Ilya Talman, Author at Roy Talman & Associates

Big Tech Breakup? No, But 230 Questions Remain

Posted on April 6, 2021

In the dawn of a new administration trying to grapple with a pandemic and rebuilding an economy, it’s only a matter of time before Washington returns to the question of what its relationship to Silicon Valley. Namely, will and should Big Tech companies such as Google or Facebook be broken up?

From our perspective on whether that’s going to happen and the implications, the only way a Big Tech Breakup would likely happen is to have a case ultimately go in front of the Supreme Court. It’s doubtful that Congress can simply wish to break up Facebook. It’s less a legislation question than a legal one. As of now, judging by the behavior of the stocks of Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon, it’s highly unlikely.

So a tech breakup is probably not what to expect in the battle of Washington Vs. Silicon Valley. But there is another front forming.

The Section 230 Battle

When President Biden was running for office, one of the critical things he stated was that Section 230 should be abolished tomorrow. Section 230, for those unfamiliar, is the specific piece of legislation that provides immunity for website platforms from 3^rd party content.

Essentially, when a platform such as Twitter or Facebook has millions, if not billions, of people talking about a variety of subjects on it, some more questionable than others, then that platform can’t be expected to be held liable for everything a user says. As we know, Facebook and Twitter have taken a more active role in moderating content recently, of which some people are outraged.

In contrast, if these platforms were not allowed to moderate content, the situation could spiral out of control and be much worse than it is now. So Washington is grappling with the question of how much to moderate, to what degree to moderate and what way to moderate.

The current solution has been to essentially allow platforms to do everything they want and hopefully, they’ll try to do their best to moderate the content. For a Facebook, Twitter or YouTube that has handled billions of posts per hour, that solution would appear to be close to impossible to manage unless the offender is a specific user with a ton of followers, such as a celebrity or politician.

So what’s the alternative? It’s a perfect solution

WeChat is a social media, messaging and payment app from China. It has over 1 billion active users per month. WeChat’s approach to monitoring inappropriate content is swift and decisive. If you’ve said something you shouldn’t have, your account gets canceled.

That’s it. End of story.

Now, perhaps that’s too extreme for some. Section 230 probably won’t be completely overhauled, but this much we can expect. Far more “conversations” between the Zuckerbergs and the Dorseys of the Big Tech space and Washington lawmakers are going to happen if Facebook, Twitter and more don’t take greater responsibility for the content published on their platforms. This is why you’re seeing more of that self-policing happening. If they can at least give a substantial good faith attempt to manage content on their platforms, perhaps Congress eases up on Big Tech breakup talk. Maybe.

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Talman Advantage #2: We See The Complete Picture Of Who You Are

At Roy Talman & Associates, we don’t just see you as a resume or even a candidate to fill an open job. Instead, we’ll ask to meet you because we want to get to know you on a deeper level – that includes your current skills, your knowledge of certain subjects, your special expertise, your work style and the environments in which you believe you thrive. Compare that to others. But always talk to Talman first.

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Could Little Tech be the real victim here?

Any time you have increased regulations, there are increased associated costs. In this case, when you remove legal protections, you remove the barrier to additional problems. It may be intended to punish the biggest of the big players, but what if Section 230 is no more and suddenly, tech start-ups have to pay a lot of dollars in legal costs because their protections have been primarily removed?

Sure, Google and Facebook can deal with court battles and costs as a minor inconvenience. But how well can a small tech company operate if they face the same legal implications? That’s where any dramatic change to Section 230 comes with more questions than answers, more significant risks and more unintended consequences.

The Section 230 battle isn’t going away. Every platform, great and small, should keep an eye on it. We certainly will at Roy Talman & Associates. Because what starts as a dramatic legal battle in its own silo may or may not have an impact later on as a barrier or delay in growth for certain tech companies.

The changes in your tech company move a lot faster than anything that happens in Washington. You need to be poised to act quickly on coveted hires. That’s why you want to Talk To Talman First.

With our deep experience working with technology and high-frequency trading companies, Roy Talman & Associates will be your partner in identifying the most vital talent for your specific need. No matter how much the world and the tech industry change, it’s good to know we’re one resource that’s always reliable to help you weather the storm and come out of it looking better than ever with the top 1% of the top 1% of candidates.

Machine Learning’s Challenge for Talent

Posted on March 22, 2021

There may be a boom in the technical application of machine learning coming, but there’s also a problem that’s already here: One that has centered around the lack of people who know how to work with machine learning applications.

At Roy Talman & Associates, we see a niche of very few companies engaging in very few large-scale projects in data sciences and utilizing machine learning because there are not enough people who have used it. So, as a company, you’ll need to keep a watchful eye over the percentage of the projects that succeed and produce results versus the ones that don’t. When you do, you’ll be in a better position to say the number of resources you need to allocate to this.

What does this mean for candidates out there?

At present, we’re not seeing many companies saying, “We need a Data Scientist and are going to hire from a large pool of individuals who have taken a class online.”

Why? There aren’t enough candidates who have gone “all in” on advancing their machine learning education – yet.

Not to say this trend can’t suddenly and dramatically change, but it’s clear at the moment that workers need to consider how to upgrade their skill set, so they become one of the preferred resources for machine learning. The gamble for them is well expressed when they ask, “How much time and resources do I invest in taking Coursera courses? What does the market hold for me if I’m not certain how aggressively it’s going to grow?”

Here’s what you need to keep in mind from a candidate’s perspective:

If your industry is doing well, you should identify where the next large projects are coming from. From that point of view, ask the question, “What skills will be required here? Which technologies will likely need to be deployed to implement these new initiatives?”

Once this is clarified, you can have a better sense of extending your education and which skills are the most practical to strengthen.

For example, there are all kinds of new languages and new machine learning platforms. Do you put the work into becoming an expert in the machine learning platform of TensorFlow? Do you concentrate on the data platform of Snowflake? Do you further your skillset in the advanced programming languages of C++17 and C++20?

These are all “heavy lifts” in their own right. None of them are of the variety that you can learn in 20 minutes. Therefore, being strategic in your next move could not be more critical.

Yes, you can take a class, but the real credibility comes when you can use those skills at work, actually getting things done and implementing meaningful change.

