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CHRISTINA: Welcome to Episode 212 of Greater Than Code. I am Christina joined by Rein Henrichs. 

Hi, Rein.

REIN: Hi, Christina. Thank you and I’m here with my friend, John Sawers.

JOHN: And I’m here with our guest, Veni Kunche. 

Veni is a coder, a maker, a founder, and a mom. After working as a Software Engineer for 15 years, she launched Diversify Tech to help make the tech industry inclusive. Diversify Tech connects underrepresented people in tech to opportunities as well as helps companies hire them.

Welcome to the show, Veni.

VENI: Thank you for having me.

JOHN: Start with the obvious question that we ask everyone, which is what is your superpower and how did you acquire it?

VENI: Ah, my superpower. I think my superpower is that I’m pretty adaptable and I also don’t give up. [laughs] I think both of those combined are my superpowers. When I was growing up, my family, we moved around a lot not just cities but countries. I was born in India but I grew up in Saudi Arabia and then when I was in high school, we moved to the US so it was quite different cultures that kind of had to adapt to. So over time, it’s just life experience; had to learn to adapt.

CHRISTINA:  It’s like a superhero superpower, I love it, the adaptability. I’m sure that served you well, being in the tech industry, right?

VENI: Yes. Yes, definitely. I think over the years adapting to new work environments, or programming languages, or the new tech that we always constantly see in the tech industry. Yes, definitely and I'm also an entrepreneur now that has helped me kind of be okay with the uncertainty a little bit.

JOHN: You may have made this transition from being a coder to being an entrepreneur and I'm curious to hear you talk about what drove you to do that and what that transition looked like for you.

VENI: As I worked in a software engineer, I worked for a long time and it felt like I didn't fit into the corporate world so I kept changing my jobs quite often. So every 2 years, I kind of switched to a new job, or I also did a Masters, I was actually trying to get into Bioinformatics. So I was just like felt like I couldn't quite find my place in the corporate world and also, I experienced a lot of toxic environments, which led to burnout over and over again and during one of those burnout periods is when I was like, I think I need to try something else and I also didn't quite know how to progress in my career. I was at a point where I was a senior engineer, but beyond that, I didn't know what my career path was and so I was like, I want to try something else.

So at that time actually, my husband and I, we were actually in grad school and he was part of a 5-year program, I was part of a 2-year program. After 2 years, I started working again and then it took him a few more years and I was the one who was working while he was in school and as soon as he found a job, I was like, “Can we switch roles because I want to try something else?” I'm going to think of it like as an independent study, trying to start a business, I'm going to learn what that would be like. I want to try things. So as soon as he found a job, we actually just kind of switched our roles into him working and me trying to see if I can make up my own program to study how to run the business. So that's kind of what the transition was. 

At the beginning, it was very hard because obviously, I didn't know what I was doing. It was a lot of experimentation I tried. I tried quite a few different ideas and none of them really worked out because I think I wasn't quite working on things that I truly cared about, or that I didn't know where to find my customers. Sometimes I might have had a good idea, but I just didn't have the network, or the reach to find those customers. So it was a lot of experimentation and then eventually, I started Diversify Tech.

JOHN: Were all of your ideas focused around diversity in tech, or was this something that you hit upon at the end as something that really resonated for you?

VENI: Yeah, the beginning ones were not related to diversity at all. One was a tool for wedding planners. One was a tool for mobile app developers to create templates easily. So it was like quite a few different things like that I was familiar with, but wasn't quite sure where to reach me customers. 

Eventually, as I was trying to find something to work on, I was actually volunteering with women who code. We ended up just mentoring a lot of women and things like that and I'm pretty introverted so I don't tend to go to a lot of events; I tend to do one-on-ones. So I used to do a lot of office hours with women, I used to just post my office hours and say, “Hey, if you want to chat about your career, anything, if you want to get into tech chat, just chat with me,” and that's kind of how it started and then I thought…after that, I realized that a lot of the women were asking me very similar questions. So I thought one-on-one is not scalable. 

The idea of a newsletter came to me and actually started a newsletter called Code with Veni, which was to encourage women to get into tech. So that was actually the first iteration, I would say, before Diversify Tech. Through that, I learned a lot about tech and hiring and all of those sorts of things, which led me to develop Diversify Tech.

JOHN: Excellent and it sounds like that's not only something that you've found a way to make financially successful, but something that also is something you're quite passionate about.

VENI: Yes, yes. It's definitely something that I've had that experience, being in tech and being as a woman, being as a woman of color and I actually used to work in Wisconsin in Minnesota, which is very much not diverse at all. [chuckles] So I had to live in those kinds of environments, which led me to have that kind of experience which I wanted to share with more people. So it was something that I could directly relate to. That definitely helped.

CHRISTINA: I think we follow each other on Twitter.

VENI: Yeah!

