change the landscape of corporate America. Reflect and represent the societies in which we live.
It's like using skills like truthfully hiring based on skills.
Tell that story of what your superpower is and be able to communicate that to yourself, others around you. More importantly, you know, employer,
your specific niches underestimated individual. How are you finding them?
From South Bin to Evansville and everywhere in between, this is Get In the show focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here today. I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. Quick pause in the action to let you know that we are taking over Brown County this weekend. We will be at Moontown Brewing Friday, July 25th at 7:30 p. m. , where we are opening a $1,000 bar tab for anyone who shows up as a reward for Nashville winning the Smalltown Showdown Bracket Challenge.
Then on Saturday, July 26th, we will be at the Hard Truth Bourbon and Barbecue Fest presented by Dave White and our friends at Great White Smoke. They're going to have live music ripping from noon until 9:00 p. m. and 31 different pit masters smoking up some of the best barbecue that the Midwest has to offer. Not only do they have good food, but they have a ton of other fun stuff going on. Here's what you can expect.
Bourbon and barbecue tastings and pairings, bourbon blending and cocktail crafting classes, VIP bourbon and cigar lounge, uh bourbon and barbecue marketplace, interactive competitions and outdoor activities like bourbon barrel goal races, barbecue toss and cornhole tournament, $10 entry for a $300 prize, and axe throwing. You can get tickets at hardtruth. com/events. Come on down this weekend and hang out with us and try some incredible bourbon and barbecue. We'll see you there. Today I'm joined by Eric Stanley, the founder of M2N, a social impact company on a mission to make the workforce more equitable.
Before launching M2N and its flagship platform, Empower, Eric helped scale Passageways revenue from 6 million to 16 million and played a key role in helping close one of the largest series A rounds in Indiana history. Eric is reshaping how we hire in Indiana by opening doors for underestimated professionals and building a system that values skills over status. I'm really excited to dive into everything hiring today. Hey Eric, welcome to the show.
Hey, it's pleasure to be here. I appreciate you having me.
I I always love having a fellow Depot Tiger on board. Uh it's it's fun when we can reminisce a little bit about Green Castle and all the fun things happening out there, man. So, class of 99.
Class of 99, man. Class of 99. Absolutely.
Yeah. When you came out of DEPA, were you uh assuming that you were going to have a a long career in tech? Is that the plan?
No, not at all. I didn't really know much about tech. I knew I was going to be in sales and and uh that was really about it which was different right from my fraternity brothers uh and their networks of the people that they came from which had built-in CEOs you know folks I was a beta
oh there we yeah that is a a very big house like lots of guys
yep big house uh and it was so I played football and basketball at the Paul so it was one of the houses that had a mix of all all of the above I think you were dealt delt was a football house atto was a basketball house so there go
I went beta was actually.
So you actually got to play with Brad Stevens, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
How what year did he graduate?
99.
So same exact. So you played for four years with them?
No, I played for one year basketball.
It was a lot. You remember Depal is is is a challenging school.
Yep. And being a two sport college athletes. No joke. So like you know a good year. It was a good year. Yeah.
Um so come out and you know you're going to be in sales. Where do you end up landing? What is that? Like that's the early career hustle in sales is just like it's a grind for sure.
I picked one of the grindiest if that's uh a way we want to go about it opportunities with Northwestern Mutual.
That is a grind.
Yeah. How long did you do that
man? About two three years
dude. Yeah. That's that you cut your teeth in sales.
I cut my teeth in sales but it's interesting how it comes full full circle. So some of the people that I met there uh are my mentors now. They're on my advisory team. Um because I was, you know, I was calling on folks who uh who had been successful, who had money, right, to invest in themselves and god forbid if something were to ever happen. But what's interesting about it, when I was hired training team, I was the only, right? So if we if we rewind, I'm from Anderson, right? So I'm from Anderson. I went to uh Highland High School, which is predominantly white high school, and then went to Depal uh which obviously is a predominantly white uh college. Um, and then I get out. So, it it's more of the same.
Highland's no longer a school, is it?
No, it's not. Okay. Actually, they closed it down. They closed down. Third largest gym in the state.
That's the the wigwam.
The wigwam. Man, I uh I was in dunk contests there and uh I mean it was like 10 10 to 12,000 people during sectionals. More than
like what happens like what's going on with the wig? Not to like totally derail the conversation. No, it's fine. What's going on with the wigw uh they closed it down, man?
Like so it's just a it's just it's empty. Did they tear it down? Yeah, they tore it down because of the taxes and
No way.
Yeah,
the old the third largest gym.
Third largest gym in the state.
No way.
It was great, man. I swear it probably got a couple more inches to your vertical on that in that place when you were playing there.
Why is that?
I don't know.
Just just the hype.
Just a little more bounce. Yeah, a little more hype.
But you grew up I mean Highland High School in Anderson, predominately white. Go to the pop another predominately white school. Uh, and you were talking about, you know, you're then you show up at Northwestern Mutual
class. It was only
You said the the only
Yeah, the only the only or the other. Right. That's that's kind of uh what sculpted this whole journey. Uh being the only or the other. You know, it was a hiring class of about six folks. Um it was a strong class. In fact, one of the top salesperson, Mark Wise Wise Financial, who's now a client. He's been the top in sales in the in the in the nation. Uh came from that class. some of the folks that I was talking to. Uh, I actually met my hiring manager for Johnson and Johnson, sold him. He said, "Hey, you know what? You should really con have you ever considered an opportunity in in pharmaceutical sales." I was like, "No, I haven't." This is where it gets interesting, right? Because you go from a hiring class of six with Northwestern Mutual to a hiring class of 55 uh with Johnson and Johnson and still I was the only the other really
all across the country. Now J&J's gotten a whole lot better with that. What years were the This is like mid 2000s.
Yeah. Uh, no. Early
early 2000.
Early 2000. So,
okay. So, yeah. I was like 99. You did like a couple years with Northwestern Mutual. Yeah. Early 2000s.
Yeah.
And And you're saying out of 55 people
Yeah.