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Talman Advantage #1: Our Connections Run Deep

Why is it so critical that Roy Talman be the first recruiter you talk to? Before your resume is casually distributed to others, it’s important to understand how valuable it is to work with someone who brings a credible and highly reputable network of hiring managers. We’ve cultivated relationships with these managers for over 30 years – in fact, many of them were our candidates at one point.

But if you distribute a resume before we can leverage such connections to identify the best firm and role for you, it may be very difficult for us to help you further. So before you send out a resume, talk to Talman first!

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Which technologies should you be learning tomorrow?

Our practice, over the last six months, has become dramatically more international. We talk to people worldwide now and are finding that the technology for communication is holding up quite well in most situations. Suddenly, the idea of talking to somebody in London this morning, then someone in Toronto after that and someone in Hong Kong later today become normal. And when it becomes normal, your worldview starts changing. There will likely be winners and losers in this new setting. The premium position that growing companies like Zoom and Snowflake are getting in the marketplace implies a tremendous need for people to use them.

In turn, it also implies that the skills that people will need to have are going to be in extreme demand.

Consider the products being used within the organization you’re in today. Suppose you learn part of the organization is using Snowflake and you’re on the periphery of learning that technology. What will that learning curve potentially mean for you a year or two from now to get closer to desirable projects, the compensation you want and career advancement?

On the other hand, let’s say your organization is focused on traditional avenues such as Oracle. Well, if you know anything about Oracle, only so much about the technology has improved over the last five years. Will taking a deep dive into that technology help you if it hasn’t evolved very much? Perhaps not as much as the first example.

What we can say is now more than ever, this very year is a demonstration that the timelines on technological moves are getting much shorter.

In the past, it might have taken 15 years for the technology to become fully established…15 years!

Now, it might take as little as three to five years.

If you’re in front-end development, where should you focus and how rapidly should you accelerate your learning?

One example that I’ve mentioned before is called React. Until three years ago, few companies or developers had the desire to learn or integrate React. Then, as if out of nowhere, React seemed to be the only thing our clients wanted to discuss for front-end development. Is it an overnight, smooth transition? No. Typically a company will need at least two or three years of experience working in React. Still, much like a switch flipping on, the demand is suddenly there.

I suspect we’re going to see transitions of the React nature in many other areas, particularly ones that can afford large-scale new projects. These companies will allocate fewer resources to keeping their old systems going – and frankly, they’re going to need to as the latest technologies are developing faster than ever.
We also foresee that, as our economy recovers over the next six months or so, there will be many more aggressive projects that take advantage of the market. As those projects arise – and frankly, well before they do – you’re going to want to Talk To Talman First.

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Roy Talman & Associates has been positioning candidates and hiring managers alike for the next wave of change for over three decades and counting. If you’re in the technological or financial trading arena, you’ll be glad to know that we understand how to get the most passionate people prepared in advance of the interview for fresh challenges and new technologies that the times demand – and the most demanding employers do too.

From Working from Home to Working From Anywhere

Posted on January 27, 2021

Obviously, a pandemic has done its part to push us out of the office and keep us out for the majority of a year. COVID-19 made us stuck in our houses. But it’s not too optimistic or unrealistic to be thinking about the day and age when COVID, thankfully and finally, goes away.

What will that mean for returning to the office? Is it a given that it’s going to happen? Or that it will be mandatory? We see a future in which there will be a lot more independence from the office, but let’s dig in and explore what that means for workers and employers alike.

Will we be able to literally go anywhere for work? In some instances, the answer is clear: Yes. Before COVID-19, some workers were going anywhere they wanted to in order to do work – not down the street but out of the country. With a laptop and a reliable Internet connection, what more did they need? Now, we should expect more people like them to expand the borders of work beyond anything they ever were before.

For years I was predicting that many people were going to move to other countries (for reasons ranging from the cost of living to lifestyle) and work remotely. There was just one problem: The bandwidth to do so wasn’t there. That’s rapidly changing, however. We recently wrote about increased bandwidth and the possibility that speed and stability represent more robust communication globally, leading to potentially more remote work. Perhaps even a lot more of it.

Once businesses have a working from home policy in place that’s firmly and uniformly established, we should see more people doing the vast majority of their work in other locations besides the traditional office setting. Maybe that’s not for everybody, but for the ones who can work remotely, the next question is: Where should you live?

Don’t be surprised to see substantial changes in lifestyles that impact whether people return to the office. A 20-something social butterfly may want to congregate closer to the city, but a young couple with a new baby may be ready to move out to a 2,500 square foot house in suburbia. Others still will favor businesses in Manhattan, Chicago, London, San Francisco or Silicon Valley. And many of those in hi-tech careers won’t feel the need to continually communicate with each other in person as much as other people – coders don’t need to be in the office every day. Put them in any room of their choosing and slide pizza underneath the door. They’ll be good to go.

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Talman Advantage #10: Stronger Negotiating Power On Your Side

The terms of your employment aren’t to be taken lightly. With our 30+ years of industry expertise, Roy Talman & Associates has a keen eye for detail during negotiations. In fact, if the help of an attorney is required for this purpose, we can suggest one. Can any recruiter offer the same result?

Don’t wonder about the outcome. Stand with a recruiter who has the track record to negotiate firmly in your favor. Make the right call and talk to Talman first.

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Redefining The Rules Of Remote

However, let’s not stop at the local area for remote work. What if you’re Facebook, in Silicon Valley and one of your people has fallen in love with the Chicago area during a recent trip? If that’s the case, the next thing is you need to figure out how you’re going to pay people. In Silicon Valley, you’re paying a high earner $400,000 a year. Not to mention you’re paying California income tax, which could be 10% to 12%. Well, if that worker of yours isn’t physically in California but still working for Facebook, you at Facebook may be in the position to say, “You really don’t work for us in Silicon Valley, do you? You work for us and since you’re in Chicago, we’ll pay you less, but the taxes that you’ll pay in Chicago are much less too.”

This development may create a downtrend for high priced locales like San Francisco and Manhattan as well as other downtown areas. The trade-off in downtown living was being close to nightlife and other cultural advantages. And, in many cases, it was close to work. Now, if someone isn’t walking to work and doesn’t need to be in the office every day, their housing cost might drop in half or less if the individual only needs to visit the office once a week. That could have a significant impact.

