#23: Creating content at Conferences & In-Person Events with Mike Peditto

Mike Peditto:
00:00

I started creating content after I went through a layoff and started a new job and was sort of bored in the new job.

Rhona Pierce:
00:09

Mike Pedito is a content creator and talent acquisition leader who started building his personal out of boredom and never looked back. He's now helping job seekers navigate the world of work through relatable and impactful content.

Mike Peditto:
00:24

Now I do because I get all this attention and love it and don't want to stop.

Rhona Pierce:
00:29

At a recent event, Mike discovered the power of creating content at conferences, but not without some struggles. Take us back to Wreckfest. What was your initial goal with creating content there?

Mike Peditto:
00:42

I knew I wanted to make a video talking to ATS companies. I knew I wanted to make a video asking, do recruiters read resumes, or does AI do that? I knew I wanted to make a video with common questions just being answered by recruiters, and then it rained the whole, like, rest the first day.

Rhona Pierce:
00:58

Despite setbacks, including faulty equipment, Mike shares valuable lessons on balancing being present and capturing great content.

Mike Peditto:
01:07

Tip for anyone out there, invest in good microphones.

Rhona Pierce:
01:10

Learn from Mike's experience on how to turn those struggles into great content.

Mike Peditto:
01:15

I mean, I just have footage of me making a lot of people laugh when talking. Right? Or I have footage of I did a time lapse video. They had a character artist there, and I did a time lapse video of them drawing a character of me or me playing some of the video games that were there.

Rhona Pierce:
01:29

So looking back at your journey, like, in TA and content creation, what's the one piece of advice you would give to someone who's wanting to start?

Mike Peditto:
01:39

I wish more people who are actively working in TA would.

Rhona Pierce:
01:44

Tune in to hear more about Mike's journey, including his plans for leveling up his conference content and why he's not done with breakfast just yet.

Mike Peditto:
01:52

I thought about right before the conference, how nice it would have been to be.

Rhona Pierce:
01:57

Thank you so much for being on the show today, Mike. I'm so excited for this topic.

Mike Peditto:
02:02

Yeah. I'm excited to be here.

Rhona Pierce:
02:04

Amazing. So I guess I wanted to start. Why do you create content?

Mike Peditto:
02:09

It's kind of funny. I don't know. I know that's, like, not supposed to be the answer. So I started creating content after I went through a layoff and started a new job, and was sort of bored in the new job, and felt like I wasn't getting to do a lot of what I wanted to do in it. So I started making content just like I went through this job search.

Mike Peditto:
02:30

Let me help some people do it. And it took off and it worked for me. And then I just kept doing it. And now I do because I get all this attention and love it and don't want to stop.

Rhona Pierce:
02:43

Fair enough. That's it. Yeah. I think a lot of us that create content, because I I have a lot of people who create content on the podcast. When you look back, it's really something that started like, oh, well, let me do it.

Rhona Pierce:
02:55

There was no, like, master strategy behind it. And then it's like, well, it works. Let me keep doing it type of thing.

Mike Peditto:
03:02

Yeah. I mean, I have text to my friend who I was just like, oh, I'm gonna get on TikTok. I'm gonna make a video. Right? And then, like, she was like, oh, you got a 100 views on that video.

Mike Peditto:
03:11

And I was just like, I was like, yeah, this is dumb. I was like, you have a 100 followers? She was like, yeah. No. But I'm never gonna hit, like, the 1,000 to be able to go live.

Mike Peditto:
03:17

I'm never gonna hit the 10,000 to be able to monetize it, and then it just kept going and going.

Rhona Pierce:
03:22

Amazing. And TikTok is hard. I mean, I I did TikTok for a while, and it went great. And now that I haven't done it, I see, like, my followers going down every month. I'm like, oh, people actually remove you when you don't post.

Rhona Pierce:
03:35

So

Mike Peditto:
03:36

Yeah. It's also TikTok has a ton of people who kind of lose their accounts or bot followers like any other social media. So if you're not active on it, what happens is those it's I I don't think people are even unfollowing you as much as just, like, dormant accounts getting cleansed and you're not getting new accounts because you're not posting.

