Set 2 - Rep 7 with Will McNeil

Episode Summary

We are happy to have Will McNeill, CEO, and Co'-founder of Black Tech Jobs, over as a guest on today’s episode. 

Black Tech Jobs is a Chicago-based tech recruiting company that, after success in the US, is expanding abroad and will be working internationally.

The company’s mission “is to connect the community to opportunity,” especially the black tech community that is in the mid-senior executive level of their career. Thanks to the covid-19 pandemic, the company took a pivot and is now expanding through a program called “CTO Coffee Tech & Opportunity”. Having success cases, they are “trying to make what’s really difficult possible and demonstrate that it is repeatable”, as said in Will’s words. 

He also shares what his experience in the military taught him: resilience and connecting with people on a personal and professional level. 

Will’s journey is absolutely inspiring, tune in to this episode to know it in detail! 

The Metric Mate Podcast_Set 2_Rep 7_Will McNeil: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

The Metric Mate Podcast_Set 2_Rep 7_Will McNeil: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

MT:
What's going on, everybody! This is your boy Brother MT, and we're here with another Metric Mate Minute Podcast. On the Metric Mate Minute Podcast, we cover leaders from all over the world telling you about how they do what they do, why they do what they do and how staying fit keeps them in their best mindset. Let's go!

MT:
What's going on? Metrick Mate family. This is a boy Brother MT. And we're back with another Metric Mate Minute Mail. We tell you every week that we're going to bring you some of the hottest leaders, the hottest movers, the hottest shakers that's out on the planet right now, and hopefully every week we deliver. We try to drop the jewels, give you everything that you need to be amazing. And my boy, Will McNeil is here to do the same thing for you this week. Mover, shaker, connecter, doing everything possible. But as you know, I'm not the best person to tell you about it. So Will, appreciate you joining the community today. Tell them a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Will McNeil:
Thanks, brother for having me. Appreciate it. I'm Will McNeil, CEO and founder of Black Tech Jobs. At Black Tech Jobs we connect the black tech community to the broader business and technology community. We show up in our community in three ways and doing that: one at our job board, at BlackTechJob.com, where you can shop for thousands of jobs that are out there today across all skill levels. And then second, we're retaining search firm where we primarily focus with folks who are in their middle of their career, and senior level executives. We boast as having the largest database of black CIOs and CTOs in America. And third, we're full-fledged diversity practice where we connect with companies wherever they are in their career on their diversity journey, that is, and help them go from where they are to where they want to be. And that's kind of the short stick of what we do as a company. But broadly, our real focus is to drive opportunities in our community. And what that means is let me take two steps back. So the reason why I launched this company is that I have a long history of philanthropy, community service, mentoring, homeless, if there is a cause to be fought, I probably met you and one of them, if you were in the same city that I was in. And so a lot of that comes from that superhero complex that hasn't expired from my military life. But the reason we, I got into this, I used to sit on the board of an organization called Black Tech Mecca, a fantastic organization led by a brother named Fabian Elliott, a good friend. And they were a black tech think tank doing Ph.D. level studies on the black tech ecosystem. And so from my experience there, I learned a lot about where we were, and as a community and technology, where we weren't, where we were elevating, where we weren't. And I saw amazing people out in the community doing really cool stuff. But I watched over almost for a five year period where there hadn't been any progress as it relates to blacks and technology and jobs. Universally, top 10 tech companies had made zero progress in a number of blacks that worked in their employees. It got so bad that some of them retro contractoring their cleaning crew, maintenance crew, in order to be able to escalate the number of black folks that they had working there. And so I knew that there was an opportunity because as a former business leader, I've held roles as a director, VP, senior vice president of different companies, and, for as a budget leader and a hiring manager, I understood that the number one way to find a job and we also saw this in our research, Harvard Business Review did a piece on it, LinkedIn does a piece on it every year, was to employee referrals. And the challenge with that is most people refer people who look like them. And so you have these homogenous workplaces. So if there are none of us in the space, we can't refer enough of us to have a meaningful impact. And then the other obstacle that we see for those of us who do refer our referrals aren't advancing to the process the way that other referrals are from other parts, other communities. And so when you add those two things up, those are the core blockers, while there's lots of talk about unconscious bias and that AI is going to solve that, I don't buy any of it. The real problem is hiring managers in the decision-making process, period, the end. And that's how hiring gets done. So we try to provide a solution to remove the barrier of entry, to connect people to other people who wouldn't otherwise be connected. So we're on both sides of the equation. The extension of those networks, it's a we are the connectors or the plug, as it were. And so then if I go back so kind of to the why is, I live in Chicago where the average family makes about 50 grand a year, family of four. Average tech worker here makes north eighty-five grand a year. It's probably even more than that now. And if we could get more people into technology, it totally changes the landscape of the economics of our community. It means that either a mom or dad could stay home to hang out with the kids, and since, while one person goes to work. It means on one block, Mr. Johnson now drives a BMW and he has a legal job that goes to work to every day. And someone on that block is going to go up to and say, Hey, Mr. Johnson, what do you do? And his little son Jimmy may say, well, you know, my dad works in I.T. You know it was like, yeah, we got a computer in my basement. You want to come over and play with it? And little Jimmy may say, hey, yeah, come on down. And Ralph comes over and Ralph is like, Man, I like this computer stuff. My parents can't afford one and one day Ralph might grow up to own his own company. And the funny story about Ralph is, Ralph is me. My neighbor down the street, dad had a computer, he didn't he wasn't really interested. I wrote my first code a really long time ago to break the code on how to win the lottery. I didn't win. Obviously, I'm still working, but I did learn a lot from that experience. And I would tell you that one person making progress has a multiplicity effect on the community, and we're committed to helping the people who can help people. And I think so much of the conversation around the diversity or the inclusion of blacks in technology is look through a philanthropic lens. And me and my team, we're a bunch of business people, businessmen and women, who view the absence of blacks in technology as a business problem. And we wanted to provide a business solution against it. So that's how we got started. That's why we wake up and do what we do every day. And I wake up believing that we can change the world by changing the mix of people who drive business and technology.

