EP 29: Building incredible recruiter-candidate relationships w/ tactics that are hiding in plain sight w/ Khurram Muhammad

Khurram Muhammad, Senior Manager of Recruitment at Maisonette, joins host James Mackey to discuss hiring trends in the eCommerce industry, attracting diverse talent, tactical steps on how to get your personal brand out there, and much more!

Episode Chapters:

00:19 Who is Khurram Muhammad?

01:30 Overview of Maisonette

02:30 Hiring trends in the eCommerce industry

03:55 Impacts of supply chain issues on eCommerce

04:35 Competitiveness of hiring and retaining eCommerce talent

05:40 How can an eCommerce company stand out to attract candidates

6:45 Publishing a DE&I report to attract diverse talent

10:35 Enable L&D to boost talent attraction and retention

13:55 Creative ways to get your personal brand and company brand out there to attract talent

17:05 How much time is spent on personal branding; the 80/20 rule

19:43 The power of referrals

20:50 The secrets to building incredible recruiter-candidate relationships

25:23 How can talent acquisition professional get speaking engagements

27:15 The power of Slack communities

28:30 How do you move up in talent acquisition

33:32 Wrap up

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Hello and welcome to Talent Acquisition Trends and Strategy. I'm your host, James Mackey, and today we are joined by Karam Muhammad. Karam, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Yes, appreciate it, James. I appreciate you uh inviting me on today.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Yeah, man. Thank you for joining us. And um, would you mind just sharing a little bit about your your background experience so everybody knows your point of impact?

Who is Khurram Muhammad?

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yeah, definitely, definitely. I'll give you the quick elevator pitch. So my name's Karam Muhammad, um, based out of uh New Jersey. I've been in talent acquisition for maybe I lose track of time as time goes along, probably about eight, nine years now. Uh, really grew up in the industry, starting on the agency side of the business, you know, working at recruitment agencies for a good couple of years, running the foundation of sales, learning the foundation of recruitment, candidate acquisition, business development, and client relationships. You know, from there, kind of made my way up and transitioned over to the startup environment. Uh, being with Vetery for a bit, which is a hiring platform, and eventually having my first step into in-house talent acquisition recruitment, you know, working for a healthcare startup called Pager, uh, which was my first in-house recruitment experience to kind of get a good feel of the other side of the world and transitioning to where I am now uh with Mason, with Masonet, which is a uh luxury brand e-commerce startup that I've been with for almost a year and a half now. And I've been around the block for a minute, seen a lot of experiences, but loving it every day.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

That's great. That's great. And I know so right now your company is you would consider in the e-commerce space, right?

Overview of Maisonette

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yep, yep. So I'll give you a little bit of an overview about what Masonet does. So we are a luxury brand e-commerce startup that caters specifically towards children's clothing and accessories. So essentially, what we're looking to do is to become the one-stop shop for everything a family might need for their young children. So essentially, you know, we have all different categories of life, of the life cycle of a child. So think about like toys, apparel, clothes, every, everything kind of across the across the board within different categories. And that's what we focus on here as a business to really create uh an easier way for a parent to you know raise their child. Um, the business is really, really cool based in New York City. And um we work with dropship vendors as well. That also what makes our business unique is we don't have any brick and borders. We're all online, all e-commerce. So we work with dropship vendors and we have our own private label brands within the business as well.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

So, what do

Hiring trends in the eCommerce industry

SPEAKER_00 3:16

you right what are you seeing right now in e-commerce? Because I think that that's a really interesting insight to share as it I think has bigger implications on macroeconomics and and what we're seeing right now in the economy. I mean, are you um are you seeing like spending kind of decrease and therefore growth decrease right now uh in the in the uh industry? Or are you seeing uh town acquisition holding strong, hiring growth holding strong? Like what what what are you experiencing right now?