You're still the only or the other.
Still the only or the other.
Did you like that? Did you dislike that? Did you notice that in the time?
So, I was used to it, right?
Yeah. I mean, if you go from a predominately white school to a predominately white school to a recruiting class, like it's just you're used to that.
Yeah. It's part for the course. uh and you know you sort of there's a whole language opportunity that happens. Um but then there's also frustration. You know you talk about belonging and things of things of that nature. What's interesting about it is the type of role it was. So your pharmaceutical rep is a lot of windshield time. So you're by yourself after you get through you know pretty rigorous hey you need to be in a position in which you can sell effectively to doctors who have dedicated their whole life to to medicine right. Um so I did well there. uh you know, everywhere I've been in sales, I've been like top 3%. Okay,
that's a good skill to have.
So, yeah. So, if you fast forward uh to my prior last role before I started M2n, I was with a company called Passageways. We sold a product called Onboard, which was uh board solution software. So, all your boards of all your big logo uh companies and organizations, they have boards that have oversight into the organizations they run. and I sold the technology that helped them, you know, with their minutes and any confidential information, things like that. Right? So, what's interesting about that is I was there for just under five years, thousands of conversations, thousands, right? I sold organizations like Robin Hood, Out West, uh, CICP here locally, New Fields, uh, WLGore, US Sugar, some HBO. Um,
yeah, some of some of the big guys.
How do you get a meeting with HBO? Man, that's just one of the things I was I was always good at at networking. And we can get into to that and what that looks like and you know how some people don't even know what networking is right now. But that's all it is. It's relationships, right? Relationships and asking and being confident in what you're doing. But um what's interesting about that is, you know, over thousands of conversations in that time frame, I spoke to less than five people that look like me. Stop. Swear. Right. True story. calling on seauite folks, governance folks, you know, people in the boardroom. That's where it really started to kind of register uh with me. Hey, what what's going on? Then the pandemic happened. You know, everyone got very very introspective.
Like when did it become prevalent to you that you weren't in meetings with people that looked like you?
I think I always
You always knew
knew it. But like you come home and it's like you know like one day it's like oh put a tally mark like there was another like and now we're there or like where did that come from?
Yeah. I think during the pandemic it all kind of culminated.
Okay.
Right. Because you're by yourself like I said everyone's introspective there, you know, civil unrest was really high. Also, George Floyd happened.
Yeah.
Uh George Floyd could have easily been me. So once that happened, things were high. You really start to evaluate what you're doing in your life, what you're selling these things. And that's when I said, "All right, I need to do something." I started to put all those things together and it's like, "All right, how can I help?" Right?
If I'm one of my gifts is is selling and networking and relationships and all these things, what can I do to really help uh change the landscape of corporate America to really reflect and represent the societies in which we live? That's where M2n came in. So what I did was I went out and I interviewed about 60 companies or so and I asked okay when we start talking about the business case of diverse teams and what that does to a business how it helps a business why is it wherever I go we don't see it 60 58 of the folks would say we can't find diverse talent and we can't retain diverse talent that's where M2N comes in and so as you introduced uh the company at a high level that's what M2N is it's a it's a social impact company that is focused on workforce equity, right? It's for-profit and we develop tech technology to really scale that work.
Okay. So, take me through M2N and the platform empower in action like how is it work? I let's say I if get Indiana when when not if when we're a thousand person company, how would I leverage empower to find and retain diverse talent? uh what you would do is you would partner with uh M2N at the back end. We have a portal for employers, right? And so the employer, we actually built an ATS. So that applicant tracking system is where you would go in, you partner with us, and we have AI that actually generates uh job descriptions for you.
Yeah, there we go. Yes. AI.
Yeah. AI.
It's a tech company, of course.
Yeah. And it's all based on skill schema, right? So when I say skill schema, it's not keyword, right? A lot of things out there right now are keywords which you can can get you in trouble.
When you say schema, what does that mean?
It's how it's formulated, right? So when we talk about AI going through and really matching the skills of the applicant with the skills that we build in the uh job description, that matching that happens, you get a score. It's based on a schema of skills that's matched in in each.
Okay. So sort of a model model is is is a better
uh synonymous term, right? So you put uh your job description in there and then that surfaces in our app empower our first offering and then we have a membership base of folks that are you know talented. We like to use the word underestimated individuals right who are in application actually looking for opportunities. And so it's all based off skills skills
and and what are the types of roles that you're bringing into the platform? When we started, we wanted to focus on tech.
Couple reasons. Tech, we want to focus on family sustaining wages, right? So, we want people to be able to come out and support themselves. You support yourselves. You feel like you're, you know, contributing to society. Uh, you're able to live, right? Uh, and tech affords that opportunity to do so. Also, uh, technology is about 92% of the the roles out there, right? So, tech is
tech or tech enabled, right? Yeah.
And tech enabled, man. Um, if you're not tech enabled, then you're probably dying as a business.
Find me find me a business that's not tech enabled.
Well, yeah. If and and when
even the garbage man is tech enabled these days.
Totally. Farming, everything, right? If you're not, you're dying. So, um, so that's why we went with tech.
So, like what but like specifically in tech, you're importing like SDR roles or you're importing like what kind of roles?
It just depends. I mean, it could be sales roles. It could be So, we're a Techpoint. Uh, you familiar with Techpoint? We're a Techpoint partner. Uh, and Techpoint has, you know, mission 41K and they've got over 1,600 companies that have
Talk to us about Mission 41K.
Yep. Miss So, Mission 41K, Techpoint's initiative to hire 41,000 folks for roles in Indiana by 2030 using skills. when talking through that, right? Because there is this like age-old, okay, using skills. There's just a lot of maybe misconceptions around um diversity, equity, and inclusion hires between uh skills-based. You talked about using keywords and that can get you in trouble. Like talk to me about what that means like using skills like truthfully hiring based on skills. So when you break down what the percentages are of folks who have the opportunity to go to college, 63% of everybody, me, you, doesn't matter what you look like, where you come from, don't have the opportunity to go to college.
63% do not.
