Lance Hassan, Author at Roy Talman & Associates

The 10X Developer: How Employees Could Take On More Even Easier

Posted on October 25, 2023

In a recent Tidbit, we talked about the era of machine learning we’re rapidly entering and its similarity to the Industrial Revolution in several ways. If we’re in a version of that period, we may see a strong economy coupled with companies laying off people due to machine learning technology, making the employees they do keep more productive than others. In that event, a company may not need nearly as many workers to achieve powerful production.

Hopefully, however, a more optimistic scenario plays out: One in which the economy adjusts very fast and companies recognize that, indeed, they can have much more productive employees. But then, they also recognize that employees can take on much more significant tasks. Not simply perform the same tasks they’ve always done faster.

If employees take on bigger tasks and more extensive projects, the implications are significant for growing consumption and the economy, even if it’s not necessarily the GDP.

See, if your software is twice as efficient today as it was a year ago, even if the hardware is the same, your cost of computing will drop in half as well. Overall, by the time you combine AI models and they interact, you’ll arrive at lower costs. We’re learning now that you can have Bard, ChatGPT or Copilot writing code instead of a $150,000 developer writing code.

Now, you may not need the full-time $150,000 developer, but what about a person who can double-check the work of ChatGPT? While that kind of individual is limited to the speed with which they can function, they can come up with ideas much faster and verify results faster. They’re not providing multiple answers. We’re talking about somebody higher up, so they know what to look for and exactly how to direct it.

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.

The analogy I’ve given is that if a developer with a skill set ranked as a “7” on a scale of 1-10 gets to be 50% faster and better, then that makes them a “10.”

Similarly, if a developer with a skill set of “3” on a scale of 1-10 is 30% better, it might take them to a “4”.

So, all in all, instead of developers who give you a skill range of “3” to “7,” you suddenly have developers with a skill range of “4” to “10.”

Can you ever have enough of those 10s? I don’t think so.

I recently heard one interview that discussed the notion of a “10X Developer” if there is such a person. The idea of the 10X developer is that one developer, understanding how to utilize the new tools of AI fully, will achieve results potentially 10 times more than another. Suppose this high-level expert can direct AI in creating and running test scenarios. What implications does that hold for junior-to-mid-level developers who currently perform that task?

With these new tools, we might find that there are 100X Developers, even 1000X Developers.

What’s a 1000X Developer? A developer who has robots telling other robots what to do, so that developer is controlling two layers of robots.

In other words:

First, the developer does a task themselves.
Next, they direct a robot on how to help them perform that task.
Third, they direct the robot on what to do independently.
Finally, they have the robot perform a task while they direct another robot to check that robot’s work.

This kind of developer could be drastically more productive than anyone else, not unlike the kind of extremely high-level individual we typically recruit for at Roy Talman & Associates.

If we enter a new era in which technologies enable evolved roles for your core team, will you know how to hire accurately for what the times call for and not an individual whose skills are outdated? You will if you Talk To Talman First.

Roy Talman & Associates has our finger on the pulse of what you need next and now, so you’re in proper alignment with what a rapidly changing industry calls for and stay ahead of competitors who can only focus on what’s needed in the present moment. Get proactive by having a future-focused conversation on hiring top technical talent with Roy Talman today.

Will Machine Learning Change How You Hire Going Forward?

Posted on March 24, 2023

It’s hard to believe that only a short time ago, we were talking all about AI applications such as DALL-E, an imaging platform from OpenAI that creates entirely new images based on your direction. People couldn’t get enough of its potential, even if the results were all over the map. In this kind of image-based category alone, we’ve since seen the arrival of Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, similar AI programs that fashion new images from the user’s description (which have come in handy for some of the very Tidbits you’re reading).

Of course, that was before the groundbreaking event we’ve come to recognize as the birth of ChatGPT. And by now, you’ve probably seen an avalanche of advice on how to best use that.

