How Career Strategy Lab’s AI Tools Help Mid & Senior UXers Get Hired Faster

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Teaser Intro

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E132 – How AI (Finally) Gets Career Strategy Right Inside the Tools We Built to Help You Land Your Next Role Faster VIDEO: I have a question for you. Have you ever stared at a blank Google Doc to write your resume or a UX case study and had that sinking feeling of, oh my God, I don’t know where to begin, or, I don’t know what’s wrong, et cetera.

If so, this episode is exactly what you need. I am Sarah Doty. I’ve been doing coaching for UX and product people since 2017, and I can tell you I’ve seen where most people get stuck. Now, I’m not gonna tell you all of the details of that because that is one of the superpowers of what makes my team and I at Career Strategy Lab, so awesome because we’ve been doing the research since 2017.

But here’s what I will tell you. Recently, we. Launched some AI tools that are inside Career Strategy Lab built with you in mind to help you get through your job search faster. Now, spoiler alert, these [00:01:00] tools are not gimmicky tools that say, through the help of ai, you’re going to give it a couple of sentences of instructions and it’s gonna make the perfect resume and the perfect portfolio in 60 seconds or less, right?

Let’s be honest, that is unrealistic, but what I am going to share is the strategy behind our AI tools. Why they are working, why people love them, and how they will help you potentially finish your resume, finish your portfolio, negotiate job offers, get through challenges you’re facing in your job search faster so you don’t spin your wheels and get stuck in negative thinking, self-sabotage, et cetera.

So we are gonna go through. Details about these AI tools. I am literally going to show you, I wanna caveat this upfront and say these tools are exclusive to people inside Career Strategy Lab. You can learn more about that in the show notes. [00:02:00] So let’s get started.

Episode Intro

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Intro: Hey, I’m Sarah Doty, a user researcher and product designer with 20 years of experience. In 2017, I noticed something a little ironic. UX and product people, despite being great at designing experiences for other people, often struggle to design their own careers. That’s why I created Career Strategy Lab and this podcast to help you navigate your UX job search, grow in your current role, and avoid skill and salary plateaus all in a chill and BS free way.

So whether you’re. Stuck in your job search or wondering what’s next in your UX career. You are in the right place.

Episode

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E132 – How AI (Finally) Gets Career Strategy Right Inside the Tools We Built to Help You Land Your Next Role Faster VIDEO: So first I wanna share why the heck did we ever launch AI tools inside Career strategy lab? And more importantly, what problem are they solving? So there are a lot of problems that UX and product people face in their job search, and these AI tools are not going to solve all of them.

However, [00:03:00] one of the major problems that we find cause people to get stuck lies in two areas. Number one. Information finding and number two. Refining and feedback, and I hear all the time the emotional and a mental load that people have when it comes to navigating their job search because they spend so much time.

In information finding mode, right? They’re searching on Google for more tips or chat, GPT or LinkedIn or Instagram or YouTube or wherever. And they are feeling like they’re doing things in their job search because they’re spending time, but what they’re not realizing the amount of time they are spending trying to find information.

Now, when it comes to information finding. Many problems arise, right? And [00:04:00] maybe you’ve experienced these problems, you are overwhelmed with all of the information. You’re not sure what information to trust, right? Especially when you start to find conflicting information on different topics, et cetera.

You also struggle because. A lot of the information you’re finding may be outdated or may not be specific to user experience or product development or UX research or whatever kind of niche you are in, and a lot of times too, the information you find is honestly surface level. It’s telling you to do something, but it’s not telling you how to do it, right?

It’s telling you to tell a story in your case study, right? It doesn’t break it down and tell you, and here is exactly how to tell the story in your case study, especially if it’s like your case study for user research, your case study for UX writing, your case study for product management. Your [00:05:00] case study for product design, right?

So you’re finding information, but at the end of the day, a lot of the information you’re finding is not actually helping you. What I know is that job seekers need the right information. They need the right depth of inter information. They need information that is relevant to them and their specific role so that they can spend more time taking action.

And that is one of the reasons why we decided to launch our own AI tools inside Career Strategy Lab because as you were gonna see. It helps bring the right information you need at the right time to your fingertips without the conflicting opinions, conflicting advice, the surface level crap that is not helping you in your job search right now.

