Empowering Black Tech Talent: How Jermaine Murray is Redefining Recruitment

Empowering Black Tech Talent: How Jermaine Murray is Redefining Recruitment

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode one hundred and ninety six of the business development podcast. And today it is my absolute pleasure to bring you the job father himself, Jermaine Murray, a man who is making waves in Canada's recruitment industry. Stick with us. You are not going to want to miss this episode.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said business happens over years and years.

Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs.

And business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business brought to you by capital business development, capital bd. ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the business development podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 196 of the business development podcast. And today we have an absolutely amazing, amazing Canadian to introduce you to.

Today we're chatting with Jermaine Murray. Jermaine is a dynamic leader and the visionary founder of Jupiter HR, where he has revolutionized the hiring landscape for Black professionals in the tech industry. Since 2015, Jermaine has facilitated the hiring of over 397 Black tech professionals and created a thriving online talent community of over 10, 000 members.

His strategic partnership with industry giants like Shopify, Wealthsimple, and Spotify have empowered countless individuals through innovative job search workshops. Additionally, Jermaine's successful Twitter campaigns have garnered over 1 million impressions monthly, further amplifying his impact on the tech recruitment sector.

His dedication to talent advocacy, CV writing, and Interview preparation and career consulting has made him a sought after expert, particularly for candidates in video production, marketing, sales, and IT. Beyond Jupiter HR, Jermaine is an influential course instructor for CNBC's Make It, guiding individuals to ace their interviews and secure their dream jobs.

His diverse experience spans roles as senior recruitment consultant, columnist, and board member for various esteemed organizations. Transcribed Jermaine's leadership skills and commitment to diversity and inclusion have been the driving forces behind his success, making him a trailblazer in the recruitment industry.

With a proven track record of transforming job seekers into hired professionals and a passion for fostering equitable opportunities, Jermaine is not just a recruiter. He is a game changer in the tech world. And Jermaine, it is an honor to have you on the show today.

Jermaine Murray: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it, Kelly.

Yo, that was a that was a intro. Thank you.

Kelly Kennedy: Thank you for coming to us all the way from Spain today. We chatted about this before the show, but Jermaine's been staying in Spain and he's going to be there for a year. And man, what an adventure. That's so cool.

Jermaine Murray: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, you know, shout outs to to my partner.

She's, you know, She's brilliant. And she hit me with the whole one day. She just hit me out of the blue. Hey, would you like to move to Spain with me? And I said, yeah, sure. Why not? And my thinking was, you know what? I'll leave it up to fate. If, you know, if we get the visa, then it's a yes. Go with it. If we don't, then I'm a chill in Toronto.

And then we got the visa and I was like, ah. This is, this is happening. All right, let's go. And I've been out here since December and it's, it's been a great experience.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. First off, like, so cool. Like, I can't imagine. I would love to see Spain. I can't wait. One day I'm going to travel. I promise. We talked about this before the show.

I have like, Barely left North America ever. So it's kind of one of those things where it's like, it's ambitions for my future someday.

Jermaine Murray: Hey man, I'm, I'm, I'm here for a fully encouraged and traveling that, that it will actually like change your life.

Kelly Kennedy: I bet. But what has it been like, you know, like you have a successful company.

Is that not a little bit scary to just be like, okay, like I'm just going to move to Spain for a year and still operate my company and all like, it's not like, Whoa!

Jermaine Murray: No, to be honest with you. A lot of like, a lot of the work that I've been doing has always been primarily online. And so like, and then even like prior to like my, my partner and I are very passionate about traveling like before, before Spain We have this like little joke that like the pandemic particularly the pandemic like locked and locked her up and prevented her from traveling.

So like she had to go get it back in blood and we were like hopping to different countries. We were fortunate enough to be both working at places that allowed us to like, you know, have the ability to work remotely. So like. We did like a, we did like a month in Mexico. We did a few weeks in Italy. We did a few weeks in Greece, a few weeks in Spain.

It was just like different, different, different time zones, just getting used to that. So being able to like, like most of my work being online. It was just a matter of like making sure that the time zone alignment worked. And I think one of the things I enjoy the most about working from Europe is that there is a six, seven hour time difference with back home.

So it's almost like. I've been able to live in like two different worlds at the same time. And like, you know, I, I get up, I'm able to go and I'm able to work out and, and I'm able to like, you know, grab a smoothie, chill a little bit, you know, catch up on some Dragon Ball Z. And then my work day starts at like five 36.

Right. I have late, I have late ish nights of course, but like it's, it's, it's actually been like really good and like a lot easier than I first anticipated. What time is it for you right now? 10 21 PM.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh dude. You're a rock star. It is 2 21 for me.

Jermaine Murray: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're good. You're good, man. You're good.

You're good. You're good.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh man. Yeah. It's cr it's crazy to think like, you know, what the internet has done. Like the fact that we can even have this conversation that people even have the opportunity to work remotely. Like it just blows my mind a little bit. What, like how much has happened in such a short period of time?

Jermaine Murray: Yeah. Yeah, it's it's crazy too. Like, you know, when you think about like the, you know, being kids, like being kid, people that grew up in the nineties and the two thousands, when you think about like I think about the phrase surf the web a lot and like, you know, how only, only like really old people.

Like use it or like, even when you were growing up your parents would say, Oh, you're surfing the web. And it was sound like the Cordia's old people thing. And now like, you know, and at the time it was like surfing the web was just like, what, a couple of message boards or something. But like the movies and like the, the programming always had the internet look like this place of like freedom or like this place of like expression and.

In a way, like, you know, things have changed, things have been restricted, but it's still kind of freeing in that aspect because like, at the end of the day, it's all like one big way of communicating with one another. And that's that's that's why we're able to kind of build off of that foundation.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, you know, and I don't know how old you are, but I'm 35.