SPEAKER_01 3:44

I think it's a little bit of both, to be honest with you. Uh, a little bit of both for sure. Like, great example is about a year or so ago when I first joined the business, it was still in the height of co-COVID per se. So, like e-commerce going crazy, no one going to stores, people buying everything that they need for their children or their families or their pets or whatever, all online. Obviously, as time has gone along, stores, everything has started to open up again. So things have begun begun to shift a little bit further, but we're still seeing a good uptick, you know, still seeing because people still want to buy very, very nice luxury things for their children. People are never going to stop having babies. So, you know, we're continuing to see a lot of great uptick there. But one of the challenges that we're seeing within the world of e-commerce, and everyone who's in e-commerce is seeing these is supply chain issues. That was a big, big thing happening during COVID. And even to this day, it's still upside down. You know, there's still a lot of issues there. So I would say a little bit of both.

Impacts of supply chain issues on eCommerce

SPEAKER_00 4:41

So, so from the supply chain standpoint, is that something that you're seeing uh your company's seeing getting better, or is it literally just as bad as it was a year ago?

SPEAKER_01 4:53

I would say it's it's still pretty bad. It's been getting better, like, and that's where we're putting different plans in place and putting in resources to our operations teams. We're trying to really develop different ways that we can help affect supply chain for the future of Mason and the future of the business. So I would say it's definitely not perfect by any means and definitely not what it was pre-COVID, but uh the company is definitely trying to adapt.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Sure. So, how does all this impact town acquisition? I mean, what's what's

Competitiveness of hiring and retaining eCommerce talent

SPEAKER_00 5:21

the um I mean, how competitive is the e-commerce space right now? Are you is it really a tough fight for top talent where people are receiving several offers, or what are you seeing from that perspective?

SPEAKER_01 5:32

100%. 100%. The market is crazy, like absolutely crazy, because you have a number of different competitors and different types of organizations that are out there that are doing different things. So we are a startup, 100 plus people, New York City based, can hire people 100% remotely. You know, there are other organizations that are out there that might be larger corporate corporations, offer more resources, offer more different pieces of business that Masonet may not be able to offer. So with every type of role, because I hire within all different disciplines within the business. So think about like marketing, BD, finance, creative, engineering, product management, everything you can think of across the business. We're seeing candidates get multiple offers, multiple ways, multiple paths of life that they can take and trying to hire them. So it's uh it's it's always tough, always a challenge.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

So, how do you stand out? What's your what's your talent strategy, particularly when you're coming

How can an eCommerce company stand out to attract candidates

SPEAKER_00 6:26

up against these larger competitors?

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Definitely. So, one of the biggest ones that we really stand out for is it's a few things. It's the mission of the organization, really helping parents navigate that per paternal journey is really something beautiful to be a part of, whether whether or whether or not you have children, because we see kids in our lives every single day. We empathize our culture because we are really, really trying to create an environment that everyone feels safe within. If you play around with Mason Epp's website, you'll see a DEI report that really showcases the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion and really how impactful that is for our business. And that's one thing that I've noticed that people really, really love. They love to be a part of something, whether they come from a diverse demographic or not, they want to be able to build upon that type of culture. So that's something that we really try to emphasize here within our business. And then lastly, the opportunity for growth. You know, we offer equity, we offer great opportunities for people to really learn and grow and have a lot of ownership, whether you're coming from a big organization where you feel siloed and you feel stuck in your ways and you want

Publishing a DE&I report to attract diverse talent

SPEAKER_01 7:31

to do more, or if you're coming from another startup and just want to try a different type of environment, you know, we offer those few things that really help us stand out. And people always, you know, seem to really love that aspect of the business as well.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

For sure. Yeah, I just pulled up the E report and it's um cool too. You have it like as its own separate thing. Is it also can you access it from the um careers page as well, or or is it just like its own?

