The Breakthrough Hiring Show: Modern Recruiting, AI, and Talent Strategy
Welcome to The Breakthrough Hiring Show: Recruiting, AI, and Talent Strategy, a podcast for leaders building better hiring systems and stronger teams.
Hosted by James Mackey, the show features conversations with founders, CEOs, talent leaders, and recruiting experts on how great companies hire, scale, and adapt as technology changes the talent landscape.
Episodes cover talent acquisition strategy, recruiting operations, AI, automation, candidate experience, hiring analytics, and executive decision-making.
You will learn how to build scalable hiring systems, use AI and recruiting technology effectively, improve the hiring process, and make talent acquisition a competitive advantage.
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The Breakthrough Hiring Show: Modern Recruiting, AI, and Talent Strategy
EP 20: The pros and cons of starting your recruitment career at an agency w/Luke Whitburn
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Luke Whitburn joins the show to discuss the pros and cons of starting your recruitment career at an agency, the changes in talent acquisition over the course of a 25 year career, what should be in your recruiting tech stack and a lot more!
Episode Chapters
00:25 Who is Luke Whitburn?
01:15 What has changed, what has stayed the same over the past 25 years in talent acquisition
04:15 How tech has changed over the years
05:35 The impact of starting your talent acquisition career on the agency side
13:45 Intense requirements of agency side recruitment
17:05 Transitioning from agency side to in-house recruitment
19:45 Ensuring quality of hire with bonus incentive programs in place
24:12 Recruiting tech stack
30:15 Breaking down talent sourcing websites
34:30 The difference between HR and talent acquisition
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Hi, and welcome to episode 20 of Talent Acquisition Trends and Strategy. Today we are joined by Luke Whitburn. Luke, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for having me today.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're pumped. Very excited to discuss the topics we've outlined. And before we jump into it, do you mind telling everybody a little bit about yourself?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I've been in recruiting, talent acquisition, workforce planning for about 24 years this year. Um, I have
Who is Luke Whitburn?
SPEAKER_00worked in the agency world and the corporate world. And um, it's it's been a wild ride. I'm I'm excited to be here on your 20th episode to share um, you know, that uh secret sauce to recruiting 101, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, let's let's do it. I think we're gonna have a really fun time sharing stories and experiences. And um, you know, I congratulations on 25 years in town acquisition. That's uh that's incredible.
SPEAKER_00It it is, it's it's remarkable. Um, I I can remember the uh starting out in the agency world. Um, we were a brand new branch, we had no business, we had a shiny new desk and and a lot of uh bells and whistles and chotch keys to hand out. But um, yeah, 25 years later, wild.
SPEAKER_01Let's do it. Yeah, I think that's great. And that's uh,
What has changed, what has stayed the same over the past 25 years in talent acquisition
SPEAKER_01you know, one of the first topics I just want to jump into is I would love to discuss some of the biggest shifts that you've seen in talent acquisition. Well, shifts and also what has remained the same, right? Like, um, but I would love to just hear kind of like iteration of what you've seen throughout the years, like the biggest shifts that you would you you've noticed throughout the last 25 years.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, boy, that's a that's a a loaded question, and and there's a lot of pivots that have happened um in the world of work in the last 25 years. So some really interesting points that that I can think of that that come up are we used to be able to increase salary by a quarter and get a whole different echelon of people, and it was remarkable in in the in this is the agency world. And now nowadays that would never fly, right? Um, we're we're talking about um way more money, um larger amounts in a quarter. Uh, some other things too that come to mind are really around the uh options for an applicant, having nowadays way more options. Uh the remote world, the um, you know, the question of whether we really need college in in our background. And so those those types of thoughts now are are are really changing up the recruiting space as well. Um, so those are a couple quick examples that I've seen. Um