Hi everyone. My name is Patrick McKee.
Land for today's episode, we covered Tech recruitment, the
value a recruiter can add towards the recruitment.
Process can be a real Time Saver in finding that perfect match
for all parties involved. And that wasn't actually always
clear to me. Joining me today is Chase cohort
was the founder and CEO of aim for higher.
I'll put all his links to socials in the description
below, check him out. And with that being said, enjoy
the episode. How long have you been in the
recruiting business? Straight from college.
So it's been see eight years. Almost nine years.
The irony is I, when I came out of college, I went straight into
the sales side of recruiting, so I was selling companies and
meeting with companies in town on why they should use our
recruiting team, okay. I wasn't doing actual recruiting
itself. Yeah.
And as I moved along, my career was kind of Slowly.
But surely I started, you know, when you're meeting with
companies all the time and talking to them about how you
can find them, the right Talent etc.
Etc. It's like, you know, it makes a
lot of sense for you to also being highly involved in
recruiting side and if you don't know how to recruit and it's
hard for you to really sell that as a service, right?
Yeah. So I just started getting into
recruiting kind of teaching myself in a lot of ways and then
just working with the other recruiters who ever work with me
at that point, kind of created my own.
Think that's one of the reasons I'm a decent recruiters of a
kind of created my own way of learning how to do it.
Taking, you know, I never went through like a formal training
on how to do it by some corporate company.
I kind of Applied my sales knowledge experience in and then
kind of created my own little training program out of it.
Nice, I like that. I like that a lot.
Actually it makes sense that if you first of all say well our
recruiting team is the best thing and you're kind of setting
that that you would also need to be in the thick of it.
Or you can actually point out the value that you can add
there. As a sales guy like I felt like
such a like. Yeah, you got, you gotta believe
in what you're selling, right? Yeah.
Sales guy felt like a sellout. If I'm like, you know, I had.
And I think that's what kind of kept driving me to starting my
own company, and being in control of, you know, hiring and
everything is, you know, you have to believe in what you're
selling. And if the recruiting team was
already, you know, if someone else did that hiring of someone
else built that team, you know, it's a little bit out of your
control in some cases, so, I think you know it was hugely
important for me to I believed in what I was selling or I was
going to lose the passion to do it.
Yeah. 100 percent agree there but eight to nine years ago, was
recruiting very different in how it is now or even did you start
out on more the tech side or how did things grow for you?
From there it's always been on the tech side.
So I've always worked with tech companies but as I move through
my career, like the companies we partner with what kind of gets
smaller and smaller. So when I started it was it was
recruiting and working with, you know, Fortune 500 type
companies. Charles Schwab Del a lot of the
big players here in Austin. Okay.
And honestly, I hated it, I just hated it.
I enjoyed finding people jobs and like, connecting them with
opportunities, but the companies, you know, it's so
transactional for a big company when they're hiring that they're
just kind of trying to, you know, put butts in seats and,
you know, they There aren't there isn't as much of a I guess
a skill and recruiting that type of person, it's more of like,
you know, how many resumes can I get together?
Send them all to the company and let them pick whoever they want
and as I, you know, as I progressed through my career, I
kept working with like smaller companies ones that you know
when they made hires it's such an impactful higher, if you're a
company of 20 30 even a couple even 1000 even if you know
several hundred employees it's just it's just more important.
It's more value and I think that's what kind of attracted me
through my career was there. As far as how it's changed.
You know, the work from home thing is certainly been a huge
change that covid, kind of triggered, you know, talent and
especially Technical and product Talent.
We're always interested in working from home.
Like, I think, you know, you suffer, you might be able to
speak to this 22, but I feel like Engineers always were,
like, I could do this from home, you know, just let you know.
Maybe I want to do my thing in my own spot instead of coming to
the office every day. Yeah.
And then all of a sudden covid happens and there's no choice
and and now you have companies that are trying to figure out
how the hectic to get people back to the office, or should
they even keep their office? It's, it's, that's probably been
one of the biggest changes and then, and then the demand for
technical Talent. It's just, it's since I started
in recruiting, it's been through the roof.