Jermaine Murray: Okay, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, when you hit your thirties, you stop counting. Actually, yeah, it's like it doesn't matter anymore. Yeah, because it's like it was, it was, it was easy. It was easier. Like 10, like, like 10 years ago where I'm like, oh, it's 2010. That means I'm 20. So I am 23. Three and I, sorry, I'm 33.

Okay. No, four. November I turned 34. .

Kelly Kennedy: You look amazing for 23. Yeah.

Oh, dude. Yeah, it's crazy. I, I read a thing the other day and it was kind of like really eye-opening and me and you are from. A weird in between generation, right? Like we live in two worlds. We lived in the world before the internet and before cell phones and before tech. And yet we also live in the world with all those things and still know how to use them.

And they were talking about how, like, There needs to be more leaders from our generation because we've seen it from both sides. And you know, like Gen Z is a little too young to understand that world and Gen X doesn't know what they're doing. So it's like, Hey, millennials, we need to do more leadership because we actually have experienced so much.

And it's like, I can't, I can't even believe sometimes how much the world has changed since like me and you were like 10 years old, like it's a completely different world.

Jermaine Murray: Yeah, I think about Napster all the time and I think about like how revolutionary Napster was, you know, to be able to just play music off of your computer and not having to go to HMV or Sunrise to buy a CD and then.

See, and it'd be like, Oh, this can't be legal. And like the record label is going to go, this, this is not legal. Killing Napster and then seeing Spotify, like a good 10, 15 years later, rise up from the ashes and be like, all right. Record labels made their own version of Napster. Like here it is. It's like things happen in cycle that it's it's actually hilarious.

But like, yeah, we've we've seen it. We've seen it rise in the fall. We've seen it change. We've we understand the nuances in it. My mom still looks at me at like as some sort of like Technical genius, whatever I like, I plug out her rotor and like plug it back in. You know what I'm saying? And she's just like, magic.

How did you do that? And it's just like, some things never change.

Kelly Kennedy: I'll be honest, dude. Like I'm a little bit afraid of that because technology is changing so quickly. And I even find myself right now at 35 being like, Oh, I don't know if I want to really learn the like the latest and greatest. And like my kids, they love Fortnite.

And I'm like, I can't even play this game. And it's like, oh, my God. Like, am I admitting I can't play a video game like Kelly? Come on.

Jermaine Murray: Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. It's crazy, dude. Like, I didn't understand it. But now I'm getting to the age where it's like. Oh boy, I don't want to end up like my mom or like my dad where it's like, I don't even want to touch the new stuff.

So it's like, I'm trying to challenge myself to take on all these new things, but realizing like, okay, like it's a real thing. Like there's going to come a point where you have to make a conscious decision that you are going to keep up with tech.

Jermaine Murray: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was pretty much me and like TikTok, like TikTok and Snapchat, right?

Fortnite, all these new things. And it's like like, I'm like, damn, I realized that like, if I don't like make that, like, if I don't make this space in my brain, To do it, I'm definitely going to be left behind. So like, I try to be a bit more intentional and I try to like, make sure that like, whatever technologies I'm like, you know, I'm like my brain space, my brain can only take so much before it just goes like, I time for a nap.

And like, I shut down, you know, I think it's not, it's not uncommon for me to like, fall asleep at my desk because of just I'm overworked or because it's just too much. So like, I'm very. I'll explore and research different technologies and tools and I'll see what I can do with them and see what the value is and then I'll make a decision on whether or not to incorporate that into like my quote unquote tech stack, which is like I've been doing with like some AI tools.

But yeah, at a certain point, you just you just can't keep up.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. You really, you really can't. And I would say like AI is a great example of that. Like it's changing so quickly. There's like a new latest, greatest AI program every single week. And I've talked to so many people. I'm like, how do you know which one?

And it's like, you don't just try, you have to try them and see if they work for you. And if they do great, if they don't, don't, and if something better comes along, replace it. Right. But like. Yeah. Yeah. That's like the level and especially in podcasting, like that's the level of like AI that we're playing and it's like you got to try it, see if it works, if it works great, if it doesn't, no biggie.

The biggest problem that I see with the AI side is that every program is trying to incorporate a whole bunch of features so they can be that One program, the rule, them all right. But usually the things that it's incorporating in don't work as well as like the, the AIs that were dedicated to that one thing.

And so, yeah, it sucks. It's like, it's like, I would love it if there was just one AI program that worked well for everything podcasting. But the reality is I'm still using like four or five.

Jermaine Murray: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's like, that's, that just left like the toe, like. That's like technology and like crashing into like capitalism.

Right? First, there's the idea. Then there's a popularity. And then there's somebody saying, Hey, it would be great if we were like the infrastructure for that, where everybody has to come to us for that. And like, for example, like I remember when YouTube first launched in like 06, and it was like, it was the way it was like revolutionary because you were able to like stream shows.

I remember streaming like anime before they like crack down on like, Hey, that's a leave. You can't do that. And like, we would be watching an episode of Naruto as 30 minutes. into like three, 10, 12 minute chunks. Right. Cause you're trying to, you're trying to, you're trying to bypass the censorship and everything.

And then, then people started putting uploading music to YouTube and like YouTube try to be like this whole media conglomerate. And like, it has like some different levels of success with that, but. Like, you always got to like, understand what you're like, your actual like, niche and what your footing is to really like, build off of that.

And some things work. Some things don't. But yeah, we're in that little gray space right now with with with AI, where it's just like. Trying to figure out what works and what doesn't and what captures the mainstream attention.

Kelly Kennedy: Totally. Totally. And it really is trial and error. Like I have people ask me all the time, like, well, what are you using?