At first, we could log in to ChatGPT without any issues. That changed almost overnight as millions upon millions of people tried to sign up for it at once. While it may not be anywhere near the 200 million people that Google has to service at any given time, having as many as 20 million people banging on the door of ChatGPT in its first few weeks was nonetheless very impressive, especially when you consider that the types of questions handled by ChatGPT have been more complex than what you might enter in a standard Google search.

Speaking of Google, they are now releasing their own “ChatGPT Killer” called BARD that claims greater accuracy and sourcing to a limited number of users. Expect to hear more from Apple, Amazon and other big players on this front. Yes, this new frontier is about to get very crowded.

Amid these extraordinary developments, we had to wonder: Could one of those critical uses of ChatGPT fall into the area of recruitment? Is there a place for it in the hiring process? Does it change how a candidate or hiring authority approaches things?

Being in a technical-oriented space at Roy Talman & Associates, we’ve begun to experiment with utilizing ChatGPT in some common applications for recruitment.

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 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.

The verdict?

With proper and clear direction from our team (which is critical to success), the results received from ChatGPT thus far have been accurate and usable. So call us cautiously optimistic about what we’re seeing and experiencing early on.

Now, is ChatGPT good for other recruitment-oriented applications, such as identifying a significant candidate pool? Not in our business at Roy Talman, as our clients call for extreme selectivity in hiring candidates. Considering our firm often seeks a diamond in the rough, the results can be more limited. However, we do expect that to change for the better over time.

On the other hand, machine learning may be the best thing that’s happened in a long time for recruiters not representing clients who require highly specialized roles and casting a much wider net. From what we can see, the more routine the job is, the easier it is to find a candidate pool in a search. Now imagine this process further augmented by the advancements in machine learning to be faster and more efficient.

Above all, with so many AI tools and platforms, its usefulness is only as good as the data you feed it. Therefore, as long as enough data is supplied to the tool regarding the top candidates we require and our clients demand, there is vast potential in ChatGPT and programs like it. Suppose the data to identify the best of the best candidates is thin, offering only “crumbs” of information on candidates to work with, especially for highly sophisticated roles. In that case, the platform will be limited in value. Even so, we’re excited by the encouraging signs that the evolution of tools such as ChatGPT is taking us in a highly advanced direction – and more of the recruitment industry with it.

The cutting-edge tools and technology can only go so far compared to the cutting edge of talent to utilize it.

That’s why discerning companies consistently turn to Roy Talman & Associates to identify the best of the best people who can go beyond filling a role and impact their environment for the better, hopefully for years to come. It’s a network of 40+ years of experience you’re tapped into from Day 1 as a hiring authority or candidate. And once you see it for yourself, you’ll understand why there’s no reason to do anything other than Talk To Talman First.

Python Vs. R: The Battle Influenced By Machine Learning

Posted on February 1, 2023

A couple of years ago, I decided to proactively manage my health by having the most comprehensive exam in my life done by a company called Health Nucleus, based in San Diego. Health Nucleus uses genome sequence analysis, machine learning and $500 million worth of imaging equipment in an effort to reveal not only the complete picture of your health today but also your long-term risk for disease.

I was in the facility for about six hours, during which time it felt like a million images, movies and heart echocardiograms were taken. Amazingly, I received an in-depth analysis beyond anything I had imagined by the end of the day. Thanks to its reliance on machine learning, what I learned from the exam at Health Nucleus wasn’t just an interesting experience. It was life-changing, giving me the roadmap to living my healthiest life and what specific things I would need to watch out for to achieve that goal.

Health Nucleus stands to revolutionize the practice of medicine with this kind of technology, but the pricing is too high right now for many people. The bigger question is: How fast will it develop?

We can’t answer this with absolute certainty at the moment. After all, it took electricity about 30 years to propagate throughout society. A large percentage of machine learning projects aren’t immune to failure. Why do they fail? Partially due to people trying to use new technology the same way they’ve used old technology and partly because they don’t have nearly enough data required for machine learning.

And in machine learning, you need a lot of data.