I have always needed software Engineers, product managers
product designers, but especially over the last eight
years and then with covid kind of causing some of these
industries that, you know, maybe never used a lot of software,
you know, I always think of hospitals and Healthcare like
they're using systems that were built 30 40, maybe 100 years
ago. Exactly.
You know, and now with covid, like everyone's forced to adopt
software, like even restaurants have to Use food delivery apps
and ways to kind of like increase their ability to sell
so they can stay in business. So everyone was forced to use
technology. So I think that's probably the
demand for talent in my mind for Tech Talent, like just keeps
going. It's just like on the Skyrocket.
And with that, you know, Engineers product, people really
a lot of those skill sets in Tech, you know, their value goes
up, and I think candidates and talent are a little more aware
from like the glass doors and stuff.
Like that of what their value is to a company, like, in a
compensation package. Yeah.
So I would say that's also probably, when I started, you
know, a senior software engineer in Austin was probably like, you
know, 100 100. Well, probably 120, 140 K.
Now, you know, as I don't know how it is, where you are.
But you know, here in the states like senior engineer, whether
they're in California or another places.
I mean you're talking High hundreds in The to hundreds and
above type, you know, salary range.
So it's it's just it can be tough to compete for small
companies because they want to hire five Engineers, a 200k.
That's, that's a million for the year that they're going to spend
on just five employees. Yeah.
So I think it's, it's, that part's been super interesting to
see is just, you know, the engineers that are willing to
maybe take less money, more stock options and take the risk
of a start-up or do they just want to go to Google?
And make 300 400 k a year. Yeah, makes sense.
I mean, when you say Fortune 500 companies to me, it sounds like
volume, right? They have X amount of positions
and the benefit that everyone actually wants to work there
because they also pay incredibly high amounts of salary, which is
good. However, when you're on the
recruiting side and you're trying to fit a kind of request
and demand in that way, yeah it can be.
It can feel very transactional, very volume heavy in that way.
So I like that you trended towards smaller companies
Because your contribution there is way more impactful than it is
at a Fortune 500 company, right? Finding the right candidate,
when you only have 10 people when you only have 20 people
it's like it's like 10% of all the people.
You have all of a sudden. Yeah, that's a huge impact in a
company that you can make in that way.
Then, exactly. Man.
And I think the other thing is, You know, I always think of it
from my sales side of like finding new businesses is, is
the smaller the company. You know, we as a recruiting
company we probably get to work with the CTO or the VP of
engineering like people that are really making the decisions for
the organization. Whereas you not a Fortune, 500
company recruiters usually just talked to the hiring manager.
So it's nothing against, you know, nothing wrong with just
being a manager. But when you get to talk to a
seat Yo, or VP of engineering, you can make impactful changes
to their process that actually produces results.
Pretty quickly. Yeah.
As opposed to starting with the manager and then you talk to the
director and then the VP. And then there's all these tears
of hierarchy, of course, at a corporate company and it's hard
to kind of, you know, if there's a change that you can make from
the recruiting side, that would get you better people, you know,
in order to see that change actually occur, it's going to
take. Yeah, several months.
If not years to get to To the right person and talk to them.
And then they have to instill the values and the rest of the
organization. Yeah, so I've just, yeah, I just
fell in love with the kind of the smaller companies because I
just, I always been like a fight for the little guy type of
person like that. I, I was a little guy like I had
a growth spurt in college, I'm 6 feet now but I was like fight,
you know, always the tiniest guy on the basketball court grown
up. So I'm like, I kind of have it
built-in. Me of just like, like, let's Go
work with the small companies like they can compete with the
big guys, I believe it. I like that a lot.
Yeah, but I wonder so big companies.
Pay a higher salaries for I think in some points that's a
given. It's hard to compete that
because they are established, and they can afford that and for
smaller companies. It's, there's a lot more risk
involved there. But then when you are a smaller
company, what can you offer the bigger companies?
Can't write whatwhat. Have you seen that smaller
companies can offer? I like personally the work from
anywhere. Age where it doesn't really
matter where you are, or which country you are that to me feels
very appealing. Absolutely.