MT:
Man, that that's amazing. Absolutely amazing. And that's the most true thing that anybody could have said. Just the representation, the opportunity, making sure that the opportunity is had and seen and known about, getting the word out about it so that people can be in the place and become some of those better-known folks. I know that we were talking about when before we got on the line about people getting being new to the I.T. sector and needing to have that exposure and make sure that their flag is waving high to let everybody know that they're here and that they have the credentials and the opportunities or the abilities to be able to fill these opportunities. And it sounds like what you all are doing is giving that pipeline, that gateway for people to get access and be better.

Will McNeil:
Yeah, people talk about the whole pipeline idea and there's a lot of, I think, poor data out there. The fastest-growing segment of the black community tech pipeline isn't kids out of college, isn't high school kids, it's people who are late twenties and late thirties or older, who are career pivoting, who have woke up one day and discover that there's more money in technology and whatever else they were doing before, and there's significantly more opportunity. And so folks who are going through boot camps, who are going through special community-driven programs, the tough part is I met a brother and not going to put all of his stuff out there. But he is in Boston and he went through a boot camp. His wife reached out to me on LinkedIn. She's like, hey, my husband's having a challenge finding a gig. Can you help a brother out? And I was like, absolutely. So he and I chatted and unfortunately, I wasn't able to help him. And it still hurts my soul that I couldn't. But the brother had been looking for a job, let's say, greater than six months. And so I talked to him about his experiences that his boot camp was great. I looked at his GitHub account, do was doing some good stuff. When I asked him the question, so what about the other people that you were in class with? One, how many of them look like you? He was like I was the only black guy, so, well, how many, did everyone else get a job? Because everyone, pretty much everyone from my class has a job except me. And I said my guess is they probably got connected to someone that worked at a company they now work with, pretty much all of them. And my advice to him was, keep your skills tight, but you got to get busy on growing your network. So I'll do anything that I can. But my specialization isn't at an entry level work. People don't know me for that. They know me for advanced engineers. They know me directors of I.T., VPs of I.T. And so I don't have that community to dive to put you into. And so the sad part is that part of I.T. is a small pool of opportunities. And if you aren't connected, you're going to have a hard time. So even before you pay your money and make your time and save up your cash to go to boot camp, start building your relationship with engineers, start building your relationships with recruiters. Start going to places where they are and hang out, because I can tell you that and I'm not even talking about people who know you professionally, but personally, your character, the kind of person you are, has such a huge impact on your career trajectory. I wish someone would have told me that twenty-five years ago I would retire, I'd be retired. I would never be working today. I would be on a beach. We'd be having this with me, I'd have some kind of tequila or something next to me because that's what I would be doing every day around this time of day. So I think it's so important for people beginning their career to understand: Tighten your skills, get that GitHub account type, build something great because you don't have experience, so you have to show your talent to what you're able to do, even if you are like, well, what should I build? Redo your church's website, redo the analytics, set up the analytics for your church's website, create an application for your fraternity so that they can collect dues, automatically. Do something that will show that you can build enterprise-level technology, because in 2020 learning to build, my fifteen-year-old daughter had a project and she's an eighth grader, which is a couple of years back, and she built a website over the weekend. Building websites are, is not a in demand tool. Building enterprise level websites that are far more sophisticated, that have both the front and back end, that there's a lot of data attached, not just pretty pictures, not just flow, not just video, because nowadays and I would back up and say, if you put three engineers, there were three engineers on this call. One of them's working on putting one of them out of a job by improving technology and making what's called low code-no code technology. So today's modern consumer facing website is really low code-no code. You can go out to any of these, there's like three or four on Squarespace and there's, GoDaddy has one where they can model up a website for you can be up in minutes. So be cautious about where you invest your time and energy, build yourself, build skills and On-Demand stoppertunities so that you are building skills for something that's going to be outdated in a year.