CHRISTINA: Yeah, I've been following when you launched diversifying tech a couple of years ago. What I did notice is that recently, you tweeted something about being very protective and selective of the companies that you let in to the job board or that you work with and I think that's important. It's an important point and I'd love for you to talk about that a little bit more, especially with the influx of diversity initiatives and communities and their agendas and how they're incentivized. So, yeah.

VENI: So as I was saying, like before I started Diversify Tech, I was running a newsletter called Code with Veni. I was doing that more as well as a volunteering thing, more as to help get more women get into tech. As that newsletter got big, I actually started getting companies who wanted to sponsor me or wanted to promote their brand. At that time, I didn't quite understand the intricacies I guess, of what hiring and what increasing diversity in a company meant. So at that time, I took on clients as they came up and one of the customers that came up, they're very well-known in the DC area and everything was going great and I promoted their jobs in my newsletter and so on. 

There was this one incident, what happened was a woman was choosing between two jobs and one of the jobs to choose she chose was because I highlighted this company in my newsletter and she chose that job because it seemed like a great company, all of that. Then about a few months later, I learned that it was actually not a very good environment and there was a woman of color who chose this company because I promoted them right at that really, really hurt like, I felt like I caused this. I know that the company is the one who was not being inclusive, was not supporting her, but at the same time, I felt like I was part of it. So that was a really intense lesson for me that sometimes companies want to do the right thing. the recruiter men want to do the right thing, but a lot of times, they approach it from a branding perspective. So the first thing they want to do is make themselves seem like they're inclusive and they start from that point onwards, but they may not have actually done anything internally to actually be inclusive.

So that was like a big lesson that I learned, that’s why I'm very protective of the companies that I've been given because I don't want that to happen again. I don't want to be the person who promoted a company, a brand, and then as somebody is hired and it being a horrible place for them. I was directly part of this, but I know that happens often like, we think a brand is great and we promote them and then a year later we learn that oh, it was actually all marketing and branding, not actually a good place to work. That's why I'm very particular now about who gets on the job board and I can't be a 100% sure that it'll be a good place, but I made sure, as much as I possibly can so when underrepresented people are coming to our job board, at least I've done some of the work to make sure that we filter out at least the really bad companies.

REIN: Does this sort of pipeline empties into a sewer problem?

VENI: Yes.

REIN: How do you vet these companies? Because their whole thing is, they're trying to look like the sort of company that you should let put a job on your board so you have to go beyond surface appearances. What do you do to try to do that?

VENI: One thing is when they first post a job, I ask quite a few questions so it's kind of feels like they're filling out an application to get on the job board. I ask them for demographics. I ask them how many people of color are there. How many LGBTQ individuals are there? How many disabled folks that are there? I ask all of these questions. Honestly, that itself scares a lot of companies and they just don't go beyond that. 

I also ask them what are you doing similar to how companies ask candidates, “Why should we consider you?” So I did the same thing to the companies like why should underrepresent people consider you? What are you doing in terms of making sure that you're supporting underrepresented people? So that's another question. That's the biggest filter that I have is to make sure that I'm filtering in companies that actually do care, that they actually take the time out to find this information, that they've thought this through.

Sometimes companies do look at all the questions and they actually go back and I don't hear from them for quite some time because I think if they realized that oh, I need to do some work before I post this here. So a lot of times that happens and another thing they do is after they do post, I check on Glassdoor, which is sometimes it's very blatant. The first review that I see just a few weeks ago was the CEO is super sexist and racist. That has happened and I just went through the Glassdoor review.

REIN: That’s going to be a no from me. 

VENI: Yes. So sometimes it's pretty clear that they're not a good place, but they want to seem like they are so right away, I say, “I'm sorry, I can work with you,” and other times, it's like they did all the right things, Glassdoor reviews look great, sometimes they still come through and at that time, what's been happening is people from my community reach out to me and say, “Hey, I worked for them before,” or “I have a friend who had worked with them before and they're actually not a good company.” 

So a few times that happens and then I ask for as much feedback they're able to provide. I collect all that information and I go to the company and say, “Hey, I'm sorry. I can’t work with you and refund their money,” and I give them all of the feedback that I've gotten so that they're aware that even if they're trying to appear a certain way, that people still talk so I gave that feedback. 

Some companies do take it and try to work on it internally. Some companies, they don't use my job board, but they go to some other place to post. [laughs]

REIN: Have you thought about asking to talk to someone from an underrepresented background at the company? Because on the one hand, that seems like it would give a really good [inaudible], but on the other hand, there are some downsides to that that I could see.

VENI: Yeah, I've actually done that a few times. Sometimes, something feels off about the company, then I go find previous employers who are from underrepresented groups and most of the time, they respond pretty well and they give me feedback that either they're great or that they're not. But it's not scalable so sometimes, that's why I have to like pick which I'm suspicious about that I go do a little bit more digging. I have done that and it's been good to check. [chuckles]

REIN: I'm really interested in what are some changes that you've seen in hiring around diversity and inclusion since you've been running this business?