There are there are a couple ways, a smaller company can
compete and You know, they're not going to win as you
mentioned on money on salary. Yeah.
So, where can you win, right? As a small company.
It's, it's flexibility it. Like you just said, working from
wherever you might be, you know, if you're a small company here
in Austin, you could go find Engineers overseas.
You can find Engineers domestically that are maybe in
like a lower cost of living area, or get even higher them
here in Austin, but just not have them come in an office,
every A, I think that flexibility kind of the hybrid,
getting them into the office. That's the tough part about.
Small companies is like you know they want to offer work from
home. Yeah.
All the time but also part of what makes them unique is that
they're all, you know, they're collectively all on the same
page all the time and they can make quick adjustments, wears a
big company, you know, adjust so slowly because of how big they
are part of being a small agile companies, you can change
direction, you know, No on a corner.
So I think that's where some of these smaller companies are
trying to figure out, you know, half in office, half from work
from home, but that's something I suggest is like flexibility.
It doesn't need to be something exact, but being flexible being
agile in the recruiting process, meaning you gotta move quickly
through your interviews. So you can because you don't
want to take a month to interview somebody.
And then they have an offer from Google and offer from Design and
then offer from you then you're kind of screwed.
Yeah, you're late. Unless that person just
genuinely cares like, you know, about your company, which you
can't rule that out. But you know, when 300 400 K
gets thrown at them. It's hard for any human to turn
that down. Oh yeah.
And I think the third thing is And this is a pride thing is
some companies. They're like if I'm interviewing
you I shouldn't be having to kind of sell you on why you
should join us. Okay.
You know, like there's kind of this ego of I'm at the company.
I was a part of it growing up and like why should I let you
into our kind of group into our company?
As opposed to we need people and you're a freaking amazing
engineer. Like how I get you the join us
instead of Google Facebook Amazon whatever.
Yeah, I think that's probably the toughest one man is
depending on how the hiring Market is because sometimes it's
an employer's Market. You know, we're seeing that a
little bit right now, whereas the economies were kind of gone
into recession and maybe darker, we don't, you know, who knows
companies have a little more leverage, the ones that are
actually still hiring. Yeah, whereas before that, you
know, it was an employee. Lee candidate Market to where,
you know, you're at the mercy of talent, like the talent needs
you, or you need a talent more than they need you, because they
have so many options. Exactly.
So I think that's where like, you know, moving through a quick
interview process is one way you can compete because you want to
get to that offer stage quickly before the bureaucracy of Google
and some of the bigger companies comes along.
And the second thing is, you want to give that you want to
kind of be transparent about like we want Here.
And this is the type of company you have.
And this is what's unique about what we're doing, like you're
going to be building things here.
You're not just maintaining an app at a big company like you're
going to be building. Something that could disrupt the
healthcare space or could disrupt the cyber security
space. So I think that's what we work
with. A lot of our clients is like,
you know, it's okay to kind of sell quote, unquote, educate the
candidate on what you're doing, what you're about and why it
could be awesome for them to join.
Yeah. As opposed to just putting them
under Her the microscope and just drilling them with
interview questions, it's like okay, ask your questions, do a
coding test if you want. But like, there needs to be a
point where you start to kind of connect with them on like how
you see them as a part of your team and a part of your future?
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean that is fundamental
right, if you don't stand behind a company's Vision or what
they're doing or what you're going to be contributing towards
that on a more day-to-day thing, then that's already kind of a
show stopper, right? That can be a deal-breaker if
you don't stand behind it. I'm sorry it's not going to work
out. I think how awesome the tech may
be or how awesome your salary package.
Maybe like that is a fundamental thing you're going to be
involved in so I think that's exactly like can't really work
around that and you've been a part of a fast Growth Company,
right? And like, seeing that culture,
you know, as you grow bigger and bigger, it could be a challenge
to maintain the culture, or maybe the culture kind of morphs
over time, because you're hiring so quickly and different people
are Get to know each other. Yeah.
I mean, what's that, you know, have you have you seen that
transition, you know, with your company like growing that
rapidly as it changed overnight? Or is it been kind of a slow,
interesting shift in the culture?