MT:
Wow. Dropping jewels off the real. Second question in, he's dropping all these jewels for everybody to be able to collect, man, if you're not grabbing these things by the spoonful, I don't know what to tell you. That's what we're here for. And that's what we're given with, that's what we're providing. So appreciate that in and of itself. So having a military background, we've heard, has all types of benefits as far as being able to move forward in business and help impact the greater world. How has your military background helped you moving forward with this venture?

Will McNeil:
You know, I think just at the core, man, soldiers are resilient. You're put in situations that you're physically and mentally challenged more than you had ever been before. I think about football practice, I think about running a hundred yards dispense as a track athlete. None of it compared. It was good preparation to be physically in shape. But I would tell you, there are a lot of times you look at yourself and say, you know, can I do it? You know, do I want to quit? Man, this hurts. But you find a way to keep going and then you find yourself motivated and inspiring other people around you. And then I think that's kind of where I cultivated the idea of being a leader and wanted to be able to be a leader and wanted to be able to really be more than just about me. And I think what it's helping is a discipline. So when you're an entrepreneur, you know, there's a lot of people that are telling you why this won't work, why there's so many other people who've been here before you. What makes you different? You know, there's 30 people out there with job boards that are black or even narrow down even to technology, why you guys? And so and I even get that sales calls when I when I talk to potential clients, they ask those questions. And I'm glad that they do because we have great answers for them. But what I learned is stay true to yourself because there are things that you may not physically be able to do, but what you can do mentally, you determine the limitations of that. What you can learn, you determine the limitations of that. And so I think one of the things I learned from all the crazy stuff, and I say crazy because most civilians have no business ever knowing most of the stuff, but all the stuff I learned, I would have never known that it was possible. But what I think I learn the most is how to learn so in being a consummate student, one of the things the military talks about all the time is just training, training, training. So one of the rules that I held is as a training NCO in a unit. And when you are responsible for unit training and making sure that people understand the nuance details of things that they need to do to do their jobs, well, that makes you, you have to become an expert first. And before you can teach, you must learn. And so I took that approach to business. I think as a kid, I've always wanted to be in business. I don't want to be a fireman. I want to be a cop. I'm a second generation soldier. I'm the grandson of a sharecropper. So work ethic has always been a part of our life. And so my parents still are up at 5:00 in the morning. I'm up at four thirty every morning. And that conditioning allows me a competitive edge. So if you're smarter than me, you're more experienced than me, you can do fifty thousand things better than me. But one thing you won't be able to do is outwork me. One of us is going to drop. And I can't, I'm not going to stop until I drop because I know what that looks like. And so I think the military taught me how to go until you can't go. And then the only way you know you can't go is when you stop moving. And so that's and there are days as an entrepreneur that I went until I fell asleep at my kitchen table on my computer. My daughter was like dad, like, what are you doing? It's time for me to go to school. And you're down here and the kitchen, slumped over. So I think it's, I think it's important that you figure out what your mojo is and what your superpower is and leverage that to the hilt. So I think everyone has something different.

MT:
Yes. Yes. That's all I can say. If you've been on this journey and you haven't, you haven't been to that point where you literally can't go any more than you are now, trying hard enough, to keep trying.