the flow and how we how we capture talent is incredible. Um, you know, are we are we scraping the internet for resumes? People are are selling lots of resumes in bulk. I mean, there's so many different facets now that have changed as it pertains to both the you know recruiter side of things and the candidate side of things, um, your options, even your communication uh via you know uh video or text messages. It's really changed. I can remember a time when we launched at Manpower, for example, a kiosk uh program where folks wouldn't even have to talk to anybody. And this is pre um 2008, I'd say. And so we had this the these bar stools and and PCs where people could just come in and log on and put in their information like they were at a coffee shop. Really uh an interesting European, maybe even concept. Um, it never never launched, but uh having Manpower's world headquarters in Wisconsin, where I'm located, we we were really um this testing uh model for a lot of their their tools and and look even, you know. So uh but yeah, that those are some thoughts that that come to my mind that uh it's it's been a
How tech has changed over the years
SPEAKER_00really interesting 25 years.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And were you when you were at uh manpower and the on the agency side, what was like what would what was the database like? I mean, even I know even at um K Force where I started out um just seven, eight years ago, even even the tech we had at K force seven years ago was pretty rudimentary. I mean, it was just like this really kind of messy, internally built um kind of database system. I mean, it was fine, it was good, but it wasn't like anything that you could optimize today, right? Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00This was this was uh this is a green screen, right? Let's get real. This is a green screen, this is homemade. Um, this is a monster um Linux database. I don't know. I'm just I'm thinking that um yeah, you you would have to call corporate to to get some sort of um spreadsheet if you needed to pull down, you know, um a database. I will say this we did implement this incredible calling uh service where I could leave a voicemail for 10,000 people at once, which was really slick. And that was back in 2007. And I know I paid like a nickel a call, but it was worth it because then the phones would just ring. And that's how we we we were in high volume. So we were high, we were hiring 2,000
The impact of starting your talent acquisition career on the agency side
SPEAKER_00some people, uh a pop, you know, it was it was really intense at our office. It was what I would call managed chaos, but it was it was that time in your life where you were getting exposed to sales, marketing, recruiting, HR, employee relations, all these different facets of business, you know, in your in your mid to late 20s. This is this is the shape uh for a lot of young professionals that are either wanting to get into recruiting, um, and you know, and and get exposed to understanding where their skill sets and their strengths are going to lie within all those business verticals.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I uh I I agree. And I I'm actually very happy that I started out on the agency side. And for whatever reason, I really wanted to do sales, I wanted to get new contracts in place. I don't know why I was so driven toward that, but uh I just knew it. Like I knew I started off as an intern at at K Force and I just I worked really, really hard. Um and uh I was I was able to get converted to an SDR, which I was thrilled about. And I remember like our VP, the market VP was like, Don't you want to just why don't you just do recruiting and then do account management? And then once you understand all of that, then you can move into sales, right? But I just I was just incredibly stubborn. I did I did the sales path and ultimately did the account executive uh role there. Um and it really I I literally think it rewired my brain just doing that type of outreach and working on the agency side and working with the account managers and really starting to systematically uh approach uh talent acquisition from a data-driven way. Um, I I think I I I ultimately didn't get, I think I I learned more like I went from I learned the data side at the big agency and then I went to go work for a boutique, and that's where I learned like the nuance and and the real art of like you know, persuasion and getting by and understanding people's priorities and building those relationships and and really developing the people first approach. The big agency was more of like just hitting hitting numbers, right? At least that was my experience.