Consequently, a tug-of-war between old technology and machine learning is always playing out before us. To illustrate this dynamic, a couple of programming languages on opposite sides come to mind.

One of the people I follow on LinkedIn is a professor who teaches at Oxford University who recently wrote about the programming language Python killing R, an open-source software. R is a very powerful tool for statisticians, who have loved it and created all kinds of libraries of it.

Typically, R requires very few parameters and the data you need to consume is relatively limited.

When machine learning arrived, it required systems with billions of parameters. The problem? Statisticians don’t use billions of parameters – they use closer to four parameters. If you’re working as a statistician and have more than four parameters, you’ll probably enter into what’s referred to as overfitting.

To elaborate on overfitting, let’s say a finance professional is looking to forecast the future from a financial perspective. So he studies specific theories and arrives at four parameters based on history to describe the present-day situation. He may have predictions for training data by referring to the past. However, still, he doesn’t receive any new data to feed into his model and, as a result, is not in the very best position to forecast conditions for the financial future. That’s overfitting – his statistical model is too closely aligned to a minimal set of prior data points and consequently cannot refer to anything else but that data set.

How does that change in a machine learning environment? Machine learning provides a more custom mathematical model representing the data fed in the training session.

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.

A great way to explain this is to think about your brain, in which certain cells want to recognize an image – let’s say, one of your children. These cells are dedicated to making that connection so you can recognize your son or daughter. Then another child enters the picture and some other cells recognize them. And once this connection and recognition is made, it stays in place. Your cells have “learned” to identify specific people and that is going to remain. In the most practical terms, when you have 4 billion parameters instead of four, some things will be learned by one neuron or one node in the network. The futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil says a sort of self-organization occurs where certain parts of the brain recognize different patterns. Machine learning processes information the same way, triggered by certain events.

Statisticians Vs. Neural Net Proponents

As we’ve mentioned, statisticians are fond of their tools and the parameters that come with them, as limited as they may be. But when there is a requirement for a model to have 100 billion parameters, how will that work using traditional statistics models? It’s not. The language of R isn’t nearly as user-friendly as Python.

That’s why proponents of machine learning decided to build their own system using Python and libraries inside Python (of which there are millions of them). They see themselves as delivering a “new form” of statistical analysis that isn’t limited by past data sets. Instead, it views images and assigns a level of probability that the image is accurate to what Python believes it is, whether 100% or 75%.

By this definition, machine learning is statistical. And by now, there could be 1 billion statistical machines with different levels of “confidence” on whether a probability is accurate.

Hiring a highly advanced candidate in the technical realm can feel a lot like a moving target, especially when it comes to programming languages. But at Roy Talman & Associates, we pride ourselves on understanding what a candidate knows from a technical standpoint and how well they’ll respond to various challenges in a real-life situation. That’s why we initiate challenges and tests to ensure that you’re choosing from a pool of superior, passionate candidates who are great on paper and even better in practice after they join your culture. This isn’t what you get from any recruiter. But it’s always part of the offering when you Talk To Talman First.

What To Do When Caught Between Legacy Systems And AI

Posted on December 13, 2022

At times, some companies can feel as though they are caught between the present day of preserving the legacy systems they have now – and the future when a transition into AI and machine learning will be fully realized. This state of limbo provides further pressure when employees who only understood the legacy systems retire, yet there are no questions that there is an acceleration toward machine learning.

All in on the future? Or is that being too aggressive?

First, we can say that most of our clients in the last 20 years at Roy Talman & Associates have not been using 40-year-old technology. One of the sectors we serve, high-frequency trading, only started growing significantly at the beginning of the 2000s. Every system built around that sector has been “footing the bill” since 2001 and after that. Many companies still have them.

Still, we can’t help but hear leaders and managers saying, “OK, we’ve got a 15-year-old system. It still works, but we’re always worried it will stop working. So we’re defining a new system that will do even more than the existing one, even though it could be a costly proposition.” It’s a tricky decision. Some businesses hope that as they build a new system, it will essentially overtake the old one, so they will never need to go from Version Two to Version Three. In reality, you must maintain both Version Two and Version Three. It’s not like flipping a switch from one to the other.