VENI: Since I've been running. So I started this about 2 years ago and I was doing Code with Veni about 4 years ago. The change I've seen is that, especially with the Black Lives Matter movement, more people are aware that there's a problem. Prior to that, it felt like just a few companies were trying, but now it's gotten even the smaller companies, like 2% companies, 30% companies, they seem to be more aware of the issues and they're trying to do better right at the beginning. 

So that's something that I've noticed and it's not only that the companies are trying to, I think the employees themselves are asking a lot more about it now. So internally, they had to kind of address that too, because other people are not willing to join unless they make diversity and inclusion a priority. I think people have gotten more outspoken now so companies are paying more attention to it. 

When I started about 2 years ago, I was still trying to grow the company. At that time, I would get maybe like 10, 20 postings per month. Now, I'm getting about 80 postings per month. So it's like a lot more people are seeking something and they're more proactive now instead of just letting things be.

REIN: If I'm, let's say, a white dude and I am a hiring manager or director or VP or something like that, and I want to post a job description on your board. What are some things that I should do and what are some things that I should definitely not do?

VENI: Things that I would do is, I think start internally first to see what do the current employees think of the company, or if recently people have left, why have they left. Assess the things internally first and also, use metrics to kind of like how many Black men are there, how many people of color are there because how can you improve upon something if you don't measure it? So start internally and then by the time people are ready to recruit. 

For my job board, I can't quite help companies to work on inclusion. I can't work them behind the scenes, but I hope that they've done that work and then when they come to recruit for the job description, for example, sometimes I have to give feedback to the companies that because the job descriptions are just like a really, really long list of requirements that may not even be necessary for that role. 

So sometimes I have to – it's actually gotten way better. First year when people would post that, I used to have to give feedback quite often on how the job description looks like; I would actually say things like, “I have 15 years of experience and I've been intimidated by this job description, which is for a mid-level role.” I don't think you will find somebody who has all these requirements so you have to make sure that either you don't have this long list or make sure to let people know that these are not requirements, but these are some things we do and applying, even if you didn’t meet a 100% of the requirements. 

The other thing is to kind of figure out their interview process because it's one of the questions I ask is, what is your interview process? Recently, from my community, I've gotten feedback that just ask them if they do whiteboard interviews, because if they do, I don't even want to go to through their process. I've actually set up guidelines saying that hey, if you do whiteboard interviews or if you do interviews in such a way that it doesn't really relate to the job, I'm sorry, but this is not the place for you. I kind of have started being upfront about it and so now come companies are rethinking their interview process a little bit, too before they come and post. 

So look, think of the interview process too, because it could be a great company after you joined. But if you set up that first step of trying to get into the company doesn't even make sense for the role, it's hard and also, because of the pandemic and everything, people get so tired right now, they’re mentally exhausted and for them to go through these multiple interviews over and over that are exhausting. So lot of internal work, I would say for us.

REIN: I guess, the way I'm understanding that is that they need to have a strategy and to come to you as part of that strategy and not just say, “Oh, if I put this job description on the board, I've done everything I need to problem solve,” right?

VENI: Yes, yes, exactly. I can't help them with the issues that they have, but if they worked on it themselves and they can use me as part of the – once they're ready, they can use my job board as a way to reach more people that may not be in their network.

JOHN: For interviewing companies to join, are you also asking them about what processes they have in place to support entry-level people after they get hired? Like mentorship program, other apprenticeships, and things like that can help those people succeed at the company once they're in the door.

VENI: I'm not as of now, but that's a very good question to add. I’ve not asked that at this time. Right now, it's been a little bit of a struggle for me to get companies to post entry-level roles actually, that’s why it didn't occur to me. But one of the issues that I'm having and I'm trying to convince companies to actually hire entry-level folks because a lot of them want mid-level, senior level, director level, but they're not actually letting anybody in there in the beginning.

REIN: Yeah, yeah. But how do you get those people, right?

VENI: Yeah, yeah.

REIN: They have to start somewhere.

VENI: Yeah. So it's been a struggle, exactly as you said like, how do you get people at the other levels if you don't want to even let them start. Just the past few weeks, I've been getting more entry-level and mid-level because I think I've been trying to get companies, bring awareness to them that you have to also hire people at the entry-level, not just a director level. 

CHRISTINA: This seems that it’s a pandemic within the tech industry [chuckles] like anything that touches technology, whether it's information security, any area in tech, it's like the same issue with the whole entry-level roles and not creating these types of positions and complaining about a pipeline problem.

VENI: Yes.

CHRISTINA: Right, so it's almost self-imposed.

REIN: The argument that I've heard is, well, if they're just going to leave in a year or 2 years, then why should I invest, why should our company invest so much in training them, which I think is just silly because they're choosing to leave your company. You have control over that.

VENI: Yes. They think about it after the fact, when the employees are there, what can we do to support them? It's not that, it's more like recruit more people after people have left. It's always reacting to the situation rather than understanding what's going on. [chuckles]

REIN: Finding a new job is stressful.

VENI: Oh, yes.