63%. Then that number jumps up to 74% for African-American. Then it jumps up to 80 plus% for our Latinx brothers and sisters. Right? Right? So, you're already excluding a lot of folks out there. Just because they don't have the ability to go to college doesn't mean they don't have the skills to do the job. So, I sit on the uh Franklin digital fluency board. And
what is the Franklin digital fluency board?
They are sprinkling in digital fluency which is tech and tech enabledness into their curriculum so that when folks get out they're they're prepared uh because tech is is essentially taking over. Some of the feedback we've received from CEOs is that 90% of the CEOs want folks who have the skills to do the job in the seats. The problem is when you look at talent and talent and hiring acquisition folks, they just don't have the resources or the bandwidth uh to do that. And so we make that simple, right, with empower. How are you finding these underestimated individuals to because it's a two-sided marketplace, right? Absolutely. You got to go out and find jobs that need filled and you got to find companies that are looking for maybe not Ivy Leaguers or maybe it is Ivy Leaguers, it's just skills. They're looking for people to fill the roles that they need. And then you have to go out and find
your specific because I mean there are competitors I would say where there's like you know early stage like early career there's uh what is Ascend does internship like there are a lot of these like two-sided marketplaces for specific niches. Yeah. So like your specific niche is uh underestimated individuals. Yeah. How are you finding that?
Like I mentioned, we've been in business for about four years this month.
Yeah. Congrats.
Yeah. Thanks, man. You know, this year was the first year that we actually put jobs in the platform. So for three years, we've been out in the community building trust, right? been out in the community partnering with, you know, uh, folks like 16 Tech, uh, people that have access to the communities in which we want to serve to build that trust, right? Talking about our message, why it's important, uh, and how people can participate, uh, with our platform as a resource. We have partnerships with IvyTech as well.
Oh, yeah.
180,000 students that go to I mean, it's the largest community college in in the country. Um so just developing relationships with folks who have those that community in which and and developing that trust so that they can come to our app give us the data right that we need so that we can track all these things and really make a difference. That's that's been the work that we've been doing for 3 years.
Okay. So working on this for the last so three years of prep work now one year of jobs in the platform. Yeah.
Right. which is and this is interesting timing because it aligns a little bit with like the new high school diploma structure with the Bronn administration.
Uh and I don't know I'm not the expert there, right? So, and I will not claim to be, but I do know that some people are really upset with it
and other people like it because it puts people on the right track to either go get a college degree or to go to trade school or go, you know, become employable, I suppose. Um, what I mean, what's your what's your perspective and feedback on kind of the new high school diploma?
It's incredible. Uh, so
really. Okay.
Absolutely. Um, so I just got back from uh, Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, right? Um, where apprenticeship. So we went over there. The there were some tech folks that were sort of leaders in the community that Fairbanks and IABS sent over to um, Switzerland to study their apprenticeship model and they've been doing this for a hundred years, right?
At least, right? Officially. Official.
I mean, you think about like Europe or England, it's like, oh yes, I'm the cobbler's apprentice back in the day, you know? Like
that's so true.
Yeah. I left my family to go build shoes for this guy for like a bowl of soup.
100% 100%. So you've got, you know, twothirds of those folks uh over there, they have the dual dual sort of system that where they can go and learn and also learn uh with a job, right? The vocational piece. And uh when you talk about youth unemployment, I mean, they're under 2%.
I feel like youth shouldn't be employed, but youth
So, you know, but that's that's what's interesting, right? They start at 10th grade.
98% have a job in 10th grade.
The program is different for different industry. And we were over there studying tech. The program is about four years.
Wow. It's four years. But what happens is is they're getting real live experience with employers, right? And
that's the point of 10th grade.
Yeah.
That's wild.
Yeah. Yeah. Where where our uh youth unemployment is over 9%. The other thing about it is when we were there, these apprentices were coming up and they were, you know, speaking to us. I mean, they're like 16, 17 years old.
Oh, the high school kids in America are scared of adults.
It was unbelievable to see some of these. I mean, they were they were their composure, um, the way that they held the audience, their confidence. I mean, I've seen panelists and and folks here that didn't hold a candle to these folks, right? So, I mean, it's real.
So, and this is the apprentice program. that like I feel like we're uh I've heard a few times maybe the Indie Chamber talked about this with me about rolling this out where and it's not just apprentice like I think that the traditional Indiana based apprentice model is like the plumbers's apprentice or the pipe fitters apprentice or like it's more bluecollar stuff like they're talking about an apprenticeship program that could place a high achieving high school kid at with a banker.
Absolutely. uh and in fact uh encap right which is the apprentice program that we're bringing from Switzerland to here here to Indiana they are starting with banking tech construction manufacturing sports they're trying to bring that model here and implement it's a complete culture change it's culturally a change because what you see over in Switzerland is this is their way of life apprenticeship is their way of life
what happens if I pick the wrong apprentichip as a sophomore and I'm like I want to be a banker and then you get in there and you're like I can't count money. I don't I don't know. I like I just don't like this. I don't want to do it. It's permeable, right? So what they can do is they can go back to school. They have credits from where so say that they were in the banking industry. They're still getting credits for working there, right? So then they can go back to school. They've got a system in which where they're pretty good at figuring out what a student is interested in before, you know, they pick that apprentice.
This is a little bit of what I am. It makes sense to me. I like
Yeah.
parts of the new high school diploma structure,
but also like
you can't trust a freshman in high school to pick like what they're going to eat today. let alone like if they get themselves too far down a path cuz I think I saw the article was like Purdue
is questionable about whether it will accept the non college track degree into their university. So imagine picking something as a sophomore and again I have not well enough research so I hope maybe you have a an insight into this but imagine picking the wrong track. you get to be like a junior senior and like you're in a really big pickle because the most prestigious universities won't accept your high school diploma to get in there. Is that like is this a thing that people are worried about? I thought I saw an article about it.
