EP 19: How a Recruiter Amassed over 131K followers on LinkedIn w/ Joel Lalgee

Joel Lalgee, lead recruiter at Hirewell, who has amassed over 131K followers on LinkedIn, joins host James Mackey to break down his social media game and much more!

Episode Chapters

00:28 Who is Joel Lalgee

03:31 Content development as a function of talent acquisition

13:45 The need to diversify your recruitment efforts

23:01 ROI of social media posting for a recruiter

31:35 What are things employers need to do to attract and retain recruiters

34:40 What recruiters should be looking for when deciding what company to work for

37:15 Recruiters Should Set Themselves up as a Business for Contract Recruiting

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Hey, and welcome to Talent Acquisition Trends and Strategy Episode 19. Today we are uh joined by Joel Lalgy.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Hey, great to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Yeah, we're really, we're really happy to have you on the show and very excited about today. Um, we have some some really cool topics to discuss, uh, many of which we have not discussed on the show thus far. So um that's gonna be a lot of fun. But before we we we jump into it all, uh I would love to just uh, you know, if you could share a little bit about yourself to the audience

Who is Joel Lalgee

SPEAKER_00 1:14

so we we know what you know perspective you're coming from.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Yeah, absolutely. So I I work for a company called Hirewell, a Chicago-based recruitment agency. And the team that I'm on is uh the HR talent acquisition team. So I focus primarily on filling HR positions really of all levels. So I might have a H HR coordinator all the way up to VP of HR, and then the same on the TA side as well. Um, and before that, I I spent a number of years actually coaching recruitment teams across the globe on how to develop a content strategy on LinkedIn. Um, and prior to that, I spent about five years uh in recruitment, working for a different agency. Um, and I was actually focused on construction recruiting. So I've been in recruiting for about seven years. Um, over the last three years, I've really worked pretty hard at developing a personal brand on LinkedIn. And I've seen um, you know, follower count, views, everything um kind of compound over the years. So I'm at 130,000 followers right now, which is kind of unbelievable. Um and and yeah, so I'm probably most well known now, at least over the last year, for posting uh recruitment memes that hopefully recruiters find relatable, uh, but you know, really taking a look at some of the situations that we face as recruiters, dealing with hiring managers, uh, dealing with the recruitment process and kind of making fun of it, but really bringing light to it as well for candidates and and really for recruiters as well. So passionate about our industry and uh, you know, really excited to be here to chat through some of these um topics that we're gonna chat about today as well.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Yeah, absolutely. And uh, you know, actually Nick and I have actually been we, you know, over the past few months, um going through a lot of your content and you know, trying to understand your formula. So I'm I'm I'm really excited to ask you more questions about that because it's it's very impressive, the audience that you've built. And and Nick and I are just like, wow, this is incredible. Like, look at look at the engagement too. It's not just about like the the the uh consistency that you post, but uh and those for for everybody listening in, Nick's uh the producer of the show, he's actually here with us as well. And he might be chiming in. But um, you know, we we we've just been really impressed with you, Joel. Like uh everything that the audience that you built, um the how relatable your content is. It's it's just been a really cool to see your following growing everything that you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

Yeah, awesome. Well, yeah, it's uh it's just been a kind of crazy journey. And I know uh a lot of times people ask questions about the engagement, but it's really just happened organically, which is uh which is absolutely fantastic. So happy to share any of that, any of those insights. And hopefully people also get a sense that like I'm just obviously just a regular person and there's nothing like hyper special about me, really.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

So gotcha. Well, you know, since we're I guess since we're already kind of talking about content, yeah, uh maybe we just start