REIN: It's not easy and so leaving a job you have, there has to be a reason. So you're not even doing bare minimum to make it better than the alternative, which is risking your entire career and not having money for a month or whatever. That's not actually hard, but you're not doing it.

CHRISTINA: What I found interesting that you mentioned that a lot of your startup friends don't understand why you just don't take the money that companies offer and you noticed that your job board is judged by different standards as folks of color typically are, or folks that are other typically are. Why is it so difficult, you think for your friends to understand that you want to uphold that integrity versus just falling into capitalism? Like, “Let me just take the money, I don't care what happens.” 

VENI: Yeah, I'm not quite sure. I feel like when you read startup books or how to start a business, it's all about getting more customers, it's all about getting more traffic, it's about money; all the metrics they use is all based on that. But I'm not sure how much people think about the customers you’re serving because my customers are underrepresented people in tech and also companies and sometimes, they are opposing, they may not value the same thing. 

So for me, I have to balance it somehow. If I prioritize the companies, then it doesn't even make sense for me to do what I'm doing, because my priority is always underrepresented people and what is good for them? So if I prioritize companies yes, I would make a lot more money and all of that, but then what I'm actually trying to do kind of becomes meaningless for me. Yes, as a business, I need to be sustainable, too. So I need to make money and I need to be sustainable, but at the same time, it shouldn't come at the cost of actually harming the community that I'm trying to support. 

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because in addition to the job board, I actually also have a talent directory where I have underrepresented people in tech and one of the things that's been that the advice that I've been getting is that I should charge people for this talent directory and a lot of my startup friends have given me that advice. But what's been happening with the talent directory is, if I charge for it, I have to prioritize the people who are paying so that is companies and companies actually want to hire under entry-level folks, they'll want to hire really senior level folks and things like that. 

But I wanted to prioritize my community and my communities and is mixed entry-level folks, senior level folks, it's so many. So what I've decided to do is that I will highlight people in my community and I actually have another newsletter for companies, which is free and I highlight anybody who wants to be highlighted will be highlighted and I will share them with all the recruiters on that list. That, I feel like serves my community the best. 

If I started charging companies for it, it doesn't make sense because then they might demand more, a different sort of thing and then also, it tricks the recruiters who may not have a budget and I want underrepresented people to be more highlighted and I want more companies to look at them. So because I'm two-sided, I have to like balance it out that it's best for both groups, not just for one group.

REIN: This business is bootstrapped, right? It's not VC-funded?

VENI: Yes.

REIN: So I think that's a big part of why they don't understand what you're saying.

VENI: Yeah, it is nice to not have any external forces deciding what is best for the business and because I am part of the minority group, I understand the benefit for the company rather than some outside party who may not quite understand it.

REIN: Yeah, and you can also take a 5- or 10-year view without requiring massive infusions of cash every six months to get there. 

VENI: Yes. [chuckles] 

CHRISTINA: I find it really interesting that you sharing how much you crossed in revenue per month for your business elicited some interesting comments or maybe some envy because folks assuming that it happened really fast and I'd love for you to talk about that because I feel like with social media, people assume that every successes happen overnight. Whether you're building a business, whether you got that dream role, whether you're on a fantastic podcast, whatever the case may be, it’s just there's this perception that it's overnight when it's like, “No, I've been here 22 years,” or “I've been doing this,” or you've been staying up late while taking care of your family every night for the past 10 years trying to build this and now you're seeing the fruits of your labor. 

So can you talk about how that makes you feel and if you have conflicting thoughts about it and what you would recommend?

REIN: It’s an overnight success if that night goes on for 7 years.

CHRISTINA: Exactly.

[laughter]

REIN: Which to be fair is kind of now I feel all the time.

CHRISTINA: I mean, it is like March day 555 so it’s like, what is time? Exactly. 

[laughter]

VENI: Yeah, it's been interesting. I was actually very hesitant to share how much I was making. I’m part of a community of entrepreneurs and they're always sharing and it's 90% men, the community that I'm part of and they're very comfortable sharing and they do Twitter threads on it. But I always felt hesitant to share because of the business that I'm building, whenever it's something related to social, because people think that it should be a non-profit or they think that I should do it because it's a good thing to do. I shouldn't do it for the money. There's that thing that people think. 

But for me, as somebody who has volunteered at non-profits, I very much wanted something that would be good for my community, but at the same time, will also sustain me because if it doesn't sustain me, I won't be able to do this for very long. So as I started a business, that was something that I needed, I need money to live. We all do. 

So even though that's the case, when it comes to a social class, people think it should be a non-profit and that money shouldn't be a parity. That was one hesitation I had of sharing. But eventually, I shared on Twitter that I'm making this much money and so on and it was look, 90% of their response was positive, people were very happy for me because people who were part of my newsletter from 2014 since Code with Veni so they've been part of my journey. A lot of folks are very happy that I've crossed this milestone. 