And I'm like, well, just because it works for me doesn't mean it works for you, but this is what I'm using, but try your own things. Right. Because I don't know, it's like one thing that works well for somebody is not going to work well for somebody else. So it's like, you really do have to trial it. And, and, you know, I would say always evaluate because You know, some of these programs, eventually one of them is going to get it right and the thing that works, it'll do a multiple things well, and when that happens, it'll be a great value, but we're definitely not there yet.

I know, like I said, with podcasting, I'm probably using like four or five different types of AI's to create my show and do everything I need to do because none of them do everything well.

Jermaine Murray: Yeah, exactly.

Kelly Kennedy: But we live in a weird time, right? Like that's kind of where we're at as entrepreneurs is that we're navigating.

We're navigating technology and a time that frankly, we should be thankful because I think there's so many great things about being an entrepreneur right now, but understand that we're all also charting new territory and. You have to be careful, but you also have to be willing to take a risk.

Jermaine Murray: I agree. I think that is that's the essence of entrepreneurship, right?

I worked at like shortly in, before and in the pandemic, I worked for a incubator in Montreal and I moved from Toronto to Montreal. And for this job, and I didn't know anybody in Montreal, I had never been to Montreal. But I was like, Hey, yo, you know, hustlers all the time and entrepreneurs, you know, you just, you just, you just like, if you, if you dip a toe in, you're not going to really experience it.

It's just, just throw the whole, just throw your whole self into it. And I was surprised at like how haphazard the process of entrepreneurship was. And like, despite the fact I was working with people like PhDs and whatnot. I was like, despite the fact that these, these, these people have PhDs, nobody knows what the hell they're actually doing.

Like they had an idea, they worked on the idea and they got as far as they could with that initial thought. And they were like, I now what? And it's like, every day is a new. Is a new way to like answer that now what question until that new answer that new problem comes up that you're like, I got some direction.

I could work towards that. I could work towards solving that. And then when I get there, I'm going to be stuck with that damn question again. Now what? Right?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I find like on my entrepreneurial journey. Nothing has turned out exactly how I planned it, like zero, but amazing things have happened that I never saw coming like this show, right?

Like I wasn't even remotely thinking about doing a podcast when I started Capital Business Development, but then the opportunity came along and I took it and thank God I did because it's been so much fun. I get to meet amazing people. I get to do so much with it, but. The way that I see it as an entrepreneur, you never see the future.

You can plan and you can have all the plans in the world, but life is going to throw at you what life is going to throw at you. So I think what's more important than having this perfect plan that you're going to follow to a T is being open and available when that inevitably great opportunity falls on your lap because that's more likely to happen than your plan going exactly to plan.

Jermaine Murray: Yeah, I agree. It's like being prepared, developing your skills through trial and error. Right? And then recognizing when that opportunity to strike comes right? And not missing your moment. And sometimes part of your learning process is. Missing your moment. But it is super unpredictable. Like my mom always had this saying.

She's like, if you ever want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. And like, I literally feel like that is, that is like entrepreneurship. Sometimes, sometimes I think like my superpower is too late. I always feel like I'm too late for things and like, I don't, I don't move on like my own time. And it's like there are a lot of things where I, I feel like I saw it coming, but I didn't act on it.

And then I like, and then I have to have the conversation of whether or not it's worth putting energy into it. And then I realized, like, I feel like I'm too late, but like, it used to be something that I would use as an indictment against myself, but I think it's become more of like a superpower. Cause I realized that like, that's my own process.

That's my learning process. My learning process. Is I think what I really like about entrepreneurship is that my learning process, it feels represented here where, like, I was never like that quick prod, like prodigy kid. I wish I was where, you know, you know, you know, some people have, like, they pick up something and they're great at it for once.

And it's like, nah, I'm. I'm the slow learner in the back of the class that has to stay back after class to do the extra work. And like, you don't see the work, but one day, like out of nowhere, you're like, yo, when did you get so good? And I'm like, yo, that's just, that's just, that's how I've been. But like, really, if you had like a little montage, it's like hours and hours and hours of just failure compounding until I found a way to learn from the failures and then.

You know, spring up and turn those into successes until the success turns into a failure again, and I'm back at that learning process, but it's not, it's not a failure. It's, it's all a learning process thing. Right.

Kelly Kennedy: Totally. Totally. And I look back at like my school experience and I wasn't a good student, dude.

Like I, I was there to have fun. Like, it's funny because. I look back now and I was a pretty crappy student, but I've been an amazing worker and entrepreneur like when it was my self motivation when it was my business, my baby, my, my word on the line, right, then it was like, okay, I'm in like, that's what I needed.

I needed that pressure. I needed it to be my win. And when it was my win, I could give my all to it. But like, Yeah, I was not good at school.

Jermaine Murray: Neither was I think the most annoying thing was a parent teacher interviews. And my teacher is always going to my mom. He has so much potential. If he just like focused and then trying to explain to a Jamaican woman, Jamaican mother.

That you're, that you find school boring is a, is, is, is an uphill battle. It's like, it's literally ice skating uphill, right? You, you, you cannot win, especially if she sees that you're into something like my mom used to get on my, I love video games. Right. You know, my mom used to get on my case. She'd be like, if you knew your books the same way, you knew they're your combos.

You'd be a genius at it's like, yo, that's like, that's not how that works. Like, I, like, I wish I could, but like that shit's boring. And you know, I come to realize that, like I think for a lot of entrepreneurs or for like a lot of successful ones. So like when I was at that incubator I realized the thing that.

The thing about that specific incubator that kind of like open my eyes about like entrepreneurship was that there are the bad entrepreneurs are the ones that the ones that the archers that don't succeed are the ones that get into it for money and the entrepreneurs that succeed and go on to be great are people that saw a problem and.

Either the baby came so obsessed with the problem that they had to do something about it, or they saw a solution and they believed within their heart of hearts that this was the solution to solve that problem. And they wouldn't give up on it. And I feel like that's that Latin it's essence. What really makes an entrepreneur like you, you see that you see that problem and you want to solve it, become solution oriented.