SPEAKER_01 7:55

I think I guess it's its own thing. You can definitely try, but it might be just if you scroll to the bottom of the page, it just redid our careers page. Our careers page is actually new now. So I'm not sure if it's updated to get to the DE now report from there, but you can definitely get it from our website.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

That's cool too. You got a diverse leadership team as well.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Definitely. Yes, absolutely. Very much so. Um, very much so, diverse leadership team. Companies female is uh women found it um as well, like from the background of it. So definitely.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Nice, nice. Yeah, I uh I really love that you put your people initiatives and D E and I initiatives right on the uh right on the site. And it's cool because it it talks a little bit about you know your values, what what matters, and then also you know what your focus is going to be over the next 18 months. Um which which it just I think that that just brings a lot of um I don't know certainty is the right word, but um to people's minds that that you're actually acting on on you know what what you say is important, right? Um, so that's that's really cool. And you actually list out all the stats, current and goal. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

And it's not that's not easy by any means, um, especially for for Mesa Net, because the industry that we tend to work within, you know, may not always be the most diverse. So attracting diverse talent to our environment is it's always a challenge. It's never easy, it's never going to be easy, but we just try to empathize how we're trying to be different and what we're trying to do here.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

And this is really interesting. I have not seen this before. Executive coaching um for uh your C levels on diversity, equity, inclusion, uh, between two to four hours customized for the need of each executive on diversity, equity, inclusion. Um, that's that's really interesting. I have not seen that before.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Definitely, definitely. Yeah, it's something really unique that they were doing before I started with the business and something that they just really empathized last year. So, because obviously each executive or department lead is hiring for their team below them. So they all need to be trained to understand how to, you know, recruit and more importantly, how to build an environment where different inclusive people can feel, you know, welcomed.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

So another thing that I think goes above and beyond that I yeah, I just again I haven't seen before content and creative. So in terms of the marketing collateral that you're creating for uh customers, a lot of the content has diversity, equity, inclusion kind of built into the to the topics, like you know, four important things to know about autism or um neurodivergence or um celebrating people uh you know coming from certain backgrounds. I mean, you really have a robust program in place to really speak out in terms of um inclusivity and and diversity. Um and you're pushing that out. It's not just like an internal effort for you know headcount goals, right? Of getting percentages right. It's it's what you're you're also pushing out into the world, which is is really interesting and cool.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

100%, man. Like, and don't get me wrong, it's definitely not easy. Took a lot of work to get here, and obviously there's always things that we can do better about, better upon, but um definitely things that you know I've enjoyed a lot about this business.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

For sure. And so the other thing that you discussed is just um, you know, providing providing equity, um, and then just providing a great place to to learn and grow. Um what's what's that

Enable L&D to boost talent attraction and retention

SPEAKER_00 11:21

strategy look like? So how does your your team how do you make it a great place to learn? Is there certain efforts from an L and D perspective? You're you're investing a lot in that. Is it is it the onboarding experience? Is it having an experienced leadership team, workshops? I mean, what how does how do you enable that?

SPEAKER_01 11:41

So I think it's a little bit of a mixture of all of them, and these are things that we're continuously to work on. So basically, a part of what we tend to offer to people within here as well are like opportunities to learn different things. So if there are like conferences that you want to attend, things, events in within the space that will help you with your furthering your career, then that's something that Masonette wants to also get involved in. You know, we have an onboarding process here where people who join the business get a good overview of the business, learning about the company. You know, we meet for all teams almost every other week at this point, you know, talking about business leadership and things going on within the business as a whole. So it's just really giving opportunity for people and having them create opportunities as well. Um, if there are different things out there that they feel would would help them out.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

And make sure, you know, it's sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to catch sure.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

