Yang bombed his dream job interview. Walked in wearing Chucks and a polo, asked about the pay in the first five minutes, and sat across from five people in suits in a boardroom.

He didn't get the job. But he used it.

In the first episode of a four-part Hiring and Development series, Ashley flips the mic and interviews Yang about what it actually takes to become a strong interviewer — from the candidate side. Yang went on 30 practice interviews after that video game company debacle, practiced answers in front of a mirror, and built a skill he eventually used to cold-call his way into his first corporate job.

They get into how to handle nerves (Yang's hyperhidrosis story is its own thing), why interviewing is closer to a first date than a test, the 50-50 rule for conversation balance, and what to do when you get a curveball question you've never heard before. Plus — how to use AI to match your resume to a job description, why you should almost never turn down a practice interview, and why taking rejection personally is the fastest way to tank your next one.

The toolkit Yang mentions is linked in the episode description below.

Season One is going out with everything we've got.

Yang and Ashley are spending the month of July releasing a four-part series on the thing that shapes every team, every culture, and every company outcome — hiring and developing your people.

Here's what's dropping, one episode a week:

Part 1 — Master the Interview (Candidate Side)
Ashley flips the mic and interviews Yang on how candidates can show up at their absolute best. The prep, the mindset, the mistakes, and what actually gets offers.

Part 2 — Hire Smart (Hiring Manager Side)
Yang interviews Ashley on how to run a smarter hiring process — structured interviews, legal landmines, candidate experience, and how to stop making expensive hiring mistakes.

Part 3 — Lead and Develop
They're in the door. Now what? How to lead, coach, and develop your team into something worth keeping.

Part 4 — Retain
Including what to do when bonus season hits and your best people start looking around.

And yes — they've built playbooks to go with each episode. Tools, not just theory.

After the series wraps, the show is going on summer break and coming back in October with Season Two — new episodes, guests, and more in the works.

Subscribe now so you don't miss the series or the comeback.

You had questions. Yang and Ashley have answers.

In this special listener Q&A episode, they tackle four real questions submitted by listeners — and get surprisingly real about their own experiences along the way.

First up, what do you do when your manager is too checked out or introverted to plan any team building while every other team in the company is out having a good time? Then they get into the big one — what are your options when you're being sexually harassed and you don't trust HR to handle it? Spoiler: there are more options than you think, and some of them exist outside the company entirely.

From there it's ageism in the interview room, the struggle of breaking into the job market with a so-so GPA and zero experience, and finally — the high performer who's also kind of a nightmare to work with. Can you performance manage attitude? And what happens when a leader just refuses to deal with it?

Real talk, real advice, and yeah — they went on a few tangents. But honestly those are some of the best parts.

Burnout is depression. Yang checked almost every box on the questionnaire — and he didn't even know it until his wife told him. And he's not alone.

In this episode, Yang and Ashley get personal about their own mental health journeys and what it took to step away from corporate before things got worse. Then they get into what employers actually need to know — and do — when an employee is struggling.

They break down the difference between ADA and FMLA, what counts as an invisible disability, how neurodivergent employees are outperforming their peers at companies like JPMorgan and Deloitte, and why the accommodation your employee needs might literally just be a pair of headphones or a better office chair.

They also get into the stuff nobody talks about — the biases that sneak into hiring decisions, what happens when someone works the system (including one wild story involving forged doctor's notes and insurance fraud), and why a good manager should never handle this alone.

If you're an employer, HR pro, or just someone trying to figure out if what you're feeling has a name — this one's for you.

Growing your business is exciting. Picking the wrong HR system to support that growth? Not so much.

In this special episode, Yang and Ashley bring in their HRIS and Ops expert Carla Garrison to break down everything small business owners and HR pros need to know before signing on the dotted line with a new vendor. And trust us — the demo they showed you is not the whole story.

Carla has been on both sides of the table. She's been the wide-eyed ops manager who got wine and dined into a system that didn't do half of what was promised, and she's been the consultant called in five weeks before go-live to clean up somebody else's mess. She's learned the hard way so you don't have to.

They get into the 90/10 rule — why no system will ever do 100% of what you want and why that's actually okay — what questions to ask before you ever sign a contract, why the salesperson and the implementation person need to be in the same room, and why changing vendors every time something goes wrong is like changing your clothes. It costs more than you think and leaves you starting from scratch every time.

Whether you're coming off a PEO, scaling fast, or just tired of doing everything manually — this one will save you time, money, and a whole lot of headaches.

Hurricane season is coming and if you're in Houston, you already know what that means. But weather events are just the beginning. In this episode, Yang and Ashley get into the emergency situations that nobody thinks about until they're actually happening — and by then it's too late.

From an active shooter situation at the Galleria with no plan and a building full of people, to a heart attack on the office floor that turned into a workers comp question nobody knew how to answer, to Yang's son getting second degree burns at his therapy center while Yang was literally flooded in and couldn't get to him — this one's got it all.

They break down what companies get wrong, what a real emergency plan actually looks like, and why it always seems to take an incident before anybody puts one in place.

Houston specific? Sure. But honestly this stuff applies everywhere. Have a plan before you need one.

Nobody likes firing people. But if you're in HR or managing a team, it's inevitable. The question isn't whether you'll have to do it — it's whether you're ready when it happens.

In this episode, Yang and Ashley get into the real, unfiltered side of difficult terminations. We're talking a pre-Christmas executive layoff, a guy who spit on the table and dropped every curse word in the book on his way out, and what it's like to fire a friend and then watch her face when she realizes you already knew.

They break down what actually goes into a termination before anyone sits down in that room, why you should never apologize, how PIPs are being misused, and what to do when the person being fired won't stop talking.

Real stories. Hard lessons. And yes — someone had a gun in their car.

When personal beliefs show up at work, political posters in cubicles, religious decorations at the front desk, vocal opinions around the office, things can get complicated fast. In this episode, Yang and Ashley share real stories from their HR careers about exactly these situations: a 2016 election-era standoff with an HR employee who didn't know where the line was, and a front desk hire whose religious decor led to a discrimination complaint. They break down what managers get wrong, why having the right policy in place before something happens matters more than most people think, and how to have those uncomfortable conversations without making things worse. If you've ever had to navigate beliefs in a professional setting, or you're afraid to, this one's for you.