And you, you know, You, it's almost like a North Star, like a guiding light because you never get lost because as long as that problem, as long as you can focus on that problem, you can build the solutions around it and what solutions work, you keep and what, what don't you throw to the wayside.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, no kidding.

And like, dude, you were so young when you started Jupiter HR. Like, first off, congratulations. Like, I wish that I was as driven and motivated as you at that age. Like, Like, what is it? It's almost 10 years at this point since you launched Jupyter, right? 2015. Yeah. Yeah. So you were, you were 23, 25, 25, sorry. 25.

Yeah. So that's just like absolutely bonkers, man. Like I didn't start capital until I was 30. I think, I think I incorporated it on like my 30th birthday. And I was like, Yay, but like the funny thing was, is like, I wasn't prepared. I can tell you right now, I was not prepared to be an entrepreneur until 30.

Yeah. And even then, I'm not sure that I was completely prepared. I had, I had some hard lessons and some life learning to do at that point. Right. And it's like, I just see people like you who are so successful. And first off, like, congratulations on your success. Congratulations on Jupiter. Like you've accomplished so much.

Forbes, like you've done so, so much for your age. And yeah, man, I just like, I, I, I very, I very much admire entrepreneurs like yourself who have done so much and frankly still have so much to do.

Jermaine Murray: I appreciate that. I promise you though, it did not feel or it was never. It wasn't that way. Like, even the way that the business started was like an accident to be real with you.

Like I went to school for radio broadcasting. I, I, ironically, as I say this on the podcast and I was like, when I graduated, I literally thought I was going to be the black Larry King. Like that's, you know, I want, at first I wanted to be an actor. My mom was like, I'm my mom and dad were like, we are not, we are not paying.

Thousands of dollars for you to go to school to be an actor. You can go for something else. You can do acting on the side. Right. But like, no. So like, I thought like, I, you know, I'll become famous like Larry King and then I'll just be able to like transition over to acting and, and I graduated and I had the hardest time getting a job and I remember I had about 750, maybe 800 dollars in my bank account.

And I went to a resume writer in Scarborough and I had about six months of internship experiences at a rate at radio stations. And I paid this person 694 and 54 cents. Not that I'm counting. But to do the, to do the resume and they gave me a six page resume and like, you have to understand how desperate I was for a job at this point.

I tried everything. I was exhausted. So they handed me a six page resume. I'm like, I, this is cool. And I got in my car. And if anyone's from Toronto is listening, the, the resume writer was at Markham and Ellesmere. And down the street at Markham and 401 was the TSN CTV building. It's still there. So I drove straight to there and cause like my dad was like, Hey, you're applying online.

You know, back in my day, I would have just walked in and just handed them the resume. That's, that's, that's what you want to do. If you want to get shit done. Right? Yeah. So at a certain point, things aren't working. And so I was like, All right, what we got to lose. So I drove to TSN. I walk in and the receptionist was a nice Jamaican black lady.

And she asked, like, how can I help you? And I just put my resume down. And I remember. It made like a punk sound on the desk of six pages. And I was like, I'm here for a job. And she's like, what job? I was like, I don't know. But like, here's my resume. And then she, I remember she, she took the resume up and she like flipped through it.

And then she was like, if you had a hundred thousand things to do. And someone came into your office and not only had no idea what jobs you had available, but gave you a mini book to read. Would you want to read that? And I was just there dumbfounded, right? And in my head, my head is like, say, yes, just say yes.

And my heart was like, nah. And I was like, no. And then she's like, all right, here you go. And I sat in my car and I was like, Would I want to read this? And I'm like, no, it's six, six frigging pages. Like, well, I wouldn't want to read this. So that day I went home and I like studied up on everything I could when it came to like making a good resume.

And I'm, I focused on if I focus on like an empathetic journey, I was like, if I was a person sitting across from me, what would I need to see? On this piece of paper that would entice me to read it, but also be like, hey, Jermaine is exactly what I want for this job. And then I wrote, I wrote my 1st resident, my 1st real resume myself from that aspect.

And I submitted that, and I started getting calls to like jobs and. It became like a running joke where I'd be showing my friends and like, we would actually start betting. We'd like, we'd open up indeed on my PlayStation three with like the web browser and we start making bets on whether or not I would get a callback based on my resume for this job.

And more often than not, I was getting callbacks on the resume and then so my friends were like, yo. Make us resumes, get us jobs, made them resumes. They, they all got their grownup jobs from that, from those resumes. And then it started being like, people would start coming out to me and asking me to make the resumes and that's kind of like how Jupiter HR was born.

But like, it was still. It was still like a part time thing. I really wasn't paying too much attention. It was just good for like side money for gas money as my dad would use to say. And it became a thing when I got into actual like recruitment, probably like in like 2018 and it became a thing where I use the experience there from resume writing and interview prepping to get my first recruitment job.

And then, as a recruiter, I, I noticed that people that look like me weren't getting opportunities. And so I started advocating for people that look like me. And then I started getting in trouble at work because yeah, I had, I've had so many managers. My, the first one that stood out to me though, it was like, I had a manager, I was working at an agency and a manager literally we would have these morning meetings and she would want to know the candidates that we were putting forward for jobs to send to the, to our, our, our clients.

And I remember I put this person through who I met at a networking event and I had like a WhatsApp group with black people and we're like, I'm like sharing the jobs and that's how I got most of my candidates and I'm pretty successful. Like it was, it was January, 2019. And so, like, recruiters are basically judged on the revenue that they bring and, like, a good year for a recruiter is to bring, like, 150, 160, 000 dollars throughout the whole entire year and in January alone.