Yeah, that so that's the thing and that's where this legislation change is making sure that those credits are transferable. Right. So that's a big piece of of what we're trying to bring here so that in those particular situations you have a fall back. Right. But when you frontload up front, you really want to make sure that you're, you know, you're taking the proper steps, being intentional with these kids to, you know, allow them to job shadow. They like to call it sniffing over there. Um,
that's what they call it.
They call it sniffing.
They're just sniffing.
They're just sniffing around, right? Sniffing out the opportunity. Doing that front loading piece so that, you know, they can see a day in the life. It's like job shadowing. You know what's interesting is when I was a farmer rep, you know, you go out into the field for a couple days with different folks before they even bring you on. And that's actually the final sign off.
Hey, because what it does is it allows you to see what the day in the life is in that opportunity. I mean, you're in hospital. Some people don't like blood. Maybe you're not supposed to be, you know, a rep if you don't like blood or you don't like to be in hospitals. But it also gives you an opportunity to build relationships, ask questions. Um, and and not only that, but get separate eyeballs with with different uh perspectives to that you can engage in and they can say, "Okay, yeah, let's let's put this person on our team."
Um, so they do that very intentional upfront uh to try to make sure that that doesn't happen, but we're dealing with kids, right? So, you know, that the the the chances that it will happen, you know, are there. the people that you're helping, you know, make connections to jobs. The demographic when you say of the underestimated people,
it really could be anyone. I can't tell you what your lived experience is that makes you underestimated. You could be black, you could be white, you could be so economically stressed, you could be um disabled, you could be a veteran, all those
old, young, you know, like like there's it seems like everything that makes you unique or everything that gives you your experience can also be used again. Like
you just don't have enough experience. How the hell am I supposed to get experience if no one gives me a chance?
Yeah. Or you don't have enough experience or you have too much experience or what's this gap? Well, you know, um I had a baby or I had to take care of somebody. Um like
in my family, life happens, right?
Come on.
During those situations, you are building skills. And so what we have to be better at and what we try to bring about in folks is telling that story. So you can tell that story of what your superpower is and be able to communicate that to yourself, others around you and more importantly, you know, employers. So that's what we do because we have content in uh the app as well, right? So what happens is is you go through some of the content and it talks to you about all right, what do you do in an interview? And it's not only about getting opportunities.
I mean, there's a lot of folks that are professionals that are in careers right now that are unhappy. How do you navigate different situations that you're going to face? We want to have content in there to help folks with that. And that also helps with stickiness, right? So you have all these folks that are graduate from from school or get an opportunity and nobody knows what they're doing or where they are, but we we will have that information and that data. So there's longitudinal data that we'll have that we can apply uh in different scenarios uh circumstances.
So give you an example. We both graduated from Depal.
Go Tigers.
Go Tigers. What happens is after folks graduate, you know, you have alumni outreach. Nobody knows what anybody's doing anymore six months out after they graduate because a lot of things happen. Seven jobs since uh since I graduated at Paul. Uh some people have more than that. That's an average. The average is 13. Yeah.
13 in your lifetime.
Yeah. Yeah. Before you finally say, "Hey, I know what I want to do in my life."
Wow. Wonder when that changed cuz it's like then you go back like 20 years and it's like n I've worked at at the steel mill for 35 years. like or like someone's dad was a banker or someone's mom like was whatever but for forever. When do you think did you and this is like another sidebar question but like the shift of like bouncing around to find stuff that you like versus long like the Eli Liy like they had people that were there for 30 plus years.
Yeah. I think that's what the Swiss has figured out, right? Right. So that upfront piece, there's so much more retention in these places over in in Switzerland, you know, and they can afford to put the Swiss stamp on there that is a premium like your Swiss watches, your Swiss shoes, all those things. And that's just because there's more experience going into what where things are made, man. It's it's just crazy.
Do you think they let people sniff, tinker, whatever at a younger age when it's like when you're a kid, it a month-long internship? like you can kind of tell if you want to do something or not probably versus like when you graduate
you need to stay at a job for at least a year. If you don't stay for a year,
you don't want that on your resume, right? So then it takes five years to try five different things versus it could take one year to try five different things if you were just sniffing.
Yeah. No,
maybe. I don't know. That's my hypothesis.
Well, no, I think I think you're spot on, man. I mean, you know, if you put a lot more emphasis in that upfront front-loading piece to get it right,
Mhm.
Uh it just makes more sense and and people are more comfortable. And again, it's about developing relationships and problem solving in an environment that you're going to work in. So once folks that you work with see you problem solving in that environment, you get comfortable problem solving in that environment, you're going to get asked to stay on the board.
Are you running into issues where sometimes like the number one first question in is like, do you have a college degree? You know, like a lot of jobs just start with that.
Yeah.
Like my grandma, for instance, back in, this would be the 40s.
She took one year of college classes and it helped her get a job because it's like, oh, you studied accounting. Like we're looking for a bookkeeper. She didn't have a degree. She had one year and took one accounting and like now I can account,
but like that somewhere in the in the mix like you had to have a degree. Even if you have the she technically had the skills and that got her hired, but this was in 1946 or whatever.
Yeah. Yeah. But a lot of times like the first thing on a on a job application is do you have a four-year college degree?
What skills first this whole movement right is is doing is showing that you don't need the four-year degree. So schema our models that we talk about we're trying to pull that out when we make these job descriptions for folks. Now that's all editable. If they want to put that in they can. It's different circumstances for different roles. But you got to remember way back in the day you said the 40s right?
It's supply and demand. folks would just use resumeéumés and school uh diplomas as a way to funnel down the folks because there was just so many people to to go through for jobs. Doesn't necessarily mean that the folks that didn't have diplomas aren't capable, but it just gave them an easier way to do to, you know, to sort of find people and have a story behind that. Our whole focus is look skills first as a product more indicative of success five times more than education. Two and a half more times indicative of success than prior work experience. Um you get a better onboard experience um into the company because you know what their strengths and weaknesses are, right?
It increases in retention by 32%. Which that's a huge thing. You know, most companies spend anywhere between five and, you know, almost $40,000 uh onboarding onboarding somebody, right? It's important to keep those dollars. And then the other thing it does that we sprinkle in at the end is that you get more diverse teams. You're broadening or opening widening the aperture of talent that you're letting into the pipeline.