No, no, no, go ahead, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

No, I'll listen. This this is when that's continuously being gonna work, a work in progress as well.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Yeah, for sure. You know, it's it's uh I talk about this a lot in the tech industry, but I think it just applies across the board is um, you know, companies really cannot expect to attract top talent if they're not providing opportunities for people to grow. So, you know, a lot of people, particularly if they're um excited about joining a startup and they're a good fit for a startup or an early growth stage company, the reason why they're going to a startup or growth stage company is to make an impact and to learn a ton and grow in their careers. So if you know companies that have the philosophy, okay, we want to hire somebody that's done like 95% of the job before, they're really not going to be able to, they're gonna cut themselves off from a large portion of the talent pool. And, you know, most of the I I the guideline I share with customers, unless it's like a, you know, there are some some differences if it's like a senior level strategic position. But generally speaking, the guideline I provide to our clients and and uh companies we advise is you know, 70-30. Get somebody who has you know 70% of the core skill set, give them that 30% of of growth, uh, and and you're probably gonna get the best talent. But you know, maybe 70 to 80s is probably a good range as well. Um, you know, less than that, you really have to have very strong onboarding and learning and development, uh, and coaching and leadership and management. Uh, but you know, more than that, and you you start to, you know, people are gonna get bored very quickly. So it's it's better to to find somebody at that 70, 30 split. And the other thing is if somebody's expecting, you know, accepting a position in which they've done 100% before, to me, and and maybe this is an assumption that's wrong, but they've done it 100% before, um, you know, maybe, maybe they're not, they're they're they're not gonna be the best fit for a a startup or growth stage company. Um, again, that's that's definitely a generalization. Um, and I know that, but I think by and large, most of the talent I see in startup and growth stage, they're kind of looking to push to the next level, right? And part of that is they're you mean they're obviously looking for that growth.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Yeah, for sure, for sure. Well, I you know, I want to talk to you a little bit about your process, right? Um, can you can you tell us a little

Creative ways to get your personal brand and company brand out there to attract talent

SPEAKER_00 14:41

bit about your your uh how you identify talent, um, how you're screening talent, um, what you know, what things are are you looking for as an early growth stage company?

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Definitely. So if I could generalize it, because obviously many different roles call for many different things, but generally how process works here from the quickest high level is first off sitting down with the hiring manager of a team and really understanding what they're looking for, taking a good understanding of the spec, you know, looking for the most important things to have. They're nice to have, things that they're not looking for, and just really starting to build that commodity before we go out to start to source. We post our jobs online, of course, and we utilize different tools, such as like LinkedIn. I've also had to, since again, we are a startup, we're not the most biggest company out here, we're not Facebook, we're not Google or anything just yet. So I've found my I've found myself having to try really creative outside of the box ways to really get more of the company branding and the name out there. So I've spoken at like uh a couple months ago, I did a Twitterverse where I like sat in a room with people and just had a conversation about the business and talked about D E and I and really what we look to achieve here. Um, I've sat in on a panel, a couple of panels earlier this year as well, just explaining what I do, who we are, and how Masonet is different. So that's always a part of my process is just trying creative outside of the box ways to build relationships with people. Because once usually once they learn the story, they're like, all right, this is really cool. They're like, oh, I'm actually a parent. This seems really, really cool. Or I'm not a parent, but this still seems very interesting because e-commerce is very cool. So it's always a part of my process to uh try outside of the box ways from there. Um, and then from that on is looking at resumes, you know, looking to build relationships. A big part of my process is just really getting to know people. I don't think, you know, me being in recruitment for so long, I always like to focus on quality and quantity. So I tend to speak to a lot of candidates at first to help me get a good understanding of this, what makes a perfect candidate, this is what makes a good candidate, this is this is what makes not what we're looking for for this position. So a big part of my process is really getting to know people, building relationships and really understanding their wants, their needs, you know, really what they're looking for, why they're looking for a new opportunity, and how could something like this be a fit. And then, of course, selling back to them about what we're looking for, if this opportunity might be a good fit for now, for the future, and and really just having starting our great relationship from there.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