SPEAKER_00You're spot on it, you're spot on. So my first I'd say 11 years was high volume, just the grind, you know. Like I had mentioned, we were filling call centers, 500 seats in six weeks at a call center, or you know, manufacturer uh engine plants where we're filling 300 people in a rural uh town of 3,000 people where I've got to come up with some creative um way to hire 300 welders. I mean, there's so many different things that you get exposed to, and then I land at a boutique like you're talking about where I'm dealing with only law firms and CEOs, and it's like taking everything that you're exposed in that in that large agency world, and it's a refinement. And you're it's it's almost like going from a a diner to a five-star restaurant and and and having that that expensive meal. And so you're really um you're you're taking that that experience to another level. Um, and I too have been through that. Um I think honestly, if HR executives or or even executives in general figured out that agency folks are the best recruiters to hire internally, that would they'd be putting the agency world out of business.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. I I've done a few posts on that on LinkedIn, and I actually got in a little bit of trouble because some corporate recruiters that didn't have an agency background got upset. Um, so now I try to be tactful about how I explain that. But I'm like, of course, there are exceptions. There are great recruiters that don't come from an agency background, of course. But but like I think that like if you're taking a risk and you're scaling out your talent acquisition team, I would make sure at least the first handful of people come from an agency background because I need to know they have that grind and resilience, and you know, they're able to they're able to look at things from a data-driven approach. I know they're going to be more likely to look at, okay, like what are the top reasons people accept our offers? What are the top reasons people decline our offers? They know how to have conversations with hiring managers, like, okay, look, we're doing it this way, we're not getting the result we need. How do I tactfully persuade the hiring managers to change the model or change the employment package or whatever needs to happen in order to achieve the outcome they're looking for? And and that's the hardest part is like not having the conversations and asking the right questions. I mean, that's stuff that you can be scripted, it's how to pull people along with the plan. And it's it's not even more so candidates, it's on with your team members. Like, how do you get the organizational buy-in from the executive leadership team from hiring managers to make the changes they need to make in order to actually hire top talent? Like, I always felt like that's the hardest part of the job.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think to to your point, you know, if you get a if you get a team that's uh diverse in experience, that agency, I call it scrappiness, even, you know, the the uh turning over every rock to to find uh I've I've shared some recruiting uh strategies with uh folks that they're like, where did you come up with that? Well, that's what you learn in the agency world, and you just honestly, I'm gonna say you just can't get that from corporate because you're you're slotted. You're that's what you do in the agency world. You're you've you've got that latitude to get it done, right? So um, you know, you know, just peeling back the onion on this, you know, I I always inspire uh young professionals to start in recruiting at the agency world because um you're gonna find out real fast if you have thick skin for rejection, for um, you know, resilience in in both your customers and your talent. I mean, there's so many different things you could, like you said, you could end up being in sales and never even go the recruiting track. So, you know, at the end of the day, if you're in the agency world, you're a counselor, your employee relations, your sales and marketing, your resume writer, your your recruiter, you know, you wear all these different hats. And it's it's you know, always inspiring to be able to add tools to your toolbox as a young professional. And um you know, folks that I've mentored, like I mentioned before, they've gone on from the agency to either compensation, sales and marketing, corporate recruiting, or even you know, corporate HR and worked in one of the verticals within HR. So really, it's a nice pivot. Um, if you can plan it out uh and and keep that flow going.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah. I mean, it's it's also like you know, the the equivalent would be in sales, right? People starting as an SDR. It's a really hard job, but you're gonna build a such a strong foundation that's gonna serve you even if you don't end up in sales in the future. It's just such a I mean, developing that thick skin, even if you don't have it at first, like you will have thicker skin. Maybe you never get good at that necessarily, but you're gonna be a lot stronger and a lot tougher and a lot more resilient. And and you're also gonna know that you can you can persevere through a difficult uh you know, it's whatever challenges come up in your career, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, I think too, to your point, it's about creating momentum. And in recruiting, I always talk to my team about momentum, and um, we're faced with a challenge, whether it's one boutique hire or it's you know, a thousand people we need to hire at our company, and and it's about momentum, and it's the same way in sales as an SDR. It's it's it's figuring out what you have to do each day to win, and and those small wins make up your day and and creating momentum to you know finding the top talents and turning over all the rocks and creating new ways to do things. Um, you know, those are the those are those tidbits of wisdom that uh
Intense requirements of agency side recruitment
SPEAKER_00that you need, you know.