The [00:06:00] other problem, in addition to information, really lies in execution, right? And maybe you can relate to this by execution, I mean, okay, you have the information supposedly. But when it comes to actually writing the resume, bullet points, writing the case study, designing your resume, designing your LinkedIn header, banner, for example, right?

Many of you get stuck in execution because you second guess yourself. You are not able to get feedback. You are overwhelmed with feedback. The feedback you are receiving is conflicting, right? One person tells you one thing, another tells you another, et cetera. And. You’re stuck, right? And so information and execution are two things that we really wanted our AI tools to solve.

So I wanna share more about the custom AI tools that we’ve made inside Career Strategy [00:07:00] Lab. And really the thesis for them was that people needed a way to move faster without sacrificing. Quality or strategy. And that’s really key because a lot of AI tools, I find, and maybe you can relate to this, it’s very easy to go down rabbit holes.

And next thing you know, you’ve spent 20 minutes or two hours with Clot or chat GPT, trying to refine something. And I really believe there’s a time and place for ai, but one of the things I find with AI is that.

Sometimes you can move faster on your own. Meaning instead of treating AI like a doer, quote unquote, you just need to treat it like a check-in point, right? So instead of it having write the entire email or the entire case study, you do the bad first draft. And Then have AI [00:08:00] as a check-in to help you refine it.

Right? But what I find is if you rely on AI for the literal starting point and bad first draft, you’re gonna spend so much time getting that bad first draft to like. Version 2.0 that you could have just written the bad first draft yourself, and then used AI as a check-in to refine it for you. So our thesis was how do we make tools that allow people to move faster without sacrificing quality or strategy?

So the solution for us was really to create an AI agent. That number one most importantly is trained only on career strategy, labs, proprietary methodology, and intellectual property, meaning our AI agent is trained only on the courses I have created, the templates I have created, the knowledge that we have been amassing between myself and my team [00:09:00] since 2017.

All of our knowledge around getting hired in ux, in product writing, case studies, portfolios, interviews, LinkedIn, negotiating, everything in between. That is a very important point I wanna reiterate because given our agent is trained only on our knowledge. It means you’re not going to get conflicting advice, right?

You’re not going to have the agent tell you your resume should only be one page, because I know resumes that are one page don’t work, right? So that’s just one example. But the cool, cool thing about our AI agent is that it’s also trained on every single conversation in our community. We’ve had a couple of different community platforms, but the one we’re on right now, we’ve been on since 2021.

That means we [00:10:00] have years of conversations that. Our AI agent is trained off of. That is very powerful because oftentimes in our community, let’s say someone goes on an interview at JP Morgan Chase or Athena Health, or Wells Fargo or Delta Airlines or something, oftentimes people come back to our community and do like an interview, recap and say how it went, what questions they were asked, et cetera.

That means that if you have an interview at Delta Airlines, let’s say, you can come in and ask the agent, Hey, has anyone interviewed at Delta Airlines? What were their takeaways? Blah, blah, blah. And now the agent can help you prepare for your interview at Delta Airlines because our agent is trained on the conversations in the community.

Of career strategy lab and what people who one week ago, one month ago, four years ago, were saying in terms of their [00:11:00] experience getting hired or the tips they had for interviews or presenting a presentation in an interview or their portfolio or their resume or whatever it is. And that is honestly the superpower of our agent.

And as you can tell, I’m very excited about this stuff. So it’s trained only on our curriculum. Not scraped content from the internet that is totally unvetted, right. Also, it is trained on the best practices that we know from our community, and very, very importantly, when I was training this AI agent. I was very intentional about telling it essentially, Hey look, your job is not just to regurgitate information to people.

You also need to be a coach and you need to nudge people to action. And you need to explain to people why, right? So if it’s giving you feedback about your [00:12:00] LinkedIn, about me statement or resume bullet point or headlines on your portfolio, it’s not just going to do a rewrite, for example. It’s also gonna help you understand why just like a proper coach should right now I do wanna reiterate, even though I just used the word coach.