However, few people emailed me and said, “Hey, I'm doing something similar, but it's not going anywhere and I'm envious that you're really so well.” Those were the exact words that they said that and I just felt like, I honestly felt hurt because it was also somebody who was underrepresented and I felt hurt that why am I doing well, why you’re doing well? That was my initial reaction. But then I thought I didn't share my journey for very long. I shared it only after I crossed this year a milestone, but yeah, it's a lot of mixed feelings. I feel bad for them, but at the same time, it didn't happen overnight for me either. 

As I was saying, like I was trying to start my business since 2013, 2014. That was when I was – it's been a long time. The time I spent to learn how to start a business and all of that and over time, I learned a lot of things and I grew my communities. All of that just took a long time. It's not like I just, it just ha I started the job board and people started posting jobs. It wasn't like that. It was like, I built the communities I had to build relationships. Yeah, it took a long time. 

So my advice is I think a lot of entrepreneurs tend to compare their journeys with others and I feel like that's where it can cause a lot of harm because you don't know what the other person is going through. Like when I was starting a business, too I also used to feel envious of other folks who reached their milestone faster. Whereas, I was going through so many things and after a while, I was like, “This is not right.”

Every business is different. Every person is different. What we're going through is different. So all of our timelines are going to be different and also our resources, what we have access to is different. A whole lot of things have to come in place for things to work out. I think it's good to have that awareness that your journey is your journey and eventually, things will work out so it causes more harm, I feel like when you compare to other folk’s journeys.

CHRISTINA: I always like to tell people, don't compare your beginnings to anybody else's middle and there was a quote I read online a couple of years ago, because like you say, it's so nuanced. It's not a one-to-one comparison and even if you're not an entrepreneur, like if you're just whatever in whatever aspect of your life, just appreciate your journey. Every time you feel that envy or that like, “Oh, why are they… I feel like they're incompetent. I'm better than them,” That's your ego talking, just take five steps back and put it in check and say, “Hey, no, got to appreciate my journey.” So that's really good advice. Thank you for sharing that. 

JOHN: I think it's also important to note that speaking publicly about crossing a threshold like that is great to have that information out in the world; that it's possible to have an organization that does so much good for people and that has the backs of the people that are underrepresented and can still be financially sustainable. That's a very important thing to know can happen.

VENI: Yeah. Honestly, that was part of the reason I shared it, too, because I knew a lot of other entrepreneurs who follow me who are also trying to start their business and I wanted to show them that doing good can be sustainable like, you can make money and you can be sustainable too. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to share.

CHRISTINA: What you said at the beginning of this episode really resonated, I'm still thinking about it. You talked about you felt like you couldn't find your place, you did grad school, you bumped into many toxic work environments, which subsequently led to burnout, and you felt stuck in your career progression and I said to myself like, “Why is Veni like telling my business to the world, you know what I’m saying?” 

[laughter]

No, but it really did resonate and I think that there are more of us that feel like that, or that have felt like that at some point and we've been just kind of so scared to take an action. So that's one of like my reflections that I've always felt alone in that thinking or like, “Oh, maybe I should just be a little bit more thankful that I am in the position that I am in and feel less upset about not finding my place,” and be more introspective because people always say, “If it continues to be a problem, maybe you should look at yourself.” 

But then I realized that it's speaking with folks like you and seeing your journey, it's like, “Yeah, no, it's not me. There is something there and sometimes, you just have to take a step back and maybe pivot in another direction to find your true path.” Do you think you would ever go back to traditional work environment? Would that ever be an option for you?

VENI: At this point, I want to say I don't think so, but you never know. You never know what life brings. But I hope things continue to grow as they are and hopefully, I can keep doing this. [chuckles]

REIN: One of the things that you mentioned is that you don't want to let some company put up a crappy job description and then view their failure to hire someone as a pipeline problem, or you don't want their lack of expertise in hiring these people to reflect poorly on those people.

VENI: Yeah. That’s been a struggle for me to convey that to companies, because sometimes when companies, if it's the first time that they have heard of Diversify Tech, they come and ask me, what is the ROI, how many applicants am I going to get, how many companies have hired from you and usually, I respond back and say, “It's much more complicated than that.” It depends on the job description you write, your interview process, there's a lot going on, just posting a job and just candidates applying. Especially my communities, I feel like that as Christina was mentioning, we've gone through look a lot of toxic environments so we're much more selective of the companies that we apply to, I feel like. 

So I kind of explain to them that it comes a lot from you; your job description, what your current environment is like, your interview process especially. Sometimes it's hard to explain, but that's kind of what I have to come to me.

REIN: Yeah. It seems like the way… So tell me if this makes sense to you. Your goal for this business is to serve underrepresented people and you want to make money to the extent that you're serving them well. So all of the incentives in your business, you want to align around what you're doing for those people and not necessarily what you're doing for the companies. If you do well by the people you're trying to help, you also do well by the companies.