That is an interesting piece and I'd love to pull on that thread. I think in general my my hypothesis, again, I'm using that word a lot today. I'm I'm here for it is that no one is like I don't want diverse teams. the majority of them just uh have a difficulty finding more diver like when you're making let's say a startup right you came from you know pass I don't know how big was the company when you joined
25 people
25 right I'm sure that 23 of those came from like personal circles
you know they just happen to be oh I need to hire this and like speed speed and skills and you know oh you ask a friend of a friend and and then you end up with a 25 person team where you are the other the only Right. Like
and that's not from a I would assume I don't know you could correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think the person whoever I don't know I don't know the founder of pastor tries off the top of my head but like I don't know if they went out and said
do you think Peroon went out and was like no I only want that it's just like you start asking friends and you end up but
your network
your network they have trouble finding
more diverse talent by doing the traditional things you know go to career fairs right like they send out their HR team and it's like well the same career fair like that's just going to continue to produce the same talent but like they don't have
capital or bandwidth or you know ability to go and I don't know find more diverse talent. Is that an issue you're seeing?
Yeah. Well, I mean that is the issue right there. Folks are in the business of of doing their business. You bring in talent acquisition folks who are of a likeliness to who you are and you know predominantly they're not going to be folks that look like me, right? And so what empower does is gives you the opportunity to uh reach outside of the networks of your likeliness because that's how hiring is done. Everybody's got bias.
We try to take the bias out, right? So I mean you could be biased towards Walgreens versus CVS, whatever it is, you have some. And so what Empower does is puts you outside, gives you taps you into a whole different segment of folks that are outside your network. We want to let you know about an event that's happening at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway August 2nd from 9:00 a. m. to 3:00 p.
m. called Rule the Road. This isn't your typical driver's ed class. They're giving team drivers real hands-on driving experience, stuff that actually matters once they're out there on their own. And they're doing it big. Indie car drivers like Tony Cananan, Connor Daly, Joseph Neward are all going to be there signing autographs.
It's a great mix of safety, learning, and fun for the whole family. If you're anywhere near Indie and have a team behind the wheel, this is something you should check out. Hit up rule the roadind indiana. com for all the details and give Alliance Highway Safety a follow on Facebook and Instagram to stay in the loop. We'll see you at Rule the Road Indie at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Now, let's get back into the episode.
Okay. Has the national movement of like the elimination of DEI, how's that affected you and your business?
No, it hasn't. I mean, cuz we're we're skills based. Skills is a new currency. But when I told you about all the things that skills brings, that diverse teams piece at the end, that's real because remember the 65% the 75% black, right? Um and Latinx, we are capturing that that invisible talent, right?
The invisible talent.
So we're capturing that and we're we're giving them an opportunity to be in the let's say top offunnel, right? Because that's what the tool is. It's top of funnel. Uh because I think what the argument on one side is that like by making a mandatory amount of like 10% has to be this, 5% has to be this, this percent. It's like well it could like it could be more than that based on skills.
Mhm.
You know, like you could end up staffing 100% of your company with people that don't look like you if you chose to use skills as a currency,
right? because the the the diploma thing really narrows that scope when you use skills. I mean 63% of everybody, right? So it just really widens that gap and gives more folks an opportunity.
What are like the skills?
Soft skills.
Soft like how are you measuring those?
Well, self they're selfidentified now. Um but remember this is just the MVP.
Yeah. Yeah.
And uh so they're selfidentified now. We've got some AI things up our up our sleeves that we'll be releasing, right? It's tech, so it's com it's always evolving, but selfidentified right now, but it's a soft skill. So, if you got six engineers that are um you know, interviewing for a job, who's the one that gets the the role, the one that has the soft skills or power skills as some people call them to adapt into the team, right? It's all about communication.
Yeah, that's interesting too. Like in the world of tech, it's like, well, sometimes the best developers like didn't go to school cuz like why would I go? I can already do this. It's always funny cuz some people are like, well, Mark Zuckerberg didn't need college. And it's like, yeah, well, Mark Zuckerberg also dropped out of Harvard, you know, like he didn't drop out of like like whatever. So I like am somewhere in the middle because uh college was like a huge benefit for me like but I wouldn't say today I mean some of it is a little bit of like the public speaking or the writing that I learned at DEPA but it's not like I learned like video like I mean I did a little bit of work with D3TV but they did not teach me how to build a business
but they did teach me the soft skills and gave me a network and like all these other like
intangible soft things but then on the other side it's like you could just go out and hustle and learn all that I don't It's funny. I'm not sure that I'm like totally on board of like no college is bad.
No, no, no, no.
But I'm also not on the fact of like you have to go to college.
Yeah. I And we're not saying college is bad. You have the opportunity to go to college, go.
I'm just saying that so many people don't have that opportunity.
You see what I'm saying? So the people that don't have that opportunity, it doesn't negate the it doesn't negate their ability to be the person that has the skills in your seat. So I'm trying to include more of that
and I I like this. So and I think in terms of um like hypothet not hypotheticals but also you know like scenarios. So, let's say uh someone two people grew up. One of them in the um you said 70 what what percent of um African-American or Latinx people don't have the opportunity to go to college?
70 70 plus for African-American, 80 plus for Latinx.
Yeah. Yeah,
but it's like okay, so you take
me who can like talk like blah blah blah like and I could end up as a CSM for a tech company
and the same person could end up as like a customer service like at the tire center.
Yeah.
Down the street just because the opportunity of not being able to go to college.
Exactly.
It's like we have the same skill set.
We're both just people people
and yours is probably a little more defined, right? um having gone to an institution uh that's uh sort of heightened your uh ability to write and communicate but the foundation for those folks who are at the tire store in the service I mean they have the foundation too. I I would be interested like this kind of the liberal arts thing is like you don't come out of college mo the majority of people that come out of liberal arts like the whole point is that you know a little bit about a lot of things you're
right
cross disciplinary or whatever it's called versus being like a specialist in one exact thing like I graduated in accounting from
IU it's like okay cool that person knows the heck out of accounting probably didn't study all the other stuff
so and I always say like I learned everything about what I needed to do on the job anyway.