The Act Of System Replacement Never Stops

Over the years, we’ve witnessed many financial firms have one system that’s taken seven or eight years and hundreds of millions of dollars to build. Before long, the need to replace that system with a new one surfaces and could cost even more than the first system.

There is one crucial point to be made here: As the new system is being built, you cannot retire the whole of the prior system at once. For quite a while, parallel systems may be run. Slowly but surely, the new system takes over from the old system. By the time that happens, guess what?

Seven or eight years have gone by and it’s time to build the next system, which could now be not just hundreds of millions of dollars but more in the neighborhood of a billion dollars. The cycle repeats every seven or eight years until the next system is fully functional.

What a far cry from the apps we regularly update on our phones, right? Phone apps are being replaced continually. This is what other companies are coming to realize about the pattern of system replacement – the frequently updating apps model is one they need to adopt, which regularly calls for a different architecture for the system.

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!

An Era Made For Microservices Architecture

Microservices architecture is comprised of multiple technologies that are very interchangeable. Suddenly, when a system has so many parts that can work together and be replaced easily, modern software can be developed in a very accelerated and exciting way. At any given time, a large company like Facebook could run thousands of different versions of its software.

At the same time, even if there are 100,000 microservices, the functionality doesn’t change and the user doesn’t need to re-learn anything.

It’s a massive difference from how developers wrote software 20 years ago. If you changed a system, the problem was that you might create changes in thousands of different areas all over the system.

These days, our systems more frequently work with constantly evolving iterations of the “best of the best” technology – those not embracing this ever-modifying and flexible systems architecture risk falling farther and farther behind.

Take PayPal, for example. Twenty years ago, PayPal was a tiny pipsqueak of a company compared to a giant banking leader such as Citibank. Return to the present day, where the market cap of PayPal is approaching 50% of Citibank. Finance should have a sophisticated technology setup, but many hang on to their 30-year-old mainframes.

So far, so good for those ancient mainframes today, perhaps. But eventually, those who use these technologies will see they’ve been failing for quite some time and not realize it until it’s too late.

Coinbase is another fine example. Coinbase has had a global market cap of $67 billion. By comparison, the same international market cap for Citibank is $147 billion. Yet, when many think about the debut of Coinbase, there were serious questions about how the company could create so much value out of thin air. That’s not a problem anymore.

We can say that the longer a company keeps its main legacy system while simultaneously accelerating the development of a new system and testing it, the best of both worlds from yesterday to tomorrow will be experienced.

The top technology demands the “top 1% of the top 1%” talent to work with it. That’s why so many in the tech space turn to Roy Talman & Associates. Our clients know their opportunities are rare and worth waiting for the unquestionable fit. So they consistently rely on our team’s superb experience and resources to help identify their next great hire through a series of tests that prove they’ve got what it takes to make an impact today. And lead the way to exciting transformations in the years to come. Settle for nothing. Talk To Talman First and gain everything.

The Tug-Of-War Between Tomorrow’s AI and Yesterday’s Legacy Systems

Posted on January 14, 2022

For as long as people in any technology field can remember, there’s always been a sort of push and pull, back and forth between the latest technological innovation that may change the world as we know it and the legacy systems we have to preserve for a while longer.

Old client server systems were relatively large-scale programs. Then they got replaced during the next wave with microservices architecture. One program would be divvied up into small pieces that would have microservices and those services could be used in a variety of applications.

The new wave we see today with AI and machine learning represents a completely different type of architecture. Rather than an entity built on microservices, AI has algorithms that are inverting matrices over and over.

As a result, machine learning delivers excellent potential that is already being incorporated more now in systems than just a couple of years ago. Still, some firms have trouble moving forward full speed into the future when they have to keep the legacy systems part of the house up.

What’s the solution here?