VENI: Yes. Yes, definitely and it's been interesting because when I first started, when I made the job form, really long ask. At the beginning, it was an experimentation. I wasn't sure if companies would actually give this information, but I was pleasantly surprised as more and more companies start ending up sharing all of this information. The side effect, as you were saying, that has happened is that because I just highlight companies that are showing that they're putting in the effort, my community likes that and when their companies are hiring, they refer me to their companies. 

So it's been like because I pulled the job for the strict standards, that helps my community have more trust in me and then they go refer companies, which has been getting people to post on the job board. It's something that I have to constantly maintain because I can make one big mistake and that I would lose trust with my community. My community would lose trust in me so I have to be on top of it, kind of. [chuckles]

REIN: I wonder to what extent the people who don't understand some of your decisions for the business, they can't wrap their heads around your values.

VENI: Yeah. At the beginning of the year, I think there was a company who posted a role and everything looked fine and I shared it in one of my communities and somebody who worked there said, “A lot of underrepresented people left because it's not good,” and that lady was nice enough to give all the feedback and I provided all the feedback and then they came back and said, “I want to appeal your decision,” and I had be a little bit firm because I didn't think that they quite understood that they have issues internally. They just wanted to recruit people; they didn't quite make the connection of people leaving their company. But at this time, it's gotten to a point where I think those kinds of companies are filtered out right at the beginning as soon as they see all of the questions I ask, they are not able to answer those questions so they filter themselves out.

JOHN: That's a great way of reducing your workload and the amount of fluff that you have to filter out before you go through that because if they're not willing to do the work, or if they haven't already done the work, then you go your separate ways. So everybody wins in that situation because then you have less work to do and those companies don't sneak through the listings. 

VENI: Along with the job forum, I've been working on guidelines. I'm having people read those guidelines before they post. So I say things like, “If you're doing whiteboard interviews, we're not the right fit for you.” If you are… things like that I ask. I mention several things like, my job board is mainly for US folks so I just let them know. So maybe they'll go through all my guidelines first, before they post, so that if we're not the right fit, they figure that out themselves.

JOHN: Yeah. What I really like about what you're building here, especially as you get more and more successful and more and more companies realize the value of being listed on your job board, you're positively influencing their internal cultures and what they're paying attention to and how they're writing their job listings and how they're doing their interviews. They're seeing your requirements for that and making those changes and I think that's an incredibly powerful thing to be able to lean on because as so many of us have been seeing how companies are hiring these days and being frustrated at how poorly they're doing, it's great to see you having that kind of influence. Do you feel like there's a next step up in the kind of influence you would like to be able to wield over companies and their hiring processes?

VENI: The main thing I would like is for companies to hire more entry-level folks because in my community, there are a lot of folks. Especially with the pandemic, a lot of people took time to go through bootcamps, or there are lots of folks who are just trying to find their first entry into tech and for some people, it's been over a year since they graduated from a bootcamp or their college and it's really tough out there. Especially with the competition due to the pandemic, it's hard.

I think companies really need to realize if they invest in folks at the beginning of their careers and work on their retention, they'll have great employees would stick with them for a while because they were the first ones to support and that's kind of what happened with me, too. When I first was looking for my first job, even though I had a degree in computer science and I thought I had all the right qualifications, I took me away long time to find my first job and when I finally did find, somebody gave me a job, I stuck with them for a long time and then even went back to them because I knew they were a good place for me. So companies need to think more long-term, I think. If you support folks from the beginning, they will stick around and through word of mouth that they're good place, all of that can have an effect.

JOHN: I'm asking this question very selfishly, because I'm in the process of trying to build out a program at my company to basically prepare the whole department for having junior developers come in because right now, we're only hiring seniors and that's a problem. But we also have to be ready for juniors to come in before they get here otherwise, it's terrible for everyone. So I'm wondering if you have insights into the sorts of things that companies can do to pave the way?

VENI: Yeah. In my last job before I quit and started Diversify Tech, I was working with a company where we had actually just hired a whole lot of junior developers and one of my last task, as I left the company, was my boss asked me to give him feedback on what he could do better. One of the things I did was chatted with all of the junior developers and asked them what is working, what is not working and some of the feedback they gave me was that they wanted more mentorship and mentorship in a way that was adaptable, I guess. 

When they're first starting out, they wanted somebody to show the morale of the company, about the people, about the project. Once they're put on a project, they wanted somebody who was familiar with the project to kind of like guide them, help them through with it. They wanted some person that they could go to and ask questions. One of the issues they were having, because they were a lot of senior developers who were all friendly and they liked us, but they just didn't know who to approach. So they wanted right at the beginning, mentorship depending on the situation. 

Another thing they all emphasize was documentation. When they first started, they didn't know – there's so much that you can ask and get information was they wanted to go somewhere and just read through, get to know our project, get to know our guidelines, how do we use GitHub, what are the best practices that the company wants us to follow? They wanted more direction. 

Before our company was very small and as we were growing, we weren't doing enough knowledge sharing. So people just knew things that they were working with, things they knew. As new people came in, they were kind of a little lost. I would say good documentation before you get people on board and very intentional mentorship to help them navigate their first year. 