SPEAKER_01Sure, sure. And just the grind too, like just getting back to that. I mean, I remember at K Force when I was in the accounting executive role, the expectation was it was pretty intense. It was a hundred cold calls a day, and there was no like dialer assistant thing, it was just punching in, and then I also had to I was supposed to do three in-person meetings a day, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I could remember that I can remember. Um, I think I was pulling off uh 10 to 12 uh in-person meetings per uh week, and I was the leader of the uh at the at the branch level, and so I was just um wearing multiple hats, right? So I had nine recruiters at manpower, I had a two-person team just doing direct perm placements, and then we ended up having a BDM as well. But I mean, those are all I mean, at the end of the day, you're managing multiple business units within a small company. And uh, but yeah, the expectation at the agency level is high. That's par for the job, and that's again where you learn whether you're gonna like um sales and marketing, whether you're gonna get into uh run and payroll for for the uh branch office, or are you just really into recruiting and loving that, or is it a mix of all that operations? I mean, it it really comes down to getting your feet wet, and that's why I've I've always suggested to folks uh try out that agency space. Um, you can get into a lucrative uh situation um if you get into the right agency, you know, if you're in perm placement, um if you're in a good, you know, I've had a lot of people ask me about getting into tech and or getting into a boutique uh, you know, business vertical of recruiting. You know, there's a lot of ways to look at it, but at the end of the day, you're gonna be exposed to a lot of great things. Uh, you're gonna learn a lot, you're gonna have multiple responsibilities, and you can really take that anywhere.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, oh, I I agree with you. I agree with you 100%. And so you were you were in the agency side. Are you now in a uh well, I know you're running a full department, but um are you is this is this in-house or is this agency that what are you currently doing?
SPEAKER_00This is corporate recruiting, yes.
SPEAKER_01Okay, yep, yep, and how big's your your um your recruiting team?
SPEAKER_00So I've got a director, uh, a senior team lead, and then I've got a whole uh gamut of recruiters, and we're all dispersed nationally. Um, I think um we're we've got I think we have a part-time um source or two, but the model is changing, you know, it's it's uh the traditional corporate recruiting is is breaking down in in these sourcing departments, even having sourcing directors now. And you know, um it's really changing. And and again, this is par for the the the space and world that we live in. Um international recruiting, I mean, there's a lot of different things that are are evolving here um as time goes by.
SPEAKER_01I I agree with you, and I'd love to dive more into that. Uh before we even get uh even
Transitioning from agency side to in-house recruitment
SPEAKER_01further into that, I would love to, I think everybody could could learn a lot from you in terms of um, could you tell us about like when you transitioned from the agency side to in-house and and now you know running a rather large town acquisition department, what were the big what tell us about that transition? Like, how is it different, right? What skill sets did you have to develop, or or maybe not develop, but it's just a shift in focus? I mean, can you talk to us a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_00For me, the biggest challenge, brass tax, is staying in my lane because after, you know, let's just say conservatively 17 years of the agency world, you are in charge of so many different facets of business that when you come into corporate, I I literally I was responsible for everything down to facilities, right? And so now I've I've had to to learn to stay in my lane, right? I'm recruiting, corporate recruiting. Um, so that was the biggest pivot for me. Otherwise, I'm golden. It's it's awesome. You're working with the same people, um, you're not having to do sales. I mean, it's it's a breath of fresh air, actually. And it's it's not managed chaos, right? It's this is our process. We have the opportunity to refine it. We just rolled out this new TA engagement program at our company that I created. And so that that allowed us to funnel communication correctly and just a lot of exciting stuff where I can now take all these years of experience uh in it in talent and share it with the executive team and and my team and and as as we get further down the road here.
SPEAKER_01Can you tell us more about the the TA engagement program and funneling communication? Is that like do you mean with your recruiters or do you mean with the hiring managers, like the process of having prior to me getting to our company, engagement really was a shotgun approach.
SPEAKER_00They would just reach out to talent and and tell us what they needed. And and really what I've done is soup to nuts. You've got to have these checks, these boxes checked, you've got to have these things approved by the the leadership in order to even talk with us and in and start engaging. So that's great. We've formalized uh you know, a process, and and we're doing uh we're rolling out a bonus program, which is awesome because uh, you know, even though we're corporate, I believe that the talent uh recruitment team should be incentivized, you know, in a in a bonus program, bringing that from the agency space. And I think that more corporate recruiters should be incentivized on that.