In an event like the scenario we’re outlining, how will society change? We know that while COVID is transitory and we might be over it within six or eight months, the way the society is going to start changing might be much more permanent. That might mean that you have all kinds of components to rearrange in terms of how people live and work. If you have gigabit Internet, there may be many remote (as in out of the state or country) locations that can accommodate people pushing these boundaries. Yes, some workers really could be able to have their cake and eat it too. The notion of proximity to work as we know it may change and the daily “commute” with it. As long as technology continues to evolve and improve, what does it matter where you live and work as much?

The pace of technology accelerates us into a future where workers can be independent of locations. People can decide on their lifestyle preference, cost of living, jobs climate, city infrastructure and more. You don’t need 5,000 people in the same building, much like Apple or other large companies have. All you need is a good system setup with the latest technology to communicate with the rest of the organization. Suddenly, you’ve just replicated the office interaction and can do so just about anywhere.

We can be independent in many ways, but now, more than ever, businesses need to build upon their strategic partnerships and resources to maintain a level of consistency in an evolved landscape. If your people will be working from anywhere and you would like to hire specific high-level individuals in a technical capacity, how will your process align? Even if it isn’t drastically changed, having a trusted partner in recruiting couldn’t be more valuable right now.

That’s why you should always Talk To Talman First. As your company transforms to this “new normal,” count on Roy Talman & Associates’ renowned reputation to identify the best of the best technical talent so that you have only the most passionate and prepared individuals in front of you when the time comes. No matter what world we’re living in, that powerful outcome remains the same in your favor.

Permanently Virtual: Is Your Firm Ready For This?

Posted on January 18, 2021

Remember when this forced working from home was going to last a few days? Then a few weeks? Then maybe just a month or two? All those markers have been left far behind, haven’t they? If someone were to tell you, in February of 2020, that a large percentage of our population would work remotely for the rest of the year, would you have believed them? No! You’d say, “I can’t do that all the time! That’s lunacy!” Who could blame you?

Of course, we’ve been working from home for so long that we’re trying to remember what it was like to work together. Many firms wonder if their people will ever return to the office when we’re finally able to do so.

Yet, we need to get real about working remotely here: A lot of companies can say that they’re going to make a shift to working from home among more people without a hiccup on delivering their services. But we need to be candid about technology, logistics, people and planning if we’re going to think not only about how we’ll work remotely in 2021 but also many years beyond that if the “genie is out of the bottle” and your people demand the opportunity to work from home at least part of every week. What considerations should you make for that possibility now?

Let’s put some of these ideas under the microscope to explore how they may impact the state of virtual work and whether or not it’s realistic for you to do when the moment presents itself.

Technological Integration

Goodbye, GSuite. Hello, Google Workspace.

You may see a shift in only a name, but look closer. One of the things we see in terms of trends, whether Google with Workspace or Microsoft with Teams is a lot of bolted-on integration to ensure customers choose a technological ecosystem and stay there. You had Gmail before? Great! Now you can do a picture in picture video with it. Do you have Microsoft Office with Word, PowerPoint and Excel? Perfect! Now you can use Teams with it.

The result of this “integration arms race” is to create an “all in one” system, so you remain loyal to that brand’s ecosystem. Apple has been notorious for this approach. Are we going to see more brands develop a Hub and then make it more scalable rather than continuously evolve it? It’s entirely possible.

What we’re sensing from tech companies during the pandemic (and eventually, the post-pandemic world) is a type of paranoia about how hard it is now to get customers. They also know how dangerous it can be if somebody else gets a foot in the door.

Think about it: Why else would a company like TikTok pose such a significant threat to the established players like Facebook? Because TikTok seemingly came out of nowhere and it was able to gain a foothold quickly. Zoom is another prime example – at the height of the pandemic where people were forced to work remotely, it didn’t take long for Zoom to gain over 100 million users. You still may hear occasional grumbles of how challenging it is for some people to adapt to regularly using Zoom, but there’s little doubt that most of us are making it work… to actually do work.

We forget that not that long ago, video conferencing used to be a highly expensive proposition. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case. Instead of thousands of dollars to use a video conference room and usage that had to be parceled out very carefully, we now can utilize Google Hangouts to conduct highly productive meetings of 10 people at a time.

The bottom line is this: In a new world where people work remotely, if you can obtain a new customer who selects your technology and then adopts it while working from home, the value of that technology could explode at a high magnitude of growth. Therefore, we can expect substantial investment in technology to capitalize on the shift to working from home. As a company considering that level of functionality, now is the time to factor in the technology required so that your people don’t feel a downgrade in the quality of connecting remotely. If anything, you want them feeling that it’s even better remotely than if they were in the office at all.

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Talman Advantage #9: A Smoother Transition Into The New Environment

Thanks to close rapport with senior managers and relationships with clients that have lasted for many years, Roy Talman & Associates has the in-depth knowledge of a firm’s work atmosphere that few can bring to the table.

As a result, we can often provide guidance on what to expect from the culture you’re about to join, which hopefully makes your integration into that environment all the more seamless.

Make your first days in a new role better than you ever expected by talking to Talman first.

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Planning Around Teams And Partners

The question, as we consider the logistics of working from home and making a shift that works for more people in a company – rather than a few here and there is this: Will we experience substantial improvement in productivity, security and communication when working from home?

In our firm’s case, we would have been skeptical as well three years ago for sure. At the time, our systems were not cloud-based, so if the pandemic hit us at that moment, we’d have to make sure that the servers in our office were running. Then we’d hook up our VPN to GoToMyPC, “tunnel” into a computer in the office and from that computer, we’d have access to our servers. That’s a scenario that’s anything but easy!

Fortunately, preparation served us well. Our firm has a cloud-based technological infrastructure that enables our team to communicate seamlessly. We can remain in the current environment for a considerable time while serving our clients just as strongly as we ever did. Meanwhile, we may be as surprised by the events in 2021 just as we were in 2020 – only this time, we might find that the economy restructures much faster and much more deeply than anybody anticipates.

The message for employers is this: Your company may not experience a large-scale shift to permanent work from home. Still, it’s not hard to imagine widespread adoption of working from home at least part of the week while also coming into the office one or two days a week. As such, your preparation to accommodate your team for such a hybrid approach should accelerate, but don’t merely think about technology and logistics. Ask yourself how your strategic partners can play a crucial role in maintaining consistent, high-quality service during your evolution, no matter what that looks like.

