AI and Entry-Level Jobs Need a Better Plan Than Cutting Juniors

00:47Here's how AI is killing the career ladder. We've got one of my favorite people from my career, Tony Locks. Wow. Field marketing extraordinaire. Wow. on the podcast today. Tony, why is this topic close to your heart? So, I I think I've been very lucky in my career to have met some amazing people. I'll include you in that list, Rich. Thank you. a lot of people help me get ahead in my career, but I feel at the moment the opportunity for new people entering the market, so new graduates or even people leaving school don't have the same opportunities that we had. I think partly that's AI, partly that's a fear of what AI is doing to companies. So companies are pulling back on opportunity and I feel like the there's a whole generation of you know young people that are just missing out. What were some of those opportunities that you had? So I didn't go to university so put that out there straight away. I due to personal circumstances hired to get a job at a very early age and I just got very lucky very early on to meet some amazing people that didn't just allow me to do the job but taught me about business and actually at the right time pushed me out to my next opportunity. I don't mean fired me by the way. I mean just helped to say like don't continue doing what you're doing. Find the next thing go for growth. And actually in every company I went to, I'd always try and find who those coaches or mentors were, the people that had that knowledge I didn't already have, whether it was in marketing or finance or business. And I just go and hang out with them, ask them questions and be curious.

02:22And through being involved with those people, it just opened up new doors and new opportunities. And if I go back to the early 1990s in the IT industry, the opportunities were abound. And just through those conversations, I got I got a break. I got a start. Somebody took a risk on me, hired me as a first employee in a tech company and just grew from there. I'd love to know more about this because I met you in 2016. Wow. It's almost a generation later, right? I I've got the LinkedIn message. I'll put it in the I'll put it in the promotion that we do for it where I thanked you for coming to see us and look look forward to working with you. Who knew we'd be here like this many years later? But so I met you. You were a senior marketing leader for MIA for Tanium. But I don't know much about your story before then. Yeah. So, so talk us through like how you got to that point and how you got your break in tech. Wow. So, it's a it's a long old story, so I'll try and break it down a little bit. So, as I said, I I started off I actually worked as a clerical assistant in an architects, but at the same time, I had a weekend job as Texas Tom at a DIY supertore similar to BNQ, Texas Homeare it was called. And and before deliver, I also used to deliver fish and chips. I had three jobs on the go at the age of 16. And it was a it was an accountant or a finance director at the architects that taught me about business and finance and money. You know, I learned very early on that cash is king and anybody who owed you money was literally strangling your business of opportunity.

03:49And it just taught me so much about business. But it was him that said at 17, don't stay here because you could stay here for 10 years, but there's no career growth for you. You've got to find a new opportunity. and he introduced me to someone running a purchasing department for a manufacturing company 6 milesi away. It was a long bike ride up through the hills in Brighton. And I I started there and again it was hard. It was it was hard because I had to learn a whole new industry. Had to learn about new people. I also learned that if you made a mistake in manufacturing, you had 250 people sitting on a production line doing nothing. They hated doing what they did as a day job. they hated it even more when they had to do nothing because time didn't pass very fast and you get verbally and physically abused by these people. So I'd do anything I could to avoid being in the factory. So I'd go and hang out with marketing or finance and I just got to learn about those things and it was the marketing director at the time. She said my husband started an IT company. He does these trade shows in London. She said you'll be brilliant. Why don't you try it? Take a week's holiday which I did. And I I did the witch computer shopper show in 1990 at Olympia. I'd never been to London before, so it was exciting in that sense. I stayed at his house. I earned more money in three days in Olympia than I did in a month working in the factory. And as a consequence, and we did so well, he hired me as his first employee. guy called Grant Pearson gave me a break in the IT industry and it was brilliant.

05:08And I worked all hours, you know, seven days a week. Anybody at the time would say I was really boring because I was always working because it was sales. It was sales during the day and it was marketing during the evening. And it was it was about hustle and we grew the company. We hired some people we acquired a company and then ultimately we got bought and that put me into a larger organization in the sort of systems integration space. and yeah it it just explo exploded from there and I've just been very lucky through my career and I can point to people like Grant Pearson in the early days or Derek Gwyn or Michael Clifford was my first boss in IT at Trend Micro in 2005. these people just embraced like the me for what I was understood I had some gaps and I wasn't the perfect marketer I wasn't the perfect person but helped me to develop to identify what did I need to do to be better at the role and not and not do it in a political way just like helped me grow as an individual and I was just very very lucky and you know throughout my career I sort of followed that same sort of journey and tried to do the same thing for people around me so anytime I could I'd hire people that had similar backgrounds to me that maybe hadn't gone to university or weren't the perfect marketing or salesperson and to try and give them a leg up.

06:23So, it was almost like pay it back or pay it forward really. well, when we we met in what 2016 so yeah, Tren Micro was amazing, amazing family business. I grew from being a UK marketing leader to an AMIA marketing leader to actually a global one. Wor this amazing lady called Carol Carpenter. She was the CMO, but she was actually more like the COO. We it was a a billion dollar business within a billion dollar business that we were running. And she entrusted me to do everything marketing with hundreds of people and hundreds of millions of dollars of budget. I felt like it was like Brewster's millions like most quarters. It was like how can you spend your money and create value and managed this team of globally distributed marketers. and when our time came to the end at that organization decided I wanted to go and try some startups and I had a few startups and Tanium was the third in that journey. And that's when when I met you, Rich. as we were scaling a marketing and sales organization across Europe, it was you and your team that actually were the last mile in creating demand for us. Yeah. And that journey continued, you know, you you found us an amazingly talented team. I remember the names. It was like Stacy, Jack, the other person, Merilla, Merilla, Merilla, u like the team you put together for us was amazing. And like you really helped us in those early days go and win business at at scale. What happened to that titanium journey? Because I [clears throat] remember so we met 2016. I then went off on my year in in America. You put the you hung up the suit. Well, yeah. I carried on from a different I put the the American cape on. So, but but that Titanium journey was you were there for a long time, right?