Content development as a function of talent acquisition

SPEAKER_00 4:17

there. Um so I guess, you know, want to kind of get your thoughts on content as a function for talent acquisition, content development, primarily, I guess, on this point, maybe LinkedIn. But I also know you're on Twitter and you you you're on some other platforms possibly as well. But um I I'm curious to get your thoughts on the importance of content for recruiters, talent leaders, and how people and people in talent functions should be thinking about a content strategy. And how much time do you think people really should be investing in this? Like, should everybody be trying to replicate what you're doing, or is there is there kind of like another strategy for maybe people? Like, I'm curious to get your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Yeah, I I think you know, I I I think the first thing to understand too with the content that I'm putting out, particularly now, is you know, I'm like I said before, I'm recruiting recruiters, recruiting a lot of TA professionals. So it a lot of ways the the people that I'm recruiting are pretty invested in LinkedIn themselves. Like most recruiters are using LinkedIn, they're on LinkedIn, same with HR, right? So so the content that I'm producing is for people who are, you know, typically the super users of LinkedIn. Now, I think if I was recruiting software engineers or if I was recruiting um, you know, tech talent, I don't know whether LinkedIn would actually even be my number one platform. I think I'd probably try and look at Reddit or you know, the dark web or wherever these you know tech tech guys are hanging out. So I think that's the first thing to just understand is like I have the perfect storm. Like I'm talking about recruiting on what is probably considered the biggest recruiting platform um at the at this moment in time, LinkedIn. So um I and I I think in terms of like time that other people should spend, like to me, social strategy, just you just need to schedule it out. So to me, like I've there were there was a time when I first started where I was spending three to four hours a day. That's obviously not something that you can continue to do over time uh with without like losing results in other areas of business. So now I'm usually spending about half an hour to an hour a day. Um and it's not just producing content, it's connecting with people, it's uh commenting on other people's content. It's really to me just creating connection digitally. That's that's all I'm doing. That's how I look looked at it. And I think the mine, the mind like shift that you have to have is I think historically in recruiting, it's it's all been about the phone and getting people on the phone. And you know, and that's still my goal. Like I have I probably set up, you know, seven to ten conversations a day. So I'm on the phone a lot. It's just instead of using the phone to try and set up phone conversations with cold calls or even like cold emails, the tactic I've decided to take is let me make that first connection with somebody online, whether that's through a comment on their content, whether that's commenting on their comment, whether that's liking something, or whether it's sending them a DM. So I've just had a big mind shift over the last three years. Um, and I think more and more recruiters are getting on onto this. But I think if if you're gonna start, you know, this if you probably have to put a little bit more time at the beginning. But you know, to me, it's it's just all about consistency. And that's really where I think I've just set myself apart is over the last three years, like I've just been extremely consistent with it. And what I found is, you know, initially when I was putting a lot of time in, I probably built a pretty strong foundation for for the future. But you know, I've also I've also learned that you don't need, you know, you don't need a thousand likes on a post to generate a sales lead. You you probably need, you know, five likes, and those five people need to be qualified buyers for you. So I think like the illusion of big engagement, the the illusion of big follower accounts, um, those things don't matter as much. I mean, really what matters is like, are the people that you're recruiting, are the people that you're looking to work with, are they engaging with the content? Are you getting in front of them? Are you building familiarity with them? And I think you mentioned it too. Like for me, the biggest results is actually in my outbound. So when I'm reaching out to recruiters, I get a lot of people reaching back out saying, Hey, I love your content or I've seen your content. And so it's just an easy way for me to separate myself from other people. And so I think, you know, using that same mindset, if you're going after tech talent, you could do the same thing. Like find out where these people are engaging, get involved in those conversations. And the more you do that, the more recognizable you are, whether or not you're producing content or not, it's just starting conversations online at the end of the day. And I think that's the that's almost a mind shift that you have to have is is, you know, this is really just creating conversations in a different way.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Yeah, and I I agree with you. And uh you're right. I mean, I think, you know, I've never I have not been able to scale my content to the extent that you have. Um, you know, I've been able to to build up a I think a decent reputation. I've been posting somewhat consistently um over the past, I guess, like five years or so. Uh, but yeah, you're right. Like you don't have to have thousands of engagements in order to create relationships and sales leads or partnerships or or just you know, meet really cool people, right? Um, it's it's like just starting to happen now where I feel like I'm I'm able I'm I'm starting to get a little bit more uh I guess well known within tech over the past year or two, just based on the amount of customers we've worked with. But it's it's definitely a slightly different angle. Um, but I guess like one thing that um I I did notice is you know, there have been posts where I've gotten the five likes that have converted into new customers, right? And it's it's like I still the scale is still impressive, even when you get low engagement. Like you can say something that's still getting in front of a few thousand people.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Even if it's not, you know, you're not knocking it, you know, out the park and it's it's not, you know, like uh in one of one of uh like your posts with like 8,000 likes. I can still, even if I'm not achieving that scale, I'm still getting in front of a few thousand people versus if I just do a DM, I'm getting in front of one person. Obviously, I still need to do the individual outreach uh at times, but you really it's still the scale is still worth it, even if you aren't like a top influencer.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