At Roy Talman & Associates, we’re ready, willing and able to step up to the challenge of hiring people in a changing environment, including yours, to help you plan for getting in front of the top 1% of all candidates. Just one superior candidate placed in your environment can do wonders for reaching your goals. Even now. In the most unpredictable of times, put your trust in one of the most established names in recruiting technical talent in this marketplace: Talk To Talman First.

2021: The Future of Recruitment is Quality, Not Quantity

Posted on January 3, 2021

We’ll let you in on some industry insight: When someone asks a recruiter how their business is doing, the answer is often a more complicated one than you might expect. You see, if you ask about one’s recruitment business, you’re really asking, “How many people have you placed?”

Case in point: at Roy Talman & Associates, we’re more apt to place ten people rather than the average recruiter that places 100 people. But our firm is likely doing better. Why? Because our firm isn’t just placing people – we’re placing bonafide gems. All-stars in the making. The top 1% of the top 1% who will probably register an impact on that business for many years to come.

Does a firm need a ton of those rare types of talent? Not really. Placing just a few names of such extraordinary talent within a quarter could yield tremendous results. However, you may be wondering, “Yes, but if you’re not placing as many candidates, even if it’s higher quality, how is that smaller number going to work out for you?”

The key here is what many recruiters miss: We actually maintain relationships with people for years and years. We don’t wait until they’re looking again to maintain contact. One of the reasons why you’re reading this Talman Tidbit is because we know that candidates and hiring managers with whom we’ve preserved relationships for decades will read them. In many ways, maintaining this connection between our placement of the highest quality talent is every bit as vital as the actual process of active placement itself.

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Talman Advantage #8: True Help To Hit The Ground Running

With an offer coming, do you have a solid understanding of what you’ll be doing in the first 6 months? The first year? Having placed a variety of senior people at each client’s firm, Roy Talman & Associates can help you clarify a whole lot about the environment you’re about to join, your role and the true expectations of your new manager.

A recruiter without the overwhelming credibility that we have may not be able to shed as much light on what’s in store for you on Day 1 and beyond. So get the insight you need and talk to Talman first.

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Part of building, strengthening and preserving our connections to hiring managers is that we keep our finger on the pulse of the cultures of tech firms and high-frequency trading firms. But it’s also that we have the utmost respect for hiring managers we’ve partnered with and, as such, we will never seek to take someone out of the environment from which we’ve placed them. After all, if you want to preserve trust, what kind of sense does it make to place them, only to turn around and poach them? None! If you’ve done it right the first time, you’re looking at the long-term relationship, not just the job that needs to be filled today.

For example, we placed a gentleman who formally accepted a job – and a very good one at that, with excellent compensation. Now that we’ve placed him at that company, we will never talk to him about other jobs while he is employed there. We cannot and will not recruit him from a company in which we placed him. That’s why we frequently say, “Talk To Talman First.”

“OK, but what if you’ve placed me and I’m subsequently laid off a few years later? Can we start back up again?”

Ah, now that’s a different story. In fact, that’s precisely what happened to the gentleman we mentioned above. After he lost his job, he immediately called one of our associates at Roy Talman & Associates and – most importantly – he didn’t talk to anybody else during this critical period. It was one call directly to our firm and it was the only call he needed to make.

Once Roy Talman & Associates has a relationship with someone who has been in our orbit, whether hiring managers or past consultants, it’s our mission to ensure that they keep counting on us and talking to us. It’s a formula that’s worked exceptionally well for us for over 30 years. Discover how it works in action with one initial phone call to see where the conversation takes us. We’re confident you’ll learn why you always Talk To Talman First.

Who is Winning the Battle of The Bandwidth

Posted on December 11, 2020

Amid a terrible and tragic pandemic, we have to look for good news anywhere we can get it as that’s a sign that we will return to normal and learn how to do things more wisely from this experience.

One of those signs? There’s strong evidence that certain companies are replacing how business was done before on the technology front, starting by expanding bandwidth as it pertains to volume, efficiency and value.

The fact is, operating at 20, 30, even 50 megabits per second was never going to be good enough to meet the demands of this new era where it felt like everybody with a pulse was videoconferencing, not just those of us in business. Fortunately for us, utilizing a massive jump in bandwidth, Zoom was one of the first companies at the beginning of the pandemic to jump into a bandwidth upgrade very aggressively. As a result, they understood how to keep us better connected for all circumstances while using the Internet for videoconferencing.

Now, we all know it wasn’t always ideal using Zoom in the past. A person’s voice and mouth on video didn’t match perfectly, for instance. It also was tough to understand people at times. Today, much of that frustration with the technology has mostly subsided.

Who Else Is Benefitting From Expanded Bandwidth?

Applications rooted in providing remote learning
Virtual meeting places
Virtual reality / augmented reality systems
4K television
5G phone networks

Let’s explore these developments a little deeper.

As bandwidth availability moves beyond megabits to gigabits, we should see the next great leap and areas, such as the ones above, could well benefit. Here’s what we mean: Currently, if you’re in a Zoom meeting, it’s challenging to talk to more than one person, right? Zoom, in its current state, can’t handle audio with more than one person speaking. If three or four people were to get in a heated discussion, hearing each other would be no small challenge.

Yet, what if you enter a virtual room where you can talk to another person even without needing to whisper like in a regular room? The way these emerging and evolving systems are designed is that if one person starts talking, the system essentially decides who everybody will be listening to, as opposed to trying to merge all the sounds in a way that you’d hear multiple people talking at the same time.

Let’s face it: Up to this point, a variety of communication tools haven’t been the greatest for more than two people at any given time. But today, we can accommodate 100 people in the same room or 50 people on one screen. The infrastructure is there to utilize increased system bandwidth effectively. I’m supremely confident that companies that bet on an ever-expanding communication capacity at the same price, if not lower, are going to be winners compared to others who maintain the status quo and see no point in doing anything else to upgrade capacity.

There may not be a plethora of 4K movies yet and the cable systems are not sending us many of their channels in 4K, but make no mistake: 4K movies and television will be mainstream soon enough.

With so many people working from home, there’s going to be a tremendous push to deliver systems that make it simple for 10-15 people to meet in a virtual meeting room and interact with each other. That will have a more significant impact than having the default of a speaker. For now, Zoom has only one “Speaker View,” – but having multiple speakers might be right around the corner.