Rhona Pierce:
03:55

Yeah. Could be that too. So the reason why I wanted to talk to you today really is because we were both recently at a conference called breakfast, and I saw you there creating content. And that's one of the things that I always wanted to talk to someone about on the podcast about creating content at in person events. So take us back to Wreckfest.

Rhona Pierce:
04:19

What was your initial goal with creating content there?

Mike Peditto:
04:23

Yeah. I'd never done something like that. I don't go to a lot of events. It's something I wanna start doing more of. But, you know, my goal ultimately was to come back with several videos worth of ideas, both for myself and for my full time job.

Mike Peditto:
04:39

I had ideas in my head of like what could work for both accounts. And I ultimately wanted to take advantage of the fact that I was going to be around thousands of recruiters, as well as a ton of vendors in the space, right? I wanted to talk to people who make all these tools that job seekers don't really understand and get words straight from their mouth about them.

Rhona Pierce:
05:02

Amazing. Yeah. I I saw that ATS video. It's like, what a great idea. I thought it's like you're there with all the ATS people's lights, get them to talk exactly about what their scary ATS does.

Rhona Pierce:
05:16

What does your planning process look like for that event? Like, was it different than your usual planning process for your content?

Mike Peditto:
05:25

Considering I have zero planning process, typically, yes. More planning when it is still not enough. But what I actually did and what sort of inspired a lot of this was I went to another event back in June. I was invited to the US State Department for this creator event on jobs with the federal government. And there are some people at this event who were, like, really good at this.

Mike Peditto:
05:50

That's just what they do. And for me, I still consider myself an amateur. I still consider this like a part time side thing that I do for fun. And I watched how good they were, how prepared they were, the equipment they brought. And then I saw when they went home, they posted these videos that they clearly had planned out in advance.

Mike Peditto:
06:07

And I was just like, that's that's what pros do. So I I decided I was gonna do that, and I bought some equipment. I actually reached out to the one person who was sort of most impressed by it. I was like, what do you travel with? And I asked him, and I bought some of the, like, traveling tripods and and things like that and battery packs and things on that way.

Mike Peditto:
06:26

And I had an idea. Right? I knew I wanted to make a video talking to ATS companies. I knew I wanted to make a video asking, do recruiters read resumes, or does AI do it? I knew I wanted to make a video with common questions just being answered by recruiters.

Mike Peditto:
06:40

But beyond that, I didn't have much of a plan. I'm awkward. I don't like asking people to do this stuff. I filmed all of this b roll because I was like, that's what people do, and I have not used any of it. And now it's just like all sitting on my phone that I'm like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this stuff.

Mike Peditto:
06:55

So I tried to put a plan together. I tried to have a couple videos in mind. I wish I had more of a plan. But yeah, I think you have to for some of that. You have to know a couple videos you want to try to get made or you're not going to get them made.

Rhona Pierce:
07:07

Yeah, For sure. Did things evolve as you were there and talking to people? Did you get more ideas like, oh, let me do this or let me do this?

Mike Peditto:
07:16

Yes. It should have. I waited a little too long to start making content. The first day there, I was speaking, and I was sort of wrapped up in speaking the 1st day and just kind of being ready for that, and I wasn't making as much of the content as I wanted. And then it rained the whole, like, rest of the first day.

Mike Peditto:
07:32

So it was limited to one day, And that was sort of the regret I had because I waited till day 2 is I didn't have a lot of time to review footage and figure out what do I need to reshoot? What could I do differently? What would I change? I just had to keep going with what I was doing. I ad libbed a lot, and I recorded a ton of just stuff to see what would happen with it.

Mike Peditto:
07:52

But ultimately, the only content I really have that I wound up using was the stuff I had a plan for. All of the other stuff as I go through it, it was just very clear that I was just, like, winging it and recording dumb things that, like, I didn't want to post.

Rhona Pierce:
08:06

Fair enough. Yeah. I mean, I it's interesting. I had a plan to do content on the 1st day because I had never been to Wreckfest, and everyone told me you the first day is the best day to get everything because everyone's there. Lots of people aren't there the second day.