100%. And we when you know, when I was coaching people, I mean we just break down the numbers and go, hey, if you get you, I mean, getting 5,000 views a day is probably more achievable than most people think. And if you work that out to like, let's say a week, that's 25,000 views a week, that's a hundred thousand views in a month, that's a million views a year. And I think the reality is is on again on on LinkedIn, the platform, you know, the platform as a whole, when you look at things that go viral, a lot of times it's inspirational stories, it's it's a lot of fluff. And, you know, obviously, again, I think my content's kind of an anomaly because you know, I'm reaching out to recruiters. Recruiters are on LinkedIn all the time. So again, if I'm making fun of recruiting or I'm I'm looking at the process and kind of making a joke around it, it's gonna go viral because everybody that I'm trying to reach relates to it. Uh, I'm not sure that that would happen if I was recruiting mechanical engineers or if I was recruiting software developers. It's so to your point, it's not about the amount of likes, it's just about being consistent and over time it's compounding. And really what you want is you want somebody to, you know, as you reach out to them, they go, Hey, I I think, yeah, I've recognized you, like I've seen you before. And that within itself, you're going from a cold interaction to a warm interaction. That's all it is. And you're able to do that at scale for free. And, you know, I think I think what happens though is a lot of like coaches, they get obsessed with this, like inbound, inbound, inbound. And to me, like in recruiting, it's so competitive. You can just you can't ever just rely purely on inbound. You've always got to have an outbound strategy and everything's a balance. And whether it's organic social, whether it's paid social, you've really got to balance everything out and just realize that like there's no like one solution because the buying demographic now has just changed where like some people, some people won't pay attention unless you do have a social following. Some people don't care about that and will respond to a cold call. So, like to say there's just a one-way solution now is just ridiculous. Like, you really have to diversify your strategy. And hey, that's times where I'm sending out cold emails. Why? Because not everybody responds to a social media post. So I think I think the danger is it's obviously if you're selling like a coaching course around like inbound marketing, then you're gonna be all about that. But again, you should you be doing some cold calling? Why not? Why not spend half an hour a day, an hour a day doing some cold calling? Because different people respond to different things at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Right. Well, that's actually very interesting. That's um one of the first things Nick did when he joined was um, as our VP of marketing, he started to open up additional channels. Like we had been pretty much 100% inbound, and um, you know, he started he opened up uh you know different outreach campaigns on LinkedIn through email. We started to explore ads and really start to push for outbound as well. Like we knew that okay, 75% of revenue is coming from word of mouth referrals, like you know, as which is typical for services, particularly in our industry, right? Um, but we started playing with all these things. We've we've already, Nick, how much revenue we brought in due to outbound channels we've opened up?