For sure. So, one thing that you mentioned that's really interesting to me too, and I think it's gonna be valuable is to understand how much you're really investing in your personal brand and relationships, because you know, I think that that's a trend that I'm I'm seeing that's very effective, that probably not enough recruiters and recruiting managers are are really investing in. Um, you know, that just the concept of like doing the panels, getting out there, building real relationships, meeting with people uh as is an important part of the strategy, opposed to always sitting behind a screen just looking at resumes and and sending out emails, setting up screening calls that really don't that are not done in such a way to encourage like real relationships uh to be developed. So how much of your

How much time is spent on personal branding; the 80/20 rule

SPEAKER_00 17:51

time is is is focused on your you know your personal brand, getting out there, building real relationships versus maybe more old school traditional recruiting, kind of sitting behind the screen, just doing, doing, you know, having your team do that kind of like sourcing motion or uh uh vetting motion?

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Definitely. I would say for me, I mean, it it's always going to be old school, normal, like majority of my job, probably just out there looking at resumes, reaching out to people who can I build relationships with. So I would say maybe, maybe 80, 20, if I could, if on a good day, 70, 30. Uh, just because you know, I can't speak at stuff every single week because I don't know if there if there if there are that many events even going on within the business, but I do try to do it as actively as I can, you know. Um, so for me, probably around that 70, 30, 80, 20 um, at the end of the day. But like I said, it's not just speaking at events. That's just one that's I've just took it to the extra mile for myself. You know, I work, I've built a relationship with some media outlets out there within the industry to kind of tell the story about Masonette. They've written an article about us, our employees have written things and they have posted the articles about us, which is what through built-in NYC. Um, so it's just like a number of different media outlets out there that I've tried different ways as well. But to answer your question, probably around 70, 30, 80, 20.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Yeah, I think that's a really healthy split. And I honestly I think more talent acquisition leaders should be doing that. Absolutely. There's just so much value. And and you know, one thing that I, you know, I talk with a lot of leaders about, and I'm I'm probably gonna start sounding like a book broken record on this pretty soon, but you can't really scale relationships. I mean, to some extent you can you can scale a lot of process, but when it comes to developing deep relationships with people, it's it's something where you can never get detached and lose your pulse on that as a leader. You have to get in there, you get or get out there, however you want to put it, uh get in front of people and build real relationships because that's gonna be one of the primary drivers to being effective in our careers, right? Not only opportunities for us as individuals, but um, you know, referrals, right? Like getting your name out there, getting that recognition. And at the end of the day, like people want to work for leaders, they want to work for people they respect, uh, like-minded people that maybe share similar values. And that's gonna carry even more weight than just like just you know a company name, right? If they they feel like they know somebody or somebody knows, you know, through like a third party or something like that, that's ultimately going to be very effective, particularly if you're looking with people that have industry experience. Yep. Right. I mean, I feel like the more industry experience matters, even the more that relationships matter, they relationships matter even more, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Yep, 100%. And I love what you mentioned about the power of referrals. I think that's

The power of referrals

SPEAKER_01 20:29

one of the most important things that is low-hanging fruit at the end of the day, you know, and it really starts from having great relationships. You don't get referrals if you don't treat your candidates, if you treat your candidates like a number, you have to treat every candidate individually as they are their own person and their human, their own human being and their own candidate at the end of the day. You know, one of my recent hires came from a referral. I built a relationship with the woman. We had a really, really great call. She spoke with our hiring manager, really loved the conversation, not the perfect fit. And I let her know, you know, this one, I let her know via email. I was like, hey, we really enjoyed speaking with you. This is some of the feedback on why you weren't a good fit. She really appreciated it and sent her sent me her resume of a friend who was an excellent fit for the role and who we actually ended up hiring. So it it was just the power of a good relationship at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Yeah, I mean, talk about candid experience. That see, I feel like you know you have candid experience down if somebody that you passed on for a role is the one giving you the referral.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Thousand percent.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

All right, so what are your secrets? Tell us how you did that.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