07:59So, what what if you think about like the career you had inside that business which was longer than most people were inside one company. What are some of the the proudest achievements that you had during that time? So my my plan actually during during that sort of that decade was to only stay for two years. My plan was to stay for two years and a few tech companies amass 50% of my share vesting and then move on. But it was such an amazing journey because I started with a company that had a minimum viable product that had no category that had no customer that was lining up to buy it. So it was a really big challenge to convince people that this is something that they should invest in. This is something they should spend time exploring because it didn't fit a nice little Gartner bucket. Yeah. we started it was it was six of us in a in a room in London at the start. Four sales, one technical, one marketing, actually seven because it was a channel guy as well, Mark. and we I think we picked our four pieces of business in nine months like winning some really marquee accounts. But again, the key thing there was all about relationships. It was it was the partner ecosystem with PWC and and PWC and HPE who'd thought HP would be like a driver of early stage business. but it was the people behind those businesses that took a chance on us because we're an unproven technology. Yeah. But as as we grew the company as we we made our number and we we moved out of the UK into France and Germany and we opened up new markets, we brought in new people. my first marketing hire was a guy called Ryan Nappy.

09:27Yeah, super talented young man in his in his late or early mid mid to late 20s. I can't remember how old he was now, maybe 26, 27, but massively talented. I remember seeing myself in him and think, "Oh, I used to be that keen and excited." Yeah. and we ran it together for a year and I think it was when we were growing the team, we decided that if we were going to grow, we didn't want to just bring in senior marketers. M we wanted to try and find young talent that we could help coach and mentor and develop into the marketeer that we needed them to be. And we hired this young lady, Emma, superb individual, great work ethic. She worked at her dad's company. She worked at a pub at weekend. So you knew she had that hustle that she wanted to go and work earn money. Massively introverted. Wouldn't make eye contact. Come to the office and sit in the furthest desk away from anyone else. she'd like to look at the wall, not anyone. And I remember I gave her three months and after three months said, "No, no, we got you a new desk and it's right opposite me. I'm going to irritate you every day. We're going to like we're going to develop you into the marketer we need you to be." Yeah. And when she left after 12 months, we nicknamed our CMO, Chief Moss Officer, because I said like by the time you're 30, you'll be a VP of marketing somewhere and you'll be able to hire me back as as your intern. Yeah. she came back as a grad and and she had six, seven years in the company before she's now moving on to I think that VP role that she's going to progress to and then she's going to hire me back as her intern.

10:55So yeah, I say like over the time it's all about the people. The product is the you know the product was a product and you could do what you could with it. the channel ecosystem that you had, the sales organization you built, the technical staff that you had, just great human beings that were doing the job they needed to do. And we worked together as a really good team to drive the business from sort of zero to hundreds of millions of dollars of turnover. Yeah. But retained customers, retained employees and retained value in that in that exchange. And Emma was our first intern. We let her then hire the next intern who then hired two. And then during my time there, so over eight years, I think we had like 14 or 15 interns who have all gone on to have really amazing careers in in technology. Yeah. So that yeah, I'd say for me that's probably the biggest win is looking at all these sort of what are they now like 22 to 30 year olds who are all going to be hiring me for a day a month as I progress the twilight edges of my career. So yeah, look after me now. Yeah, look after me. Do you remember when I looked after you and made you sit opposite me? I want you to do that with me for a day. Yeah, absolutely. What made you make that decision with with your colleague to take a chance on some people? I'd say probably at the time budget, if you're being honest. you know, it pays sort of pretty well, which is why we're all in that industry. but no, I think for me personally, I I just remember my career that lots of people took a chance on me.

12:25Emma, Emma at the time wasn't the best marketer. but she had great work ethic. She had passion and will and desire. Maybe not personality at the time, but she's she's now got a wicked personality and she'll be a real like hard taskmaster as she goes through her career and she starts building her own teams. you know, it was it was just hugely rewarding. I think at the time it was rather than bring another experienced person into the team, how do we find somebody who we can help coach and mentor and develop because if you bring someone else in, they potentially want to change the system and the engine that you've got. Yeah. You know, they come with 20 years experience, they want to do it their way. Well, our way was working. So, how could we teach someone else our way and then have them, you know, be curious and, you know, develop it to sort of how they want to work it? And Ryan and I, we used to create this concept of FOMO. you're running a marketing activity, how do you create this element of where there's a fear of missing out? Or you're running an event, it wasn't about the event, it was about the memories you were creating. So, we always talked about the science of memories. And so, it wasn't always about like the presentation or the PowerPoint. It was like after this event, what do we want somebody to take away and remember in a week, a month, or a year? We'd focus on that piece more than anything else. And then that sort of drove the engine behind it. That drove everything else we did. Well, we could do that with, you know, Emma and then Holly and Hattie who came afterwards or Manal or, you know, U Georgia. Bringing somebody else in with maybe a lot more experience.

13:55We did have experienced team members as well as we got budget and headcount. But, you know, finding that balance, it really helped. And then as as we grew the team where we weren't maybe able to offer more senior people a management position, to have them coach, mentor, and manage an intern was actually a good experience as well, especially when they were maybe earlier in their career. So, you because you you hired a few of the people that we'd had in in the business that I worked at. Sorry about that. Brilliant. Paid you for it. And and actually one of the reasons why I reached back out to you after all these years is because I met up with Jess in London. Oh, wow. Okay. And she was like, "Have you spoken to Tony recently?" I was like, "No, I need to because I loved speaking to you back in 2016 because your energy." Yeah. I know. I always remember how like seeing your stuff on LinkedIn about doing these things where you're doing like CPR like you know charity raises and hopefully not clapping to do wrong. Exactly. I've never learned any I need to be part of Tenia and and what you're doing with the ambulance like so I thought what what a great guy and so that's why I reached back out and so there was all these cool people that came from our company worked at tanium now they're all in amazing positions in inside tech. What I'm curious is about is the problem. So, so if we think about it, what's happening now is that people don't want to take that chance on people. Couple of reasons why I think it might be, but I'm curious why you think it might be. Why do you think people aren't taking a chance on young people with potential anymore and are looking for the finished product?