SPEAKER_01 13:57

I think around 1.5.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

1.5 million, yeah. So that's a few months. Like just just experimenting with new channels that we hadn't even been, you know, like I guess we haven't even had time to optimize necessarily.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Right. It's this this digital door knocking concept. It's you just need to start and send the because you're right, Joel. Some people respond to different things, and it's just getting your your message out there in exactly different ways.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

And and I think that's where, like, you know, what I again what happens is like just people become obsessed with

The need to diversify your recruitment efforts

SPEAKER_02 14:31

one channel and and then they're like, oh, that's this is the goal, the golden key, you know, like or the silver bullet, whatever you want to call it. But I just think diversification, especially right now in in recruiting, it's so competitive that you know it'd be like you would never coach a new recruiter and say, okay, one in mail is gonna cut it. It's like, yeah, you're probably gonna need to say, send that original in mail, then a follow-up in mail, then connect with on LinkedIn, send a couple DMs, maybe you send a voice note, maybe you send a video note, then you're gonna send an email. Like it's it's that competitive. But I think having content as a framework to start off with, it's really powerful because I know that when I go to sleep, people are still seeing my content. And that's working for me over and over and over. And if you're if you're a recruiter, like you said, that's just DMing or you're just doing cold calling, you're never scaling that. You know, I think you're just missing out, really. And it when you look at it, if you're only have if you only have to do 15 minutes to half an hour a day and it's free, then why not take advantage of that? And I do think there's just value in just knowing, like, obviously in the future, if you look at teenagers and like, you know, whatever Gen Z and people who are coming into the workforce, they are obsessed with social media and particularly like video content. So to ignore that, it's just, you know, if you it's it's obviously the future. So I think just you know, as recruiters, as people who are in an employer brand, it's just understanding that there is a shift of how people interact with brands, how they interact with companies. You've got to understand that. And again, it's it's somebody's just gotta try things and just and just figure it out. And I love the fact that you're the you know, you're the CEO of the company and you're doing it. I think more CEOs need to be doing it. And what happens is is they CEOs go, well, we'll hire a social media intern and they'll do it. No, wrong, wrong solution. Like maybe they help with organizing things and and creating like a workflow, but as a CEO, you have that opportunity to get your voice out there and get your brand out there. And that's what people connect with. Like if I'm if I'm looking to work at a company and I can you know here see that company podcast and I see the CEO or I see leadership in the company, I'm much more likely to get a feel for who they are as a company and get excited about them rather than you know, looking at executives that are kind of like untouchable. You know, so I think to your point too, like if you're a leader of a company or CEO, being authentic with your content is absolutely massive because in general, work cultures that we've created over the last 20 years are just super fake. Like you cannot be yourself and go to work. And now we're transitioning into a time where companies are saying that you can be yourself. And so I think if you're, you know, particularly if you're a CEO of a smaller company, complete, you know, secret weapon is just getting on social and making videos. It's just it's massive, it's bigger than people think.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