Rhona Pierce:
08:21

And I it's funny when you said battery packs because I traveled with my battery packs. I had everything planned, and I forgot to charge the most important thing. Well, the second most important thing, which was my handheld, like, tripod thing.

Mike Peditto:
08:38

Yeah.

Rhona Pierce:
08:39

So and everything I had planned was like moving content. And that was in charge.

Mike Peditto:
08:45

Sure.

Rhona Pierce:
08:45

So my first day was shot. I was like, oh, no. This is but, yeah, having a plan is so important and, like, just having the equipment ready and all of that is so so important for in person events.

Mike Peditto:
09:00

Yeah. And and I found myself with it just kind of meandering, trying to figure out a lot to do. And I think it took me some time to get comfortable with the idea. And and and another time it would be, you know, I think I could dive in even quicker. But I think it goes like making content in general, which is like, stop thinking about it so much and just start doing it.

Mike Peditto:
09:18

I was overthinking way too much while I was there and too much in my head. So I definitely wish that hadn't been the case.

Rhona Pierce:
09:25

Yeah. So let's talk a little about about your gear and your, like, setup. I was actually impressed with your setup. What did you use? Like, what tools did you use for your setup there, and was it easy to carry around?

Mike Peditto:
09:41

Yeah. So I had a, I'm like looking around and see if I can grab it. I had a tripod that was recommended to me. I'm looking around as I'm moving away from my microphone. I had a tripod that was recommended to me that basically can get up to like 4 feet high and get down to a size I would fit in the backpack.

Mike Peditto:
09:56

So that was a good huge benefit. I also brought this kind of very small traveling tripod that's magnetic and can stick to things very easily. And that was something else recommended. So that's when I that's really all I brought. I bought some microphones.

Mike Peditto:
10:12

Tip for anyone out there, invest in good microphones. I bought these microphones and this I'm gonna blast them on air right now if you don't mind. The Alboxcon wireless microphones UM420 were trash. You can cut that out if you want, but if you want people to know, I bought these little microphones, and so much of my footage is ruined. And if you even look at the footage I put out there, it's choppy.

Mike Peditto:
10:35

You can't hear a ton. And that was one of the downfalls of only doing it on day 2 is I didn't have time to hear any of that wasn't going right. I have so many interviews that just aren't usable because it was just cutting in and out. So invest in good microphones, that is step 1. It was too windy, it was too loud to not use microphones while doing it, And mine did not hold up.

Mike Peditto:
10:56

And that was pretty much all I had though. It was the the microphones, the handheld tripod and the big tripod. So easy to fit in a backpack. I had a prop I used at one point. It was like this thumbs up, thumb down I bought that I just saw the idea like some other, like, man on the street type interviews I had seen before.

Mike Peditto:
11:14

I lost it, like, 10 minutes into using it. I left it somewhere. So it's in, like, 2 videos.

Rhona Pierce:
11:19

That's cool. And I really liked, like, the ease of your setup because your tripod, I could tell was, like, not super heavy. You were just moving it around as you went. And the microphones, I actually have ones that I love. I the RODE 1.

Mike Peditto:
11:35

Mhmm. Those are much nicer looking.

Rhona Pierce:
11:38

And, really, it's it's really not a microphone. You put the wire I have the RODE wireless Oh. Mics, and you put them here. But the real reason why I bought this is because I was able to find a pink pop filter for it. That's the most important part.

Rhona Pierce:
11:57

But, no, really, the sound is amazing because it's the same wireless mic that I use for my regular content, and you just, like, put it there and then move around with that. And that additional mic was, like, 30 something dollars. And then the the wireless go, I don't remember how much it is, but I think it's it's, like, $200 for the entire thing. Yes, they are cheaper options. And I will link to them in the show notes.

Rhona Pierce:
12:24

But sound, especially at a live event, and we had rain and wind and stuff like that. It's super, super important because it's like it can destroy your footage.

Mike Peditto:
12:35

Yep. I have tons of great video footage and just very little that I can actually use the sound for. Even the videos I posted, a lot of it I did voice over for myself over just, like, me rerecording my questions in my room and just dealt with the fact that, like, their answers weren't very easy to hear.

Rhona Pierce:
12:53

Well, there's always next year and other conferences. How do you balance being present at the event with capturing content?