15:23Yeah, I think there's an element of risk. You know, how is it going to reflect on me? I do think there's there is a you know as our industry is changing with AI there's a sort of changing you know there was always a need for an intern because there was always junior things to do I remember like the intern first three months always had to do data work well that data work doesn't exist really anymore because AI does it for you know the the tools have got so much better your integrated marketing and sales tool stack is just so much more mature that the that the humans not needed to do some of those more meaningful tasks that we probably did before. Yeah. And if you think if you go back way back when and I remember direct mail like filling envelopes was was the the name of the game or fax mailing. Yeah. You know how boring was that? But it it it created a role and it served a purpose. So all of those sort of more menial task roles are sort of dis dissipating. Yeah. so the if you are in a small team and you've now got to train someone new, do you do you have the time do you have the luxury to give up time to bring that person in and actually spend the time they need to get up to speed? Yeah. I think a lot of people are worried about well it's a bit like having a puppy, isn't it? I have a puppy. It's going to take up all my time. I'm going to be cleaning up after them all the time whereas I've got my day job to do as well. So it's that element of you know do I want to do I want to invest the time or do I want to take the risk like it's double-edged sword and then is the work actually there for them to do.

16:54Yeah. So it's an interesting thing with the puppet example you gave because it makes me think that if in that example what people are actually wanting to hire is like the dog who's just won Crofts. Yeah. You know we want the one that's done had all the best training. Someone else did all of that work. We buy like the the gun dog or the crafts dog. rather than like what sort of like people with great ethics in real life do which is go to the rescue center. Yeah. And find the ones that have been abandoned. We're going to talk about dogs. We have to talk about that. You do actually have a pedigree. You've got a King Charles. He's actually a mud blood. He's half and half. Oh, okay. I'll let you. So, obviously I've got a Cavapoo, which is obviously a a sort of a fancy hybrid. But no, you're right, Ashley. It's it's there is that I think that is an element of it which is I think when when the challenge is there do I want to just not take a risk and and bring somebody who's got some experience who can just run and do it themselves. Yeah. Because devil's advocate someone might say well that's good that those roles don't exist anymore. data entry, filling envelopes, list building, stuff that I had to do back in the day, like making so many cold calls with a low connect rate. It's good that AI deals with that for us anymore. What was the what's the value that you see in those types of jobs inside companies in not in like maybe the productivity that you get from that human being doing the job, but in terms of what it gives the person Yeah. who's doing that job in the environment.

18:34I think it's the it's understanding the context of what what you're doing. Like it's great to have a machine go and do it for you. But if you don't understand if the quality of the output from the machine is good enough, how do you judge what's good and bad? Well, how do you judge or how do you push back on the machine and say actually I think you need to have another go or you've made a slight mistake or you just accept the output for what the output is. M funny actually preparing for this I I did ask Claude in an average session from your marketing audience because they they know like the personas because people use different skills and stuff. Yeah. In in B2B marketing, how many marketeteers actually challenge what you serve up. Yeah. And it it's less than 10%. It's 8%. So 92% of B2B marketers take the output. They'll ask something, they'll get an output and they'll just take it and run with it. Yeah. And I'd argue majority of those probably don't know if what they've been given is actually contextually correct. So unless you've gone and done the sort of the I don't think like it's great that like the data builds and all those things can be automated. But I I think that element of understanding what you've been given and what the context of that is and how you know if it's right or not. Yeah. I think is really really important and I think a lot of that that knowledge has been lost. So sorry Tommy. No, I was going do do you think that there are other ways to to learn that or do you think it's only by by the hard graft of doing it over and over again? Do you think there are other ways that people can learn it?

20:00There are, but again, I think it's it's having more experienced people like the three of us because we're there's a huge amount of experience around these microphones or or others actually giving up time. You've got to give up time to not only see what the input is and what the output is, but actually allow someone to to see how you assess that and why you think that's either right or wrong or if it's wrong, why it's wrong and what you could have done to maybe craft a a prompt differently or how what you do next or you know it it's they'll only get that information if they're sat with you. And that's probably another challenge, you know, this whole hybrid working. Love hybrid working. You know, work from anywhere. But again, if you're early in your career, you need to be in an office. it's fine for us, right? Cuz we've got we've been around people. We've got the experience. But if you're just starting Yeah. How'd you get that? No, 100%. My son's just started an internship. He's a quantity surveyor. 5 days a week in the office and he's gone in today and there's five people in the office from an office of 40. And it's like, well, don't know why I'm here. I said, well, there's still five people to talk to. Yeah. Yeah. And and I love the fact they're enforcing their interns to be in the office 5 days a week in London because a they get that that sort of reflex of actually having to commute. That's what we had to do. And actually being around people that you may not talk to dayto-day. So you understand not just what your role is, but you understand it in the in the context of other people's roles and what they do.

21:24I think it's really powerful. So yeah, I think you know they the move to sort of hybrid working or work from home creates isolated young professionals early in their career that don't have that ecosystem of people around them just to question or or or even just pick up things in the office like overhearing other people's conversations around the business itself. That's how I got good at sales is I was in a in an SDR role but it was called like lead generation specialist. Yeah. And so I'm like coming into the company there's the leaderboard with a hundred people on it. I'm like I remember nobody wanted to be on the bottom. No one was in the top, but if you were in the top like eight, you got to go on a weekly meal prize and got a shout out in the company. Like a lot of kudos. Dopamine circuitry being wired. And I was like, I have to be there. So I'm like going, who's the best? And I'm going, who's got the best intro? Who's like making the person laugh? Why is this person at the top? You just like you analyze. Yeah. And you just just by listening, you don't get any of that. And and we al used to listen back to all of our calls really painfully. And you'd have a manager sit with you. So it wasn't like someone doing like a analysis on gong and then giving you the highlights or expecting you to go and self-s serve your own coaching. You had like a the painful experience of of either having a manager on a splitter with you like literally you're feeling them there. or you would listen back to your calls and dissect it like with a person. I just think a lot of that a lot of that's missing.

22:46So we we we talk about I'm talking about B2B marketing and obviously I've run SDR teams and Jess by far was one of the best leaders I worked with and Matt Coulter was another one. He was another one of your alumni from from your agency days. But so what's happening with the SDRs? Because again there's this big there's this big gap from an SDR to an inside salesperson to an account executive to a you know a director of sales like that that journey that those first two roles seem to be sort of drying up as well. Weirdly I still see a lot of demand for sales development reps. Yeah. No one's really cracked outbound SDR. So good for like inbound basic stuff. Yeah. But no one seems to crack outbound. So there still there's still quite a demand for that. But the inside sales ros disappeared right. So I talk about this a lot. and it's one of the big observations I've had is that role which was right. I've been a good SDR. I can do like up to 30%. I'm good at getting hold of people building pipeline. Now I'm going to be a deskbased Yeah. you know, office-based sales rep working in in collaboration in a pod with a territory field account manager. Yeah. Who will bring me into deals. We'll go and see some clients together. I'll learn the art of sales. Bellyto belly sales. Hes me saying it. Oh, I love belly to belly. You would love belly to be across the desk as a man with a belly. Said, "Should we have the table today?" I said, "No, we need to do this belly to belly." You know, it makes me cringe every time. It's better than IRL, right? But but that that role's gone.