It is, and it's it's it is working. I mean, our whole relationship-based sales, our whole content strategy, it's more and more we're getting leads where like a VP will reach out to us of a gross stage company, right? And I'll ask them, like, how'd you hear about us? And they'll say, Our CEO told me to reach out to you. And I'll look up the CEO and I'm like, I don't know, like, I don't know who this is. So, like something's happening. They're the VCs are noticing, or the CEOs are reading the content or some combination, or they're talking to their network or other CEOs, peer groups, and it it's it's actually, you know, it's it's starting to drive more and more business. So I love that. And and it's also just I like this better than just doing cold outreach. I mean, it's it's more enjoyable. You are making more natural connections with people that want to engage. It's like you don't have to appeal to everybody in your industry or everybody in the group that you'd like to connect with. You have to appeal to you know, a decent enough segment of those individuals that share similar values and interests and have similar perspectives and want to engage, right? Um, it it's it's it's like I I think um, you know, some people, I think you know, some recruiters too, it's it's they don't necessarily I think some people don't feel as comfortable posting, right? I I think it's like maybe this perfectionist trap, or they feel like, oh, do I really have the experience required in order to, you know, to write uh content that that people are gonna like? And I I think they just like I think they're just overthinking it, right? It's like it doesn't have to be the greatest thing ever written on LinkedIn, or it doesn't have to you just talk about your own experiences. What are you up to? What what challenges are you are you working through? What light bulb moments have you had throughout your career? Just make it personal, right? And and it's it's uh just about your own experience. Uh that's okay too. And even if it's not like you don't like, I don't think people actually even have to just write content based around the the market they want to target. If that feels like too heavy of a lift, it's better for them to write about anything than about nothing. It's still a brand building motion to to write about you know their interests or things they're passionate about versus just you know being silent and not not engaging, right? Um I think I I hope that more people will just start to kind of I don't know, just put the be willing to put themselves out there. I know it can be scary, but it doesn't have to be this like you know, insane, intense, no, even hyper consistent strategy. It's still it's still better than nothing to just get out there sometimes, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Yeah, and I and I think you know what happens is is is and I've seen this because I used to coach people and I we had like an eight-week boot camp where we'd run them through the basics, run them through how to how to do some basic copywriting, how to create a video, what kind of topics to post about. And I would see it, like people get really excited at the beginning, and then it was like the consistency afterward would drop off because I think it it's it's just prioritizing it and and just understanding that at the end of the day, it's it's something that's not going away. It's like you said, you can overthink it, but I'm I'm living proof. Like I'm I started off as you know, I was a talent acquisition consultant. So I was literally new into the recruiting game, and I just started talking about how to create you know catchy subject lines to get a prospect interested or how to how to engage with a candidate in DMs to make it personalized. I just started talking about things that I was thinking about, and yep, people resonated with it. I started having conversations. Um, so yeah, I totally agree with you. I think people do overthink it. And like you said too, like I took a I took the whole of last week off without posting. Two years ago, I would have never done that because I was posting three times a day. But now I just realized like this isn't going away. And so the strategy to me is like this is a 20-year, 30-year, 40-year career strategy. So again, even with like I I think a lot of times, like people, even with like a podcast, like we were talking about this before, like 90% of podcasts don't make it through 50 episodes. And it's because like they're do you're doing it to like get a result that you think like has to happen overnight instead of realizing, like, hey, you know, maybe I have to do a thousand episodes of this podcast throughout ever, then you take the pressure off, and it's not about one episode or one post, it's just about being present and people seeing you and then getting getting to know you. And I haven't even been there, I haven't been to any in-person events, but I guarantee you, if I went to an in-person event, a recruiting event in the UK, in the US, people are gonna, you know, if I'm like, hey, it's Joel Algae, people will be like, oh man, I've seen your stuff. Like it happens all the time. But you know, it's just it again, even without the virality and a lot of like the engagement, that would still happen because it's like lots of people are just are see it, and that's and that's how you know that's the joy of social. And I love it. I you know, I I love this stuff. So I'm um, and I think like as recruiters, again, it's just it's like prioritizing it. And you know, I I know the the challenge is there's like even at our

SPEAKER_00 22:46

company like there some of the our top billers that really don't do anything on social media right um but it doesn't mean that it doesn't mean that like you shouldn't still be creating and i'm just like if you guys did put out content you'd probably get more results on top of top of the building so right and also it's just like a long-term play right like just having that that brand is incredible and valuable and I think that more of these brands like the influencer brands on LinkedIn are gonna start to be monetized more and more I I think we're still kind of in the early stages of that but yeah five 10 years from now I think there's gonna be significant value for content creators that excel on on this platform. I mean there probably already is you know better than I do but um I I assume that that's a trend that's gonna continue and and there's gonna be more ways to to leverage that community that's that you know you that people are working hard to build right now on on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Yeah and I think like you know for me like the ROI has been simple like you know when like for example I

