attackers in the world. Our CrowdStrike virtual security operations center offers opportunities to expand your skill sets through a wide variety of experiences, detecting and responding to incidents as they occur in real time. Cool. Let's take this over to chat GBT. If this is what they're looking for, then let's go over here to chat GBT. And then we're going to do this. Ready? Here's my prompt. put this in the first person and rewrite it to be the about me section

on my resume. and then build me a comprehensive list of all the skills you know I have because we've talked about this [laughter] a lot and that would be great. Uh make it conversational and concise. Not like that one time. All right, there we go. No, I don't I don't put please. Uh I'm not going to waste my time like that. Uh and and so it starts to build out your [cough] all your things. And so what I'm asking you to do is like take Chat TBT and have it be your pal. Have it be like your sidekick when it comes to building out your resume. and you're like, "Hey, I need you to take

this information that says this is who they're looking for, and I need you to rewrite it in a way that says I am who you're looking for." And that's what I'm asking you to do is take whatever it is that they're looking for, and then let them know I am who you're looking for. And so, what that looks like is that you use chat GPT, use other programs, use other things to do this. Now, let's go back to that whole I I don't know. Uh, humans suck at describing themselves. They're much better at finding someone that describes themselves. And I'm going to go back over here to sock analyst. And I have something for you all to do.

I'm just going to type in the word sock analyst here. And oh, looks like something's going on a biz charm. Cool. All right. So, we go over here to jobs. Here's here's an a homework assignment for you this week. Remember, if you're not even hunting for a job, this is a perfect time to do this because put a resume together when you don't need one. But here's the thing. Here's your homework. Here's the best thing I could ever help you with. Ready? The main takeaway, like if you leave here and you're like, hm, that's the only thing I remember that guy talking about, it's this. Since we suck at describing ourselves, then what I want you to do is go through

every single job description you can find for the jobs that you want and then go through the bullet points and find every bullet point that is true about you. So, when I go over here to this, that is very sparse. All right. So, I go over here to this one and it clicks on more and it goes down to monitor security alerts and events using SIM tools Sentinel. If this is true about you, then you go over here to a blank document and you just add it and you just keep going and adding every single thing you can find. Does this make sense? Just nod, right? Like you go to job descriptions, you find a bullet

point that's true about you. You take it, you copy it, you paste it over to a document. Here's what it looks like after two hours. It's about three pages long. It's about three pages long of you going through and like that one, that one, not that one, not that one, not that one, that one, that one, that one, that one, that one. And so you start putting this list together. And right now there's some of you in here that are students. And I'm going to fix that for you right now because there's some students in here and go like, "But I haven't done anything." And I'm like, "Okay, we'll fix that." Um, but when you

go through and you put this list together of everything that you've ever done from all these job descriptions, you just harvest bullet point after bullet point after bullet point because humans suck at describing themselves. They're much better at finding something that describes themselves. And so as you put a list together of all the things that you've done to Is that five minutes? >> Really? Wow, this was fast. Okay. So, you put that list together of all the things that you've done. You put the list together of all the things that you've done and you come up with this list that's maybe two, three, four, five. Mine was eight pages long, right? I've been doing this for 30

years. I had eight pages worth of content. And then you take that eight pages or three pages or two pages. You load it up into chatbt and you say, "Clean this up. Put it all in the proper tent. Make it all in first person like use chatbt." And then say, "Now combine what makes the most sense. Combine it into something that's most relevant." And all of a sudden, what you have is a very concise list of all the things that you've ever been able to do. And you know what this does? It kills your imposttor syndrome. It really does. Cuz when you look at a blank sheet of paper and try to figure out how to feed your

family on a blank sheet of paper and you can't remember any of the things that you've ever done in the entire history of the 30 years of work or five years of worth work that you've done. If all of a sudden when you put this list together and you're like, "Oh, I do know how to do my job. Damn it. Why didn't I think I knew how to do my job? All right. So, here's the last step that I'm going to talk about today since I have five minutes left with a guy with a sign in the back. All right. Eight. >> I have eight minutes. >> Did you? >> What is happening here? [laughter]

>> All right. So, we go back over here to Crowd Strike. Does everyone remember the magical job fairies that I mentioned? All right. So, here's the methodology. The methodology is first put a list together of the companies you want to work for. Start at the bottom of your list and then start working your way up. Research those companies. Figure out what jobs you want to work at those companies and then create a resume that matches the job descriptions for those companies and then apply for those comp for those jobs at the company's website. Not at LinkedIn, not at Monster, not at Glass Door, not at whatever. You apply at the company's website because that company's website is tied into their HR