24:14So now every SDR wants to be an AE and they want to do it in six months because like 12 months is too long, but they haven't learned the skills like that like that gap. So but I do agree with you there's less of those roles now because sales teams are smaller. Yeah. In the same way that we see marketing teams being shrunken, sales teams are being shrunk, and a lot of those roles and opportunities for for SDRs to get promoted into AE roles, they don't get the shot at. Yeah. because no one wants to train them. They're probably under target as a company. So, they want to get in external talent. Good for business like mine. Sure. Because we're good at finding those people. Yeah. But it's a finite game. You got this big gap now that's hard to bridge. It's going to get so much harder, which will mean the expensive people will get way more expensive. They're already it's so in demand. Enterprise strategic reps like that's a whole different level of like energy we got to go and put to find those people because it's so much of a relationship trust game. but there's not that same volume like there was like even like precoid. Yeah. Or or even straight after COVID. It was just this explosion. So I do agree that the the markets the market shrunk massively. I just wonder what what are you what are you seeing? What's the true impact of AI on this this entrylevel GTM job market that you're seeing? Well, I'm hoping it's only short term, but but you you can already see it now with this sort of latest intake of graduates that have hit the market. There's about 40,000 marketers joining that joined the job market. I think there's less than a thousand roles open for them to apply for.

25:49I had I had a one of my former interns was in that group. Unfortunately, he started early and one of the roles he applied for, I think about 450 applicants. So, the competition is is huge. So like it's quite soul destroying early in your career to find you've got no experience apart from maybe a year's internship. Yeah. To find that first break. And I think that's what you're finding is a lot of lot of young people are struggling with that sort of postuni progression. It's not just marketing. You talked about the ambulance service. First time in history 40 years of parame medicine paramedics joining the market. So students becoming paramedics. Always guaranteed a role. First time ever not guaranteed a role. Yeah. So you've just spent your own money to train up to for what is quite still a lowly paid job, highly skilled, highly needed, but you're not guaranteed a job. So now having to explore working either in private crews or outside the UK. Is that because there are more graduates or less jobs? Less jobs. Wow. You know, like as as salaries have increased, the number of roles have decreased. Like the NHS, or we could talk about this, this is a whole new podcast. The NHS doesn't have a finite budget and budgets are constrained and with 5% pay increase and 5% cost of goods increase and your budget's flat year on year. The only way to sort of resolve that is not hire as many people to replace people. No one's talking about that when they want higher salary as they should, but they're not increasing the budget. In fact, in many cases, they're reducing the budget. Yeah. So, you can only find so much efficiency in so many of these systems. Yeah. But that is a whole new podcast.

27:28That's it. would invite me back for that one. Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. It does make you think cuz it's because it's not the same in tech, but I wonder I wonder how you This is slightly off piece, but it's good for people coming up. Maybe they're aspirationally wanting to break into tech or they're in tech and they want to do something about this problem. How do you like rationalize people working in ambulance services getting paid at the level that they do? Yeah. for the job that they do with the pressure that they're under and the what's at stake versus what people expect in tech and how much they get paid to a with a completely different level of responsibility. How how do you reconcile that? You can't you can't reconcile it. It's it's irreconcilable. There you go. So, what's your perspective on it then? It's it's the the whole system is unfair, but it's been unfair. I only know it's unfair because I'm in it now. Yeah. But it's been unfair for generations. The people don't go into the ambulance service for for the money. Yeah. They go in because they care. Yeah. but they're almost punished for that. Yeah. In a way. In a way they are, you know, which just leaves pause and silence there. It's slightly I find it slightly awkward because I'm a volunteer so I I don't get paid. But actually, it's really interesting. Some jobs you go to, there'll be a grade seven, eight specialist paramedic, a paramedic, an ECA. They're paid on a on a scale. Yeah. But not, you know, we talk about SDRs. SDRs probably get paid better than all three of those put together. And then you find me as a volunteer doing it for free.

28:58And then you got student paramedic paying £95,000 a year to be at uni plus 4,000 additional, you know, loans, plus they're they're working for free as well. Yeah. So it's the the whole system, I think, is broken. It's it's a real challenge, but I don't think the three of us will fix that one. We're probably more likely to fix the graduate hiring issue than Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just some some stats on that. So, if we're doing SDR hiring in London, you won't get an SDR for less than 40k base, right? So, a paramedic year one qualified 29. Yeah. Yeah. Which is crazy. And ECA is probably 21 because these SDRs have got to do 40 outbound calls a day, you know, and maybe send like 40. You were so generous. I always wanted 100 outbound. Not anymore, Tony. the signals as well, you know, SDRs that don't use the phone. No, they might have the signals. If you make more calls, you'll get more outcome. Yeah. Yeah. Someone said this to me really that Joe Fontana, who's one of the SDR leaders of Amir, chapter heads for New York. Yeah. Had him on the podcast the other day, and he he said that SDRs that come to him and say, I've got all these different ways of getting hold of people that make doesn't require me picking up the phone. He's like, that's great. Great. You can do that all day long, but you'll stay as an SDR for the rest of your life cuz all these other things that you're going to learn get taken away. So, so what I'm curious about is is the AI impact because what you said about graduates not having opportunity was true in my day. Yeah. 2007. I got a marketing degree from Bournemouth University.