ROI of social media posting for a recruiter

SPEAKER_02 23:47

quit like I quit my job right at the beginning of the pan well it was about six months into the pandemic I was just working at an agency that was it just was not the type of agency I wanted to be working at but obviously like this was like six months into the pandemic so there just wasn't a lot of jobs quit my job started a business and I was able to produce revenue right away because of the brand you know it was just like hey I'm open for business next thing I know I'm getting leads and the business was helping recruitment companies with content so you know it kind of just made sense and this was this was you know again about two years ago now um and then you know kind of quickly realized like okay maybe this isn't what I'm as passionate about like I enjoy creating content for myself not necessarily creating it for other people um and so then I got that coaching gig but it the coaching gig came because the CEO knew who I was because of the content did that for a while I was like okay coaching is fun like this you know I went through a couple of changes with life like had a new baby I was like I needed something a little bit more secure and so I started looking at my network and going well what recruitment agencies would I want to work with got three interviews with zero applications got three offers on the table and I picked what I wanted and every single person that I interviewed with they're like oh this is great like you have you have an intangible thing here you have something which most recruiters don't have and but I I believe that even if I didn't have a big follower count the same thing would be would be said because there's something there's an intangible benefit that comes with that like there's brand recognition and now I look at like our internal hires for hire well for example pretty much like you know pretty pretty much you know let's say 50 to 60% of people we hire will will say things like oh I've been following Joel for a while or I heard from Joel. And I think like that that is massive you know and and but there's nothing stopping anybody else from doing that at the end of the day. And I think the only thing that stops people is things like what are other people going to say or I don't want to put myself out there or I'm gonna get haters. And it's like do I get people commenting negatively on my posts? Of course I do. I used to get really impacted by it but now it's just like who cares? Like I get if you do cold calls like you're gonna get more abuse doing cold calls than you will posting social media. Like people hate getting cold calls.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

That is 100% true as as a marketer I have been called every nasty mean name and and there just comes a point where you where you just say to yourself I don't care I I have a a mission and I'm I'm gonna carry that mission out and I you know I I was called a dumbass just two days ago so exactly it just happens all the time it comes with the territory and you just got to keep grinding forward.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

Exactly. I mean yeah imagine if you you send out an email campaign and then you just quit because somebody was like you know this is the worst email I've ever seen it's like oh yeah I get that all the time this email sucked too long you know terrible you know technically immediately I've I've heard everything you can imagine. But the funny thing is too it's like I've seen people like actually get on like some of my content and like get like get really really heated or just say something and then like I get a DM a couple days later and like oh I just it's totally not me. Like I don't know why this triggered me so much. And I think at the end of the day it's just it's people not nothing you can do about it. But I'm so thankful I didn't let like hate or fear or even just like like you said before you I mean you're talking about like imposter syndrome like oh man what what do I have to say and it's like okay like I I'm not playing like if if if you look at like on social media like I'm not playing the role of like some CEO and I'm not like pretending to be something I'm not and I think that's that can be that pressure where like you know when people are starting they feel this pressure they got to be this thought leader or they got to be something but again like you know it's like people just connect with real people and you know you get called out real quick if you're not being real. But you know authenticity is huge and then you get in I get into sales meetings with people who have seen my content they're like oh my God like I feel like I know you and I'm like I that never happened when I cold cold people it was always like having to twist an arm and be like come on come work with us we'll give you a discounted rate like I promise you we'll produce that changes like when people know you because then they're like oh I want to work with you because like you said if you talk about things you like if you talk about things that you know you're gonna attract the people that you probably would work with well. And the reality is is you cannot like in sales like some people want to work with you some people just won't and you will never convince the people that won't to work with you. So like and if you do convince them they're usually the worst relationships anyway. So it's like you kind of use it as a magnet to attract the things you know the people that you're gonna relate to.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Right. I mean I honestly sometimes the difficulty of the sales process correlates to the difficulty of the customer. It's like 100% it's it's sometimes it's it's you know when things are going easy from the first interaction and it just kind of clicks it's sometimes the best business relationships. Um so I agree with that's a that's uh very intuitive of you to to to notice that but I I I think um I I completely agree it's um yeah and it's like you don't always have to force you don't have to appeal to everybody no it's not it's not it won't happen first of all but you know it's also it's just it's just not something that you need to do to be successful.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