Mike Peditto:
13:04

Yeah. It's a good question. I didn't do a great job of it. So I don't know. I mean, I guess my balance was I spent day 1 sort of being at the event and day 2 doing content, but I don't think that's the right way to balance.

Mike Peditto:
13:14

You know, what I tried to do, what my plan was, and so I stick with it, was I went through the schedule and I figured out what do I want to see? What's gonna go on my schedule? What talks do I wanna go see? Who do I wanna meet? Whatever else.

Mike Peditto:
13:29

And then when I'm not doing those things, I'll go do this other content, I'll figure it out. And that's essentially what I wound up doing. I sort of had blocks where I'd record for 20, 30 minutes in a row talking to people, and then I would go watch a talk or go have lunch or whatever else and hang out with some people. The thing I wanted to make sure I balanced, and luckily making content the way I did was easy, is I wanted to meet a lot of people because I don't usually do that type of stuff. So luckily, that was happening while I was making the content.

Mike Peditto:
13:58

So I do think there was some balance to that. It would have been very different if I was just recording solo content the whole time or something like that. So I think I purposely made myself have to talk to vendors and other recruiters and people who were there just to get this content to begin with, and then just made sure to see the talks that I knew I needed to see.

Rhona Pierce:
14:17

I like that strategy. And, yeah, while you're creating the content, you're getting to network and meet people. Did you find that it was easy to get people to be on camera with you?

Mike Peditto:
14:29

For the most part, I had some people who didn't want to, but I don't know. Recruiters are recruiters. I like, recruiters are some of the last people who are gonna shy away from a camera, I think. But, yeah, there's definitely in one of the videos I even have, there was this huge group who was there from I think it was Schneider Electric. And they had probably 20, 30 representatives there because it was like a local company.

Mike Peditto:
14:51

And I went up to the whole group and like asked and they were all just like passing off to the next person. And there was 2 people who were like, Yeah, we definitely will. And then everyone else sort of stood in the background and they realized they were even on camera and they just like shifted out in the middle of video. So some people didn't want to. Typically, if I had approached a group, they would say yes.

Mike Peditto:
15:08

When I would go up to, like, vendors and try and interview them, they'd usually have someone I'd get passed around to. So there's definitely we don't wanna be on camera, but you could always find the ones who did. The only people I was not able to get on camera at all was Indeed, who was the main sponsors of the event, who wanted nothing to do with talking about the Indeed job search platform on camera. And I sort of get it. They probably have a lot of rules with, like, a being on camera and in the media there, Indeed.

Mike Peditto:
15:37

I think I approached them a little bit rough when I was just sort of like a lot of people complain about the scams and the jobs on Indeed aren't real, and I'd love to talk to someone. And that was probably my approach was the problem, but that was the only thing I couldn't get recorded. I really wanted to talk to them.

Rhona Pierce:
15:49

Interesting. Because I would think being so big and being the the main sponsor, they would have someone, like some PR type

Mike Peditto:
15:58

Mhmm.

Rhona Pierce:
15:59

Person that could answer that type of question, but maybe you just didn't approach that person.

Mike Peditto:
16:04

Yeah. They passed me around based over the booth. Maybe they were there on day 1, but it was funny. So I just have a good video of myself standing by their booth talking about how they didn't wanna talk to me, but I haven't posted that because I don't I don't need to start a fight with them.

Rhona Pierce:
16:17

Yeah. That's interesting, though. Did you have a process? And I know you only filmed on day 2, but, like, for editing and reviewing the content that you captured?

Mike Peditto:
16:29

Yeah. I mean, because I had ideas of the videos I wanted to make, I first thing I do is I just went back and checked what videos were sort of good or useless. Sorry. What ones did I accidentally hit record on and just delete all those quick three second clips or whatever. And then I started just taking each video and finding the area I wanted.

Mike Peditto:
16:49

Right? I found the part where I talked to people about resume length, where I talked about the ATS is where and I would load that video into CapCut, cut everything except for that part, and then load the next video in and cut everything except for that part. And then I'd start to go through and see, especially with my audio issues I had, which time that I asked the question came through the best, and we'll do that. And that's when all that b roll I filmed was really helpful too, because I was able to just sort of feel myself walk in front of the rec fest sign or whatever and record whatever I needed over that. So some of the b roll footage did come in there.