Most of the companies we’ve done business with at Roy Talman & Associates haven’t been using 40-year-old technology today, but we do still hear stories about people saying, “OK, so we’ve got a 15-year-old system. It still works, but we’re always worried that it’s going to stop working one day. Does that mean we should go out and build a new system? Possibly but that’s also a costly proposition.” From the management’s point of view, it’s a tricky decision. Some companies hope that as they build a new system, it will essentially overtake the old system anyway, so they will not need to go to Version 3.0 of the system anytime soon.

Going “All In” On The Future

Rather than trying to prop up a legacy system, a firm could say, “You know what? Let these people who understand the decades-old system retire. We’re going to be looking forward toward the next system and keeping the present-day system in place – but even that will be newer.”

This happens quite often. One banking giant has had one system that took seven or eight years to build for $500 million. As they look ahead, a replacement system costs about $700 million. Yet, as the new system is being built, they cannot retire the whole of the prior system at once. So parallel systems are being run.

Slowly but surely, in time, the new system overtakes the old system. But guess what happens? By the time the new system takes over, it’s seven years old. So the bank is building the next generation of the system, which may cost up to a billion dollars.

This process repeats in which every round of implementing a new system takes 7+ years. By the time that system is fully functional, it’s time to replace it. The long cycle of building and replacing can feel foreign for many, primarily since we’re used to quickly updating apps on our phones.

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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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Still, companies are realizing that the model they need to adopt requires a different architecture for the system. Enter machine learning.

The pace of change and adoption of machine learning is ever-accelerating. Take Elon Musk’s Dojo – a chip recently revealed by the innovator specifically designed for machine learning applications. Musk is also promising to build a Dojo computer that will be specifically for machine learning and targeting image processing applications in particular.

The technology and high-frequency trading companies we work with at Roy Talman & Associates embrace a constantly evolving mindset. There are always new iterations moving toward the best of the best technology and the best of the best talent.

The ones who are not taking that approach are going to be the ones quickly falling behind.

Take the banking industry as an example of the danger of hanging onto a legacy system too long. You would assume many of the large banks would have a very sophisticated technology setup. In some areas, that’s true. Yet, several are hanging on to their 30-year-old mainframes. Is there any problem with that right now? No. For all intent and purposes, so far, so good. However, what happens as time goes on? These financial institutions may be in for a rude awakening the longer they deal with old mainframes for a “good enough” way of doing business.

Companies from PayPal to Coinbase haven’t been standing still on legacy systems. They have eyes straight ahead on what’s next and their market cap reflects that. It only seems to some on the outside looking in as if they created massive value “out of thin air.”

The longer a company hangs onto its legacy technologies with the rationale of “it still works,” the shorter the runway they will give themselves to catch up to the competition or get passed by others.

In our next Tidbit, we’ll document a different kind of race of digital transformation going on between names you know like Intel, Google, Apple and Microsoft that will shape the way companies design and manufacture chips going forward. And with a select number of companies with these particular resources in the world, the implications for the rest of us are huge, impacting everything from the cars we drive to the computers we use.

Let’s face it. Some companies are caught in a tug-of-war between hiring technical talent that understands the legacy system you’ve had in place for many years and hiring technical talent that’s made for what’s coming next. Yours might be one of them.

So before you make any sudden decisions, Talk To Talman First. A conversation with our team at Roy Talman & Associates about where you are today and where you want to be can help shape a hiring strategy that works with your growth rather than holding you back. It’s why we’re the technical recruiter that companies consistently count on to identify and bring aboard the “top 1% of the top 1%.” Now it’s time for you to experience it for yourself.

Training Remote Employees: Can It Work As Well As In-Person?

Posted on July 12, 2021

Amid the talk of increased remote work post-pandemic and its potential impact on culture, teams, hiring and more, it’s smart for companies to consider how they can effectively elevate the skill sets of their teams. Particularly when those teams could be a lot more dispersed.