I mean, we're so we're acquiring, a lot of companies
are partnering up with companies as a nicer way of saying it,
joining forces. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It means, we have a big budget and we can basically join forces
with other companies faster than we can actually hire all of.
Of the engineers individually, we need in specific domains and
they all contribute towards our main goal, which at the end of
the day is being an authority and whatever we do.
But what I've seen is in, throughout that process, we
really focus on what we hold, what we hold value in, which is
our main mission, which is becoming an authority, but also
the values that we have, right, one of them is people first.
So, if the organization, we're collaborating with, we're
joining forces with, There's not really show that in their
culture in their organization or if the people that are actually
doing the job, the work on the work floor, don't say that.
That is one of their core values of they don't see anywhere.
Yeah. Then it's going to be a mismatch
and throughout that throughout checking your values and, and
seeing if other companies along with that, you can see if
there's a good DNA match, right? Because the worst thing you can
have is a DNA mismatch that's going to create friction down
the line. And then the the joining forces,
the cooperation that you imagined is going to have an
opposite effect in that as well. But yeah, man, I mean, the more
we hired, the more growth pains, we see what we don't want is a
non-transparent organization and what we don't want is little
groups forming within organizations.
Just for the sake of them, forming right, it's good.
If they join together with a certain goal in mind and execute
on like goal as long as it's transparent that it's happening.
But at the more you grow, I think the more painful it It's I
want to jump back into that recruiting process because one
of the things that I've never seen that you mentioned is kind
of that employers Market. I feel like I've always been a
really good marketable candidate as they call it, or I think they
call it in that I can leverage the skill set that I have,
right, or the age that I have, or the experience that I have or
the skills that I've learned at University or what have you in
that, I always have multiple options to pick from and then
based on the situation at hand, I can pick through those.
I've never had someone in front of me with that kind of ego.
Kind of pride thing you were going on about.
I think that might be a very difficult situation to deal
with, right? Or even for them to realize that
like I don't get why they're hiring the first place.
If they really have that notion, I how's that going to work?
Yes, they sometimes it doesn't work.
Yeah, I could imagine. Like sometimes that takes, you
know and and that's I think the way I love my job but also what
can be so challenging is is you know, on occasion, you run into
those roadblocks with a small company and, you know, maybe
it's maybe it's someone in the interview process, you know,
they have a manager, then they have someone else talk to the
candidate. That they have the engineers do
a panel with the candidate. Like, maybe there's someone in
that wheel. That's a, you know, that's kind
of causing a stoppage from, you know, their behavior and maybe
it's just, you know, the, I think the confidence cockiness
is always that fine line there, but I think some people just
don't fully understand what the hiring markets like.
Yeah, they don't understand that they kind of have to You know,
put their cards on the table and try to connect with candidates
versus doing what maybe they were used to 5-10 years ago
which is more. So like I'm going to vet this
candidate really hard and decide if they're actually the best,
you know. And I think that's, you know,
I'm a sports guy so I'm always making Sports analogies and I
don't know, but as much about football or soccer you know, in
Europe, but in the states like always think of basketball and
you know, Michael Jordan best bout arguably?
Fast ball player of all time. Business is a team sport.
Yeah. Like this isn't tennis or golf
when you're building out a team and you're building out a
company, you have to have your Michael Jordan's, but you also
need your Scottie Pippen and your other players on that team
that made that work. So you're not always trying to
hire the best possible coder of all time.
You know? Sometimes you may be already
have that go. Go to coder and you need people
that that can build around that person and do the things.
Maybe that person isn't willing to do, you know, they kind in
basketball. I called like the glue glue guy
or the glue girl, that's going to keep the team together and
kind of do the things that maybe others are kind of bypassing.
So I think that's also the tough part when you're interviewing
is, if you're just trying to get the best engineer every single
time and you put that team together, You know, talk about
egos colliding. Yeah, you know, if they all
think there's a way to build this platform, build this web
app and they're all in the same team now.