SPEAKER_01How do you so that's an interesting
Ensuring quality of hire with bonus incentive programs in place
SPEAKER_01topic too? Because it's it's um I actually have spent a lot of time thinking through that. How how do you ensure quality of hire remains top of mind with bonus incentive programs, right? Because on the agency side, I do think that some agency models, particularly contingent models where people are receiving like huge commissions and they're on low-based salaries and high quotas. I feel like that it incentivizes velocity and urgency for sure, which is great. But it also could potentially incentivize just push, push, push, push, push, push, get somebody in the in the door, and hopefully the client has the right checks and balances in place to ensure that that person is the best fit. Yeah, but if they don't, then you risk you know higher turnover, lower quality of hire. So, how do you when you're building out an internal talent acquisition team? How do you drive that urgency and velocity while making sure that you're getting the best fit people converted to that are actually going to add the most value to the organization and help it scale?
SPEAKER_00I'll tell you this, right? So when I rolled out this uh bonus structure and the TA engagement program, um, we rolled out SLA's service level agreements, and that is a two-way agreement from any hiring manager to my team. It and with that comes the quality, the process, the engagement, the return on on them, the hiring managers investing in in our process. So, with that, we um have guardrails on that. So that's that's how we're we're we're managing that. Um, right.
SPEAKER_01It comes down to process, right? I mean, it's it's you have to have a mature uh process with the right checks and balances and the right clarity from hiring managers, which sometimes it's been my experience too, that sometimes like hiring managers don't necessarily understand what makes somebody successful on their team. And so that's another very high level talent acquisition skill, my my opinion is being able to really get to the core of what does this role do? Like, what are the primary outcomes that need to be achieved? And how do we determine who's going to be the best fit? And we don't fall into faulty assumptions about personality traits being a primary driver. Or something like that, and really just getting to the core, right? I mean, do you do you feel like your team is doing that too with hiring managers, like helping them get clarity on yeah?
SPEAKER_00So we take it a step farther. Once we've had the TA engagement um process engaged and all the checks and balances are completed, we actually go through a kickoff meeting with that hiring manager where we have an interview where we interview that hiring manager and we ask those tough questions. Um and I can tell you, um, over the years, you you know, there it you know, you're gonna have the top 10 same questions every time. And you're right that the hiring managers they don't know HR, they don't know employment law, they don't know a lot of those things. We've got to guide them on that. And through this meeting, this kickoff meeting, um, launch meeting for our recruitment on their particular um position, we we tackle that and we have clarity so that we don't have to rewrite the job description multiple times during the the recruiting process. I've seen that happen. Um, we we dive into um you know what that uh individual business unit culture looks like with that hiring manager. Uh, we we look at all these different facets so that we take it a step farther than just posting and waiting in in our recruitment process.
SPEAKER_01Sure, sure. Well, and and what what type of talent are you all typically recruiting?
SPEAKER_00Is it is it tech, revenue, what we we have been uh so we're public health and uh some government contracts. So our hiring is very boutique, and you've got to have DOD clearances, you know. We're we're working with nurses um nationally as well, so a lot of boutique hiring, and there has to be process, there has to be checks and balances. Um that you know, maybe in the agency world you might have looked over, quite honestly.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, I I hear you. Um, and just for our listeners,
Recruiting tech stack
SPEAKER_01I I just want to quickly just cover. Could you tell us about your your tech stack? What you know, from ATS to sourcing tools to whatever kind of communication channels. I mean, what what is the what does the tech stack look like?