30:33Did you? Started my career. Wanted to be in marketing. Wow. There lots of advertising and marketing agencies in Bournemouth. And why were you not? I went for the job interviews. Didn't get the job because they wanted people with some experience. I do realize now I didn't interview well. If I'd known I would have hired you in a heartbeat. Oh, there you go. But I couldn't get opportunity. I do think I didn't interview that well, but there was no one like there was no one coaching me how to go and do interviews. But I didn't get any of those opportunities. I applied for about a month and I was like, "Oh god, what am I going to do?" So I just started working in a nightclub as a VIP host. Wow. Weirdly, that taught me some really good skills. Marketing. It was great. like greeting people like the inbetweeners. Yeah, it was like that filling the empty nightclub. It was an energy a lot that like you're literally being like on the front door but you know in that environment meeting strangers it built a lot of confidence that I didn't have when I left university but then I remember going I don't want to do this for the rest of my life like you had that person saying don't stay doing this I kind of went I can't do this cuz all these people don't love their job but they're stuck here because of mortgages and kids and all that sort of stuff and I was like no. So I went I need to join a company that has a place where I can learn skills. Yeah. So I found this amazing company called EMS. We went to a presentation where they talked about the vision of the business.

31:42We're a UK business. We want to go global. I was like, I want to go to America. So I so I joined this business and they had communications workshops and an amazing leadership lair and just like leaders who taught me so many incredible things. I was so lucky. But I went out looking for that. And I didn't have ego of going I finished uni expecting to walk into a 30 grand a year job. Yeah. In marketing. The reality is I got a £720 an hour job working as a lead generation specialist trying to sell printers for Xerox. Wow. But 12 years later, what a great decision that was in [clears throat] my career. But AI's made that way worse. What's what are you seeing as the in real life like in your experience if you maybe look at the last two or three years, what impact has AI started to already have on on the opportunities that exist for young people? So it's interesting actually because the although you sort of we draw this compar like AI has taken away the roles most organizations haven't operationalized AI inside the business but the business believes they should. Yeah. So the roles have sort of dried up but actually the the benefit's not there yet. Yeah. The AI is not actually delivering. Yeah. In fact actually I think most people using it are probably working harder to to correct all the crap. Yeah. Yeah. Or or even to work out how they can get the best output from an engine. Yeah. actually it was funny when we were preparing for this. So, tou obviously I hope you don't mind people saying like it's quite posh and St. Orbins you're from St. Orbins and we're we're here in Wokingham borders. They said it's Wokingham but it's not really Woking. But I had this I had this thing in my head which is like Wokingham has more pubs per capita in like in a small town center than anywhere else in the UK.

33:23I believed that for for years, ever since I've lived in this area and I've always told people that story and nobody's ever challenged me until I met Tlu and he was like, "No, it's St. Orin's." Oh, right. Well, how do you know how do you know that, Tony? He said, "Read it in the Daily Telegraph." That's true, isn't it? Pretty much. So, your source of your source of truth was was a newspaper, which is the way we used to sort of make assessments. And I came away from that conversation and I thought, right, I'm going to disprove to that not definitely is woking him. And I asked five AIs the same question, written the same same prompt to five AIs and they they all approached it from a completely different lens. And two of them couldn't provide an answer. And of the three that did, no one agree with either of us. It was wow. it was Great Yarmouth. Great Yarmouth came out. One engine said London. Well, that's no surprise, is it? But like nobody lives in the city of London, so I don't know how it came out with that. But it but they it was really interesting to look at the output of the five engines and think well actually if you're using that inside your business how how can you make a business decision on the not that most businesses be asking about pubs in a square mile unless you're weather spoons in which which case they probably where can we hire good young salespeople here's lots of pubs that's why you were in Bournemouth but yeah I think so that's why I'm hoping that it's going to be like a shortterm stay where you know short term there's going to be this sort of unsettled market where people we don't need grants because we've got an AI and hopefully within like a year or two everybody's going to switch back on to we do actually need people because the challenge is we're all getting a like standard law of economics like you you can't change the past but also we're all getting older and unless we can bring in the young talent into the roles that we were in the the next generation of managers aren't going to be there and as we get older that talent's not going to come through and there's there's going to be a different challenge for businesses is it's just so interesting because if there's no experienced people and you need people, you're just going to take what's available.

35:22So, you're going to take people that don't have taste, they don't have experience and that's just going to be worse for business. So, I think people are thinking about it quite short term like, oh, I can save a bunch of money from getting grads, but 5 years from now, you're just going to have people making terrible decisions because they don't know anything. Yeah. There'll be this huge context gap. Yeah. And and and on all the the AIS are being trained. Actually, it's really interesting. the alias are being trained by humans. It's a bit like George Orwell in 1984. There's so many of these agencies now hiring people to correct AI behind the scenes. It's not just the LLM. It's it's thousands of people that are doing this work. Yeah. But there's always going to be a gap and and it's going to be a gap related to an industry sector or a type of activity or a type of data set. There's always going to be that that need for the the human to be there. So yeah, we that's why as we're getting older, we need these younger people coming through not only to give us another job in the future and hire sort of us as consultants but just to fill that sort of managerial gap that would exist. I do have I have a question which is about this who owns the problem thing which we got into a bit of a sidrack but it was valuable so I like it which is which is people will say the government are going to look after you right you know the government will force businesses to you know have a quot of young people whatever in the same way that we think that if AI takes the jobs we'll get looked after by the government with universal basic income it's like this hope that the system will look after us when really there's lots of things in the system that people don't Like, so I don't like that approach.

36:53I like like people taking agency. So, so you're a tech leader who really cares about this problem. You've made it a big point of your career to bring people into your teams and give them a chance. Yeah. Pay it forward. All those things that you said. I guess largely because people took a chance on you, so you want to do that. Also, you're just a good human. But, but who who should own that problem? Because the problem exists. We can't wait for the government. We own it. We own it. you you're running a very successful podcast. I think you need to hire yourself a grad that's not to you need to promote to or to you need to promote rich. I don't know which who's the grad in this relationship. Yeah, to you promote rich. Bring a grad in. make this a bit more interesting. Rather than bringing like older marketers in, bring some grat in. Get them telling their story. But no, I seriously I think it's it's our generation of leader, you know, those that have have been given the opportunity that have made it made a career in this industry super wellconnected, you know, just go and embrace graduates not not in public, but embrace graduates and just give them a give them a helping hand. I've got probably half a dozen that I'm helping at the moment to validate introductions or to help coach or mentor fix their CV or make introductions. just open the door for them. Yeah. Because in in the instance of that, the our last intern, Billy, he now works for one of our former interns. So, one of our former interns who's a manager for an IT company now in marketing has hired one of our old interns to go and work in her team.