And, you know, someone disagrees with how they're doing it, then
it just it's disaster. So I think sometimes you kind of
got to look at your current team and be like you know what are
areas that where our gaps like are we just hiring another
engineer to hack out more code or we trying to hire somebody
that's going to lead this team or somebody that's gonna do the
dirty work and you know, do the QA testing and do those types of
Thanks. I think that's where.
You know going into your question is like some of these,
some of these engineer engineering managers ctOS, you
know, need to evaluate their team first really for just going
out and trying to hire people and then figure out.
Then you need to change your interview process around.
If you need that person, that's willing to do all the dirty work
stuff than your interview process needs to change to
reflect that, right? You can't just keep the same
interview process. For the best coder because you
know the person that's going to fit you the best for that role
that we're talking about might not be the best coder of all
time. So if they get a you know, 80 90
percent on their coding test and you're like oh they didn't get a
95%, we're not talking to them, you know, then you're going to
miss, maybe the right higher and you're going to go get an
engineer that's going to end up clashing with your, with your
team. So how much impact do you get in
kind of that team decision? Because I fully agree with you
right five Mike's. Gordon's doesn't make the best
basketball team. I probably completely butchered
that because I don't know how many people playing basketball
team, but I think, I think I think you get it but at the end
of the day, the same is true with a software engineering
team, my or a team that creates a piece of software but how much
from your point of view? Do you get to influence that?
Because you can say, alright what we actually need within.
This team is not what we think we need, right?
We actually need a instead of B and you guys think you need be
but to do so. So you really need to know the
organization and the team that is there.
How do you influence that? I think it's the greatest
challenge recruiters face like that is like, you know, and you
feel this to probably, you know, someone's trying to recruit you.
It's like, you know that recruiter isn't an engineer.
Yeah. Like, you know, maybe they had a
background in like sales or HR. It's like, do they really
understand what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis?
And I think that the same goes for for us and when we work with
companies is now they're like, who are you to tell us how to
hire or how to evaluate? Years.
Like, you know, Chase can you write code?
And I'm like well, you know, website, but that's the extent
of it. But I think that's that can be a
tough one. Is you want to find those
companies that value you? And like, what do I know?
Like, I know, I talked to Top Talent town and I hear from
them. What their motives are, you
know, I hear from them. Who else is hiring in town?
You know what, the average compensation is for a senior
engineer in town, you know? So Some, some issues that may be
some other startups have run into as far as if it's Tech
stack. If it's like Venture Capital
funding, you know, those are the things I'm aware of.
So when I can combine that with you know a CTO or Tech leader
who knows coating. Of course, I'm building out a
team, then you can really start molding like a great
partnership. So I think we have some
companies that have pushed against that and then over time
like we start to kind of get somewhere.
Yeah, you know. So I think that's probably the
hardest part for recruiters is like, you try to try to get
understand and get to know your clients so well, but some of
them are kind of reluctant to let you in the door and like
kind of share with you like hey these are the bad parts of our
team, right? Like, you know right now like
you know we're running low on money and we're trying to get
this MVP out the door. You know.
Sometimes you get those relationships and then you have
others, that kind of tell you what you want to hear, exactly.
They're like, hey Whatever I tell Chase, he's going to go
tell our top recruits like I want him to be telling this top
recruits the best stuff. Like I don't even want him to
mention that the crap stuff, right?
So I think that's like that can be an interesting thing for
recruiters, like, trying to bring down those barriers with
the new company with a client and be like, how can we work
together and know, like, the ins and outs of your company and
your team. So, when I go recruit people,
you know, I can, I can be transparent with them, you know,
probably use an engineer like you too.
She ate. If I was like, hey, what have
you just said, you know, half their team is kind of just clock
in clock out, nine to five. But then they have two or three
people that are like go-getters at work, you know, 60, 70 hours
a week, right? That's how their teams built,
you know, how do you feel about that?
I think, you know, they're open to using a different back in our
front end. Yeah.
JavaScript library. You know.
So, I know you use a lot of views of you want to go in there
and talk to them about using view like they've already told
me, they're super, super receptive.