management system that the magical job fairies look at all day long. That is where they get all their information from. That's where their dashboards are. That's where their KPIs are. That's where they feel successful. And so you're using the system that they use to then apply for the jobs. Now, as soon as you apply for the job, here's the next part. You have to figure out a way to bypass the normal hiring processes in 2026 because the way it is now sucks. It sucks. It sucks. It sucks. And so the only way to like not the only way but the best way is to bypass the normal hiring process. So if CrowdStrike here has people who are magical job fairies

who spend all day on LinkedIn because that is what they do. They spend all day on LinkedIn. And so you go find these magical job fairies. And then we have Aaliyah here. Let's bring her up. We have Russell. We have Andy. We have Sam. We have Chris. All magical job fairies. We go over here to Aaliyah. And if I click on the messages, it says, "Yo, you want to pay for that?" And I was like, "Not really." But what I will do is go down here and take a look at see if she has any post. And I'm going to do a massive amount of oent on her because LinkedIn is the biggest tattletail in all of social

media. And it puts it in chronological order of how you interact with every single thing on the platform. And it just puts it on everyone's profile for everyone to see. It's just right there. And you can see every like and post and reaction that she's had and all. Like 11 months ago, she's like, "Exciting opportunity, but what happened 11 months ago?" Leah, are you still a crowd strike? That's what I want to know. So, I go over here to reactions and it's like eight months ago. I'm pretty sure Leah is not there anymore. So, this is a dead lead for me. Not that she's dead. Hopefully, that's not true. Wow, that took a turn. Um, so we go over here to

Russell's and Russell's was four weeks ago is where Russell made a post. But what about Russell's comments? Has he commented three weeks ago on who? Oh, a military fellow, a crowd strike. I wonder who this person is. He just started a new position there. Does he have any videos? He does. He does have a video, images, and then reactions. How How late? Oh, a day ago. I'm happy to share that I'm starting a new position as lead technical. You know what? Recruiters love to introduce you to other recruiters. And you know what? Recruiters are responsible for filling positions at their company. And so they just introduce you to Larry here. Larry's new. Larry's trying to get

some successes under his belt and so you're going to reach out to Larry along with uh but let's go ahead. Whoa, clicked on that. Hey, was Russell's messages open? They are. So, not every person has their stuff locked out. Some people just have their messages wide open. And you can send that message to Russell. Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you send this message to Russell? Can anyone give me a good reason right now why you would not send a message to Russell who works at Crowdstrike for a job you just applied at Crowdstrike? Is there any good reason not to send a message to Russell? >> Scared. >> Cuz you're scared. Yes. If he's your ex.

>> If he's your ex. [laughter] [applause]

[cheering] [laughter] >> Hey babe. [laughter] Been a long time. [laughter]

[laughter] Crap. All right. So, here's what the message looks like. All right. So, we go back over here to Crowd Strike and let's say we found this job, right? Because every job at CrowdStrike has a job posting. And I'm just going to show you a for instance here just so that you know what it looks like. This R26911. R26911 is the job post. Cool. All right. So, this R26911 is the job wreck number. Does that make sense to everybody? Okay. So, the recruiters use that to keep track of everything inside their their system so that they can find the job that they need to find. So, when you send a message over here to Russell,

it says, uh, hi Russell. and you would spell everything correctly. Uh, I'm reaching out because I just applied for job number. And then you put the number right there. You make it easy for that recruiter to be able to find that post real quick. And then the second line is my name is and I am right. You give the quickest thing like I'm I'm getting ready to graduate. I've been in this industry for 15 years. Whatever it is, you give a real quick one sentence. I want to work at Crowd Strike. Right? You say, "I want to work at Crowdstrike because you give a good because because of this or because of that." You give a

good because. And then your next sentence is uh would it be possible to speak to speak with the recruiter? So like, "Hey, can I talk to the recruiter responsible for this role?" or if it's you, could I talk to you for 10 to 15 minutes to introduce myself and learn more about the role? Okay. And then the last is you can reach me on LinkedIn or phone number or whatever. Does this make sense? >> Okay. So, what you're doing is step number one, figure out where you want to apply. Step number two is to build a resume that aligns to the job description. Step number three is you apply at the company's website through the company's infrastructure for hiring

you. Step number four is you find the magical job fairy responsible for that position and introduce yourself to them. And then step number five is you just keep track of all this information so that you know what you've been doing throughout the whole job hunt process. And then over time you're going to hear back. Will you hear back from everybody? >> No. But it is not up to you for them to respond. It is up to you for you to send the message. Don't say no on behalf of somebody else. And so the one main takeaway as you leave here today, don't say no on behalf of someone else. Humans suck at describing themselves. They're much

better finding something that describes themselves. But here's the last one. You'll use the least amount of calories to accomplish your goals. And I'm letting you know in 2026, it's going to take more calories than you could ever imagine to find the job that you want. And so I'm encouraging you to go hunt. Don't gather. Go hunt for the job you want. And don't stop until you get it. And with that, I'll see you all next time. [applause and cheering]