Another example of a company benefitting from increased bandwidth is Apple, which has announced that its newest phone will be 5G and promising better synchronization.

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Talman Advantage #7: We Already Know Many People At The Top

The built-in advantage of being a more specialized recruiter for over three decades is that Roy Talman & Associates established many strong relationships with senior leaders in the C-suite and Director level. How do we truly leverage that? Prior to your interview, we can provide you terrific insight on the person’s background, the questions they’re likely to ask you and even a few clues into why prior candidates were likely rejected.

A recruiter that equips you with more information in advance of the interview? That just might make all the difference – if you talk to Talman first.

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What is the Challenge?

The challenge before us now that a new era of technological prowess is about to arrive: We have the speed of communication, stability of communication and latency of communication progressing leaps and bound. That means industries and businesses will be recognizing they can do things that they couldn’t do before. It’s not hard to envision telemedicine and remote surgery applications that can depend on much higher resolution images. We are already reading about machine learning-assisted colonoscopy procedures that detect polyps only a millimeter or two in size.

With higher performance comes higher expectations. And that includes what we can expect from here in terms of how we work together.

…And What is to Come?

In the future, it’s safe to assume that a lot of companies will want to invest in people who will be working from home. Let’s say yours is one of them. You have a team of 12 people who need to be continuously communicating with one another – and simultaneously speaking without interfering with each other. They should have large screens for this communication and enough bandwidth in their technology to produce high-quality images. Therefore, instead of having one camera, it may require each team member to have two or three cameras so that the image isn’t disappearing as it is sometimes prone to do on Zoom (especially with those virtual backgrounds!). So if someone likes to walk and talk, they can do so without sacrificing any details on image quality or voice communication.

It’s not that all of your team members need to be working from home five days a week. Still, even if some are working from home two or three days a week, they will require technologies to make the experience more productive through more robust bandwidth, larger screens and better software to make for a smooth, seamless interaction with co-workers.

As companies will be offering more and more of these functionalities very quickly, think about how this might impact your communication internally and externally. Is your HR department technologically equipped for coordinating and planning without missing a beat? If you have to conduct interviews with candidates and provide them with a set of problems to solve as part of the interviewing process, can you do so with ease?

Connect and Talk with Us

Remember that your best innovation in times of change is having the consistency of a proven partner. So Talk To Talman First. Whether your recruitment plans are immediate or coming on the horizon, having a conversation with Roy Talman & Associates now will prepare you for how you can precisely augment your team with the best of the best talent. Challenge us to find that diamond in the rough and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what we can deliver. Just as we’ve delivered for so many others in the technical and financial trading space for 30+ years.

What is GPT-3? Is It A True Game Changer For Technology?

Posted on October 9, 2020

Imagine that you’re a lawyer and a few years from now, you have to go through a case log of documents that you want to summarize – from 5,000 cases, to be exact. By the way, each of those cases are 100 pages.

However, what if you could feed these cases into a machine that would summarize all 5,000 cases into the top 5,000 paragraphs? It would be hefty, but a lot more manageable, correct?

Alternatively, what if you’re a programmer who has been writing code in Python and one day, you don’t need the program anymore? That’s right. All you need to do now is deliver sample data into a machine, get the output type you want and analyze it. In essence, you become a trainer for the machine as opposed to a programmer.

It’s a day that could be right around the corner and create dramatic changes in the nature of work across a variety of industries – perhaps even more so than the kind we’re experiencing right now. What type of machine holds such promise and potential? As you’re about to find out, it’s a beast.

The Rise of GPT-3

For a long time, Elon Musk and other notables have been very concerned that certain projects will consume all of the available AI, thus their belief that the latest thinking on machine learning should be distributed to all of the general public. This way, nobody would have an edge against, well, everybody else.

It’s also likely why Musk is paying close attention to the latest moves from Microsoft to commit $1 billion to a company. That company, OpenAI, is led by Sam Altman (former CEO of Y Combinator). OpenAI is an artificial intelligence lab based in San Francisco.

Microsoft has also built a gigantic machine for OpenAI that will be one of the world’s largest supercomputers. At the same time, OpenAI has produced its first commercial product: GPT-3.

GPT-3 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) represents a new kind of machine learning system, a predictive model that utilizes deep learning to create the most human-like text up to this point. For the first time, machines are creating text that is so high quality, it is virtually indistinguishable from that of a human being.

At its capacity, GPT-3 can manage 175 billion machine learning parameters. To put this in context, the previous language model, from Microsoft, had a capacity of 17 billion parameters – about 10% of what GPT-3 can handle. When the original GPT was launched eight years ago, it had approximately 1.7 billion parameters, only 1% of today’s current model’s capacity.

What Makes GPT-3 A “Game Changer”?

As I listened to a podcast from the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, I was struck by a guest’s comments proclaiming GPT-3 to be a bit of a “game-changer.” That term is thrown around a lot, but this time, I think it’s very legitimate once you take a closer look under the hood of what GPT-3 is all about and what it can do. Whereas GPT-2 primarily dealt with recognizing images, GPT-3 is focused upon identifying text.

For example, let’s say you’re building a machine learning system today. You might pick a particular type of text to process and rely upon basic machine learning to “understand” that text. You plan to “teach” this machine to distinguish the right text and what is not. You then go to the system to retrieve this data and get reliable results. Those results may cost you millions of dollars and take a very long to arrive at an accurate outcome.

Contrast this with GPT-3, which has been trained on such an incredible amount of data of every variety that it has “learned” all sorts of things that people didn’t know that it was learning. And there’s more: Rather than giving a GPT-3 system millions of pieces of text to comprehend from, it only requires select samples to understand the text and its purpose. Thus, you can ask questions with minimal input and it returns excellent, accurate answers in a brief period of time.

Let’s say you’re a startup and are looking for answers from a GPT-3 model as a foundation. The solutions provided from this machine may only require you to spend $50,000 instead of trying to obtain $5 million.

If GPT-3 continues to perform well – and there is little reason to suspect that won’t – you can be confident that Google, Amazon, IBM and others will develop their own versions. All you need to be is an expert in figuring out how to use just enough data to give an example of what you’re trying to do. Then it will start providing you the answers you need.

And if it gives you the wrong answer? You correct it and the machine learns from it.

Here’s the implication: Suddenly, you don’t need to be a programmer to deal with this. You need to be more of a teacher adept at explaining what you need and directing the machine on these goals clearly – even in all languages.