JOHN: Thank you.

REIN: Have you ever thought about partnering with D&I consultants to provide a package deal to corporations that are really trying to make a big investment to on the one hand, they can help internally to put in the structures in place to make it work and you can help them come up with job descriptions and use your expertise there?

VENI: Yeah. Someone else mentioned the same idea to me and I've been thinking about it. But right now, the hard thing for me is that I'm doing all of this mostly myself. So I just don't have the bandwidth to coordinate something like that and the other thing is that it's been hard for me to find people who are that strict, I guess, in terms of D&I. It's been hard to find people with the same values as me. 

So for example, I don't accept companies who [inaudible] their client, for example, but whereas, other D&I clients may be okay with that. Consultants, they might be okay with that. So it's been very hard to find people that have the right values that I can work with. But the main reason I haven't explored it is I just don't have the bandwidth.

JOHN: So aside from greater emphasis and availability of entry-level positions and the greater company culture around bringing in juniors, if you could wave a magic wand for the industry to change, what thing would you want to see?

VENI: I think I'd like companies to focus on putting their employees first. That seems like an obvious thing, but I feel like a lot of companies are not doing that, quite. Especially when it comes to diversity and inclusion, it feels like they start from the branding and marketing department. They start from how do we appear that we are inclusive instead of starting from the employees themselves. I feel like companies need to listen to their existing employees first. So I feel like the priorities, the shift, should be on the existing employees first and then go from there.

JOHN: Yeah, I think that ties in with what you were saying earlier about when you get information about a company from say, a former employee, or even a current employee who's in an underrepresented group, that information is better than any other information coming out of the company as far as what it's really like there and being able to get that on the company is incredibly valuable. Because as you said, even the company might be ignorant to that sort of thing because they're just not asking, they're not aware, they’re not paying attention and so, they think everything's going great.

VENI: Yes, exactly. Yeah, I think we all get caught up in just doing the work so we just try to get through day-to-day, but not really reflecting on how is everyone feeling, how are people doing? I feel like companies need to reflect on all that. [chuckles]

JOHN: That does raise an interesting question, which is that I think companies aren't actually in a difficult position when trying to gather information about how they're doing from that perspective. There may be a lot of people with a lot of strong opinions, but if they're afraid for their jobs, they're not going to accurately report.

VENI: Yes, definitely. That's definitely the case. As I mentioned, in my last company, when I talked to my coworkers, no one thought to bring all of that up by themselves because they were just busy doing their work and they were trying to manage. Until I went and asked them, they hadn't even thought about it. If it doesn’t their work life easier, they didn't even think about it. It feels like companies need to create an environment where it's the employees feel okay to speak up, which is definitely hard.

Another thing to look at is when people leave, I ask them why they're leaving and sometimes – when I have left companies, I was not truly honest of why I was leaving because I felt like oh, I need their recommendation for my next job so I'm not going to say anything that might cause a rift, but it also depends on how you ask, I think. So if you ask somebody in a way that where you seem like you want feedback that you want to improve, so that please share something where we can work on look, coming from, “We want to be better” instead of “Oh, I think everything was great. Is there something that we can do?” I think the way you ask and create that environment can also have some effect.

JOHN: I think that ties in a little bit with the earlier point about the company culture, where if people are afraid for their jobs, they’re not going to [inaudible] and so, then the company itself is ignorant about like the actual working conditions and it's sort of a self-perpetuating system. If you don't think it's changed, you're not changing anything and nobody's telling you that things need to change because it's so unhelpful and until you get to the point where you can develop that trust with the employees, you're not going to start getting that feedback. 

So it's like the company has to develop itself to the point where they can receive feedback and then they're going to receive the feedback and then they can start making those changes, but getting to that point is so tough because building trust is a slow process. It's not something that can just kick in when you say, “Oh, that's right. We should have our employees trust us.”

VENI: If somebody does give feedback, to actually take that feedback and change. In the past in the companies that I have been part of, they may have asked for feedback, taken the feedback, and nothing has happened after that. So I think another way to build trust is to actually listen and make that change. 

For my job board, if I do have some company who is toxic, people tell me and I take immediate action. I don't doubt what they're telling me. I just, “Okay, you’re telling me that they're not good. Okay, I believe you and I'm just going to make a change.” Me just doing that, I didn't think as a big deal, but as soon as I do it, the people I talk to are like, “Oh wow, thank you so much for listening.” It's like, it doesn't happen in their life very often where people take their feedback and do something about it so it's like the bar, I feel like is somewhat low, too because nobody's actually doing anything to make change so to listen and make a simple change, can increase the trust, too. 

JOHN: I start wishing that we had some sort of way where companies could get accurate pictures of themselves from anonymized reports and potential employees can get accurate look at the internal culture of a place before they decide to interview somewhere. 

VENI: Yeah.