Active to making changes to their app, like having that kind
of knowledge is a Difference Maker Legend, whatever fruiting
so at. That's why I love the smaller
companies because you can kind of get you can get that Intel or
is it a big company? Like it's just going to be so
hard. There's so many levels that it's
like as a recruiter. I'm not going to be able to have
much of an impact. Yeah, I can imagine.
I mean what I think your value is then is really that advisory
role, right? Then it's a really hard to take
that within a bigger company but you really fun all the Formation
of talking to every single engineer that you can find or
having that dialogue with them. And you take that with you and
your, the adviser towards a company that says, hey, what we
have now is actually not going to work because you can't really
have five rounds of interviews anymore or based on talking to
you mister CTO. We actually don't need that many
technical people, but we need people with soft skills or
people that can actually build teams or you have that advisory
role way more in just doing that.
Then being like, okay, we need to fill This position and this
is it just a piece of paper and you basically get the same thing
that a recruiter you would, that doesn't make any sense.
So I really like that. You highlighted that that
advisory role is really, really where you can add value there as
well. Yeah.
I mean you said it earlier like
keeping your culture as you guys have gone out and acquire new
businesses. It's, you know, if the person
that's helping you find new people to join, your team isn't
aware of your people first culture, or hasn't talked to
some of your employees. Not just the CTO or, you know,
mrs. VP of engineering or VP of
product. Whoever it is, you know, I think
that's part of what we do with our clients is like will go on
sight if they're in the office or will try to get their team
together and just There's nothing formal, it's just like
we're kind of just getting to know each other, get a feel for
how they are like how they interact with their teams look
like, you know. But it can be hard for
recruiters especially for, you know, when you're recruiting for
at a Dell or at a Google, you know, they have hundreds of
recruiting agents thousand, right?
Pretty agencies. So it's like, you know that it
just makes it so hard so that I think that's why I've gravitated
towards a smaller companies because you can kind of, like
you said, be more advisory and feel like you're making an Act
on that company's culture and their ability to maintain their
culture, even with all the hiring.
I think that's kind of the probably the most interesting
thing that I found a passion of mine is, is like, I see how cool
company can be at 20 people, and I'm going to help them find 2030
more hires. But I also want to see that
their culture grows. It doesn't, you know, doesn't
start to be devalued by all these new hires.
In fact, it continues to elevate, so I think that's
probably been the coolest part about my job.
Yeah, the must be really, really fun.
Filling I want to get into kind of how you find the right amount
of tech, Tyler. But before you do you touched
upon kind of the interviewing rounds and making it more agile
as well along the way, what have you seen kind of recently
because traditionally I've always seen coding interviews or
I would do a coding challenge before I even talk to a human or
I would talk to an automated system, right?
Do a coding Challenge and either I get an OK.
And then I go through a different funnel or I get a
rejection and I never talked to anyone anytime soon or I just
Lie and I never get anything back because probably through
pre-screening like my resume. Just gets out of there.
What have you seen kind of evolved with regards to the
interview rounds? Like have you seen it become
more of a conversation more or less coding questions or what
have you seen there? Yes, in the employee, in the
candidate driven Market. I saw companies, you know, they
were struggling to hire because these candidates they were
talking to, we're getting scooped up so quickly that they
didn't even get a chance to do, you know, three or four
interviews, right? So, I saw some of those
companies and I, you know, we instructed some of our startup
clients to, like, kind of get rid of the coating test.
That might take like three to five hours of a candidate's
Time. And like instead just
incorporate it into your interview.
So maybe it's kind of like a live coding or a screen share
coding session for an hour as opposed to just being like, hey
here's a test, do five out, you know, work for five hours for
free and then send it to me and then we'll decide if you're
worth coming on site. I think candidates when they saw
that they were kind of like you know some of them were just like
I don't have the time for that. I got five other companies that
are willing to make me an offer tomorrow so you know, Screw you.
I'm not taking a five-hour coating.
Test. So, you know, I think that's
where interview process has had to change for.
An employee driven Market is like, they had to make it
shorter, make it more efficient, and add more of what we talked
about is kind of like, you know, educating them on what their,
what the company's doing. Not just asking the candidate
questions over and over. It was a mutual conversation of
trying to get to know each other.