38:25That that's the ecosystem I'd like to see because that's then somebody else who's had an opportunity and is bringing somebody else in and helping to develop them. And I the more more of us that do that, the we can solve that for ourselves. And it and it's not just grads. It's not just people that have been to university. I think it is those people that are outside of education that have got that that need some help. They may not come from the best of family backgrounds, but again, they've got a desire to do more than what they're doing today. Just help them out. And I think in many cases, it's just being available to have the conversation to help help them work out what's their path. What do they want to do next? because you can't I can't force you can't force anybody into doing what they don't want to do. But if you can tap into what they're good at, you can identify potentially opportunities for them in your network. You can advocate for them. And the more you can advocate, the more you can open doors, it's then down to the individual. but yeah, I think in this market, I think that's more and more important. So, you're going to hire a grad to I can't afford a 40 grand base. We'll have to find someone in the in the outskirts of like Invenesse. I'm going there at Christmas. I might try I might try and find someone. You're doing the Scotland 500, the NC500. Sure. Just Yeah, we are basically just doing a British escape for this winter. So, I'm quite excited about it, but I might I I it has inspired me because one of my favorite things ever as a leader was spotting that talent. Yeah.

39:52Rich and I were talking earlier about the American dream and he had asked me what do I think the British dream is? So you know the American dream is anybody from anywhere can come to America, work really hard, become successful. What do you think the British dream is? Wow, that's a really good question. Glad you asked me that now and not earlier actually. So we we did mention Simon Squib earlier and and like the fact he stops people in the street to ask them what their dream is and I know some of them are fake but many cases most people got something they want to do. Yeah. but just feel inhibited and I feel like like oh the whole go to America I think the go to America because it's one big country and it's one big market actually it really isn't it the US market is as complicated as the European market with cultures and everything but I think they have created a an environment where even the most basic of ideas can just pull in big funding so as long as you've got a good idea you can get funding and you can start to scale a business very very quickly that ecosystem now I'm just waffling.

40:54I'm like, I've got I've got a question for you. Go on. No, no, but I want to like address to the British street. What? What did you What did you guys Not I'm going to copy yours, but what did you guys I think I figured it out and it's quite depressing. Oh, no. Which is to work long enough in a company that you can earn enough money to retire somewhere else. Wow. Yeah. That's all most people in my circle talk about is this dream to retire in the sun. is actually on the south coast and everybody's got boats. This is what Tolly said. This is what I said to him because I'm from the south as well, right? So that is quite a privileged place. I don't know how other people in the country feel about is it just I want to be able to retire or what is the British dream cuz I I don't feel like we have one. I don't think we've really got a thing that you know we call the British dream. We want to become I don't think we do. No. Yeah. Nothing nothing that's inspirational at all. No. But and I think it is like just survive your career like just keep your head down long enough that you can have freedom to make good choices in retirement without spending time. Yeah. But it's just like get to a point where you don't have to worry. Yeah. That I think that's the British dream which is a bit depressing and it maybe this is what I was going to trying to think about earlier which is the the the dreams part is is we had this guy called Kevin By the podcast. He runs a company called Dream Fuel. It's all about like mental health performance coaching. Yeah. And he talks about bringing people like being a dream manager.

42:19Like if you bring people into a team, they go, "I want to be a tuna fisherman." Yeah. He goes, "Right, cool. Let me work this through with you. How much is a tuna boat? Million dollars. You better be a rockstar salesperson." Yeah. But let let's work on that plan. And it's like tapping into what someone's like true dream is. And I wonder when you're working with with young people like what are those what are the actual we talk about the British dream. What are the actual dreams that people tell you? Yeah. When they're coming into business that they're trying to achieve. It's actually it's really funny because and I love your point around sort of say north south or like the coastal I'm working with people outside of the UK. So I'm working with the team at marketers in South Africa India and it it's you're right it's completely different. And their level of expertise or knowledge is completely different and their desires and wants are are different. The the dream thing though, most people have worked out I want like I want to be in marketing. Yeah. Yeah. But actually it's funny because I've got children that both of sort of working age now. One is an intern, one's just got her second role in industry and she's going to be an absolute powerhouse. And she started with her journey. wanted to be a food technologist and she went and worked for a a bakers and was designing products but realized to get promoted she'd need her boss to either leave or die because it'd be 20 years and so she's taken on a new role in a new company where there'll be progression and I think like it's almost generational that you've got like a generation of people that do actually know what they want to do or be.

43:54So a few of the people I'm working with, I went one lad, he's 17, doesn't know if he wants to go to university to learn about cyber security or just get a role in industry and and just learn on the job. Yeah. Again, Simon Scrippy say just go learn on the job. Go set up a company and go start creating your own product. Yeah. I don't think we have the ecosystem in the UK to allow you to do that. I don't think we reward entrepreneurs or innovators to go and create businesses and do that. So ultimately the journey is go and get a degree and do it that way and four years down the line you might get an opportunity whereas I'm actually introducing him to as many startups as possible that need coding talent. Yeah. So he can get his first break. Cuz I was actually going to ask you because I think we've talked a lot about what AI is kind of taking away from people but I think in a way AI is also giving some opportunities. So for example I could go and sell something in America and not leave my house. Yeah. you know, and that 10 years ago was really difficult, but now actually with technology and what it can do, it's also creating a lot of opportunities. So, I wanted to just get your thoughts on what are some of the things that you think that, you know, people should be looking at, should people should be thinking about where AI technology is giving them opportunities while it's taken in other places where it's actually given some others. Look, I you know, I'm a massive fan of the Claude lovable mashup. you know, take a simplest idea, create and launch a website in in less than an hour with e-commerce and payments on the back of it. And you can actually launch your product in in a matter of a day. Like we to do that 5 years ago or even two years ago would take a lot of money and a few agencies that were specialists in doing it.

45:37Yeah. But you've now got that app ecosystem enables you to take the basic idea and just launch it. I know it's vibe coded and people can sometimes see through that, but you can sort of prove does your idea have legs. Yeah. And kids and I have done a few of those. We, my daughter, before Jamie Oliver, by the way, we created this concept of the first five, you know, we created an app which we wrote in like an early version of Lovable, which was really simple. It was like the first five kilos when you're losing weight or the first five days of any change you needed to make in your life. But he was just trying to work on the concept of first vibe in variety of different areas but took the concept through Claude VIP code did it in lovable created an app and launched it within a matter of a day now then she said dad I didn't want you to do it I she that was my idea I would do it myself I don't need my dad to help me great fatherdaughter enterprise but I think AI gives you that ability to take the basic idea expand upon it and launch it super super quickly but will that make them good?