I grossed like 260, 000, right? Just by throwing black candidates. So I put this black candidate up and it was a person with a Nigerian name. And so like, I remember my manager being upset. She put the, put the paper down and then she took me into the cafeteria, into the lunchroom asked everybody to leave.

And it was just me and her. And she was just like, You can't be the only black recruiter on the team and the only people you're putting forward are black people. And then I flipped and I was like, you need to ask why the only black candidates you're seeing are coming from the black guy. And then she looked at me and I was like, yo, like.

You can't overrepresent for an underrepresented group. Then I got written up and I was just like, all right, it's time. It's time to leave this job. And I left, I left, I went to another employer, tried the same thing, kept getting into the, into the same, into the same drama. So I realized that I could just do my advocacy through Jupiter HR and, you know, If I, if it's totally disconnected, they can't get mad at me.

And if there's so happens that like, it also enables me to be better at my job. They, they can't get mad at me. So it was, it started out as just a way for me to like address a problem that like was just quite frankly, pissing me off. Right. It was just, it was just so annoying not seeing people that look like me for like, for opportunities that were like literally life changing.

And eventually it grew to like, it grew to, I started taking to social media. And my whole idea was, like, I'm just going to make the whole job search thing as transparent as possible. One of the first threads that I made that went viral was a dissection of, like, LinkedIn, showing people what LinkedIn look like from the recruiters point of view and how they could optimize their profiles to attract more recruiters.

Yeah, and. Things kind of just took off from there. And eventually that job I had in Montreal at that incubator, Jupiter HR was taking up more time than my full time job. And I saw I couldn't show up at the full time job, right. Because it's like my, I was so distracted and and it, and that, and it eventually grew to be like its own thing to where I was able to just do it full time.

And like, yeah, it was, it was a vehicle for me to like address a problem. Cause like, I don't know. It's like, sometimes it's like, what do you do? What do you do when there's, what do you do when there's a problem and there's nothing that you can do?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Jermaine Murray: You just do what you can. Right. And that was my way of doing what I could.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Wow, man. Like I've experienced some pretty interesting things in my, in my time in business development as well. I've, I've actually, I was in a meeting once with a pipeline company and I worked for a company that, that hired quite a few East Indian people. Obviously we're, we're in Canada. It's a very diverse place, right?

Like very diverse. And I remember being in a meeting one time and saying like, Hey, like, would you consider You know, our company, our employees. And the guy pulled me into a room, shut the door. And he said, under no circumstances, will we hire any East Indians from your company? He's like, obviously I will never say this.

I will never say this in public, but they won't, this is, this was the guy's words, they won't fit in here. And I was like, are you kidding me? Like, where do you think you live? But it's like, I think there's a lot of people who think that. You know, that Canada is completely equal that, you know, like we've got it all figured out and that's just not the case.

Jermaine Murray: Yeah, it's I've had clients say to me, Hey, can you, can you give us candidates without any funny names? And it's just like, what does that mean? What does that mean? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, what is, what do you mean by that? What do you, what do you mean by that? But like, yeah, it's I think it's just the reality of people and like, you get, you have some really like good people, right.

That don't see color, that don't see race or just like, even if they do, they understand the context behind. Privileges and context behind underrepresentation, and they try their best to be allies. And then you got people that, you know, the thing is, no one sees himself as a bad guy. So, ironically, I think that person that pulled you aside, they, like, in some strange case, in some strange way, they might have thought that they're protecting people.

Right? But they don't realize that they're like, they're entertaining evil or they're entertaining discrimination because nobody, Anyone that like, there's only been like a few times in my life where I've ever seen someone proud, like, proudly say that they're a racist and everyone that has done like racist things, like, like, if they don't, they don't, like, they, even though they did it, if you painted it in a way where they saw the discrimination, they kind of would feel a way about themselves, right?

They might regress to the norm shortly after, but like, you know, no one wants to be like outright the bad guy.

Kelly Kennedy: I was shocked. Like, and you know, like I'd never for me. And I'd never experienced that before. That was my first like real experience of racism. outward racism. And it was like, it was very surprising.

And I know like I live in Alberta, like it's oil and gas country, but I'd never had somebody pull me aside and straight up telling me I will not, we will not hire your people, you know, because of their name or because of their, it was very surprising. And yeah, I, and you know, like, Obviously, like I'm a white guy.

I, it's not something that I can even understand. And so I think we have to come to the table, recognizing that we don't understand and we have to, we have to, because we don't understand, we have to be willing to have that conversation and to realize that there may be a bias there.

Jermaine Murray: Yeah, and I think that's the first step of ally ship too, though.

It's like, even not even just from like a race standpoint to, but from like a gender standpoint as like two men. Right. And I'm, I'm, I'm a heterosexual male and like, even then I have privilege because like a lot of people that are, are like identify as otherwise are discriminated against and like, you know, that's, that's when you have to like.

Use the space that you occupy to advocate for others. Because at the end of the day, like we're all, we're all people. And like the people, a lot of like, unfortunately, like a lot of people that are, that have power wielded in ways that are detrimental to us as like a society. So like, you know, it's, it's times like that where you have to like, kind of lean into what you can do.

And like I said, like you, you can't solve everything, but if you can't let something go on, you got to do what you can do.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. And like, I wonder how much of it, how much of it people don't even realize that it, like, that it's happening in their organizations, right? Like talking to like CEOs that have, you know, a whole bunch of people working for them.

How can they implement strategies that make sure that that bias Isn't happening like in your obviously, obviously you could hire from Jupiter HR right like that could be one of the avenues that you take, but like, how can we, how can we do better with regards to systemic racism within corporations in your opinion, Jermaine?

Jermaine Murray: I think I think it comes down to, like, buy in from leadership, but like genuine buy in. So, like, prior to settling on, like, going to, like, school for broadcasting, I considered going into law and I took a couple of law courses and 1 of the things for 1 of the things that always stood out to me was the term mens rea and actus rea, the guilty act and the guilty mind.