SPEAKER_00Uh I'm gonna I'm telling you, our our budget is phenomenal, and it's the largest budget I've ever worked with, and that allows me the latitude to do some incredible things uh for recruiting. You know, we're gonna have your LinkedIn, your um integrations with ISOMs, your Indeeds, your your your run of the mill. But what we've got going here is account success managers on the back end of all these uh contracts that want us to win. They they're meeting with us, they're optimizing us. Um, that's that's they're training us. I mean, there's so many awesome things that you know, if we're gonna be in a contract, I'm gonna hold you accountable for as well, right? So uh, you know, it's true, it's really true, you know, and a lot of people don't even understand that that you know, for example, we we use isomes, that's a robust system, but I'm telling you, it's pretty powerful. I've worked in a lot of other systems, and they're that you know, the the missing link for me through the years has been that static relationship as a candidate flows through the system, and if you move them, then they're suddenly lost somewhere else in the system. Well, isems really has that, it has everything we need, and quite honestly, it is integrated to all of our platforms, which allows just point and click and tagging. It's just incredible, actually.
SPEAKER_01Did you implement iSIMs when you arrived, or was it pre existing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was there, it was there, yep. Okay, yeah, but we've we've leveled up, we've um we've been really working with our success managers, um, training and optimization, and just you name it, we're really working on that.
SPEAKER_01Do they um is that like I you know, there's in my opinion, like just this is an oversimplification, but it just helps like organize my thoughts on ATS. There's really to me, there's like two types, right? You're you have more of an SMB solution that's gonna work, you know, workflows are gonna be kind of nice out of the box, it's not gonna really require a lot of implementation, um, but it's gonna lack when it comes to reporting, scalability, integrations, yeah, things of that nature. Um, and then you have the robust, like more so enterprise tools that are gonna have great integrations and the right reporting, um, and the right kind of data integrity and checks and balances, and even DENI can be implemented. All sorts of different things can be associated directly with the ATS. Um, but there are tools like there are limitations.
SPEAKER_00No, there I was just gonna say you're right, there are limitations, right? And I've worked in some small SMB type of uh ATS systems, you know. I think honestly, if you wanted my opinion on it, I love the fact that if we can have an ATS system integrated with payroll, right? And there's so much communication with payroll, onboarding, and the ATS itself from a candidate flow. I have found through the years that if we can have a system that talks and works or is part of the payroll system, it'll it it helps out so much.
SPEAKER_01And this does iSIMS integrates with your payroll system? Yes, and which is which payroll system do you all use ADP, yeah. ADP. Okay, so that's like uh and it okay. So when somebody's moved to higher status, it automatically transfers the data into ADP.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, you can even have uh onboarding as part of it through isoms uh into ADP.
SPEAKER_01So is the so does the onboarding live in isIMs or live in ADP?
SPEAKER_00You can have it, you can do either. Okay, that's what's pretty slick about it. That is cool. What do you just what how do you do it?
SPEAKER_01Is it do you prefer it on the isum side or on the ADP side?
SPEAKER_00Personally, I would love to see it, and we're talking about I'd love to see it on the on the isum side of things, just because when you think about it logically, you're onboarding somebody, you've put them through the isomes process in the ATS system. You would think that would be the next step. So, but right now it lives in ADP, but it it would be great to be on the isom side.
SPEAKER_01We use greenhouse, which is very common in tech and growth stage companies, startups, growth stage companies, and um, I really love it. I mean, we we use it as our internal tool, and and it's also what we've implemented it and optimized it for probably a dozen clients at this point in time. They have an onboarding feature that we haven't I haven't paid for it, I actually haven't used it. Um, I'm I'm curious to to try it one day. I haven't gotten around to it, but I am starting to see a bit of a trend there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and greenhouse is great, I love it. Um, I've worked in and around it. Uh, so we have so many government contracts that are we're we're really firm with affirmative action, and that doesn't allow us to do point and click application. Okay, so and we can get into the weeds on that at another time, but it it so for us right now, the way we have ISOM set up with Indeed and LinkedIn and some of these other platforms, it's it's really um it it to me, it's a little bit longer process, but it it fulfills um our checks and balances for government compliance.