Yeah and it's it's it's Gannon's like this over the last two years in particular like the the kind of silver lining of the pandemic from a business development view is particularly in recruiting is you now can find clients all around the US even all around the world you can work globally because people have adapted and you can do Zoom meetings. So if you think that like yeah okay if your territory was just a little you know even a city I mean obviously there's lots of businesses in the city but let's say your your your geography was just one location okay then you you don't have you know maybe you need to think about that more but now that it's nationwide it's like there's so much business that like you can attract in in in the business. And I think that's why like as an organization trying to get other people in the organization to post content as well is really important because again if they're talking about things that they like it's going to be different than things that you like or things that they you know about. So you're gonna attract different people um and I think like to to me like that is the whole key to like as a as a company as a team how do you get the team engaged? How do you encourage them to produce content? And I think it goes back to what you said like you don't put pressure on it and you find the people who are naturally wanting to do it. You encourage them and then hopefully the people who are a little bit more reserved about it, they see the fruits from from that you know from putting it putting themselves out there and they start to get involved as well. And uh I think you know going forward for like employers and and brands again it's like it's almost like a superpower that you have against big companies because what happens with really big companies is their brand is so ingrained and they they like police their brand smaller companies like you you don't have that limitation. You can let your people be the people and that's a that's a huge to me that's it's a huge thing that's underutilized. And you know especially if you're trying to compete with big brands on pay on things like pay where you just can't compete with them I think smaller brands and smaller companies can start to leverage content to really get like culture out because typically cultures at smaller companies are different than cultures at larger companies where everything's really policed and you you know yeah if you're working for Amazon like you've got to be careful what you say because you don't want to taint the Amazon brand.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

So yeah that's true. I that's one of the that's you know smaller companies can be a little bit more nimble and they don't have to go through all these constraints of getting stuff approved to post online and do all these different things. Uh and I we only have um I I know we have to to stop uh you know before or at 11 a.m.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

um so we have we have a few other topics I don't honestly like we're not gonna be able to get into all of them maybe we should um we should do a part two if you're open to it yeah we can schedule another another podcast um but you know we do have a few minutes so there's just one other topic we can we can just kind of touch on real quick um you know recruiting for recruiters I I just from I want like if we could just do some quick bullets on from a um employer perspective

What are things employers need to do to attract and retain recruiters

SPEAKER_02 32:22

what are three things that employers or a few things it don't have to be three exactly but a few things that employers need to do uh in order to attract and retain top recruiting talent and then on the can uh the flip side what are three things that recruiters should be evaluating right like can we just do some quick kind of high level bullets on we can start on the employer side and and finish off on and what recruiters should be betting essentially yeah I you know to me right now like there's just a shortage of of recruiters that are specialized in industries so what I mean by that is you know a lot of the a lot of the startups that we work with they're really really really caught up with finding people who have worked in startups before because obviously in a startup environment you've got to wear lots of hats you're usually you know not necessarily even supported well so you've got to be really nimble you've got to be able to think on your feet you've got to be able to understand that you might be working on a rack for a week and then you go to the hiring manager and they've completely changed what they wanted, right? So that's the the ideology is going, okay, we need someone who's used to that type of environment. But to me it's it's looking past that and going can I find people who are maybe at larger companies or maybe they're recruiting in a different industry that and and looking for those people who are still working in fast-paced environments that are still have elements of of that startup culture how do we bring those recruiters into tech and in into into uh you know into the startup world so I think you know for a lot of startups that are really finding it hard to hire recruiters you have to start thinking outside of the box. And at times it means you might have to invest in training or invest in like better tools. So I think thinking outside of the box when it comes to to finding recruiters is huge. I think uh understanding that you know right now most recruiters really do want to work remotely like there are some that want to work hybrid but you have to be able to you have to be able to like offer fully remote right now. I think if you don't do that you've just limited the talent pool to that geography and you've made the work 10 times more I think setting up setting up pay structures I think too is is something that that perhaps could change like I just I just think like with startups like they can't afford the base a lot of times and like the overall comp. But I think getting creative with compensation and and offering incentives based on performance can be huge. So I I think just understanding that again that remote work paying really well those are things that recruiters are expecting um and I think if if you're looking at a rec and it's been open for a long time you just have to be really quick to realize like okay we're doing something wrong here. And we you know we just we need we need to approach it differently so those would be my those would be my big tips for employers. And then I think from like a recruiting standpoint like if you're looking for a new gig right now obviously the market has been really really hot for recruiters