Right? The difference between murder 1 and manslaughter. Right. You could hit somebody with your car. And if it's an accident, it's manslaughter because it's a, it's a guilty act. But if you sit and you premeditate to kill somebody and you do it, It's a guilty act plus a guilty mind. And if you get caught planning it, it's a guilty mind lacking the guilty act.

Right. So it comes down to like when leadership do their buying and this is kind of like controversy that happened during the George Floyd situation where you had a bunch of companies, like, putting together these initiatives to support black people, but, like, they weren't doing it because they realize they had an unconscious bias.

So they weren't doing it because, like, they realize that, like. You know, there was like a guilty mind at play here. They did it because they were copycatting the people that were doing it. And they realized that it was a smart business move to do. And that's why a lot of the programs have evaporated as like, DEI has become less and less of like a hot topic or a topic that really like moves and inspires people.

So it comes from leader comes from buying from leadership, but not because they're willing to do the, not because they're willing to sanction or like, you know. You know, advance the actions, but because they genuinely have, they genuinely have an understanding of the limitations that happens when you don't invest in such programs and like the morale you're destroying among your employees when you don't, when you don't stand up, but you don't say things when you don't, you know, make an effort to show that you are in that space of allyship those, when those things, when that, when that happens.

Yeah. Mind aspect isn't there. Those positive actions that happening that you do, they have a short, they have a short lifespan. They have a short shelf life.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, we're both in Canada, and one of the things that I've seen really change in the last, like, let's call it five years, is Indigenous relations.

So you're seeing, like, a very consorted effort from companies, from governments to make sure that more Indigenous groups are, are, are being included, that they're being represented, that they're getting their fair deal. Yeah. With regards to their, their allyship with corporations, right? But I don't know, like, is it kind of feels like we've picked one minority and said, like, okay, we're good.

We'll, we'll help them. But like, is it, does it seem reasonable to help one minority and, and not do the same thing for the rest?

Jermaine Murray: I think things have to happen in stages, to be honest with you, and like, I'm not, I'm not an expert and I'm not from the indigenous community, but like, even then I always felt like I like that.

There's a starting point, but I don't think it's actually enough because like, I always had a problem with land acknowledgements. Because I'd be like, why don't you just, you know, just give the people back their land. If that's the case, you know, like it's, it's the same way as like a black person wearing like companies acknowledge the part they played in like slavery.

And then they turn around and try to say like, yeah, but we're not going to do, we don't agree with reparations. It's just like, you know, to quote George R. R. Martin Thrones words are a wind. You know what I'm saying? Like, where's the actual action behind that? So like, but everything has a starting point.

Everything should happen in phases. As I say, so like I would be like, I think the reality of just people is that it's always easier to focus on like one thing, like we do have the capacity to focus on a lot of different things. But like, even like as entrepreneurs, you find that like. People that are able to do a lot of different things, they tend to, like, there's an African proverb, you know, if you if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.

And basically, I equate that as just like, you, like, if you don't have like a single focus in mind, you can't gain any real momentum to like, speed through. And then you add people to the puzzle, because if you try to address everything all at once, you're not going to get far. You're not going to be effective.

Right? So if the, if the mindset or if the shift is like, we focus on doing right by one community and when we get to a point where like, you know, things have healing is well underway and like, things are a bit more right. And then we shift the focus and we take what we learn and that's kind of supporting that infrastructure and apply it to others.

And we keep going down the list then. Like, yeah, I think, I think that would be a much better approach, but. In a lot of cases, it just feels like we're doing like the spread aspect and it's just a lot of platitudes and words and the real action is like light behind them. And again, that that goes back to being like people within leadership and, you know, people having the opportunity.

not understanding or not like doing the work to make that connection mentally, right? But they see that there is some sort of value in doing, in doing the execution, but like that can only take you so far if you don't have the total buy in.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and you know, like one of the reasons that I really wanted to talk to you today is that I haven't had this conversation.

I haven't had anybody have this conversation on this show. And for somebody like you to start a company like Jupiter HR and, and have a nice, ambitious goal, and you've gotta be real close to placing your 500?

Jermaine Murray: Yeah. We're at 414.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh my god. Wow. Okay. So like, maybe this show, maybe this show is the one that gets you that, but like, frankly, like, that's still not enough.

Like 500 people doesn't seem like that much. Like we need to place like 5, 000 people, you know, like?

Jermaine Murray: Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: It seems like a drop in the bucket. But yet I, like I said, I don't think I've ever seen a company like yours that says, you know what? No, like there's a problem here and we're going to do something about it.

Like, have you come across many companies like yours?

Jermaine Murray: I would say many, but I do know that there's there is a lot of people in the space that are doing really good work. And, like I think, like, for me, like, I have, because I have that sales background. Like, I have, I have, like, quotas, like, bread into me.

And, like, if I don't have, like. Again, if I don't have something to focus on, it's, it, there can be a lot of wasted energy. So like we were vocal with that quota. We're vocal with that number as a way to just keep us honest and on the path. But like and a lot, like a lot of companies don't like, really like focus on like numbers like that, but like, that is again, like as an entrepreneur.

That is what intrinsically like works to keep the train going, right? But there are a lot of, there are some companies in the space are doing some really good work. There are a lot of really good leaders. And like, I don't think that they're enough to be honest, cause it is a lot of work. And it is a lot of history that we are working against and working to correct.

But like, I'm, I'm glad that I'm not the only person in the space that's doing this kind of work, especially because like, Like you said, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a big, it's a big number, but it's not a big number at the same time, you know what I'm saying? Cause like, if you I remember, I remember like in 2021, the goal was to get a hundred people jobs in tech and we did 126 and like to get to that 126, I had to work with over 2000.