46:38So, we had Ravi Rajani on the podcast recently and he talked about like this. The enemy is instant gratification. Yeah, it is possible now to write a book in a day. I saw that. Yeah. But do you learn what it takes to be able to write a book? Do you become do you build the character? Yeah. To I think it's such an interesting thing because before before you can even get your idea in front of people, it's years. Yeah, but if you're the right kind of approach, you can say, "I'm going to try lots of things really fast and really quickly." I think you've got to have that mindset though to try lots of things and get the feedback. Have you ever written a book? Have you not? No, it's one of those book. It's a book. I like listening to books. Probably why we started the podcast is I'm quite auditory and visual. The idea of sitting down and reading a book is quite painful to me. But I always thought I've always thought we would have a book because you see like you know Daniel Priestley people talking about how like 87% of D CEO guests have had books. It's good for your credibility. But like just sitting down and and doing it I know would be a huge undertaking and I don't know if I've got the idea but I felt the same way about podcast from years before I met that and I found the who who knew the how and we did it together. And I think it'll be the same for me with books. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I I well I I and chatbt because I used to be nicknamed chat Tony before I sort of switched religion AI well you know it's just a mashup of two words really other AIs are available but I I took the classic books who moved my cheese and my iceberg is melting and I asked Chat GPT to write a book for my team around undergoing change.

48:11Okay and we I wrote a book through the lens of a box of crayons. I say I chat GPT wrote it was bloody brilliant. Okay. So it took the concept of the other two books the idea of a fable. Yeah. And created personas for these crayons and they all adopted different personas going through change because in marketing it's always deliver us 20% more with 20% less and fewer resources and in half the time. Yeah. So that was the that was the basic premise and then each of the crayons had a different role to play in that change. Yeah. But the nice thing was we had a CMO that came in at the time that put us in a nice little box and and made us all feel comfortable in our coexistence together. But each crayon had a different personality. They took a different role and it was and I you know created a little book for the team you know should I publish it together. It could almost be a podcast as well. I like it. and yeah I think a few people were saying like you're just making people out to be coloring department which was the subtext of the whole story. Ch did all the illustrations the whole book in a couple of hours. So to your point, you can take some knowledge about, you know, types of things that you've read, like books that you've read and fables that resonated with you and and a scenario that you've got and actually mash them together. Yeah. so yeah, possibly. I think that's very clever. Actually, I think we're going to publish that book and see. We should do. Does it work? We'll put it in the show notes of this episode. We going to give Teddy that job cuz I don't know how to do that. Maybe you can teach us. Well, I tell you what, you can have half the revenue.

49:42We donate my half to charity. Yeah, we'll give it we'll we'll sponsor someone in Inveness. That's a really It's a really interesting point. We should because it is true. But but what you're telling me there is something that I think about a lot with AI, which is inputs and outputs. Yeah. So, for example, if you're trying to solve the wrong problem with AI, like in recruitment, 500 applications you talked about. Oh, cool. So, we've got a volume problem. Let's whack AI in front doing the screening and vetting. Let's get them to do an AI interview before they meet the busy hiring manager. Yeah, terrible use of AI. If we went, how can we reimagine how a company shows what it's all about so people can self-educate like a buyer's journey actually create like a sort of buying journey to join our company and we get create some excitement. That's a cool use of AI. So, but you from your context and experience went here's two interesting ideas. Let's get AI to do the work but from very good inputs. And I think that young people often don't have that context to create those ideas. But that's where one lens. The other way is they might have completely different fresh ideas that with this wicked tool they surprise us. So I think like is it the job of the leader to be like very AI pro AAI and like want them to experiment with this fantastic tool so that they can surprise us and know that we might not be the experts anymore. Our job is that we have the context to help guide them. Yeah. rather than we are the people that they should shadow to copy what we've done before. What should it take? No, I I think you're right.

51:07Actually, go back to the AI conversation for graduates. Most graduates leaving university don't know how to use AI. Okay. Because they are dissuaded from using it because it's considered cheating the system. Yeah. So, it's it you know and I've got I've got a friend who's he asked me to assess his daughter's dissitation. So I did a little assessment tool using AI to understand the the marking creds and and and basically assess where would this paper land. Yeah. But that's a great use of AI thing because although the paper still has to be written by a human being, the AI is assessing you know did you hit all the the bits you need to to be able to get a decent mark on the back of it. But no, so [clears throat] many grads are leaving uni without any experience of of AI. Yeah. And that's I think that's holding them back in that sense. So yeah, it's a really we're in this really odd space. That's why I said like I think after a few years hopefully the market sort of comes back to like you do need human, you do need young talent. But I think there's a role for university to play in helping young people to be AI ready AI first that it's it's used as a co-pilot, not as a replacement. Yeah. I would like to ask you a different question. Sure. Yeah. Which is about practically what someone could do. So let's say you were to land in a company now in a position of responsibility inside organization. You want to champion young people. What would you do and recommend that others do so that they can actually start to help to solve this problem and get all the wicked benefit of bringing young people with all this great attitude and potential into the business?

52:47Yeah. So I think you you look inside your own business first because and we did this in my last company by starting a work experience effort. So bring your kids to work regardless of the age. Let them come and actually experience work and see where your parents work. Yeah. At 15, give those kids the opportunity to spend a week inside your organization and and and actually get to grips with lots of different functions over a period of time. you know by engaging your employees and their family you're creating that much better connected tissue between home and work. Yeah. At the same time you're helping those young people understand what what do they want to do with their education where do they want to go next and maybe it's not I want to do what dad or mom does you want a proper job. but if there is a need like look to family first. So look to family and look to connections of family. Yeah. And I truly think open up an internship, you know, whether it's somebody who's 17 and wanting to start in business or somebody's doing a gap year, just open up a role in different functions. and make it available to the team to be the coaches and mentors for those individuals. I always said to interns when they came in, we always did two things. One is we recorded them on their first day, what do you want to get from your year? And we always recorded them on their last day, which is what was the return on the investment we made in you. Okay. Actually, Lena, who's leaving my last company in two weeks, she has to do that presentation. I don't work there anymore, but I'm still going to go to a presentation. We call it the return on Lennena investment.