Will McNeil:
And you never know what you're capable of, man. And I think you stay in a student because that's old, saying luck is when preparation meets opportunity. So when things aren't going right, when things aren't going your way, just keep preparing and keep learning, keep studying. I think about our business. When covid hit, anyone in recruiting companies are laying off. They're shutting down whole divisions. AirBnB and sent a letter out there, an amazing letter, probably the greatest letter ever heard of a CEO writing to their employees about the fact that he was laying them off and why and how they wanted to help them. They built a career site so that other companies could come there and find that folks that they were laying off. It was just an amazing act of leadership, unprecedented, nothing like that I've ever seen before. I saw our business was affected by it. We were coming out of Q1 and it was going to be a great year. The diversity focus was really, really high across America. And then all of a sudden my clients are like, hey, we have to put that job on hold. We're not going to hire three, we're going to hire one, and so that meant our business was slow, which meant that I have to come back and say to my team, I couldn't keep everyone, and that is not what you wake up every day as a leader to want to do. And so, you know, when you're in that situation, you have to figure out how to bounce back. And so we were on pause. So a lot of our clients for like 30 days, they were just like hold, right? Like no movement. And then a couple of things happened. So after about 30 days, technology figured out that this isn't affecting us the way it's affecting other people. Most of our people can work from home, so businesses begin to move forward, then it began to accelerate. So for those companies who were tied to this face to face brick & mortar environments, AirBnB, which I think is a great company universally, but they were in the travel and tourism business, so they were hurt by it. They knew it was going to happen, even like the car services like Uber and Lyft, they were affected by it, right? So but the other tech companies decided this is an opportunity to pounce, to exploit. So where there's weakness, let us go out here and gobble up these engineers who may be displaced for no other reason that they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. So that expanded an opportunity. And then second, and it's sad to even, to use this as a reference, but the Floyd case opened up a new discussion about race in America. And I think corporate America couldn't not respond. And so we saw inquiries about what we wanted to do, just explode and we were ready. And so when it happened to me, we met with a lot of amazing companies. We were ready because everyone in our firm has to have a technical super skill. One of mine is digital marketing. And so we were found findable. So when people were trying to solve the problems that we saw, if you Google, you're going to get us as an option and in some cases the first option. And then we talk about our prowess, why, why we're different, how are we unique, how we focus on mid-senior level career, how we're not an organization. We're not doing philanthropy. We do philanthropy on our free time, but we are a for profit business on purpose. Unapologetically so, we think that the absence of blacks in technology is a business problem and we're committed to providing the business solution against it. And I can give you an example from a philanthropy perspective, I've donated a lot of hours in philanthropy over the last couple of decades, homelessness is one of my passion points. And so I've worked at a lot of homeless shelters across the different states I've lived in. But I can tell you, I haven't made a dent in homelessness. Not at all. In fact, what I learned was that a homeless shelter isn't designed to cure homelessness. It provides temporary housing and there's nothing against homeless shelters. It's a very necessary part of our society. But what I knew was that philanthropy's view of how it solves problems is very symptom driven. And we wanted to be able to solve the root problem and drive outcomes. And so an outcome for us is you being able to place a black, qualified professional in a role that you wouldn't have otherwise. And so if you're, as a company are committed to that, we're a good partner. If you're not committed to that outcome, we're not a good partner. And we actually talk to clients, very, very large companies, Fortune 100 companies, where we just say, I don't think we're the right partner for you guys. Right? Because there are some companies who are still stuck in the stage of driving their social media, building their employer brand, but not committed to making hiring decisions. We leave that to our competitors to participate in that. And we are so committed to an end result. And we're a data driven organization and we find that companies who are serious about it, we have better relationships with, we're able to deliver better outcomes for them, and they're able to make bigger investments in this because they have a proof of concept. So when you think about many, many of the top 10, 20 companies, they spend millions of dollars on diversity and then you just measure, OK, well, how many black people did you hire last year? How does that compare as a percentage of your total universe? And how does that compare to the following years? In fact, what we're going to see is that there's going to be an erosion of the percent of black employees in certain tech companies because the cleaning crews are already being converted. The grounds crews are already being converted. So all of the shortcuts, slick trick games are over. So now you are the challenges is are you prepared to make hiring decisions? And the biggest obstacle to that is the I.T. manager wants to hire more of his people from his friends and family network. And as long as that is the case, it's always going to be an issue. And so it's not again, it's not unconscious bias training that's going to solve that because to me, I'm disappointed with the diversity community that that is a high, highly ranked thing to work on because good old fashioned bias is a stronger issue. And so the unconscious part really works on people who are trying to do good but are struggling. The conscious part are the people who just are doing whatever they want to do. And sadly, there are many people like that in charge. So we live at a time, if you look at the normal political climate, 40 years ago, we could have said no, just an isolated few. But places like YouTube and Twitter and Facebook and all the other social media platforms exposed the ugly truths about America. And we have a unique opportunity for all of us, regardless of your ethnic background, to make a change. And so there's a place for everyone to get in where they fit in. Not everyone fits in the same place. Not everyone's going to be an activist on the street, but I don't think that anyone should look at themselves and say I should do nothing.