So if it appears that the model of GPT-3 works, the emphasis will be instead about feeding the machine the best examples of what you want it to learn. You want it to recognize any kind of text? Feed the text into GPT-3. Then start feeding in newer and newer situations, asking for feedback continuously from the machine. If it passes with flying colors, the machine will not need many examples to accommodate exactly what you’re looking for.

The access to GPT-3 right now is a very tight circle, while OpenAI is fine-tuning it. We can still probably fool it now and then, so those “kinks” need to be eliminated.

However, suppose we can successfully build a system with 175 billion parameters. In that case, it’s only a matter of time before a machine is made with trillions of parameters – and by the way, the human brain has about 7 trillion synapses. Then, we will have reached an Earth-shattering milestone: A machine that “thinks,” “behaves” and “sounds” the closest to a human that makes decisions.

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Talman Advantage #5: A Real Partner With A Plan

When a recruiter talks to you on the phone for 20 minutes just once, there’s only so much they know about you beyond the resume. On the other hand, Roy Talman & Associates will work with you to gain a robust understanding of your skill set, goals, work style preferences and more. Then, rather than “blasting” your resume out to the hiring universe with random results, we’ll make a plan with you on what order we will present you to various firms that we feel are a best fit.

Your career deserves more than a quick chat. Partner with a recruiter who can help you feel more in control of the process – as you should be. Talk to Talman first.

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Is there any sign that more people will get access to GPT-3 technologies soon?

GPT-3 has been announced as a commercial product, so as some rigorous testing is completed, we should see access open up gradually to the general public as a platform. And that platform will be able to handle a variety of inputs flowing into it continually with answers flowing out continuously, presumably charging the user per activity.

That’s the functionality of the machine that will change in time. But what about the functionality of the technical profession that may change as we know it?

Remember – we have seen machine learning via the GPT jump from its original level to its third iteration in just eight years. Where will we be in another eight years? We can expect the most advanced machine learning level to become a reality today and for another advancement level to be right on its heels. The role of tech professionals who can direct machines from one destination of computation to another will be essential.

Yes, you will still need to recognize when a machine errs and redirect it to the proper path, so it learns not to err in that manner again. If it calls for fewer samples to be fed into it rather than millions of them, you will still need to feed the machine with clear examples of what it needs to learn so that the “learning curve” is short and accurate. And when the answers flow out of a machine, you will still need to decipher what those answers mean in relation to the landscape of overarching goals. After all, a machine may perform individual tasks flawlessly, but we don’t always know that such a machine can see the “big picture” of what we’re trying to accomplish through a series of tasks.

This is how our work can shift and change. Even though we don’t know what every promising machine learning model can and cannot do, we can still plan for the inevitable progress and evolution to come. Sitting still just isn’t an option.

That’s why forward-thinking candidates and companies Talk To Talman First. We know that today’s skills may very well need to change tomorrow, so it’s good to meet with the recruiter who has been entirely in tune with these developments for over 30 years. What new tests should a candidate be challenged with before the interview? What companies are running toward machine learning systems instead of away from them? It’s good to rely on one resource that’s known all over in a landscape of unknowns. From Chicago to New York and many points in between.

What if Working from Home Becomes the Rule and Not the Exception?

Posted on October 2, 2020

I just finished reading a book from Andrew McAfee called “More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources—and What Happens Next.” McAfee argues that there is now a very pronounced trend where we’ve reached the peak of usage of energy, metals and, well, everything. We’re able to derive more use by using less and less material. In fact, the only thing we don’t seem to be using less of is moving electrons around, which is to say computing.

At the same time, I enjoyed reading “Enlightenment Now,” by Steven Pinker, which makes a strong case through data that – despite the headlines we’re bombarded by that make us feel like the world is coming to an end – life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge and happiness are on the rise worldwide.

What both of these books have in common is a very optimistic view of where we are – a very rare thing, indeed. It may feel hard to relate to such optimism at this moment. Nonetheless, these authors believe that overall trends will be very positive and on a large scale. Hopefully, in six months or so, we will emerge from the economic and health crisis we are currently living in. The world will change and people will become more home-bound and family-oriented. Working from home will become the norm for many and less the exception to the rule.

For several years, we saw a big swing toward cities among workers and companies. After all, it’s OK to live in a postage-stamp-sized apartment when you spend the majority of time outside, where you can walk to work and where the fun is. But now, I believe we will see more of a distributed living arrangement where people live more in suburbia or, ultimately, all over the place.

Evolving technology will make the adjustment easier

It’s going to be interesting to see the degree to which tech leaders like Facebook and Google and others say, “It’s OK, we’ll guarantee that you have a job for a year without showing up in the office, just working remotely.” Even in our offices at Roy Talman & Associates, we’ve become very accustomed to Zoom. Zoom and other technologies are so useful now versus years ago when we didn’t have the level of bandwidth to the home that we do today.

Consequently, we have much more capable communication. Instead of the sound of people talking being out of sync with the video image, it requires more computing to perform video processing.

This means that if so many more people are going to work from home permanently, we will need to think about technologies that make communication from home more realistic than ever. It could also mean more giant screens, more advanced 3-D cameras, better facial recognition software and more. When these new technologies fall into place – and we expect that to be sooner rather than later – it will bring the capabilities to do so much more from home.

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Talman Advantage #6: The Technical Expertise Clients Highly Respect

How many account managers within a recruiting firm have technical PhDs and MSs? Not many. Yet, you’ll find several of them at Roy Talman & Associates, which our clients in the technological space have come to highly respect over the course of 30+ years. No wonder they respond quickly in real time. And when we suggest the creation of a new position just for you, they seriously consider our suggestion at a minimum and frequently call us to discuss further.

See yourself represented from a higher place right from the very beginning. Talk to Talman first.

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This will bring about potential new questions and challenges for hiring managers seeking top talent to bring into the environment. In fact, what will “the environment” really entail? Will an office in a specific location define it or encompass wherever the talent has a computer and a strong Internet connection?

No, we can’t predict when a virus will end, but even when it does, we have to face the fact that some highly advanced technology professionals will not want to return to the office even though they love what they do. Or perhaps they’ll seek more of a blend of coming into the office a couple of days a week and working from home the other days.