Clearly this agent is not meant to replace the human element of our incredible coaching team inside Career Strategy Lab, but what it is meant to do, it’s meant to help you move faster. So if it’s 11 o’clock at night and you’re sitting there. Second guessing your resume or your qualifications and you have a job interview the next morning or something, you could come to the agent and ask it questions.

We’ll see some examples in a moment, but I just wanna reiterate, it’s absolutely not meant to replace people, right? What it is going to do though, is free up myself and our coaching team [00:13:00] to answer really important questions in our community. Versus be answering questions like, what time is the q and a call right now?

You can just ask the agent what time is the q and a call or what’s the link for the portfolio demo day? And it will tell you, right? And so part of my reason for launching these agents is also to free up myself and my team to not spend our time giving you information that. Frankly, you should be able to find on your own, but if you can’t, you can now ask the agent.

So we can use our time to give our expertise on, other topics rather than just logistical stuff. All right,

before we move on, maybe I should tell you what our agent is called. I named it sage, like sage wisdom, sage advice, et cetera. So from now on I’ll refer to it as Sage, our AI agent. And [00:14:00] let’s take a look at Sage. So I’m gonna share my screen. It’s gonna be on my other monitor, so I’m gonna be looking over here

Screen Share

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E132 – How AI (Finally) Gets Career Strategy Right Inside the Tools We Built to Help You Land Your Next Role Faster VIDEO: So here we are inside our community of Career Strategy Lab. I guess you’re gonna get a little tour of it as well, ’cause we have to be inside of it to get to Sage.

But I just wanna reiterate a few things. So we’re here inside Career Strategy Lab. We’ve got our home tab, we have our events, our courses members, et cetera. And remember a little while ago I said Sage, our AI tool is trained on. Only our intellectual property, which means all of our courses as well as all the conversations in this community.

So if we look at the left here, we can see all the courses, right? Design your career roadmap, create your resume, optimize your LinkedIn plan your job search, create your portfolio, prepare for your job, interviews, critiques, vault, very popular part of the community, and call recordings. Awesome. [00:15:00] And it’s trained on everything else.

The discussions in the alumni lounge, the interview and hired debriefs. The discussion, the job alerts and requests, and then all the discussion around questions related to resumes and LinkedIn, et cetera. So, I. This is very, very powerful because it means you’re not going to get conflicting advice and a bunch of crappy surface level content that some chat GPT or Quad or whatever just scraped off the internet.

Okay? I cannot reiterate that enough. Now, let’s go into Sage. So I’m gonna pop open a new sage convo. Right off the bat, we have some sample things You can ask Sage like Read my Compass statement and give me three ways I can improve it. How can I make this resume bullet 0.1 third shorter without making it too vague?

I’ll paste my portfolio headlines, critique [00:16:00] them based on the lessons in CSL. One thing I should point out too, we put a ton of thought into educating people in career strategy lab. How to engage with Sage and what to ask Sage, because some of these prompts like this one, how can I make this resume bullet 0.1 third shorter without making it too vague, right?

You have to be very specific with the prompts. You give any AI tool, right? If this just said, what do you think of this bullet point? That’s a very open-ended question, right? So we do a lot of work inside Career Strategy Lab to educate people how to engage with Sage to get the best possible advice and coaching from it.

So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna look at some about me statements to start with. So I’m gonna copy them in. So [00:17:00] first up we are gonna do the, about me of a product designer.

So I’m gonna copy it and then I’m gonna come in here and I’m gonna say, this is my about me for the top of my resume. Is it specific enough and what are two ways I could improve it? Great. Now we’re gonna paste it and let’s see what it says. and let’s see. Your About me section has a good start, but it could be more specific to make stronger impact.

Here are two ways you can improve it. Highlight specific achievement or skills, and then it gives some suggestions and clarify your goals and value, and it gives some more suggestions. Great. So remember how I said it’s not just telling you like, here’s the new version. It’s also coaching you, right? It’s coaching you.

It’s explaining how you could improve it. Now, let’s [00:18:00] imagine, I’m like, okay, remind me what lesson. I should refer to for this. Great. Remember I talked about information. This is where it gets powerful because it’s trained on our all our lessons. Sage is now going to point me to the specific lessons that I should go check out.