MT:
No, without a doubt. I mean, and like you said, you eloquently said those biases, those affinities towards a certain group is just human nature. And it's the way that we operate as humans. And then when you compound that with everything else that's been going on in the history of this country, then that just exacerbates the issue. And with everything that's happening nowadays, we've had the opportunity to make light of that, shine a light on it, not make light of it, shine a light on it, understand it, and figure out ways to proceed forward. And you and your team are a part of that proceed forward. You're offering an alternative measure so that we can break down those walls that are usually reserved for nephews, uncles, cousins and other relatives and start exposing the industries to this diverse pool that they have, while on the mid to higher executive levels where you all work, and then down to the entry level that we get to feed those higher levels with knowledge and expertise. Being able to make available a larger pool, make available a larger conglomerate of people that are qualified and ready to take over these roles is very important. And we appreciate you all for doing that. You definitely had an awesome pivot when it came to the virus and everything that's going on now. What does the future look like for your team and how will that impact the working organisms that are moving around and trying to find these new opportunities?

Will McNeil:
Yeah, I want to go back to steps first, if I could, to just to talk about our pivot. One of the things that we did to pivot. So one of our core values is to lead with help. So at any time, if you're in an email exchange with me and we're doing business, at some point I'm going to say I'm happy to help. So when there's a problem, our response is to divert, we own and we are happy to solve this problem because no company is perfect all the time. But we want to do is be perfect in our response to our imperfections. And so it doesn't mean that we get it right all the time. But we are going to be responsive, we're going to be professional and we're going to do our very best to attend to your request or needs. And if we can't, we will be candid about the truth of our shortfall. And so when covid hit our clients froze, candidates were like, oh my gosh, I need a job or I'm training. My company is going backwards. We launched this CTO Coffee Tech and Opportunity. And with that was and it was, it's a 30 minute coffee talk, we brought in candidates or people from the black tech community from all over the country for a live stream video. And we brought in two speakers from one of four categories technology, CIO, CTO, VP, CHRO, from HR, heads of recruiting or the heads of diversity to talk about technology and opportunity and what would our path might be to helping black folks get involved and elevate. So we did with that was we wouldn't allow anyone to sponsor. We told companies that we're not charging you anything. We told people who attended the event, we're not charging you anything because we rarely do anything free because free sounds philanthropic. What we do very often, we host events is we charge a fee and we will donate that money to some other organization. And so what that does is it makes people commit. So if you if, you have to, if we charge you, you have to come. And it isn't about us making money on that because we really don't. It would be barely break even in a lot of times we lose money on it. We thought it was important to give the community something and we say the community, the black community and the broader business community. So to continue to make those connections in a way that were viral friendly because we were all remote and that people could connect afterward and then people could interact. So the core theme was I asked four questions, then the audience asked the rest of the questions because we wanted people to be able to have conversations with people that they normally wouldn't be able to have conversations with. Equally important, for them to ask questions that they couldn't get answered in their own companies. And then third was critical for the people on the other side of this question to hear what the people in our community were thinking. And we invited people to participate, not just, I'm not an advocate of bringing a black panel and putting them in front of a bunch of black folks. We can do that any day. I want to bring together different kinds of people to hear the stories and challenges of black people, especially people who can make a difference. Because if you're not talking to someone who's in authority about a problem, that's just complaining. But we want to do is to do advise you and be aware of how you might be able to shift your priorities and understand the obstacles so that you can move forward. And again, that comes back to we have a business view on a business problem. But to answer your questions, though, kind of what's on the rise for us? Q4 is typically a fantastic time of the year for all companies because people are planning for the next year. There's a lot of recruiting. So people are trying to build up their teams now to be ready to go for January or they're planning to do that. And so we're working with a number of companies across all three segments of our business. It's a busy time for us, which is good. And we continue and I continue to try to make time to carve out one on one sessions with people. This is my seventh company, so that means I failed a lot in my life. Doesn't mean I'm brilliant, but I will take all the lessons that I learned from it. But I catch people who are entrepreneurs who say, hey, well, I'm trying to start my company, can w carve out some time? And I try to say yes, as much as possible, that's one of the greatest pieces of advice one of my mentors and physical fitness mentors has given me is to try to say yes more often. And I've found it, as someone who grew up the grandson of a sharecropper. My dad told me, no a lot, like no, you know? What I had to go through to get money out of my dad blood and turn up comes to mind, right? And so I had to work. And so I think about I wanted to be able to say yes more. And so when people do that, I try to say yes until I can't. And if I can't, I'll be honest. But when I want to talk to people just about the journey and the struggle, I also challenge people to say, hey, this ain't for everybody, man, and it's OK to have a job. Having a job is a good thing. In fact, get your education. I think about the movie Higher Learning, and I want to say it was Ice Cube who is he was mocking his professor, Laurence Fishburne, at the time, where he says this, steal the knowledge, steal the knowledge in his fake Jamaican accent. And that is an important skill. Take advantage of every job that you go to and learn as much from your bosses and their boss and your peers so that when you go out on your own, you're ready because there are a lot of us who are out here trying to start businesses way before we're ready. And then that's why the failure rate. So that's one of the contributors to the high failure rate. So we're trying to continue to invest in our communities, investing in veteran communities. Veterans are a micro minority in entrepreneurship. There's a lot of young men and women who are coming back from a war, a war torn environment. I spent some time in my military career as a medic and medical science in the military has gone a long way. So what that means is we're going to see more young Americans come back without an arm, without a leg, who survived when 20, 30, 40 years ago, those folks would have never been able to come back home. But so now work is going to change in the way that we introduce people who are missing a limb, who are physically disabled and, to work is going to be important. So we view that we're going to try to take a role in creating opportunity technology there and making connections. We'll continue to do that. And then next year, we've got something really cool that we're working on. We're still trying to vet the technology. It's going to be in Black History Month. We're looking about the third week in February where we're going to do conexion. We're going to bring about one hundred people from the black tech community together and have one on one introductions to recruiters who are actively hiring and every one we're going to bring to the table because it's gonna be a national event, it's got to be hiring all over the country. And then the other thing that's big for us next year is we're going abroad. So our clients have been pushing us. We're going to be moving into Europe in Q3 of next year and into Canada. There are black tech communities in both of those places. And we want to be a voice and a force to be able to help make those connections abroad as well.