Black people. Holy cow. You know what I'm saying? So like, that's what I'm like, that's why I agree with you. It's not like, it's not really that big of a number because like, it's a fraction of like the total engages and total people that I know. You know what I'm saying? Like to get to do to do something 2000 times and only walk away with like 126.

Like wins, you know, if you're like, if you're a basketball player and somebody goes 126 for 2000, you're like, yo, bench him, like, how do you improve the team? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like.

Kelly Kennedy: My gosh, that is, what is like, what is the statistic for white people? Do you know, do you know what, like, if it would have been the same amount, what do you think it would have been?

And I get that that's like speculating, but.

Jermaine Murray: Yeah, so like, I read this report. So the thing that actually like, really, I want to say, quote unquote, in a joke and way, radicalized me was reading this report from TMU, which was formerly known as Ryerson university called who are techs workers. And in it, they detailed that like 70 percent of tech roles were taken up by like white people and 30 percent were by people that were minorities.

And then it went to like further break down that, like what that minority representation look like and like black people in Canada we represent like, I think, 12 or 13 percent of the population, but we only represented 3. 9 percent of the tech industry. And of that, we were also the lowest paid ethnic group.

As well, and it attributed a lot of systemic factors, right? It's attributed and also reference to the burden of low expectations where, like, people have a perception of people of, like, black people. And like, it's easier for somebody to believe a black person is a janitor versus a doctor. And like, that bleeds into like salary negotiations and what kind of offers black people are able to get and what opportunities are able to extend to them.

And that's what made me think about that manager. I had, I got upset that I was, you know, sending so many black people because it's just like, you know, it's an unconscious bias. So like I think, I don't know. It's, it's, it's, it's, I think it would be a number. That'd be 70 percent more just based on like what we saw like that ratio.

But hey, I'm an English major. I am not a math major. So my math may be completely off, but it's just me spitballing. But like, you know, if if the industry's had like 70%, it's probably a bit lower now, but like, if, if it was 70 percent white and only like, you know, 3. 9 percent black. I would think that the numbers would be like represented.

I actually, you know what, if I take 1 26 and I divide that by 2000, I wonder what that number is 0. 6, 6. 3%. Right? Yeah. So, like, so, like, even then.

Kelly Kennedy: You're double the sure. Great.

Jermaine Murray: So I would say, I would say it'd be considerably more, but like I'm still super proud of the work that I've been able to do that we've been able to do.

And like, I think that, you know, right now things are a bit more politicized and like anti DEI. But I think that like, as an, as an entrepreneur, I see a problem and I'm trying to make a solution to address the problem. The bigger the problem, the bigger the solution, but the bigger the solution, the more people end up helping, you know?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Well, like at the end of the day, we're all here to do, do a job, to do something that frankly is going to benefit society as a whole. And it should be about who is the most qualified person, period. Agreed. Yeah. And I don't get it because you know, when I started capital It's like business needs to be neutral, period.

Right? It just does. Like at the end of the day, business should benefit everybody involved. The buyers, the sellers, the workers, the employers, everybody should benefit from business. And we need to, we all need to aim to be more neutral when it comes to how we operate our organizations, period.

Jermaine Murray: Yeah, I would say.

I would say to that, though, that I've never agreed with the phrase. It's, you know, whenever you see, like I'm going to reference Pirates of the Caribbean 3, where the, where the main antagonist is like, it's not, it's not personal. It's business. And in my, I remember I was watching that with my dad and my dad was like, that makes no sense because like.

If I can't feed myself or my kids, like it's because it's personal. , it's personal, like it's . That's, that's pretty personal what I'm saying. So it's like, you know, with business, and one thing I learned about like entrepreneurship, especially working in like the VC space, I was surprised at how many deals get done over coffees, over beer, over social settings.

Like I've heard of deals getting, I've heard of people getting, I, I heard about a guy getting, funding because he spotted an investor in a, in a, in a gym for a bench press. You know what I'm saying? And it's like, it's like that social aspect of business where people, people only, unless they absolutely have to, people always choose to do business with somebody that they like.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes.

Jermaine Murray: And like, even though, like you said, it should be neutral, it should be, it should benefit both parties. The other day, that emotional aspect of, I only, if I, if I have the choice, I will do business with people that I like. That is, that is both, that is, that is a double edged sword. It works and it works for us and it works against us, but like, that is essentially it.

But like. Another thing that people, I think, the other thing that I always tell people, especially people that are like anti DEI or like throw the word woke at me, I always say like, you're misconstruing what DEI and diversity really is, because like, nobody wants a handout. Like, nobody, like a lot of people in my community.

Would turn down a handout on the strength of, you just give them an option because they're black. Right? What we want is just a fair shot. That's literally it, you know what I'm saying? And like, I explained it to a hiring manager once like this, if on average, black people are represented as 4 percent of the industry, you get 100 resumes, the math said that you will have 4 resumes in that group that are black.

If you know that you only have. One job to fill right? And you might need 5 to 10 interviews, right? What are the chances that you find 10 people that you want to hire who aren't black before you see your first resume from a black person from that 4 out of 100, right? So what all DEI is doing is making sure that.

If you decide to make a call on who to interview, you at least saw the four resumes of the black people and you may you were able to make a decision like, oh, this isn't the right. This isn't the person that has the skills that we're looking for. Right? And then we move on and like, a lot of time. Our argument is there are a lot of people in our community that are just as good at that job.

And if you see their resume, you're going to want to meet them.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. So walk me, like, walk me into it. How how does Jupiter HR work?

Jermaine Murray: So we have two fronts. We have the candidate experience front, the job seeker front, and then we have the corporation B2B front. So the B2C aspect is a advocacy and a career coaching platform.