Mike Peditto:
17:24

But, yeah, it started with just knowing the 3 or 4 videos I wanted to make and finding the footage for that, and then just sort of going through the rest. Right? I mean, the video I recorded with you is a perfect example. I recorded with you and 2 other recruiters, and that audio is almost just, like, entirely useless. In case you're wondering, I would know the stuff we film has popped up in any of my videos.

Mike Peditto:
17:45

It's just like the microphones were not helping that in that moment. So that was a real disappointment. So it just became going through and finding like, what's the best usable content and now what can I do with it? I'm still doing it. I'm still going through it, trying to find new ideas, trying to find, like, new videos.

Mike Peditto:
18:02

I'm struggling because of the lack of audio and a lot of it. But I don't think I'm done putting stuff out from Wreckfest.

Rhona Pierce:
18:08

That's cool. And and I think that's that's really the gold in it for anyone that's going to a conference. You get so much footage that you can use in different ways. You don't necessarily have to post exactly the interview that you asked, but you can it's just I I know you'll have, like, endless ideas of it's like, oh, wait. Let me do this.

Rhona Pierce:
18:31

Let me do this type of thing. And you have the footage even if the audio isn't there. It could be some sort of b roll at some point or something.

Mike Peditto:
18:39

Yeah. I mean, I just have footage of me making a lot of people laugh when talking. Right? Or I have footage of I did a time lapse video. They had a character artist there, and I did a time lapse video of them drawing a character of me or me playing some of the video games that were there.

Mike Peditto:
18:53

And and that all works to continue to make content over and over again on.

Rhona Pierce:
18:58

So it's fair to say that your target audience are job seekers, right?

Mike Peditto:
19:02

I think so. For the majority, yes. I think I have a larger audience than I realized of people in the hiring space who also like to hear what I say. But most content I make is aimed at people trying to find a job.

Rhona Pierce:
19:15

And this is gold. Right? You were at a conference full of recruiters, so you could get a lot of content for that. If you were to go to a conference, let's say a tech conference that isn't for that isn't full of recruiters, how would you go about creating content there?

Mike Peditto:
19:30

I think it would be based on the it'll be a lot more vendor specific things. So I think of something like HR tech that was last week, and I didn't go to it. But they had tons of tools and softwares. And that was really the idea behind the ATS one I did, but I didn't get to talk to as many vendors as I wanted. Because some of these vendors were aimed at they were looking for like recruiters to buy things from them more than anything else.

Mike Peditto:
19:55

But if I could go where people really were like digging into the software and the tech, that would be my strategy, right? It's just sort of like, what do you do? How is it gonna change hiring? What do job seekers need to know about it? I think that's sort of my biggest miss.

Mike Peditto:
20:08

And that I didn't ask all these vendors is what should job seekers know about companies using your software and how it's gonna affect their hiring? That would be my approach for something like that.

Rhona Pierce:
20:18

Yeah. That's a great approach. And it's true. It's like, I don't think I've seen much or any content from that perspective because it's like, what do the vendors want job seekers to know? Because I I think I mean, that's gold.

Rhona Pierce:
20:34

I think that would be great perspective to hear what they have to say.

Mike Peditto:
20:39

Yeah. And that was what the 2 ATS interviews I did at RecFest were. Right? I like Greenhouse sort of talk about I asked them, do you have robots? Do you have scoring?

Mike Peditto:
20:49

Do you have all these things? How many resumes do you get? How many companies work with you? And I think that job seekers wanna know that stuff. Now, unfortunately, as I saw in most of these videos I put out, job seekers don't always necessarily wanna hear or believe things that isn't what they want to be true.

Mike Peditto:
21:05

So I think those videos suffered a little bit from just people saying, I don't believe them. I don't care. I don't believe them. So that's the next hurdle for me to figure out is how to get people like, trust me talking to 10 experts, not the anonymous Reddit comment that's going viral everywhere all over the Internet now that people have turned into news stories, like trust sources. I don't know how to ever squash that problem, though.