As we’ve noted, with a wide variety of factors to pursuing remote work, such as moving to an area with a more attractive cost of living, workers could be a lot farther than an hour or so from the office. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that they could be in a different state or different country entirely. Yet, some will nonetheless argue that there’s nothing quite like physically being in front of a trainer or among peers in a learning environment. Sure, we can all show up at a Zoom workshop. The question is how engaged each of us will be for the session(s) to absorb the material.

With this in mind, how can we still ensure our teams effectively get up to speed on a consistent level when we’re training them for understanding machine learning or engaging in call center training, for example?

For one, the traditional educational model as we know it may need to be dramatically revamped. Several articles have been written that theorize if there are more than 30 students in a classroom – think your typical college lecture hall with 200 students in it as a more extreme example of this – the value of “face-to-face” education is minimal.

Now, you may not have 200 employees in need of simultaneous training. However, you can see where there could be severe limitations to the in-person experience if the number of workers requiring training reaches any kind of substantial number. One could argue that, as far as training is concerned, we should expect to see a significant push to do away with a traditional lecture-style format in which the trainer is in front of a whiteboard presenting to an ultra-large group of individuals.

Keeping Your House’s Foundation 100% Solid

I recently heard a fascinating analogy to training and education that describes the current approach to training. Namely, building upon one’s knowledge can be much like the process of building a house.

See, when you’re going to build a house, you meet with your contractor. After plans have been solidified, the contractor pours concrete over a couple of weeks.

Two weeks later, an inspector is sent to the site and does a walk around and sees that overall, it’s a pretty good job – let’s say 80% good. Then the next phase ensues. Steps are taken over the next three weeks in that phase. That gets inspected. It’s about 70% good.

Hmm. 80% here, 70% there. Wonder what’s going to happen by the time you finish the house?

You guessed it: It’s probably going to fall down.

After all, we can’t keep layering decent-but-not-completely-perfect work on top of the initial foundation, phase after phase. Eventually, it’s going to catch up with us in a disastrous way.

Education works the same way. You study something for two weeks, are given a test, then get a grade of B. So you may not know 20% of the material as well as you should, but you keep going anyway.

Wait a minute. What if you didn’t keep going, though? What if B-level, “good enough” knowledge wasn’t good enough?

Think about it. What if you didn’t proceed with the next phase or lesson until you absolutely knew everything you needed to know? You wouldn’t be OK with 80% and you wouldn’t push forward until you absolutely knew that the foundation was 100% solid. That way, just like building a home with its foundation that needs to be 100% strong, your 100% knowledge would hold up in all conditions and challenges. Nothing flimsy about that.

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

A recruiter without the overwhelming credibility that we do 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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The Essential Mindset Shift

Beyond a conversation that debates in-person learning or remote learning, what we probably should focus on instead is the different mindset that values the degree of complete understanding required in students. Rather than just assigning tasks for those individuals to complete in a certain amount of time, wouldn’t we be better served to evaluate how well they completed the work?

That’s not all. We should re-examine the nature of interaction and the degree required in that. Remote or not, the interaction between trainers and individuals should be more frequent instead of merely closer. Perhaps in some instances, the physical distance between the two must be closer for the purposes of discipline and interaction, but not always. If we can feel as though the trainer is highly accessible to us and we can work through our questions for them with uncompromised ease, we may not need to place the highest value on physical proximity to them. Instead, we will have established a higher value where it belongs – building a foundation of knowledge that’s not 70% there or 80% there but 100% strong at every layer of learning.

As the nature of work evolves to become more remote, how can you be sure that you’re bringing aboard a new hire who fits right into your environment and continues to thrive via ongoing training? Talk To Talman First. When Roy Talman & Associates is partnering with you to identify the most highly talented and passionate people to integrate into your team, you’ll have the confidence to know that we’ve also given them preliminary challenges to solve in many cases independently. Based on these results, we’ll have an excellent sense of how they’ll not only perform in the role but how they’ll take to being trained in a remote or in-person environment too.

6 Factors To Deliver A New World Of Remote Work Immigration

Posted on June 14, 2021

In our previous post, we talked about the dawn of “remote work immigration,” in which work reaches a level of mobility we’ve never seen before. It doesn’t mean you may say goodbye to the traditional office space tomorrow, but there’s little doubt that new and genuine possibilities for working remotely – anywhere in the world – is closer than one could guess.