MT:
Man, that's amazing. And congratulations on the international exposure. Man, that is a dream of a lot of companies. And for you all to be at that point where you're being asked by your clients to do that, that's off the chart.

Will McNeil:
Yeah. I can tell you, like, this is luck. You know, this is one of the preparation meets the opportunity. We're thankful and humbled that people appreciate and respect the work that we do enough to ask them to follow them abroad. And this is the same thing that I was telling you about. The relationships, the jobs and the same thing isn't true in business, that I've had some amazing relationships with amazing people who believed in us and trusted us to help them solve their problems and invest in us. And we scratch hard to try to get it done because what we do isn't easy. And if it was easy, I promise you, these multibillion dollar companies would have already resolved it by now. We are trying to make what's really difficult possible and demonstrate that it's repeatable.

MT:
Awesome, awesome, though, you're doing so much already, you've found a way to flourish during everything that's going on in public. And then you're also planning for the future, which is a luxury that a lot of companies don't have. But you need to take that time to do that with all of the stuff floating around, everything going around, making all these moves and building all these relationships, being physically fit, as you talked about, is a part of what you do, of who you are. You did it in the military. You have mentors in that space. How has that helped you maintain a clear mind, maintain a balanced spirit and continue to push forward in such an effective manner?

Will McNeil:
Yeah, I would tell you, you know, as an older cat man, fitness and being able to work hard is tough. Like I'm a father of four, grandfather of three. I, yes, I try to go hard at everything. I figure one day, you know, I got to tap out, but I just keep telling myself today ain't that day, you know. And so as long as today and I just do it one day at a time, I don't I don't have a mythical approach to it. I was a master fitness trainer in the army, so I love fitness. I used to spend a lot of time in the gym, hours and hours every week. I love slinging weights the old fashioned way, but I will tell you, a friend of mine, she taught me how to workout at an intensity that I never did. And this is over forty. I'm thinking I'm in good shape for a guy I can do. I could still do one hundred pushups at the time when I met her. I worked out with her once and we went through her circuit like, like twice the first time it was hard, second time was just ridiculous. I was thinking, God, I got through it. She was like, OK, I was catching my breath just like, you ready to go? We got three more. And I was like, Oh, I got three more I have never worked out that hard in that fashion, It taught me a lesson that I wasn't as good as I could be and I wasn't as good as I thought I was. And so years later, I continued to build off of the level of intensity. And she's the only person I know, like, really personally that had a straight up eight pack every day that I've known her and her diet regimen and the stuff that I learned. So I learned about both diet and exercise before. When you're young, you can just get away with exercise. As you get older, you've got to pay more attention to diet and not just eating less or eating more green vegetables. And how you mix the meat carb complex that matches your body, your body type and your goals. And I would tell you, you mean I even broke a toe. It was this year I had decided that this is going to be my year to get an 8-pack, covid messed me up, though. I was due I had a twelve hundred rep ab workout and it was so, at the planking was so intense, me being on my toes, I broke two toes. Yeah. So it took me off my workout routine for a while.