Um, so it’s telling me. I should go to a lesson called Write Your About Me statement, um, and blah, blah, blah. And you might find the lesson, the four Goals of Your About Me section helpful, incredible. Right now as a little experiment, let’s have Sage rewrite it. just based on this suggestion. So based on the suggestions, give me your version of a rewrite to inspire me.

All right. Let’s see what it says. So thinking. Okay. As a product designer with a foundation in [00:19:00] user-centered design and prototyping, I’ve successfully led projects and enhanced user engagement by 30%. My passion for creating intuitive, impactful products is matched by collaborative spirit and commitment to continuous growth.

I’m here to contribute my skills in dynamic environment, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Gonna be honest. I don’t love this. Sage is only two and a half weeks old, so we’re still training sage. Okay. And we would never recommend to anyone in Career Strategy Lab that they just assume. This is the be all and end all the green lit version of their about me and they should cut and paste it, right?

That would be lazy and that would not be using your critical thinking skills. So, we don’t recommend that you use Sage to rewrite all your stuff ’cause you honestly could do a better job by just taking this feedback Sage gave you. Tweaking this original version. So let’s move on. Let’s do one more about me.

Let’s do a UX writer. [00:20:00] So, let’s say this is my about me. What do you think in terms of. How it aligns with the about me instructions in CSL. Great. Notice I’m being specific, right? Like I’m telling it like based on the lessons, how does this align with the lessons, right? So let’s find out. I’ve not done these in advance, so it’s kind of risky, but we’ll see.

Okay. and oh my God, here we go. Me section is a great start, but let’s see how it aligns with the instructions from Career Strategy Lab. Gives a bunch of suggestions. I’m just gonna go through this really quick. Okay, great, great, great tip. For example, you might indicate how long you’ve been in a field.

Notable project you’ve worked on. Great. Right? We don’t know how many years of experience this person has ’cause they didn’t tell us. So telling us to add number of years experience. Great tip. Let’s see. Include evidence of your [00:21:00] skills. For instance, you could say, I’ve crafted content strategies that improved user engagement by 20%.

Not terrible. Right. I like the spirit of sage telling me, include evidence of your skills. Right. Highlight key points that align with what you’re looking for. You mentioned wanting to create intuitive, trustworthy, and inclusive experiences, which is excellent. You might also wanna specify the type of environment or a team such as a collaborative team or innovative company, or I would add like, is it a B2B company or a B2C company or a healthcare company or a.

I dunno. A travel company that you’re interested in. Right? So here’s a revised version. Again, suggestion. We’re not just gonna be like lazy and cut and paste, but as a UX writer, with over x years of experience, better already, right? I specialize in crafting content strategies that enhance user engagement and build trust.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, good start right now let’s, let’s do a [00:22:00] different prompt and let’s say roast my about me Let’s say, what would Sarah say on a critique? I don’t know. So let’s find out. Let’s channel Sarah duties.

No nonsense style for a critique. Okay, your about me section is a bit too generic and lacks the punch needed to stand out. Saying you’re a UX writer with a passion for words is like saying A chef loves food. I literally would say that it’s expected. Instead, dive into specific what makes your writing unique.

Have you worked on projects that lead to measurable improvements in user experience? If so, highlight those achievements. Also, while it’s great to mention you desire to create intuitive, trustworthy, and inclusive experiences, that’s quite broad. Not gonna lie. It is consider narrowing it down by mentioning a specific industry or type of product you’re passionate about.

For example, are you focused on accessibility in digital products? Do you have a knack for [00:23:00] simplifying complex information, blah, blah, blah. Awesome. Right? So even if you’re not. In Career Strategy Lab. Just seeing how I play with the prompts might give you some ideas for how to play with your prompts in whatever you’re working on.

Let’s move on to a resume bullet point and see what happens. So I already wrote this, I’m just gonna paste it. But we’re gonna imagine I’m a UX researcher with four years of experience and notice, you know, I am giving it context, right? I’m a UX researcher with four years of experience. I wanna get a mid-level UX research role at a health tech company.

What do you think of this bullet point in terms of how it aligns with the lessons? Let’s find out.

Yes. Okay. Your bullet point is a good start, but it could be enhanced to better align with the lessons. Here’s how you can improve it. Okay. Use active voice. Exactly. Instead of starting it with responsible for use a more active verb, such as planned and conducted user research interviews.