Yeah.
Like I learned how to learn, but then I just like learned about all like the practical skills when I got to the job.
Liberal arts institutions need to, you know, get better at telling their story of why they're uh so important. I was an anthropology major.
The study of people.
Study of people. I'm a tech founder CEO now. It's very interesting how many people that come from Depal go on to be successful CEOs. It's it's it's crazy.
It punches way above its weight class. It's crazy. Um, and I just think about the people that, you know, that I was there with, like you got you got Stevens who's, you know, general manager of the Celtics. You got Joe Shane who's the general manager
by the Giants. I mean, these are people that,
dude, it was brutal when the meme with Saquon. Did you see all this stuff going around?
Oh, I know.
Like his kid was O.
Yeah.
You hate to see that one.
You do.
But like, but it's like he's still there. Like they're doing big things.
Oh, totally. And it's like totally hey sometimes it be like that.
You Yeah, you got you got me off track. Uh I was just I was just saying that you learn a lot about a lot of different things. It helps you be successful in business, right? Uh we do that at an institution but there are other folks who don't have the opportunity to go to to an institution but still learn. It's just more about how do they communicate what they've learned right in a manner that is transferable. the entry fee is so binary where it's four-year degree or no,
you know, like even to get the opportunity to sit in there and pitch yourself,
that's like a lot what I I mean I did with DEPA. It's like, well, I'm not technically like I didn't I'm not a sales uh major. I'm not an whatever major. I'm not a marketing major. I'm a communication major.
I can do a lot of different things.
Supposed to learn know how to talk to people, right?
Yeah. It's like whatever you need, I am. But the binary piece was are you graduating from a 4-year university? Like that's a one or a zero, right? It's a yes or a no tech guy, right?
Um and then even if someone could get in there and say, "I can learn. I can do all this stuff like you know, hustled and blah blah blah blah blah."
It's like, "Oh, you don't have a four-year degree." Like, you don't even get you're not even getting in the door.
Mhm.
That's interesting.
No.
Do you have like a do you have like examples or stories of lives that have been impacted through this skills approach?
I would say my life is is is a big one, right? So it's about lessons that you learn and being able to understand that those are lessons and what those lessons are building in you.
Yeah. Like has empower like placed an individual?
Yes. Actually actually we had our first placement uh what two weeks ago?
Heck yeah. Okay. So tell me about this first placement.
Now this one's this one's interesting because I kind of knew this person. and I worked with him in the past, but he he uh joined the platform. Um we have a company company
company B
company B um who who's paying for our service. They put in a couple roles in there, selected him. So one of the things about our platform is we don't use resumes. We use what's called anonymous profiles. So it's all based off skills, right? So I mean we're we're really walking the walk and talking the talk. So that means that the companies that we uh put in the platform are in it for the same, right? So that's why we partner with a lot of the techpoint uh
companies because they have signed an initiative for the skills first and we're we're helping be that throughput to help them do that. We signed them up. They put their jobs in there uh built by our AI and uh it took about six weeks for them to to hire the individual, but they did. And person A was an empower candidate and he is started his first day was actually Wednesday last week.
Heck yeah.
Yeah, man. All right. So, it works.
So, MVP works.
It works. It works.
I think the hard part about So, is it like a matching sword? Does candidate A go and find candidate B or sorry company B or does it like match them together?
It matches them together. So it pulls up like you have you have a percent a percentage match for the opportunity or the role that
that your skills. I think the this is the hardest part about job matching software at scale,
like really big scale,
is that like company B and company C and company D get so big they're on the platform
and
I'm like searching for a job but I'm currently employed at company B and I don't want company B to see or like I won't want to like accidentally get matched to my company that I'm already at. You know what I'm saying? Well, so
that's so like I I was at Powder Keg before this and we had a matching software. I saw that.
Yeah. Yeah. And and so I like know this pain because I would always be like looking at the matches like oh okay like this person's like starting to look at a tech job
but like I don't want them to to like get matched to their host company, their current company because that would be really awkward if our software matched like someone and kind of exposed they were looking on the job market. So this was like this fear in the back of my head that I was always thinking about.
Yeah. No, that wouldn't happen because if it does happen, you see the you see the name of the company.
Oh, okay.
You just don't apply to that company.
Oh, so they have to like opt into that.
Yeah. So, like that was our thing was like it just like gave them recommendations and like it matched them and
but it didn't tell you the company.
We would give uh talent that was on the market. We would send them out to our customers and they would get to select if they wanted to get introductions to them. Mhm.
And so it was just like the person opted into any matches that we wanted to make them and the company would then choose anonymously who they wanted to meet and I was always just worried about like
oh I don't want to like expose this person. Um and it was an interesting piece.
Yeah.
You clearly thought about this.
Oh yeah. So so what happens is uh in our platform uh you have the name of the company and it's it's your profile. So, your skills that have been put in, when you see that match, say it's a 90% match. You go in, you click on it, you see the the role, and you can click apply.
Okay. Right.
It's like you get from it's like, yeah, you have a 99% match to this job and you look at the company like that's my current job.
Yeah. Then you don't apply to that.
Yeah. All right. That makes sense. Like, there we go. Um, I love it, dude. So, I mean, this is super interesting. Yeah. I think that you talk about like working three years in advance, getting your MVP out, getting Canada's like it's starting to work.
Oh yeah.
Um like five years from now, take me to the future. What's going to be the mark where you know like this thing crushed it like this
what's reality going to be like in if we know that this is that skills based hiring is working?
Yeah, it's interesting as you know as a business owner um a little different business but in tech what you want to do is you want some people say you know uh fail fast. We can't do that. we have to be careful because we're dealing with people and we're dealing with trust, right? So, we want to be really intentional about how we build what we build. Um, and we want to make sure that our product roadmap is a reflection of what's needed that's been voiced by both our members and our companies. Right?