I leverage my social medias to talk about Black issues, to talk about career aspects, career strategies, Job seeking strategies and also as a way to, like, refer people into jobs we do charge, like, one on one coaching, like, resume writing, but we give a lot of free resources anyway. So I've always had, like, you know, if someone's not able to afford, like, the 1 to 1, like, the paid services we have, we have a free equivalent that they can leverage and they can use as and like, to their own benefit.

And then we never charge for referrals, right? Referrals into, like. Sometimes we have advocates and allies that want to, like, help with the mission and like, they will leverage their own influence to, like, refer people into their corporation or their organizations and we never charge for that. And then on the B to B side, we do direct recruitment placement, but we also offer training and workshops to help train companies on like, their HR team on how to not only engage and retain black talent.

Okay. But like to actually go out and like source and search for the answers, like no real excuse. Most recruiters will tell you that the best, the best and most successful hires come from sourcing activities where you go out and you search for people to poach from jobs that are already working. And we give them the tools on how to like, make sure that they're able to incorporate those skills to identify black talent and they can then.

Go out and find black talent that is qualified for the jobs that they want. So again, we're no one wants a handout. It's literally just a fair shot. Right. And there should be no excuses as to like why you're not able to have black people in your talent pipeline.

Kelly Kennedy: Of course. And you're working in Toronto.

However, like, are you able to service like all of Canada, potentially North America? What are your service areas? So we're global. Be real with you. Oh, amazing. Well, I know you're in Spain.

Jermaine Murray: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I've helped people get, I've helped black people get jobs in Japan. Japan was the furthest. Wow.

Japan and Germany, the UK, like all over Europe. Primarily a lot of the action happens in the United States and Canada, but like, yeah, like I've, I've, we've had customers and clients and B2B and like businesses from all the way from like Japan and, and Germany ask us for help. I haven't been able to find a Spain, a Spanish partner quite yet, but I blame it on the fact that my, my Spanish sucks.

I'm sorry. Duolingo like Duolingo has been hurt. I'm trying to, I have a Duolingo has been sending me some shady messages. Cause she'd be like, yo, you haven't. Yeah, I mean, you haven't seen me in like two months. What's going on? And I've just been busy. So like Duolingo bird is on my ass, but like, yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, dude. No, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for coming on and chatting with us. And not to mention, like, you know, we look at. We look at followers in Canada a little different than the U. S. Like the reality is you have 89, 000 followers and I'm sure to a lot of U. S. people, it's not a big deal, but for Canadians, that's a huge deal, dude.

Congratulations on growing your followers. And, and, you know, I mean, that's just on LinkedIn. We're not even talking about Twitter or anywhere else you are. So yeah, you've done amazing. On your own personal branding. And I just want to congratulate you because that's not easy. It is very hard and you're killing it.

Jermaine Murray: Thank you. I appreciate that so much, Kelly. I appreciate you. for having me on too. Like it's, it's literally been, I love talking. So like it's, it's been a pleasure, man.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, you too, dude. And if people want to get ahold of you they want to hire Jupiter HR. What's the best way for them to do that?

Jermaine Murray: You can hit me up on my website, jupiterhr.

1. Or you can message me on LinkedIn Jermaine L Murray, or you can hit me up on Twitter, which is the jobfather with two underscores if you, if you want to know more about me, you can literally Google the job father and you'll see all like the articles, which I'm, I'm very fortunate and blessed to have but like, yeah, I would say those are the, are the best ways to like, reach out and connect and I'm always happy to have a chat if anybody wants to know, like.

You know, how are we doing when it comes to like hiring black people? Are we incorporating the right strategies or stuff that we can do better?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. And obviously that applies to all minorities as well, not, not just black people.

Jermaine Murray: Yeah, no, we work, we do work and help with everyone, but like I said, our advocacy is around the black community.

That's just a community that I'm from. And I know those experiences firsthand. And I know that a lot of times the stories, success stories don't get a lot of light on them. And they should, they are just as compelling as any others.

Kelly Kennedy: You know, and, and before we close up today, Jermaine, obviously we're talking to a lot of entrepreneurs on this show.

A lot of them are younger entrepreneurs. Maybe they haven't even taken that leap. And I'm confident that many, many, many of them are minorities and I can't speak to them the way that you can. And I was just really hoping that you could inspire them. You've created an incredibly successful business. You did it at 25 years old.

What type of, you know, motivation can you give these people who are right on the fence? They have an amazing idea. They just haven't left yet.

Jermaine Murray: I would say two things. One, find a problem that you are absolutely obsessively passionate about solving something that strikes you to your core, whether it's something that connects to like childhood trauma or childhood inspiration or childhood hero and like center your focus around addressing that.

And the 2nd thing I would say is don't think just act think the problem that a lot of people have is that they think they have to have a, they have to perfect their idea in order for it to be viable. And like the reality. And again, the experience I had at that VC place reality is that you launch it something imperfect.

And you tweak it and build and improve it as it goes along, the best way to be able to grow your product, your business, your brand, your entrepreneurship is to put yourself out there, see what the response is, see what's working trial and error and tweak it as you go along. You always stay out of the game.

If you remain on the fence, right? It's better for you to dive in, fail, build again, fail. Build again, fail, build again, and then take off.

Kelly Kennedy: And you learn so much, so much more than you could ever imagine. When you take that risk, when you take that leap, and even if you fail, it's not really a failure because the lesson you learned will make you that much more successful the next time.

Jermaine Murray: Exactly.

Kelly Kennedy: Jermaine, this has been absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for staying up so late and joining us on the business development podcast.

Jermaine Murray: Thank you for having me, Kelly, and all the best to you out in Edmonton, man. Thank you again.

Kelly Kennedy: And until next time, this has been the business development podcast, and we will catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the business development podcast with Kelly Kennedy. He has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

And The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists. For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.