Rhona Pierce:
21:28

I think it's it's the most fascinating thing for me that you can get recruiters. You can get the people building the ATS. You can get developers who build these tools to say things, and people still won't believe it because it's a lot easier to believe I'm not getting traction in my job search because of this thing that has nothing to do with me is preventing me than just looking and saying, maybe it's something I'm doing or maybe, you know what? The job market sucks right now, and it's just hard. So

Mike Peditto:
22:05

Yeah. It's and it's funny because the story I even referenced, and I don't know if you've seen it right, there's a story going around right now about a hiring manager who thought that his HR team wasn't getting him any resumes. So he applied to the job, got rejected, right away, and, like, got the HR team fired. And the media is all over. It's all over.

Mike Peditto:
22:22

MSNBC is talking about all these companies, and no one has managed to, like, verify a thing. This all traced back to one anonymous Reddit comment where someone just wrote it, and it's being put everywhere, and and people would just, like, be so quick to not ask for proof of that. But when I have 15 recruiters saying something, like, no one will believe it because it's not the the right thing, I went undercover a little bit on Reddit and tried to, like, blow that story up and create some chaos over it. That hasn't gone exactly how I wanted, but I am trying to prove that it's fake or at least prove that nobody cares that it's fake. I'm still working on that TBD.

Rhona Pierce:
22:57

I think my idea and, anyone who wants to I don't create content for job seekers anymore, but anyone who wants to do this can steal the idea. I wanna get just common people off the street. No. Nothing to do with hiring to use ATS. Like, here's ATS.

Rhona Pierce:
23:16

Here's one of my roles. Here's everything coming in. Go ahead. Do it. Mhmm.

Rhona Pierce:
23:21

I think that would be something that people would believe more, But it's just, you know, there's laws and stuff and privacy, and you can't share people's stuff. But that's my dream content that I've always it's like, if there was one company who would let me do that, I would create that content for free Just because go ahead.

Mike Peditto:
23:41

I have a plan soon for a LinkedIn livestream where I'm going to because you're right. You can't do this with a real company's ATS and real people's resumes. And the work that goes into, like, creating enough fake stuff to make this work is just not worth it. I'm planning on doing, like, a live stream, I think, sometime soon, where I'm gonna create, like, just a a dummy job. Not not post it.

Mike Peditto:
24:05

I don't want it to be a real ghost job, but a job that I that is just gonna be posted in my ATS. Put it out to everybody. Go apply to this. Try every trick you want. Do whatever you want to your resumes.

Mike Peditto:
24:16

Make your resumes format them however you want, white font, do all the stuff you wanna do. And then I'm gonna go through all these on a live stream. And you're gonna see what I see, you're gonna see if ranking decisions, you're gonna see how these show up in my system. And, you know, then it will not be kind of exposing one's private info, but still using, like, a real ATS. So I do have that planned, but I just feel like there's a lot of, like, things I have to figure out first.

Rhona Pierce:
24:37

That's a cool idea. I might talk to you a little offline about ideas I have with that, but that's a that's a great idea, and I think it would help, like, really show things. So going back to our our topic about the conference, other than what you've mentioned, any other regrets or things that you would do differently in hindsight?

Mike Peditto:
25:00

So, you know, I think it comes down to those couple of things. Right? It's I would spend more time. Not just doing it all at once. Right.

Mike Peditto:
25:07

I would have spent more time on day 1 as well. When more people were there, I would have, I would have diversified and talked to more people. I think I really targeted, especially with limited amount of time on mostly people I knew in advance already, and that was sort of limited there. I would have come with more ideas, like, I sort of had those 3 good ideas, and it was just like, I'll figure out the rest, and I didn't. I would have absolutely bought better recording equipment.

Mike Peditto:
25:31

And then beyond that, you know, I think I would have taken more time to make sure what I was doing was working right. Right? If I would have been pausing throughout the day and sort of like checking this audio or listening, got some headphones and done these things, like, I might have been able to catch it and rerecord some stuff. The other thing that was on my mind, and this maybe something people can help with, maybe they can't, is I thought about right before the conference how nice it would have been to bring someone to help me. I realized, you know, we got as a speaker, I had an extra free ticket.