54:18So, we know what we've invested in you in terms of money and time. What did you what did you get out of it personally and professionally? What and put a number on it like what value did you create for the business? Yeah. Because once you then start them thinking about their value, Yeah. That's something you can take back to the business and say, "We may have invested 30,000 in an intern for a year, but they generated two, three, four, five million worth of opportunity or close one business." Yeah. And that is is really powerful because, you know, you're retaining employees for longer. You know, most of my team stayed for, you know, [clears throat] five, six, seven, eight, nine years. Our turnover rate in employees was very, very low in my team. And that's because they had these opportunities to work with these young individuals. At one point half my team were former interns. So I think there's that. So go back. I think it's it starts at grassroots family days in the office. It's that properly established work experience week. You know, we all did it when we were at school. And I think it's a really good opportunity whether it's in sales or marketing or technical or even you know GNA functions like HR or legal or finance. M just give them an opportunity to experience in lots [clears throat] of different teams and then formalize an internship program and have the program run by the interns because once you establish it the interns can then run it for the next people coming through they can create the operating procedure they can create the manual AI can help them and then just keep track of them keep track of them and their careers and then hopefully they're paying it forward as they move forward as well.

55:47Yeah, absolutely love that. I think we all need to adopt a young person. Yeah. 17 to 25 and just like embrace someone and just try and help them get to their next stage of their their [clears throat] career or learning. Yeah, I love it. You're going to Inveness. Where are you going? To South Africa. I've got a whole team of people there you can introduce you to. and the team like I'm working with the team at the moment in Punjab. Unbelievable. Yeah. Like passion education and they're the ones that are online at 2 in the morning. 2 in the morning. I'm getting texts from people asking me questions. I was like like god I I thought I have work ethic or something. Go to bed now is my norm. My response it's like 2 a.m. go log off. Yeah. Exactly. They don't want to. They're completed finishes. Yeah. I love it. And if someone wanted to help like establishing an intern program because you've done it successfully over many years. Yeah. contact any one of my old interns. Yeah. I was going to say I'm more than happy to talk to anyone about about doing this. And actually any one of my interns I'd say would be happy to help give firstirhand insight into what it was to be part of a program and it wasn't fully formalized. It wasn't perfect but we made sure the interns like enabled it to be improved for the next group coming through. Yeah. And the fact we actually hired five five people and they were in the team like Emma was with us for six seven years. Yeah. Holly was with us five years. You know they they didn't just come and go after two years. They they stayed because there was opportunity.

57:15Yeah. I wonder if we can ask the audience to like put in the comments or write us a note with like the thing that made them successful in their jobs, who gave them a break, some like lessons from from the thing that made the difference that they remember most fondly. And then we can kind of like like build this kind of like intern in a box program, but like giving people a bit of a guide to follow to go and create this. I think a lot of people go emotionally I buy into this concept but I've got to like just have a bit of a helping hand to get started. Yeah. Where do I start? I think it's a really good idea. Almost reminds me remember way back when when we had Friends Reunited you like talking about your teachers like what teachers had a big impact on your life. Yeah. You're sort of doing the same sort of thing like what leaders and what what the leaders do that make it better for others. Yeah. But no, I'd love to be involved in any anything like that. And again, I think there's you're going to start to see more of these sort of grassroots initiatives to try and help people get into roles, whether it's in marketing or sales. Yeah. And you only need a few people that are connected to try and start that journey. Yeah. so yeah, I think join the WYT sounds like YMCA, but WYT network. Jingle, Tony, maybe you can help us. You do that after. Yeah, exactly. and we won't discriminate from people outside iness. If someone's interested in becoming an intern for tick talent then please let us know and we'll we'll maybe take a chance. Can I can I join? Yeah, absolutely.

58:41All right. Amazing. Amazing. Any what final thought would you like to leave our listeners with today? Look, I I've been in it for 30 something years and over that time there's been a huge amount of change. Change is a constant and has been a constant in technology for the whole time. The good thing is that industry has always grown. So we we've grown in size, we've grown in value, we've grown in sort of heart that's behind it as well. And we've matured like the the the technology industry was 60 years old. This the software industry is 30 years old. So it's still compared to other industries, it's still very very young and we're learning a lot. I'd say the change we're going through at the moment is dramatic and I think it will level off and we'll see opportunity restart very very soon. But it requires us to want to do that. Yeah. So, just stick with it. Love it. There's hope. We have hope, don't we, Tolu? Absolutely. Thank you for watching this episode. We've loved this conversation. I want to just give everyone a chance to just tell the thing that they hope that you've walked away with. So Tony, what's the thing that you hope that people walk away with from this episode? So I I love the conversation as well. You you guys are amazing. You know, I hope people have walked away wanting to look at talent in their ecosystem, friends, family, or friends of friends, and find somebody who could have a break in our industry, whether it's in sales, marketing, or technical, and just engage them in a conversation. Tell them what it's like to work in this industry, and if they need to make introductions for them. Yeah, I love it. Taloo, what do you hope people walk away with from this conversation?

1:00:20I hope that young graduates have seen some opportunities of ways that they can get a little bit ahead and things that they can do a bit differently. So, I think like you said, it is a bit soul crushing if you're just hitting apply and not getting much back. So, I think for young people, that's what I hope. And for kind of the more experienced people, that opportunity to give someone else an opportunity to really open up your your mind and your eyes to see the the people that are around you that you can help. Oh, I love it. So I think for me it's two things. One, for young people, find wicked leaders like Tony. People who are like your dream manager who can help you find your way. Like people that I worked with. I just I've got such a strong place in my heart for them. And I know people so many people feel that way about you. So find someone like that. Go and chase your dream manager. And then for employers, hiring managers, founders, like take a chance on people. This is your responsibility. The government's not going to do this for you. And if you neglect this, you're going to give yourself a massive problem, which is you're going to have huge recruitment fees trying to find find an infinitely smaller group of people to go after. Whereas, if you take the chance on people, you never know. You'll maybe be your future CRO, CMO will or the person who hires you in your later years will come from that program that you start today. So, so start now and take ownership and speak to Tony if you need some help because he's spent his career doing it. So, thank you very much, Tony, for coming on.

1:01:41It's been a pleasure. No, thank you. See you on the next episode.