It's

The "secrets" to building incredible recruiter-candidate relationships

SPEAKER_01 21:36

a good relationship. I mean, and it's it is as as easy as that sounds. Uh, the the recruiters that have worked under me or that I worked with, I teach them the values of a positive relationship. Whether someone is a good fit for the role or not, there are many things that you have to do. You really have to get to know them. You have to understand what they're once, what they're looking for, sell back to that. If they speak to someone and they say, I'm not a right fit, they're not a right fit, we get we get feedback that showcases they're not a good fit, tell them that. Share that with them. Don't ghost them. Don't send an don't send a blind email six months later saying, oh, hey, we haven't heard about, we haven't, we're not a right fit for this role. Follow up in a timely manner. A great example is if a candidate speaks with a hiring manager on Monday, maybe you get feedback by Wednesday, try to follow up at the end of the week or give it a couple more days after that, but just be sure to follow up and let the person know. Because I hear too much in this industry about recruit from candidates who never hear back from their recruiters. They never get any feedback. They hear from their recruiters, they go through an interview process, they never hear anything back. Six months later, they get an email about a job offer. Like those are things that are just not great experience. And I've experiences as a candidate myself, that you know, that's my biggest secret. It's just really, really treating each person like they are a person and not just a number because you want to hire them.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

For sure. And I think one of the ways that I try to teach junior recruiters this is when you're doing screening calls, don't sound like a robot. I do. Like just don't talk really, really fast and ask questions like this. And you know, note taking. I mean, you're not an automated system.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Right. And don't treat people like they're on the other end of talking to an automated system. Like and there's and there's a lot of I feel like sales influencers, particularly on LinkedIn, that are like, you know, don't waste your time saying how was your day or where are you located? All this crap. You know, they they just talk down on that stuff. But it's, I mean, I guess people should do what feels natural, right? But from my perspective, it's it's always lead with the human element first, get to know people, get to understand like what they care about, what their values are, you know, that that's just very important to develop a good relationship and to create a great experience. So I know we're all moving fast, and a lot of times recruiters are moving from calls back to back, but if you lose that human element and that relationship piece, then your conversion rates are gonna drop significantly. You're probably gonna be less fulfilled with work too. But you know, from a purely business standpoint, it's just simply less effective to not invest in relationships, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Absolutely, absolutely. And then God forbid you actually want to hire that person, you have no rapport. They're not gonna, they're not gonna be your best friend, they're not gonna explain to you what they're liking about the company, how their other interviews are going. You're not gonna be able to have that rapport. So you have to really take the time. I stress this is the person that I work with.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

They're a lot more likely to drop out because of one little thing, they're not gonna tell you what it is, they're gonna ghost you, or you know, they're not gonna give you deep feedback or tell you the real reasons, right? Um, you know, you you lose out on all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

You lose out on all that stuff. If I could tell you another quick great success story of the power of trying something outside of the box to build a relationship, you know, I mentioned a little bit earlier on that I spoke in a in a Twitter verse, you know, it was a big room of people where I talked about Mason and about the business and who we are and the DEI and just what I've done, you know, within the business of my time here. What happened was it was maybe 60 or 70 people in this room, and we all know how hard it is to hire engineering talent. There was one engineer that was in that room who applied to our company, and he ended up getting a job here. And he told me after I built a relationship, after over time, he was like, You want to know how I found out about Masonette? I was in that Twitterverse. And I was like, That blew my mind. That blew my mind. He was like, honestly, Karam, just because just hearing you talk about the business like as you were right in front of me, that stood out so much to me. So he was like, I highly recommend um you continue to put yourself out there, get in front of the people, and as you mentioned, James, getting in front of the people, the power of that, obviously, and that's just a very, very successful and lucky story. But like, you know, it's just you gotta try. You gotta try.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Yeah, I mean, I I think you're being pretty humble when you say lucky. I mean, I think it's there's a formula there, right? And um, I think it's about making it repeatable and how do you kind of scale it as much as you can with the understanding that it's never gonna be as much a scale as you know, doing other motions within talent acquisition, like you have to just invest the time. I you know, I think one thing that could be really valuable to the audience is going through how can leaders