Mike Peditto:
26:03

And I could have used that to sort of bring someone, even find someone local, who's just like an audio person, right, who could have come around and manage the equipment and been checking audio and making sure it was all working. I probably could have done that for a relatively inexpensive amount for a day. And I think it probably would have been worth the investment if I wanted to make, like, real professional quality stuff.

Rhona Pierce:
26:22

Yeah. That's my one takeaway as well. Next year, I said, I'm definitely finding someone local that can go and actually shoot the content and do all of that. I don't mind the editing and all of that later, but, like, that way I could be present at the conference. I could be, like, getting the content.

Rhona Pierce:
26:43

I I think, really, if you have the means to do that, that's the best way. And for a lot of people go to these conferences paid for by their company, if there's if you can get a little more in the budget to do that, I think that would really change and, like, elevate the quality of the content that you get.

Mike Peditto:
27:05

Yeah. And my other thing, this is like a personal regret. If you have this opportunity, you're going to speak. I did not record my talk. And both for my own, like, personal one in the recording of the talk, but also, like, that would have been really good content, like, these straight up shots of me on the stage with a microphone talking.

Mike Peditto:
27:24

I didn't do it. I thought it would be somewhere, like, I thought it'd sort of be accessible. One person I spoke with did record, but it's sort of a side angle. And I wish I had, like, a really good shot of that and just a video of that. And I just didn't because I felt like I didn't wanna set it up in the middle of the aisle as I was like giving a talk.

Mike Peditto:
27:42

So that's my other big regret. I think it comes down to a lot of content creating regrets is sort of like, sometimes it still feels a little bit embarrassing. Like you don't wanna be that influencer in the wild. And I still sort of struggle with that a bit for myself.

Rhona Pierce:
27:53

Yeah. I do too. I think everyone does, and I've spoken to a lot of people who do this, even people who do this full time. It's still kind of like it's still you still get that kind of, like, side eye from some people Mhmm. When you're, like, in the middle of, I don't know, Target or whatever, a conference, just setting up your camera to shoot.

Rhona Pierce:
28:13

But I think it's just gonna become more and more accepted and, like, common to see these things. And I always go back to thinking on the end product and who I'm helping with the content. But, of course, you're human, so you're still it's there's always that balance. It's like, I don't wanna be on influencers in the wild.

Mike Peditto:
28:37

Yeah. It's hard. An event like that I knew I was a little bit more comfortable because it sort of knew it'd be okay. And anyone who knew me knew who I was already doing this there. But, yeah, I still struggle with that.

Mike Peditto:
28:46

I still go places with the idea of, like, oh, I could get some good content here, some good b roll here or whatever. And I just, like, pull out my phone and get, like, petrified and, like, put it back in my pocket.

Rhona Pierce:
28:55

Thank you for sharing that. And I love sharing that because a lot of people, they see that we create content and they think it's like, oh, we've got this all together and there's never second guessing or anything. And I think there's a lot of it. I know for me because I do a lot of video content just like you. There's a lot of second guessing.

Rhona Pierce:
29:15

There's a lot of looking at the footage and being like, oh my gosh. But you just have to push forward.

Mike Peditto:
29:21

Yeah. Anyone who knows anything about me knows I do not have it all together, and I manage to keep going just fine.

Rhona Pierce:
29:26

Exactly. So looking back at your journey, like in TA and content creation, what's the one piece of advice you would give to someone who's wanting to start?

Mike Peditto:
29:37

It's a good question. You know, the piece of advice in general for anyone who started is like to just do it, to get over your own personal. Like cringe feeling or whatever it is that's holding you back because the only reason you're not doing it right now is you aren't doing it. And that sounds like stupid to say, but that's the reason nobody's actually stopping you. If you have a boss who's stopping you, I guess it's different, but in general, nobody's stopping you.

Mike Peditto:
30:03

Right? You're just kind of second guessing yourself. It's gonna suck. I look back at my initial stuff, and and it sucks. And it's just sort of, like, dull and dry.

Mike Peditto:
30:13

And I don't really know what I'm doing. And it's not edited well. And I got better at it. But, like, you have to do those things. In terms of combining the 2, you know, I wish more people who are actively working in TA would.