MT:
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait... Timeout. Now you know at Metric Mate we pride ourselves on being able to collect data and be about intensity, but we're going to put a disclaimer out there. We're never going to push you so intense.

Will McNeil:
Don't do that. Don't do that. I would say so, man. I had this. So my base workout was like about six hundred every day. And then two or three times a week I crossed, I'd go to twelve hundred and I could tell you, man, I remember it just like mountains or something. When you get to like and you get to like eight, nine hundred and you're getting close to a thousand man, you're asking yourself what do you want to do, you want to quit? But I would tell you, man, like my core was in amazing shape, dude. And the things that I could do just from a mobility perspective and like strength or push a lot of weight. But when you're core strong, you can do you can move your body in ways that you can't. And so that's something that I focus on. And again, audience, I don't recommend going that hard. I can tell you, you can hurt yourself. I'm a witness. And if you're doing it over a certain age, it could take you a little while to recover. So I'm still recovering. I don't plank, I still haven't gotten back to planking yet. I plan to start again next year, but I'm just taking care of myself and doing some other things, you know, but I'm a big fan of that. I'm also of a background in boxing. So I love Boxer jump rope man. It is like speed jump rope. There's nothing like it. You're, it keeps you left right foot motion in place just for things that you need to do and at this stage in life and also balance. So all of the ways that I work out, you know, if I still do stuff where I'm up on a ladder, I need to have one foot in the air and one foot down. I still need to be able to do that. And one of the things I do every year for my birthday is I look down and say, I can still see my toes, OK, I'm not in bad shape. Now, can I reach down and touch them? And if I can do that, OK, I'm doing pretty good. But that's about the end of the measure for progress as I get older. But I think that as you establish what your goals are from the health and fitness perspective, I'm a bit of an extremist man. I enjoy it. I used to just pride myself on being able to just outwork younger guys. In the back of my mind. I keep telling myself, you know, I'm in better physical condition or I can do X better than someone half my age. And I keep saying that to myself because I know, like, as I get older, half my age gets a little older too, but not at the same pace. I would say so, but that's man. I try to eat healthy. I'm a big fan of juicing and when you can't exercise, you know, get your diet right first.

MT:
Love it man, love it. And to be honest, you popped out with the four kids, three grandkids. Look at this guy. Is this isn't a testament to the fact that maintaining a strong work ethic when it comes to your personal fitness changes your life? I would have never guessed this guy walking around with three grandkids ever.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it happens fast. Like, I get teased about it sometimes about you being a young looking old dude. Right. and I have to give up and just looking young be, and feeling is different. So like if we play basketball together I'm, I'm always the first guy there because I got three or four braces I need to put on before it's time to play. And I know when it's time for me to tap out, but I'm going to go as hard as I can until I can anymore. But yeah, man, I still like to shoot around a little bit. I had to give up football because I'm just too old to play, so I can't even, even on the tuck. A few too many falls and bumbles. I'm a quarterback and my arm, I don't throw the ball as hard as I used to. I can't throw it as far as I used to. So it's you know, I got to throw a ball earlier in a route and it's just too much thinking. So...

MT:
It's too much thinking going on, you're not just playing no more. You got.

Will McNeil:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't just like see an open guy and just zip it. If he's too far away I'm like, nah, I might have to tuck this down and sprint. And I will tell you, as you get older you, you lose some speed. You might not lose your punching power as a boxer, but you definitely your wheels slow down so.

MT:
I can dig it, man. I can dig your way. You look good, brother. I'll take that to the bank next time I get ready for my workout and push me a little bit harder. I know it's going to pay off in the long run.

Will McNeil:
Yeah, yeah.

MT:
I love it, I love it, brother. Well, Will, man, you, you've dropped some amazing jewels on us, but we definitely have our final two questions that we ask of everybody, if you could sum up your experiences into one Hope Diamond large Big o' VVS cut gem that you could drop everybody in our community, what would it be?