How can talent acquisition professional get speaking engagements

SPEAKER_00 26:09

get on more panels, how can they build these relationships to get these speaking engagements, put themselves out there? I mean, you know, the the lowest hanging fruit from my perspective is posting on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Like that is, you know, that's something I do religiously once to twice a day. Um, you know, at this point, a massive following of around 32,000 people, um, you know, and I I want to grow much more than that, but it's just such a great outlet to share my thoughts and perspective on talent acquisition. Um, but you know, when it comes to speaking engagements, right? How how do you get on these things? Like where where do you where does somebody start that that see, okay, they they've listened to you, they they see the success stories, they know it works. What do they do from there?

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Honestly, it's hooks is research. I found those those opportunities that I was able to speak at very luckily, which is me doing research and finding where can I put where can I speak to people or where can I get in front of people to speak about DENI? Because that's a big emphasis for our company. So I went down and Googled different DENI platforms, DENI websites where people are congregating to build to learn about DENI within the workplace. So that's how it started for me, and just pure research and then trying to network with people, you know, reaching out to maybe a rep or reaching out to a contact or just reaching out to someone within the business and just kind of explaining who I am and then starting the relationship from there, you know. So that's for me, it just starts with pure research and just a Google, just start off that way and then kind of make your way down a rabbit hole because you just never know what you'll see out there.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

So, like Googling upcoming events. So did you Google like upcoming DENI events, or or can you can you know?

SPEAKER_01 27:50

I would say, like, for example, so I live in a New York City area, so I'll Google like DENI hiring events, is one. You know, I'll look up black engineering talent,

The power of Slack communities

SPEAKER_01 28:01

you know, black, for example, or like black creative talent. And then sometimes you'll see like a website, uh, and then you'll see, oh, they're having events, or like another big one that's been that's been really good for me in the last couple months is Slack. Like, because obviously I've used Slack for work, but there are many, many different Slack channels. So I've actually been trying to join as many Slack channels as I possibly can, and then posting in them here and there, just saying, Hey, my name's Karam. I'm a I'm a senior manager of recruitment here at Masonette. We're hiring for some positions. Some people respond, but then you go down rabbit holes from there. Because someone, another woman in one of those groups, she was like, Oh, I see that you are a part of this community. Check out this website, remotepoc.com. I've never heard of that before. You should sign up for this website too. So that opens up another channel that I can go down from and see if people are networking or doing events or speaking engagements as well. So uh continue Google.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

That's really cool. Yeah, I love that. And you're right, Slack communities are getting more and more powerful, it seems. And there's a lot of Slack communities out there that I think people should be looking for. I mean, um, you know, I'm I'm part of a couple of communities that that definitely have been really, really valuable. Uh, and quite honestly, I should probably do more there to look up additional communities for me to join. So yeah, that's

How do you move up in talent acquisition

SPEAKER_00 29:16

that's really helpful, uh tactical insight. Um what I guess you know, one other topic uh before before we jump off today. Can you what is your advice and guidance to people that want to move up in talent acquisition and move into a manager position? Um, what what do they need to do in order to earn that that role?