Mike Peditto:
30:27

There's not many who do. There's not many doing what I do, just working full time as a director of TA and also creating all this content. And it's time consuming, so I know everybody can't do that necessarily. But there are a whole lot of ex recruiters telling you how it is and not enough actual ones. So, you know, if you are out there and you're actually in this space and you're thinking about sort of making more of this content, remember how many people could benefit from hearing from you.

Mike Peditto:
30:58

Every time I post a video that sort of flops, and by my standards, like, flopping might be different than somebody else's. But every time I post a video and let's say it only gets, you know, 3,000 views, and I should be getting way more because I'm in the high triple digits followers, and it gets 3,000 views. Out of those 3,000 views, there could be 200 people who saw it and absolutely got a piece of advice that helps them on their next interview or job search. So if you're creating the content to actually help people, just start doing it. If your only reason for creating is because you, like, wanna get famous and make a lot of money, then, like, yeah, you're probably gonna struggle to get over that hump.

Rhona Pierce:
31:33

Great advice. And, yeah, I always tell any client that I work with, your first video is going to suck. Like, get over it. It's going to suck. My first video, oh my gosh.

Rhona Pierce:
31:47

And my first video, even though I had my husband directing, he's really good at video, has done this for a lot of times. I just wanted to do it my way. So we had a huge fight, and the video sucks. And, I mean, I I can't believe I'm gonna say this. If I would have listened and done everything he said, it wouldn't have sucked that much, but your first video is going to suck.

Rhona Pierce:
32:12

You get better. Just get over it. Like, no one's no even though my video sucked, I had so many people say, oh my gosh. That it's amazing. I love this.

Rhona Pierce:
32:22

That's really the point of it.

Mike Peditto:
32:23

Yeah. And and that really is it. So if if you're doing it to help people, then do it. And another pushback I get from people a lot, because I have the same kind of conversation a lot. I have this conversation with a ton of people at rec fest, who would just go, I wish I could.

Mike Peditto:
32:35

I wish I could. You can't. The thing I tell them is, yeah, there are going to be shitty people. Like, there's going to be people who say things to you that hurt your feelings. If you can't handle it, like, if you can't take that, then, like, don't get into this space.

Mike Peditto:
32:49

Like, it's going to happen. You know? And and I understand that for some people, like, just, like, they don't have the thick skin needed for it. There is a level of thick skin you have to have. But for every terrible thing somebody says to me, there are plenty more people who say great things.

Mike Peditto:
33:06

And I favorite every one of them. I have a huge folder at this point of every good comment that's, like, ever been left in my videos about finding jobs or whatever else. And that way outweighs the people who tell me the things that they tell me. So again, that's a small portion, but it is going to happen. So So you also have to know, like, if you're okay with that happening.

Rhona Pierce:
33:26

That's a great call out because, yeah, it does happen. I think we anyone who puts themselves out there has had it happen. But what I like to tell people, it's like we're recruiters. It's not like everyone's loving us anyway.

Mike Peditto:
33:40

Yeah. I always make the joke, like, I like take like a Venn diagram. And I just say like recruiter and like Internet influencer, and I lay right here in the middle of just like the least likable person possible. So just, like, it's fine. Just come live in that space with me.

Rhona Pierce:
33:54

Exactly. Perfect. How can listeners connect with you?

Mike Peditto:
33:58

They can find me on TikTok or Instagram at Realistic Recruiting, and they can connect me on LinkedIn as well. They can follow me there. I've been posting on more video to LinkedIn recently because it's getting more popular there. But, you know, LinkedIn tends to be a little bit more my real job. And then TikTok and Instagram tend to be a little bit more me combining the 2, but they can follow me in any of those spots.

Rhona Pierce:
34:20

Perfect. Thank you so much for being on the show today.

Mike Peditto:
34:23

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Rhona Pierce:
34:25

If you wanna learn even more about attracting candidates with your content, make sure to check out episode 14, where I chat with Taylor Dessen about building online talent communities. Trust me. It's the perfect companion to today's episode. Thanks for listening, and I'll chat with you next week.