SPEAKER_01Do you also work with uh clearance jobs? No, no, so are these like cleared positions where they need uh top secrets or yeah, dod clearance, yes. Okay, yep, but not not clearance jobs. So, what's where do you find your best cleared talent typically? Is it if it's not clearance? I've heard of clearance jobs, I've worked with it a little bit in the past, but like is indeed good. I I've never had success with indeed in any environment really, like any really meaningful success at personally,
Breaking down talent sourcing websites
SPEAKER_01yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, I think there's validity to that. So if you don't mind, I'll pull I'll peel back the onion, right? So if you want you if you want a certain caliber or type of position, you're going zip, zip recruiter. If you want another type of position, you're gonna go indeed, right? And then if you're looking for uh, you know, maybe even these DOD uh clearance type uh recruits, you're you're gonna check out LinkedIn. LinkedIn is really uh a good conduit to finding um passive and and current talent that are looking. And there's a lot you can do with it. Um, I mean, we could probably have a whole podcast on things I've done in the last year on LinkedIn building databases. It's incredible what I've I've been doing. Yeah, uh, and and so to answer your question, yeah over the past 25 years, you know, you're gonna get something from Monster, something from Indeed. But what I've figured out is there are different types of positions. Um Monster, I've always seen sales folks on. Zip, I've always seen you know, a different caliber of person on, and then Indeed, you know, your your high volume recruiting possibly. Uh LinkedIn, you're obviously it's uh more of a professional environment, too, which you know, honestly, that's becoming even more blurred um these days as more and more people join LinkedIn, right?
SPEAKER_01Right. I mean, it used to be like, oh, you can't hire engineers on LinkedIn, they're not on LinkedIn. That's like like that's not true. If I talk to a VP of engineering, they're like, I'm never on LinkedIn. I'm like, okay, maybe you're not, but we like we staff 90% of our engineering and product roles through outbound on LinkedIn.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, there's lots of different tools, but yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, the the I think the the upside of LinkedIn is there, you know, and again, we could probably have a whole podcast on LinkedIn, but it it there's so many incredible facets to not only communicating, but talent types of talent on LinkedIn. Um, you know, uh that's just continuing to evolve. It's it's quite remarkable.
SPEAKER_01Right. I I totally agree. And and I I you're right, we're gonna have to do another podcast. We're coming up on time. I'd say we go for like another five minutes. And the I know we I want to touch on the last topic we talked about, which is where talent should sit within an organization, um, which in my my opinion, and I think it aligns with yours, it should be its own separate function, it shouldn't roll up through HR um or or anything else for that matter. It shouldn't roll up through marketing or anything. I mean, it should be its own function and have a seat at the executive table. Could you, I mean, so I agree with you on that, uh, but could you explain to us why? Like, why is that so important?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, that's uh uh in in certain circles a delicate um topic to discuss. And and you know, through my career, I've either reported to the CFO or CEO of the organization. And um, I have found that you know, alone having that latitude allows me and the talent department to have quicker decision making, right? And so I guess what it comes down to is the fact that I believe recruiting fundamentally is selling opportunities, it's an extroverted oper, you know, uh type of um personality. It's um, you know, HR is a strategic arm, it's come forward at the boardroom, um, which is great, but thinking styles and and and culture um maybe even is a little bit different. And uh that's kind of fundamentally my thought and behind why I think that uh you know we have it set up that way at our current company. Um the HR is my peer and we work shoulder to shoulder, but we're our mission is very different,
The difference between HR and talent acquisition
SPEAKER_00you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think it's um, you know, I what I don't think works is if it's you have talent acquisition reporting to like a VP of HR. There are some really phenomenal chief people officers that I think can manage that properly, particularly if they have a background in talent acquisition, they're not just high-level HR, but they actually get talent acquisition. Yeah, um, and sometimes that that can be beneficial because it's like the from the from the employee journey perspective, transitioning from talent to onboarding, creating that seamless process and experience can be beneficial. But what what the the that like as you said, like a lot of times what ends up happening is if you have like a kind of like a pure kind of HR leader that doesn't understand talent. And I mean, really their job is to protect the company. I mean, they're they're doing other things too, and they're trying to create you know benefit programs and obviously help people, but a lot of what you know HR is doing is putting in place policy, uh, you know, certain employment contracts, reviewing reviewing risk, uh making sure that payroll systems are set up properly, benefits are set up properly. It's a totally different focus from essentially the the sales and marketing kind of demand generation motion that you have to go through to hire top talent. And you know, I'm a little different incentive.