What recruiters should be looking for when deciding what company to work for

SPEAKER_02 35:26

over the last what year to 18 months I I want to say it does seem like it may be cooling off a little bit. And so I think like if you're evaluating a new opportunity and I posted about this the other day it's asking like really tough questions asking like when's the last time you evaluated your growth plans for 2022 it's asking how many racks are each recruiter's work we're working on like because a lot of a lot of internal teams if like they've really really beefed up their internal recruiting teams but if the growth plan changes halfway through the year you're you know if you're the last recruiter on a team of 10 and each person's working on two to three racks you it's not job security. So I think it's just asking those really tough questions in an interview and it's it's not just being blinded by a high salary you know and and just going okay besides the salary like how big is the team what's the turnover over in the team and then I also a big thing I see a lot of recruiters getting caught up in is they get they go, oh I love the leader. I love the talent leader that's there. And that's the reason I want to work. And right now in this market it's not uncommon to start a job and then three months later the TA director leaves or the chief people officer leaves. So I think you just have to keep in the back of your mind like not to get too caught up on like oh I just love the team because suddenly if that team switches or there's a a change or a reorg, then then what? You know like be re really you know go for companies you're really passionate about and you're excited about and uh and then again with the money like yes you want to get paid what you're worth but just be smart about it and just think like just down the line like ultimately if you're especially if you're in internal recruiting you're a cost center. So if the growth plans change and suddenly they they they the growth plans have been reduced by 80% and you're the most expensive cost center you are not going to last. So again it's like you want to get paid what you're worth but just think about it look at the business understand the business that you're in like and obviously just understanding too like nothing is 100% secure like we should know that by now like there is no 100% sure thing so and this ties back to why you know recruiters should be building personal brands hosting content right there no better job security than having a wonderful network of bright people in your industry that you can you can call on yeah and

Recruiters Should Set Themselves up as a Business for Contract Recruiting

SPEAKER_02 38:01

set up a business account man like if you're a recruiter set up a business account because then if something happens you have if you have a business set up then you can work as a contract recruiter and you can you can just you just have more control like I just I think really any professional right now should just set up a business account. Have a business account because then if you get you know unemployed or you know there's a change you can start offering your services and you know with the internet how it's set up today I mean if you're going freelance is easier than it's ever ever before and I think that you know I could see in in the next three to five years more especially younger people just going with like the contract route and going okay I've got these services I've got these skills I'm going to contract myself out recruiters it should be a no-brainer.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

I mean you lose your job as a recruiter go contract you know offer your you know offer hey I notice you've got 2000 open jobs and you got a team of 10 you know I I'll work for 50 80 100 an hour you should be able to start thinking like that it's great you know that's that's obviously uh career security as well that's that's really good advice so I I hope uh I know well I know that everybody listening in is going to be able to to to take that to heart and and and learn something from our conversation today. And I I look I think there's a lot more we should be talking about and a lot more value we can add to the community. So if you're up for it I'd love to do a part two sometime in the next few weeks and and have to work on the show. Let's do it I'd love that well thank you thank you for joining us today this was uh this was a really very valuable episode so I I appreciate you coming on the show everybody else tuning in thank you for joining us and and we'll see you next time. Take care