We spoke about how lifestyle choices in terms of weather could be valued at an all-time high while the level of taxation a country or state faces will play a significant role as well.

Still, there are many key milestones and checkpoints even beyond those in our view that will accelerate the new times of remote work immigration. Six of them are critical to this changing landscape.

What Needs To Happen Next?

#1: Defeating COVID-19

While your state or the country may be trending positively as far as infection rates, we’re still going to deal with COVID-19 globally for quite some time. That’s going to have a significant impact on mobility. Thinking optimistically, let’s jump forward to a safer point in time where COVID is minimized as a threat.

#2: Having An Official Position On Remote Work

Next, the concepts of remote work need to be truly established as consistent policies among companies that continue to grapple with the question of full-time/remote/hybrid. We’re not there on a grand scale yet. Some companies have figured it out. Some companies haven’t.

#3: Handling Migration And Integration For High-Value Jobs

Then a process for remote work immigration has to be normalized.
We might see a different kind of migration pattern than we’ve ever seen before, which takes some adjustment on many levels.

Right now, our focus on immigration seems to be on people who are low-skilled and can’t typically speak the language of the country but are moving away from dangerous and harmful situations.

We may also see an opposite form of migration: A highly-skilled neurosurgeon who can operate using advanced technology from anywhere in the world. If one is living in Santa Monica, California and wants to maintain the beach life but is tired of paying a fortune for a small home, perhaps they may explore getting more for their money in another country while still doing the same work thanks to technology.

We haven’t seen intense discussion of this latter form of migration yet, but there is mild chatter from certain countries beginning to bring up this issue. We estimate that within the next 2-3 years, we could see a major development along these lines, posing a challenge to countries with relatively high taxation. That’s right. We’re not that far away from this pattern. Especially since, at the moment, high-value jobs can be done not just in a particular location, but remotely and the cost of doing it remotely is close to zero.

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Talman Advantage #6: The Technical Expertise Clients Highly Respect

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

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#4: The State Of The Housing Market

We also have to talk about housing. After all, a substantial percentage of the standard of living is housing. This gives us two components within this section to consider:

1) The cost of housing, which we hear about mainly in California, New York, and other high cost-of-living areas.

2) The taxation that comes with real estate. We hear about this in Illinois, New Jersey and other states. We’re bound to see unusual numbers in states such as Florida that have no income tax and relatively low taxation all around. Florida real estate taxes, for example, are a fraction of what it is in Illinois.

With both of these factors, desirable locations should indeed become more valuable, but there might also be competition in the sense of how dynamic the market tends to be.

#5: Which Way Political Winds Are Blowing

In areas where a higher tax rate is passed on to the wealthy, we may find society to start to restructure. Suppose the “One Percenters” love the weather, architecture and interactive culture in, say, Austin, Texas. In that case, we could see heavier migration to these areas – especially if it’s an area where income taxes are low, real estate taxes are low and regulation is still relatively low. Suppose you could buy a much bigger house in Texas versus what you can buy in California with advantages for weather, culture and taxation. In that case, we’re not just talking about the heavier migration of workers but the heavier migration of entire companies. That’s a lot of variables shifting! Not to mention a potential shift of workers from a traditionally “blue” state to a traditionally “red” state, which has monumental implications politically for how we vote and who we elect.

#6: The Continued Evolution Of Technology

Machine learning technology and other innovations have to keep up with and stay ahead of what companies and remote workers demand to ensure superior productivity and efficiency are upheld.

We have to see ever-increasing bandwidth and improved connectivity so that a remote worker doesn’t feel disconnected from a place where the “real” work is happening. If it’s not seamless communication, many other factors for successful remote work immigration will feel fairly insignificant in a hurry.