SPEAKER_01 29:37

It's a very good question. Um I would say you would have to showcase that you are very flexible. That is one of the most important things that I've learned. And I've learned back in the day, in my early days of recruitment, as a good recruiter, a great recruiter can recruit for anything. Like, truly, truly, because it's all, yes, there are different facets of recruitment. Technology recruitment is very different from traditional business recruitment. I am definitely not as strong as a tech recruiter as I am as a journalist business recruiter, but I have recruited for engineers before. I have hired and had success hiring engineers and product managers before, because it's only about me being flexible and really just like everything. I'm I'm I am a clean slate every single time. I'm here to learn, I'm here to try. So I would say really being adjustable and flexible on the flip side, not being afraid to make mistakes. You will always make mistakes. Whether you are the most tenured recruiter, whether you are a junior recruiter, you cannot have a big hit. You know, you have to be willing to make mistakes, try new things, fall flat on your face, but also get right back up and get right back on that horse as well. So, you know, being able to really have a lot of self-awareness as well. Know your strengths, know your weaknesses, but also be open, you know, open to criticism. I am not the perfect, I am not the most perfect recruiter. I have great habits, I got bad habits, I got a lot of bad habits too. But at the end of the day, you know, you really, if you really want to grow up your way, grow up and make your way down that pure individual contributor path or the managerial path to teach it to others, you got to go through the experiences first, you know? So I think some of those two things are some of the things that I can think about.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

I I love it. I and I think um one thing that served me well in my career, I don't know why this resonates so much with me, but I'm gonna say just in case it can resonate with others. I think a big part of becoming a senior level and becoming a leader is you need to understand when to be stubborn, uh, and you need to understand when to be the student. You have to have the judgment to understand, like, all right, you got to be stubborn on the goals. If something's important to you and you want to become something, or you want to be a leader, uh, or you want to get to that manager or director VP level, then you have to be very stubborn on that goal because it's gonna be hard to get there. Uh, but at the same time, you have to be very flexible with the path you take, the tactics, being coachable. Um, those are the things that you you need to be adaptable uh and being open to being the student, right? So, so and and being wise enough to know the difference between what to be stubborn on and what to be the when to be the student, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

100%. You know, I can't I can't stress that enough, especially because I've grown into management in my my time here. Uh I was an individual contributor when I first joined the business. Shortly thereafter, we grew up the team a little bit, and then I had to jump into management, which is something that was brand new to me, but it was just thinking about teaching people about the experience that I've gone through. I have lost, I have hired many people, I have lost many job offers. And that's the first thing that I always tell recruiters, whether, and especially when I'm interviewing recruiters, tell me about a time where you dropped an offer. I want to know why and what did you learn from it. A great recruiter will be able to say, This is what I did. I dropped the ball, I made a mistake. A not so great recruiter will just say, Well, the person just didn't accept the job. Because there's so much, there's always so much more to the story than just a person didn't accept the job. Yes, situations do happen, but it's just at the end of the day, you know, I'm looking for self-awareness. I'm looking for someone who was who can learn, who can, who can be coachable, who can understand that they're gonna make mistakes. You know, if we were, if we, if we were all perfect recruiters, we'd be billionaires right now. We'd be running our own agencies, consulting, and be billionaires sitting on a beach just doing recruiting in our suite. Doesn't work like that in real life.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

Yeah, I love that question because you're right. It it really teaches you two things about the candidate. Are they self-aware? Are they coachable? Right. Because it, you know, if somebody doesn't can't answer that question or just says, well, I don't, you know, or gives like a one-liner response, um, then they're not critically thinking about how to get better, right? Or or what, you know, what potentially went wrong. And they're also potentially not coachable, right? If if if they're not, if they're not able to be self-aware, then it also makes it harder for you to coach them on what to get better, right? Uh what to get better at. So it's kind of uh it's a great question because you can you can kind of knock out two soft skills, if you will, uh, that are going to determine if somebody's a good fit.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Yep, absolutely. 100 100%, you know. So those are the things that I've

Wrap up

SPEAKER_01 34:18

learned, and those are the things that I feel continue to make me success, give me success, but also things that also continue to help me learn as I grow, you know, over in my career as well.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

For sure, for sure. Rakram, we're coming up on on time here. I just wanted to say, you know, thank you so much for for joining us today. Uh, this has been a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Yes, likewise, I really appreciate it. I do appreciate you taking the time to invite me, James. And uh thank you, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

All right, and everybody tuning in. Thank you, and we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

All right.