SPEAKER_00It is, it's it's a little different, and you're spot on. Uh, I I think I'll mention one thing that I've um championed, and that is cross-training. And so, what we've decided to do, my peer and I, is to cross-train our teams in the event that we need more HR help or we need more talent help. And uh years ago, um Corporate America had a lot of uh cross-training going on with international presences, you know, around the world and whatnot. So um, but on a micro level, that's that's one initiative um that we're doing. Um, you you know, it's it's very complicated right now, retaining people, finding good talent. So we believe that fundamentally having some added skills in cross-training for our toolboxes is it's just gonna help us further um you know develop our retention. And quite honestly, if one of my team members cross-trains and realizes they love being a generalist or employer relations specialist, I'm I'm gonna want as a as a business leader and a TA leader to allow them to make that pivot.
SPEAKER_01For sure. And you want people with a talent background in HR, it's gonna benefit talent acquisition too, because you're gonna be able, they're gonna be shaping policies and thinking about these things. Um, it's like one final point to kind of reference is when it's when it comes to retention, um, I'm in total uh alignment that we we have to do everything we can to increase retention, but also at the same time, you know, like I think that some companies sometimes try a little bit too hard to fight against the current. And it's you know, tenures are decreasing. How do we how do we become successful in that type of environment? Right. Um, how do we get how does HR and town acquisition work with hiring managers to get super clear on the top three outcomes that a position needs to create? Right. How do we accelerate onboarding and ramp time? Um, you know, better training experiences and limiting the scope of roles to just get hyper clear on what matters and and doing those things up front. So you know, we understand people may not stay as long, but can we can we try to find a way to get the employee ramps faster so they're adding value to the organization faster? I think that's it, that's another kind of critical challenge that HR and talent teams have to focus on solving right now, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, and and just piggybacking on that, we're we're in a virtual world. I mean, we we've had co-workers that have never met each other, right? Let's get let's let's get real here, and that's a whole nother dynamic that we're managing to, right? And and that has a direct correlation to retention and um you know performance and and being productive in your in your current role, and so it's it's very, very complicated right now there in the world of work. And you know, if someone can figure it out, and you know, I don't know if there is an answer right now. There's so many moving parts to it. Um it's it's it's it's wild out there, right?
SPEAKER_01It's good, and it's what I love about what you just said is that it's not something that should be like it's easy to look at. I feel like town acquisition, a lot of executive leaders, if they don't have a background in it, they really kind of oversimplify it and they just see it as this kind of transactional light switch they can flip on or off whenever they're going through a hiring surge, and then they're always like constantly frustrated why we're not getting great results. It's like, well, your town acquisition team has no budget, you're trying to spin it up in three weeks opposed to proactively doing it the right way.
SPEAKER_00Um, you know, it's just it's that's one one that's one thing we we luckily have is an outstanding budget for our TA team, and we've got I've got a couple people that they're just doing the data part of it, and and if you've got that mix of talent and and uh duties and and uh it's just for us it's worked out real well.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. Well, I'll look, I'm excited to to continue the conversation. We would love to have you back for for a part two. And we are coming up on on time here. So so Luke, I just wanted to say, you know, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your insights and experience. Um, I've had a lot of fun talking with you.
SPEAKER_00You bet if uh happy to do it anytime. Just let me know. And I I congratulations again on hitting your uh 20th episode.
SPEAKER_01Yes, we're we're picking up some serious momentum. Our downloads are doubling month by month, and it's it's been a ton of fun. So we're we're looking forward to to doing this for the long term. Uh thanks, James. Yeah, thank you. And for everybody tuning in, uh, thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time.