Again, suppose a company is willing to invest the proper amount of bandwidth in an employee’s surroundings to do their job just as well at home as in the office. In that case, they may not only retain that employee that much longer due to technology. They may retain that individual due to their showing increased adaptability, trust and loyalty. Perhaps many companies will have to make such an adjustment. And going the extra mile for accommodating the more invaluable employees remotely may be an excellent thing.

How do you plan on building your team and retaining your very best talent? Talk To Talman First.

See, even now, the most respected tech firms are not waiting and hoping for great team members to beat a path to their door. They’re charting a proactive course to obtain the best of the best additions. And they’re doing it in partnership with Roy Talman & Associates. Even in a pandemic, these waters are not entirely unchartered to our recruiters. We know how to find, prepare and present superior candidates who can hit the ground running because we’ve accelerated their learning curve even before their first day.

If more than 30 years of experience have taught us anything, it’s not to just fill a position with a warm body but to help firms add the kind of unmistakable talent who can potentially increase profitability exponentially. And who couldn’t stand to see that kind of result right now?

2020’s Silver Lining: How We Work May Be Evolving For The Better

Posted on August 18, 2020

If we talk about how the world is changing in relation to the way we work and communicate, it’s vital that we consider the convergence of three significant developments:

1) For many of our jobs, there is a true ability to do that job remotely.

People can be much more productive with the time they have allotted during the day. In years past, you could say, “I’d love to meet in person, but I’m not going to be in your town. It’s just too far out of my way.” Now, you can meet as close to “in person” as it gets and it is much easier to grab 15 minutes to jump on a Zoom call or Google Hangout call.

Some people have noted that they are busier than last year simply because they can meet people much easier than before. There’s no associated travel time.

2) Bandwidth to the home has been drastically improved upon

It wasn’t so long ago that ten megabits was considered to be broadband. Years ago, we took to Skype in my office and it was painful to carry out a conversation at times due to the audio ad video being out of sync. Now we’re routinely able to accommodate a 300 megabit download in the home, allowing for high-quality video and sound. In the past, you might not have understood what the person was saying and the video was shaky and jerky.

Against this backdrop, it has become almost a revelation to realize that, indeed, you can effectively do a lot of things remotely that were presumed to be impossible, difficult or only for the very few. With better video capability and bandwidth, our connections are quicker and generally speaking, clearer.

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Talman Advantage #4: Better Positioning For Your Best Opportunity

The reality is that, in so many situations, that “perfect job opportunity” may not be formally listed by a company. In that instance, where some may simply fire your resume off to an HR person’s email and hope for the best, Roy Talman & Associates takes a more creative and purposeful approach.

If an opening isn’t currently available that’s an ideal match for you, we’ll discuss the kind of role with you that you would be interested in and potentially prepare and present a very specific case to that particular firm to create a unique role for you. That’s called a recruiter that goes further for you – and why you need to talk to Talman first.

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That brings us to our third crucial development.

3) We have a far more capable and intelligent cloud.

In the past, people had to go to the office because that’s where the computer was. Now we can switch away from computers holding our applications on a server in the office in favor of the cloud. If you’ve made this switch, you might recall the pain of dealing with servers and loosely connected technologies that couldn’t “talk” to each other.

Now we’re living in an age in which all of our technology has come together far more seamlessly in an integrated way in the cloud. In our case at Roy Talman & Associates, with a significant presence both in New York and in Chicago, we’re dealing with the lack of actual face-to-face interaction in these markets. Still, the trade-off is that we can zip from New York to Chicago all the time now thanks to the cloud and the current capabilities of the smartphone and Zoom.

Furthermore, capable apps in the cloud are changing a good portion of what we do to the degree that tech companies are saying that it’s OK to work from home as long as you can perform.

Not Everybody Wins In This Development, However.

People are finding, to their surprise, that indeed they can perform very well remotely. But in that kind of outcome, there are people adversely impacted. A friend of mine deals with Executive Assistants – a fair of whom have been laid off. If you think about it, a good portion of the job of Executive Assistant can be in coordinating complex travel and meeting schedules. The logistics of arranging travel can be a full-time job in itself.

It’s hard to say when those jobs will come back, but at a minimum, there is sure to be some restructuring. It’s not just about allowing people to work from home, but all the jobs that required working on the road and traveling nonstop are changing in that people find that they can do them from home. A lot of consulting companies are finding their people can work from home doing what they did before.

Now For The Big Question Hanging Over Everyone

How long will COVID-19 be a factor in these developments and influence how we work going forward? Certain studies say that for the first three to four months, working from home can be as productive as working in the office.

Yet, as time goes on, productivity tends to slide.

Will that happen here? Will we be significantly less productive working from home? If so, that could complicate matters. What we can assume is that the world is going to be relatively the same a year from now, so some jobs will simply go away and other jobs will materially change, requiring you to adjust and learn new skills, both on the receiving and creativity side.

If you look at today’s market, factoring in the likes of technology companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Google and more, they’re all in a position to grab a larger share of our lives in this evolving economy. What technology jobs will continue to be in demand and what types of firms will be directly or indirectly influenced by the innovations from these giants capturing a larger share of how we live?

Can the production of the innovators meet the skyrocketing value? If and when it does, what jobs will be needed and what industries will be impacted most? Let’s use the upstart Tesla and the entire auto manufacturing industry as an example. Tesla, which just announced its building of a $1.1 billion assembly plant near Austin, Texas, has reached all-time highs in its stock, becoming the world’s most valuable carmaker at $208 billion. That makes it worth more than Toyota, Fiat Chrysler, Ford, Ferrari, GM, BMW, Honda and Volkswagen – combined. But while Wall Street loves Tesla, the fact remains that Elon Musk’s company has a lot of work to do on the production line for Tesla or the honeymoon will be over just as soon as it began. Will this new plant in Texas rise to the challenge and finally deliver on Tesla’s promise?

With some of these industries regularly in a state of flux and changing, is there one that works well for your skills? Now is the time to take a solid look at these possibilities as far as their state not only today but what lies ahead for them in a post-COVID-19 world. Fortunately, you don’t have to arrive at the answer on your own or need a crystal ball to see what the future holds. Roy Talman & Associates can be the partner you need at a time like this.