Exactly. [00:24:00] Why? Because that’s what I teach in the lessons, includes specifics and outcomes. Provide more details about the impact of your work. Did the research lead to any specific improvements or changes in the onboarding process, for example? Plan and conducted user research interviews that informed the redesign of onboarding user flows resulting in a 20% increase in user retention.

I love it. Okay, let’s do one more. We’re not gonna read everything ’cause that kind of gets boring for you guys. let’s do this one as a UX writer. So I am a UX writer with eight years of experience, not 78 8 years of experience. Want to get hired at a travel company?

What do you think of this bullet based on the CSL resume course lessons Cool. Find out. And let’s see. Okay. Your bullet point is a solid foundation, but it can be refined to better align with the career strategy lab, resume course lessons, suggestions, use active and [00:25:00] impactful language.

Start with a strong action verb, for example, collaborated instead of partnered. Okay. Number two, specify outcomes and achievements. Highlight the results of your collaboration. Did aligning the copy lead to improved user engagement, increased conversion rates, or enhanced user satisfaction? Quantify the impact if possible.

Awesome. Okay, now let’s do another thought exercise. Can you ask me two questions about this to help me improve this bullet? Right? This is what I mean by treating it like a coach. So let’s find out. What specific goals or objectives were achieved as a result of aligning the copy with the broader product and user experience goals?

Good. Good question. Second question. Were there any particular challenges or innovative approaches you used during the collaboration with the design team and other departments? I love it. Okay. We could spend all day doing this, but we don’t have all day. ’cause you need to. Finish this podcast and get on with [00:26:00] your day.

Right. But I hope this little demo of Sage has been valuable for you. Let’s do one more though. Let’s say it’s 11 o’clock at night and you have an interview tomorrow and you’re freaking out. Okay. I have an interview at. 9:00 AM tomorrow. I’m freaking out. I feel like I’m not qualified as a UX researcher to work at Delta Airlines.

Give me a pump up mantra or two. To help me feel more confident going into interviews, and let’s see what it says. Don’t know. Okay. I’m a skilled UX researcher with unique insights and experiences that Delta Airlines will benefit. From my perspective is valuable, I’m ready to showcase my expertise.

Every challenge is an opportunity for growth. I’m prepared, [00:27:00] capable, and excited to share my passion for user experience with Delta Airlines. I belong in this role. I love it. Okay. Now let’s say, what would Sarah. Tell me before the interview. I don’t know. Let’s find out. Remember, you’ve been invited to this interview because they see potential in you. Focus on the real value you bring and the unique perspective you offer as a UX researcher. Prepare by reviewing your past projects and be ready to discuss how your skills can specifically benefit Delta Airlines. Stay calm, be yourself, and let your passion for user experience shine through.

You’ve got this. Couldn’t have said it any better myself. All right, so moving on. I’m gonna stop my screen share.

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E132 – How AI (Finally) Gets Career Strategy Right Inside the Tools We Built to Help You Land Your Next Role Faster VIDEO: Alright, so as I said, this is only three weeks old.

We’re still in the beginning of using this sage inside Career Strategy Lab. But some of the benefits that people have already told us from using it, they’ve said it is helping them speed up writing their resume. [00:28:00] Finishing their portfolio, optimizing their LinkedIn, writing, their About me statements. It’s also helping them stop second guessing because not only do they have the coaching team to get feedback from and the community, they also now have Sage who is available 24 7.

So like I said, at 11 o’clock at night or three in the morning when you’re stressing out or whatever, Sage is there. Sage has got you. Sage can give you instant feedback. People say, this is so, so valuable because. When When you join Career Strategy Lab, you’re given, critiques that you can use, currently eight to submit, you know, your resume, two times and your portfolio, two times, et cetera.

And people say they love having sage because they can use sage to get kind of a critique of their resume before they submit it to us, the coaches. So they’re able to kind of not waste critiques per [00:29:00] se. Because Sage is doing the first or second or third pass before it ever comes to our critique inbox, which is awesome.

They’re also saying. It’s helping them with, confidence, right? By getting a gut check on things. You know, there’s this phrase like, you should be getting feedback early and often, and sage allows you to get that feedback early and often and instantly, which is awesome and which is why it helps.