If the pattern holds, we might see more restructuring and more migration in the next 10 years than we saw in the previous 50 years. It makes it imperative to connect with one of the only sources you can count on to bring a stabilizing presence and perspective – Roy Talman & Associates. We don’t just understand which direction the technical space is moving. We know where all the best talent is moving as well. Nationally and internationally. Don’t guess about the most vital trends to your business and career. Know them. Which you precisely will when you Talk To Talman First.

Remote Work Immigration: Are We Prepared for the Shift?

Posted on June 4, 2021

As I was speaking earlier today to a gentleman who works in Japan, I had to reflect on how many people outside of the U.S. our firm has been talking to over the last eight months. We’re finding a significant difference in many ways. For instance, if I were to ask you, “What’s the difference in taxation between Hong Kong and Japan – countries that are physically close to each other,” what would you think?

You might be surprised to learn Hong Kong’s taxation is between 2% and 17%, while Japan’s top marginal tax rate is about 55%, making it among the highest in the world. Similarly, Switzerland has a vastly different level of taxation than the European countries it is surrounded by.

Subsequently, one could argue the standard of living in Switzerland is dramatically higher than it is in France. But hold on a moment – France is different because it has made a relaxed lifestyle a high priority. Want to take a two-hour lunch? Work a 35-hour workweek? Take six weeks’ vacation? Not a problem in France.

The point? While we’re thought to have such great variety in the U.S. between states, our differences are relatively small compared to different countries in the world.

From everything we’ve seen, one could argue that people in Silicon Valley accomplish more because of all the investment and infrastructure there since their businesses have an impact worldwide compared to other places inside of the United States. You could also argue that one of the reasons why New York is so productive is because it’s so hectic and so pressurized that essentially you have to get much more done.

Yet, as we return to our conversation with the person working for a large organization in Japan, he knows he’s paid less than his counterpart might be paid in New York. Still, despite the pay gap we’ve just described, he likes the lifestyle he’s been living in Japan for over 10 years.

Work Where You Want Like Never Before

It brings us to an interesting thought to consider in the wake of the pandemic: Are we moving to a world that allows people to work…where they want to work? It certainly seems we’re trending in that direction. Already, some countries are looking to create remote work visas. In the past, a visa implied that if you wanted to work for Company XYX and Company XYZ was located in a different country, you needed to physically be in that country first to possess a visa.

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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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However, take a look at the movement of employees toward remote work originating from Facebook, Google and Salesforce HQs. We’re not just talking about being away from the office but away from the state or anywhere in the world.

This leads to what we might call “remote work immigration,” a concept that changes a lot of things in the world in terms of the mobility of work and opens up a range of new possibilities – namely, if you can work remotely from anywhere in the world, where would you choose to live?

With the idea of remote work in mind, we could see employees start thinking about factors relating to lifestyle, such as weather. You’re a beach person and want sunny weather? Perhaps the Caribbean countries or Mexico could be advantageous. For those working in Europe, it could mean moving to and living in countries with a lower cost of living, such as Spain or Greece.

We’re also going to see substantial competition in terms of taxation. You can’t go and live in Switzerland at the drop of a hat unless you’re retired and you bring a lot of money with you. But, on the other hand, other areas such as Singapore and Hong Kong may essentially say, “You should come live here if you have income from somewhere else. You can be our resident and we will charge you very little in income taxes.”

What needs to happen next for this era of remote work immigration to be fully realized? Several factors that we’ll speak to in our next post. For now, know that we’re not far away from the potential transition, so companies and workers alike should be poised for what their plans might be – not only as they prepare to return to work in the short-term post-COVID but in the long-term, if remote work becomes a concept that’s more widely accepted on a global scale as we expect it to be.

That means the time to have a conversation with Roy Talman & Associates is now, particularly as we have a deep understanding of so many technical environments and the nature of what those changes are and how they can impact the direction of a company from here. The location of where the work is occurring may change, but the need for top-tier talent is as consistently important as ever – perhaps even more so. That’s why, whether it’s for the betterment of your career and in the name of your company’s future growth, it couldn’t be more critical to Talk To Talman First.