Throughout our 30+ year history, Roy Talman & Associates has witnessed not only the significant ups and downs of the U.S. economy but also how industries can evolve significantly. We pride ourselves on being one of the first to know of what financial trading, consulting and technology firms are doing next due to our incredibly close, open and transparent relationships with hiring managers we’ve earned the trust of. So, as they know, we’ll know – and in turn, you’ll know what your next move should be.

Now more than ever: Talk To Talman First.

The State Of Hiring: 4 Insights To Plan Ahead In Unpredictable Times

Posted on August 10, 2020

We’re obviously in a tumultuous time with a lot of different changes. Still, even if your company isn’t in a rush at present to fill the next significant potential role, you can take advantage of the time to think about smart strategies for planning. Here are four insights we’re seeing at Roy Talman & Associates to ensure your business is always moving forward in the face of the unpredictable.

#1: People are still hiring, even if interviews are not face-to-face.

We have a long way to go to make up for the gap in lost jobs, but we have candidates with interviews continually going on. There are, as you might expect, very few face-to-face interviews – not zero, but some. There is a natural apprehension to a close, in-person interview. Even if both parties are wearing masks and sitting more than six feet apart.

Clients looking to hire are switching to multiple interviews using different tools. Of course, there is the good old phone for technical conversations and Zoom, Facetime, Microsoft Teams and Google Hangouts for non-technical conversations as well as enabling an individual to share their screen for more seamless communication. For example, one person could be coding and another could be discussing it.

One of our clients used to do interviews in which they would bring a candidate in to meet with a room of multiple people. We’re not seeing that type of interview structure right now, such as the candidate talking to three people at once.

#2: Employees are more productive working from home

While not that many companies are hiring in this recessionary period, many of our clients at Roy Talman & Associates have been hiring. And for quite some time, the majority of their people have been working remotely.

The question has come up on occasion, “What do you do where the person being hired has been working from home now for two months?” If it’s anything like the trend we’ve been seeing, many people aren’t missing a beat in working from home and may even be better for it. In some cases, a person who is visiting an elderly relative periodically may be very concerned about going into the office and creating an environment where she might bring something home or to her elderly relative, which could have severe consequences.

Generally speaking, people are finding that they can do the majority of their work – and their best work – from home. I ran into a colleague recently and asked how he was doing with the present challenges, to which he replied, “I’m actually much busier than I used to be. The number of meetings that I’ve attended is way up because it’s so much easier to set it up.”

If we think back to many years ago, pre-laptop computer, one of the key reasons people went into the office was that that’s where the computers were. That’s how you got access to work and got work done. Anything that resembled Zoom as we know it was of poor quality in which you could not understand the person and the whole experience was less than satisfactory. Thankfully, just in time, the technology has come a very long way.

It’s not without its hiccups, of course, such as if you have spotty Wi-Fi in your house and can’t do certain things. Right now, the problem with Zoom is that people can’t talk at the same time, but that’s the next step where the system will be able to handle it smoothly, from faces to images. There are current limitations as far as how many different screens can be seen on a phone, tablet or desktop. But that type of problem is solvable. We suspect that the crew from Zoom that is writing and designing software is at the forefront of it.

Yet, many providers have enabled us to view up to 300 megabits per second downloads, so that everybody in the house can watch high definition videos and the quality of Zoom videos or similar will be exceptional. So the technology, even as there’s room for improvement in it, is allowing companies to see that these once temporary options may not be temporary at all. And that has a direct impact on our next point.

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Talman Advantage #3: The Preparation For The Interview You Deserve

You can’t go into an interview armed with only a resume to represent you. Roy Talman & Associates gets you ready for the experience with a far more in-depth level of preparation, including an evaluation of your skills in light of what today’s marketplace demands.

Through testing on certain subjects and measuring your scores against what our clients expect, you’ll be able to head into the interview knowing so much more. You’ve come too far to settle for anything less. So make sure you talk to Talman first.

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#3: Tech companies may reshape the office landscape dramatically

What some – not all, but some – businesses are realizing in the wake of this forced move to remote communication is that perhaps a downtown office is a luxury rather than a necessity. Plenty of people might say, “I’m happy with what I can do from home and I don’t need to go back or I can come in one day or two per week.” This could bring new questions for firms in the way of management’s flexibility in order to retain talent.

We might see a tremendous shift on this, especially as we see a company like Facebook saying to its staff, “You know what? You don’t have to come into our office in Silicon Valley. You can settle in other areas, in fact. You can have that bigger house and backyard you’ve always wanted while you work for us. As long as you’re comfortable with the trade-off that we won’t give you your Silicon Valley salary, where the cost of living is dramatically higher, if you’re living in another part of the country.”

Twitter has already said that it will allow its employees to work from home permanently. Google may be next, with the search engine giant telling its staff that they can work from home for the rest of the year.

Think about the implications of companies like that and others shifting away from office space in or near a downtown area. Downtown office space could collapse in value and desirability. Add to the fact that not everybody may be able to return to the space at once. For example, as of this writing, only up to 25% of the people in a space are allowed, to account for proper social distancing.

What the last several months have shown us is what the new economy is going to look like. Before, if a manager wanted to know what Danny or Susie or Bob on their team was producing, they’d have to see Danny, Susie or Bob sitting in their seats at the office. Now that they can’t see these people in their seats, they have to come up with different metrics that will tell them how productive a person is.

#4: Financial trading companies are prospering

At least in the short-term, financial trading is doing very well as a sector. The volume is up and volatility is up. The vast majority have been prospering and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Now, to what degree are these firms interested in hiring? That’s a different issue. If firms find they can make money without necessarily adding people, they’ll do so. The business is very computerized and thus very efficient. We’ll continue to watch this sector for the degree that it accelerates hiring in the months to come. As a firm with deep relationships with so many in the financial trading space, we’ll keep you abreast of increased shifts in any particular direction the hiring winds blow.

There’s no doubt about it. In a “perfect storm” of so many events impacting the state of hiring, you’re searching for any consistency you can count on. There’s a place you want to be as the markets of Chicago and New York move into new phases and workers slowly return. As that happens, you may be thinking about that key role or roles you know have to be assumed by only the very best of the best.At that moment, you need the perspective of a true partner in recruitment that can better plan alongside you. A firm which, for over 30 years, has fostered deep relationships with those who are not only actively looking but also highly talented individuals we’ve helped to place in their position. Now more than ever, this is no time to go with the unproven or unknown. Talk to Talman First.