So, right now what we're doing is we're taking on companies, early adopter companies. Um, so let me rewind. What we did initially is we got members in the platform. We asked them to create their profile and consume some of the content. tell us what they liked, what they didn't like, what they want to see more of. Right?
So now when we when we uh release the jobs, we've got about 170 jobs in the platform. Now we want early adopter companies to tell us what they like, what they don't like, what they want more of. So, we're doing the two-sided marketplace before we scale and really unleash, you know, this thing because the last thing we want to do is get, you know, 10,000 people in and have 9,000 people cycle out. You don't want to do that. You want to cycle them in when you're ready, right? That's the teeter totter.
When when the the application is ready, right? Have enough opportunities in there uh surfacing so that you keep folks engaged. It's so hard.
5 years from now, you know, if we've got 100,000 people on the platform and we're placing people every day, we at least have the data to show what's happening, who's getting placed, how many applications, all the data that we can fall back on to say, is this moving the needle, right? And then we can have those conversations with companies that have signed up with us that, you know, for for whatever reason, if they're not hiring, right? we can say, oh, we can track this down to hiring manager B. We see that he's getting these company or he's getting these members and they're not moving on for whatever reason. That's data. You use you use it how you want to, right?
Um, and the other piece that I would say that's important to note for the employer, um, is that it is permissions based, right? So you have an administrator that can see more than you know a contributor and that's by design uh especially uh in this in this market. What we want to do ultimately is move the needle get more at bats for underestimated individuals.
A piece that we looked into was like these silent filters. A big piece of your recruitment process is uh an afterwork networking event.
Mhm.
And it's like a silent filter could be like I have to pick up I'm a single mom and I have to pick up my kids. a recovering alcoholic like I can't go to happy hours or you know there's all these different silent filters
barriers are there is there advice you have for hiring managers that want to do a better job maybe they don't have funds they don't they're not current customers yet yet right but like what can you do as someone who's hiring like I'm a startup I'm hiring my first employee starts in June employee too what are some things that I could do to uh bring this skills-based uh perspective to my company
join empower I mean early. Yeah. Yeah.
The second hire of a company
is way different than the 60th hire of a company. So, right now we're focused more on entry level. I think it's just like anything, you know, in sales. You want to have different buckets. As a company, you also want to have different buckets. Right now, we're not the or we're the and so you got LinkedIn, you got Indeed, you got empower and you see what works for you, right? Yeah. Um the I think the biggest piece is just getting a start, getting comfortable. Well, I'm saying like, but let's say that becoming a customer right now isn't like a fit. Like, it's probably not where we're at yet on the hiring scale, but are there things that I could do to like take a similar approach or to be thinking through the lens
uh as someone who's making hires or as anyone out, let's say there's a hiring manager that
that like maybe doesn't have like budget to do a new software yet,
but like wants to uh get the same outcome, get the same result uh that you guys are helping create. in that situation, that scenario, you just need to put yourself in different positions where there's folks that are outside of your network.
Yeah. Like I think that's a big piece of just thinking through like it can be. So it's like, oh, it's just a happy hour.
I'm 28 and I'm like not married and I have no kids. Like it's just a happy hour. What do you mean? It's like not everyone that could be just as qualified to do this job.
Uh can make that happen. And so I think and sometimes a lot of it is things that like you don't even think of. It's not like it's not like I'm thinking here like oh yes
I want to exclude single mothers you know it's no but I'm like oh I don't even think of it just a happy hour whatever and so it's like slowing down
thinking through that I think uh like talking to other getting different perspectives like hey this is what I'm thinking about for our hiring process or whatever
slowing down being in being intentional being introspective that's where you start right yeah
that's where you start um and if you have the insight uh the forethought to do that
that's that's a step in the right direction.
Amen. Yeah.
Uh we come to a segment within the show. This is our younger year segment.
Okay.
It's brought to you by our friends at OR Fellowship. They're a great organization here in Indiana helping develop young business leaders across the state. Eric, what advice would you give to your 22-year-old self?
You know, when I was a freshman in college, you know, I made the travel team for football, right?
Congrats. Big honor.
Oh, yeah. No, it's a big deal, right?
It as someone who did not make the travel squad, it is a big deal.
So, uh I missed the bus the first time. Oh
dude.
So it gets worse. So the first time I missed the bus and it was it was bad, right? Um then the second time um you know you have to dress up. Well, I wore sandals. I I had sandals on with a suit jacket and it was you know I it was just
Who was the coach at the time?
Nick.
Coach Morosis.
Coach Nick. Man,
what a guy.
So Oh, awesome. But um
what did he say to you? He's from the sales.
Oh, he said a lot. He said a lot. Right. It's just like oh baby. you know, what are you doing? You know, just just shaking his head and and disappointment. But, you know, I still got out and I did I did what I needed to do that day. I mean, those are those are skills. Those resilience, right? That's, you know, learning the hard way. All of these things. So, if I were to go back when I'm 22 years, take those moments of failure, right? Because that's where the lessons are. Take that those moments of failure and really be introspective uh to the point where you could say, "Oh, this happened to me. What did I learn from that? And what are the skills that I what are the skills that I possess because of that? That's what I would do.
Sometimes learning lessons the hard way are the best is the best way.
Yeah.
You know, that's that's Coach Nick. What a guy. We've got to come to the end of the show where I have the same three questions that I ask every guest. Okay.
All about the state of Indiana.
One, it's been awesome learning about your story. Uh the story of how skillsbased hiring one improve people's business. like getting diverse perspectives is always good. Uh and like getting the yeah the right people that can do the right work
no matter what their background looks like. I think that's very very meaningful. I'm I'm excited to see as we like fast forward time 5 years from now uh the 41k goal of Techpoint and how you're going to contribute to that. I think it's super amazing. Um if people want to learn more about M2n Empower, like how can they find you? What do they need to do?
Yeah. No, uh our website's www.m2n. us. Um, you can follow us on LinkedIn. Um, uh, we encourage, I mean, if there are folks, I mean, the call to action here really is if there are organizations out there that, uh, are like-minded and, um, you know, really want to see talent um, in their pipeline that makes up diverse teams.