Will McNeil:
Stay a student, man. I'll tell you, I meet a number of people who are black and tech and many of us work for larger companies. And when you shift from that a lot of times or those companies don't have the latest tech and these new technical challenges as a part of the recruiting process are crucial. So when I say stay a student man, I want to contribute. Now that this isn't a book written by a brother, but for those of you serious about coding, get this book, man. Be masterful at the process of passing these technical exams. Do not let a technical exam stop you from getting a job that you are otherwise qualified for. You must master this. Go to YouTube, practice, practice, practice. If you stay ready, you don't have to get ready. I say that and then as a leader, man, you know, always reading and the other thing, when I say stay a student, my mentors help me stay a student. And I have mentors who are young as my children who are in their 20 or 30 years younger than me, who give me advice on stuff that an old guy can't keep up on. So don't just get mentors that are older and more experienced than you. And if you're going to get a mentor and your younger, show some value to that old old guy, that older woman, that more mature professional woman because women don't like to be called out. So don't do that that more mature sister and give her something. You have something to offer no matter how old you are. You know, something that someone 10, 15, 20 years older than you does not know and may not have the capacity to learn until you show them. So when you show up looking for the teacher, be the teacher to. Stay a student.

MT:
Love it, man. I couldn't wrap this thing up any better, bro. Like that is golden golden knowledge with all the rest of the jewels and gems he's been dropping all us. You've got to keep that one right there, man. And all of this entire "be a student, get mentors and give back to those mentors with everything that you know". And the biggest part I took out of that is that everybody knows something.

Will McNeil:
Yes.

MT:
You know, don't think that because you haven't experienced as much or you haven't been through as much or you haven't seen as much, if you don't have anything to share. Everybody's got something to share, find what that is, give that to everybody that's given to you. And it sounds like you have a great time.

Will McNeil:
Yeah, for sure.

MT:
So Will, man, tell everybody, tell the community where they can reach out to you, where they can find out more about everything that you've got going on. Drop those you URL's and those Instagram user names so folks can find it and be in touch and get in tune.

Will McNeil:
Yeah, come visit us at www.blacktechjobs.com. That's black tech jobs with an S . com. And you can find us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram @BlackTechJobs. Google, as if for some reason you don't remember them, I'm Will McNeill. You can catch us if you want to email us and get connected to us. If you are an employer and you want to learn more about how we help our clients connect with the black tech community think us that info@blacktechjobs.com. Again, I'm Will McNeill, CEO, founder at Black Tech Jobs, where our mission is to connect the community to opportunity.

MT:
Love it man. Will McNeil. Thank you for joining us, brother. Thank you for dropping everything about Black Tech Jobs and everything you're doing for the community and the broader community, the international community, as you all push forward, nothing but much success. Wish for you all as you continue to push.

Will McNeil:
Thanks, brother. I appreciate it.

MT:
Alright, community, this has been another Metric Mate Minute. You know, as always, we appreciate everybody for joining us on the Metric Mate Minute giving us the opportunity to drop you with all the jewels from all of our awesome leaders who come in and share what they know, share their insight and give you more about how to live a more fulfilling life. This is your boy Brother MT. Until next time. Peace!

MT:
Hey, man, thanks everybody for joining us for another Metric Mate Minute. We appreciate everybody that comes through and shows us love in the Metric Mate community. Make sure that you stopover at TheMetricMate.com to find out more information about the podcast, about what we're doing, any of our blog information, the transcript of the show and just to show us massive support. Also, remember to follow us on social media at Metric Mate. Check us out, y'all. Peace!

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Get to know Will McNeill

Will McNeill is a veteran, entrepreneur, business development executive, tech leader, and CEO of Black Tech Jobs. 

With a long history in philanthropy, Will has served in homeless shelters, community services, and mentoring. After being a board member at Black Tech Mecca, Will learned where they were as a community in technology and where they weren’t. That took him to create Black Tech Jobs. 

Key Take-aways: 

• Say yes more often!

• You determine the limitations of what you learn. 

• Exercising is key to staying physically and mentally fit.  

• You have something to offer no matter how old you are.

• Get people to know you both professionally and personally. 

• Always stay a student: if you stay ready, you don't have to get ready.

• One person making progress has a multiplicity effect on the community

• Human beings will always refer people that are either family or friends to open positions.

Resources:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/willmcneil/

www.blacktechjobs.com

https://www.instagram.com/black_tech_jobs/

M-T STRICKLANDFEBRUARY 17, 2021