People in Career Strategy Lab move faster in their job search. Alright, so that is Sage. That is the story behind Sage, why we decided to integrate AI tools into Career Strategy Lab. The strategy behind it, how we did it, what it’s trained on, and why it is 10 million times better than what you’re gonna get outta chat, GPT, or Claude, et cetera.

Because similar to the Google searches, you find yourself swirling around in. [00:30:00] Because chat, GPT and Claude, et cetera, are looking at the whole internet, guess what? You’re going to still be drowning in information, which leads to indecision. Whereas with Sage, it’s only trained on our proprietary intellectual property and the conversations inside Career Strategy Lab, which means though it is a narrower set of knowledge that is actually a superpower and.

It also is beneficial because people in career strategy lab get hired. And so if they’re getting hired it’s because they followed the lessons. And so we know the lessons work. So if you are curious about. Career Strategy Lab and our UX job search accelerator, and you wanna learn more or hear what else you get.

In addition to access to Sage and our curriculum, if you wanna more details about the critiques or the community or the calls, et cetera, go to the [00:31:00] show notes and click the link to learn more about Career Strategy Lab. You can just visit career strategy lab.com/apply, and that will lead you to a page where we have laid out a ton of details about Career Strategy Lab.

If you’re interested in joining, we do ask that you fill out an application. This allows us to control, number one, the number of people in the program, but also more importantly, make sure that you are a fit for the program. We wanna make sure. We can honestly help you. We don’t just want to let everyone and anyone into the program just to make more money or something.

We honestly really wanna make sure that we can help you. So that’s why we have an application at that page, career strategy lab.com/apply. So if you’ve been spinning your wheels and you feel alone in your job search, or you’re drowning in information, or you’re in a [00:32:00] state of inaction because you have so much information and it’s conflicting or overwhelming, maybe this is your moment to consider a pivot, right?

Maybe your current DIY approach to your job search. Is not working and you’re finally able to admit that and you’re realizing that A-D-I-T-A do it together approach rather than DIY, may be your ticket to standing out and getting hired faster, right? So you don’t have time to figure this out alone. You probably already know that and you don’t have to settle for vague and conflicting advice.

In AI tools or LinkedIn or Instagram or wherever, because frankly, that has not worked for you so far and that’s probably why you’re still listening so far in this podcast episode. that’s all for today, though. I hope this has encouraged you. Inspired you and maybe helped you make some changes to your resume [00:33:00] or your about me statement.

If you have found this helpful, I really, really would. Love it. If you would just hit pause right now and give us a star rating in whatever podcast app you’re listening to this, or if you’re watching on YouTube, give it a thumbs up. That helps the good old algorithms know that you found this helpful and it will help other people find this who also need to hear about this episode and this podcast.

So that’s all for today. I’ll talk to you in another episode.

Outro: Thanks so much for listening to the Career Strategy Podcast. Now make sure to follow so you don’t miss an episode, and you can check out all of our episodes@careerstrategylab.com slash podcasts now to learn more about how to apply UX and product strategy to advancing your career. Whether that means leveling up in your current role, getting a new role, getting freelance work, or just being ready for the unexpected, then I invite you to watch my free UX job search [00:34:00] workshop@careerstrategylab.com slash hired.

And please feel free to send me a DM on LinkedIn. I would love to hear from you.

Post Roll: Hey there. Before I go, I wanna speak to you specifically if you’ve applied to 50, 100, 200 or more jobs and you haven’t secured an offer or interviews yet. First of all, I want you to know it’s not your fault. It is challenging out there and learning how to navigate the job, search, interviews, negotiation, et cetera.

It is not something that we are taught. Your boss is too busy to help you. Your friends just give you vague advice. Your family doesn’t really know how hiring in UX works. This is why I created my career strategy lab, UX job search accelerator. If you are tired of your DIY approach. Not leading to the results you want, then I challenge you to consider.

[00:35:00] Maybe it is time for a pivot, just like products pivot. Maybe your job search needs a pivot too. So head over to career strategy lab.com/apply to learn more or have a call with someone on my team or myself so we can answer all of your questions. Hope to talk to you soon.