Yeah.
Uh, get in contact with us. And if you're someone that's looking for talent, um, download the app. You can download the app on iOS or um, uh, Google Play. Someone that's looking for a job.
Someone that's looking for a job. Somebody's looking for a job. Somebody has a job. Somebody needs to navigate, you know, different circumstances, you know, in the workplace, uh, uncomfortable situations, things of that nature. Download the app. It's empower. That's empower. M P O W E R, right, is our application. So,
heck yeah.
Yeah.
All right. You ready to talk about some Indiana stuff?
Let's do it.
All right. What's something the world needs to know about Indiana?
We need to do a better job of telling the story about sports. I mean, we've got our we got our pro teams, right? You know, Pacers are killing it right now. Uh the Colts, you know, they're they're rebuilding. I'm a Payton Manning fan, so um you know, so we've got we've got football, but we got basketball. We've got got the Indians, but
we're also a great place to come for national events like we get the NFL combine,
right? We get the NFL combine. We get the championship uh Sweet 16. Is it sweet 16?
Oh, we have we have Final Four next year for NCAA.
This is what this This is what I'm talking about. Yeah.
Uh we had the NBA Allstar
and we also get like the random like we have women's NBA Allstar NBA women's WNBA.
Yeah. We have uh but then we also get like high school cheerleading world championships or like like the youth I don't know track and field like what we get a ton of events.
That's what I'm saying. Uh what's the other one? The Olympic uh swimming.
Yeah.
Like it's serious. And I think uh you know Indianapolis is you know downtown is walkable. Um it's great. Uh, so I I think that that's a that's a big piece.
I love it. Okay, now here's where you get to reveal something that more people need to know about. What is a hidden gem in Indiana?
Well, yeah. So that's um I would say since you're you're a tiger and I I don't know if you've talked about this. Marvin's Marvin's
Oh, great.
Marvin's down the the uh the GCB GCB dipped in ranch uh cheese fries. I mean, this was this was a thing that was
Mac bites.
I don't think we had Mac bites when I was there. Wow, dude.
After 6:00, we'd have our our dinner, but about, you know, 9:00, you start getting the munchies. Man, everybody's order. And the Stromboly was a was a
The strong
was a sneak right as well.
And like what I love about it is you walk in there and there's pictures of
Oh, yeah.
all the places like everyone makes sheet signs or signs and Marvin's delivers to the pyramids.
We had one from our senior year spring break. Marvin's delivers to Daytona Beach. Yeah. And it's and I I printed it off to get in there and it's still hung up in the restaurant which just really makes me happy.
Absolutely.
That's a great hidden gem that we have not I don't believe we've had yet. Spectacular. That makes me happy. Finally, this is where we get to share the love. We get to learn about maybe future new guests or just other people in the state of Indiana that are crushing it.
Who's a Hoosier we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things.
I'm going to go with Tracy Jackson.
Who is Tracy Jackson?
Tracy Jackson is uh she is a gym, right? She's over at uh 16 Tech and she's really just uh finding innovative ways to, you know, expand career pathways for the youth. See it, believe it, Achieve it. Uh I was a part of that. I was on the panels uh just kind of talking to uh middle school and high schoolers. Um
Tracy Jackson, VP of workforce development, community impact.
Yes, sir. Um uh she's great. She's doing great great things quietly. She was with IvyTech before that and and now she's with 16 tech and she's uh big in the justice involved piece which is going to be a big thing. You know I think uh what 10,000 uh people are being released from prison this year. This is annually in
what
10,000 this year and this is on a yearly basis just as in in Indiana and then nationally it's like 420,000. So these people um that have, you know, been in prison, they're getting released, they got to be they got to go back and be functioning members of society and um we want that recidivism rate to be low. Um so that's a big piece. And uh she works she's going to be working closely with me on apprenticeships and she's on multiple boards like St. Joe's College and uh uh which is a two-year uh program for Marian University. So shout out to Tracy Jackson.
They revived they revived St. Joe's up in Renzelier, right?
No, no, no. St. Joe's here, man.
Oh, St. Joe's here. Oh, what? Cuz I think that there's also Yeah,
Marian has their one up in St. Joseph or in Renzelier cuz the Pumas of St. You know what I'm talking about or No.
Yeah, but it's not.
They went bankrupt, I think, or they had closed they closed at college and I think Marion has a satellite campus up there as well,
possibly.
So, I think that this is part of that.
Okay. Maybe.
Don't quote me, but we'll do some research. Put in the show notes.
Okay. Um,
man. Okay. So, Tracy Jackson. Yeah,
we got to keep her on our radar.
You get you get an opportunity to have her on the show. You should do that. She's um she's the real deal.
Amazing. Eric, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story, all the cool stuff. Reminder, you can find you on LinkedIn. You can download the app in the app store.
Yep.
Uh website,
what was the website again?
www.m2n us. There we go. Uh appreciate you. Always fun to have another tiger on talking about all the amazing things that you're up to. Good luck with developing the schemas. I love that word. that's going to be that's going to be make it into my usual vocabulary now. Um, and it's I'm excited to follow along. I think I think just given the momentum right now around filling roles with the right people, not necessarily like who, you know, but like, hey, we have skills that want to fill these roles. I think that there's a lot of momentum there and especially the new high school diploma structure, our emphasis on internships and apprenticeships.
Things seem to be cooking. Seems to be heating up.
Very timely. And not don't forget about, you know, what what's going on in uh northern Indiana with Amazon and IBM and I mean 14 billion dollars uh coming coming to the state for for for jobs. So we're part of that as well.
Hey man, I love it, man. Hey, we'll have to uh check back in in uh maybe a year or two and see if we're on track to where we want to be in 5 years.
Let's do it.
Appreciate you coming on.
Thanks. Thank you for listening to this episode of Get In. If you like what you heard, make sure you leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at sweetwater.com. If you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok @ Nate Spangle. Thank you so much for listening and being part of what makes the Who's Your State great. We'll see you next time here on Get