JOHN: You're providing that service a little bit by just the fact that a company is listed on your board, there is some of that, which is incredibly valuable, but I'm continuously hoping that we can have something like that scale to the entire industry.

VENI: Yeah. It's hard. [laughs] It's hard to [inaudible].

REIN: One of the interesting things about whether people are speaking up at work about their conditions, specifically related to how they're treated as members of a minoritized group and things like that, is that there has been a lot of study of this employee descent in general. A lot of it has been under the sort of label whistleblowing, but this has been studied in the study of high reliability organizations, which is the study of places like aircraft carriers and firefighters and park rangers; people with high risk jobs that somehow don't have a lot of failures. So what the research says is that organizations where employee descent is allowed, where it happens at all, are more likely to be high reliability organizations. 

One thing you can say is that if no one in your organization is complaining about this stuff, then your organization isn't performing as well, in general as it could be. 

VENI: Yeah, that’s very true.

REIN: So I think that exploring how specific organizations handle employee descent can tell you a lot about how they treat people, in general as well.

JOHN: Sort of the foundation from where it all starts. If you don't get to the point where they can dissent publicly, then there's already a deficit there.

REIN: What are the chances that no one in your organization has anything to dissent about, right? 

VENI: Yeah.

REIN: So actually, where you're not seeing that in an organization is telling you where people are lacking the psychological safety they need to take that interpersonal risk and so, if you see an organization that says, “No, no one complains to us about diversity.” What you now know is that they're not doing good at diversity. 

JOHN: So we’ve come to the portion of our show where we go into reflections, which are each of us talking about the ideas that we've discussed today that were particularly impactful, or novel, or the things that we're going to be thinking about afterwards. 

I think for me, it's really pointing to the critical role that organizations like yours, Veni have created by placing yourself in such a trusted position between job seekers and companies, by being that stand up, strong values organization that can protect the minorities and the underrepresented minorities from the companies that just want to hire whomever to look better, or just want to hire period. 

It's incredibly valuable to have that and I certainly hope that you can continue growing and find ways to scale the work beyond your personal to-do list. Ever the challenge of the entrepreneur. [chuckles] But just what an important role that plays in the overall technology industry and I'm hoping that that can continue to be something that everyone's paying for.

REIN: I think that all of the work that you've done to develop these rubrics or even intuitions about which companies are worth working with and which companies will treat the people that they eventually hire well and things like that are this expertise that you would develop is extremely important. Also, for the people who are thinking about going to work at these companies. 

If a lot of underrepresented people had your expertise in sussing out toxic organizations, I think they could end up in better situations and so, I guess, my reflection is if there is a way that you can share this expertise that you've developed with the people who need it, I think that could be extremely powerful.

VENI: Thank you. Yeah, and I thought about sharing that. I've been coming up with it as I go, [laughs] but that's a great idea.

JOHN: One of the ways that you can know someone who's an expert is when they can do something very well, but not know how they're doing it.

VENI: [laughs] Yeah, as you were saying expert, I was like, “I don’t feel like an expert of that!” [laughs]

REIN: You are probably one of the world experts in sussing out companies with toxic D&I cultures. Think about it, who else would be better at that than you? That's literally an important part of your job. 

VENI: Yeah, it is. [chuckles]

I'd say my takeaway, I think I really liked your points, Rein about how comfortable employees feel within the organization, what you were talking about dissent and that I didn't know anything about that before. 

I think it would be good for me to as you had suggested, to chat with more of D&I consultants who know the internal part of it. I haven't had too much experience chatting with people like that who have more expertise in how do you create safe environments for people within the company. I think that would be really good for me to learn more about that.

REIN: Awesome. I'm glad I said anything that was helpful at all.

VENI: No, that was very helpful. I act as somebody on the outside so I don't have a whole picture of what goes on within the companies, besides my own working experience, so those are really good points, thank you.

REIN: This was great. I'm really glad I got a chance to talk to you today.

VENI: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. This was great. I've not done a conversation like this before, so it was interesting. [chuckles] Thank you.

JOHN: A thing that occurred to me earlier I forgot to mention was like, if a company comes in and they're saying, “Oh yeah, we don't do whiteboard interviews. Our review process is great,” but then you've got some of your candidates that go through and find out that it is like that. They can feed that information to you and you can be like, “They said it was [inaudible],” that’s really useful to be able to feed that back immediately into the process so you can just cut that company off.

VENI: Yeah. I actually had something similar is happening right now where a company shared a whole bunch of posts and I shared it with the community that I'm part of and somebody said, “Hey, I just interviewed with them three months ago and their interview process was terrible,” and I was like, “Well, what was terrible about it?” and she basically shared what all went on so I was collecting it and I'm going to give it to them now. 

But it seems like a good place to be in after you're in the company, but their interview process is not great for underrepresented people, but it's been interesting because I feel like not many folks are on the candidate’s side, it seems like. So it's been interesting to be somebody who was in that position to be the middleman sort of. [chuckles]

JOHN: Well, thank you for being on the show.

VENI: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.