Mostly, you know, we always instruct our clients like two
weeks to week interview process. Is.
Is probably your best bet if you're trying to acquire tech
product Talent, two weeks are faster.
Yeah, so because, you know, depending on, when you get to
them, you know, if you applied online, but you are a yacht,
five other interviews going on. You might have offers within
three or four days, so it's going to be hard for me.
I just saw your job application and it's like, I got two or
three days to get you to an offer.
Like I don't think I can do that.
Yeah, so I think that's where I saw companies.
Get rid of their coding test like they did incorporate it
into their interview instead and then I just saw them kind of
combining interviews, like they would try to maybe.
They do a panel interview and then a talk with the CTO after
the panel interview. So it was kind of like combining
them into two hours as opposed to breaking them into like three
or four different interview steps, right?
Scheduling interview scheduling kills interview processes.
I don't know if you. Yeah yeah I don't know.
You felt this basis. Like, you know, especially to
start him the the, you know, the hiring managers, the panel that
needs to interview a new candidate there at a small
company. So they're already have like
their plates already full, the things they need to be doing.
And now you're like, hey, we need you to set aside three
hours to talk to this Canada, to do a panel interview that's
like, so, it kills the business to because you're taking their
opportunity cost of their time spent on coding versus Doing, I
think a lot of it, a lot of our smaller companies, we tried to
like make it as much of a concise process, but getting the
scheduling of those interviews like that's what's tricky.
Yeah. It's like how can we block off
time in advance? So we can get these interviews.
Like, they're moving like this. Because we know that every
Monday, Wednesday Friday, your team is going to allocate an
hour to talk to our candidates. Yeah.
So getting that kind of into a well-oiled machine I think is
hugely important. If you're trying to hire some
people but maybe don't have a lot of time or your team's
already really busy and you're worried about taking them away
from other activities. Yeah, I can imagine, I mean,
the, the value that you add, there is making sure that when
they actually put aside the time, right?
The person that they're talking to already knows a lot about the
company or already has an idea about the vision and can ask
pinpointed question, right? And make sure that the time that
people actually spend on the interviewing process from both
sides is valuable right? Because the least You want to be
doing is educating. Some are trying to convince
someone that is just going to be there and we're like, all I
didn't get any information. So let's start from the
beginning. Perfect.
Yeah, that's it. And that's, that's something I
miss man is like, you know, how do you make the most of that one
hour you have with the candidate?
Yeah. Like you know, when you ask
them, do you have any questions and they're like, well, you know
how many Engineers are on your team or what's the funding like,
like things that a recruiter or an HR person could have answered
these already. Yeah.
And that way you're making the most of that one hour as opposed
to like wasting 20 minutes of that one hour, just covering
like preliminary questions. Exactly.
I'm so I think companies that have their own recruiters or
they use a recruiting agency, you know, I've leaned on that,
like the hiring managers should should really try to partner
with them. And be like, hey, you know, I
know you can't talk coding to these Engineers, but, but please
make sure they know. This is how big our team is,
this is what we're working on, you know, things that, that way
the It doesn't have to re ask those questions and waste
interview time. Yeah, I completely get that.
I have asked those questions on the phone and then when people
would say well we don't know but you can get you can ask any
questions during I'm like then you know like somehow it can
also be a misfit right? If you don't have the basic
information of how big is the team or I was the funding, or
what are the salary ranges or how many people they actually
looking for like these basic questions.
I feel like you're already step behind them.
Now, you can learn a lot from, from one-call with the company,
you know, whether it's a recruiter or an HR person, you
can kind of learn pretty quickly.
Like, do they know their stuff like are they, are they well
connected to this hiring manager or is it kind of like, they're
just trying to recruit on a hundred rolls at once and all
you like, hey, just give me your resume man, and I'll send it
over, you know, like, you know, that and that's not.
We're looking for more often than not.
So now, We talked about a second ago, like, in an employer driven
Market, where the companies have more leverage, you know, then
you're kind of at the mercy of the recruiter that you're like,
hey please send my resume over because I need a job.
Yeah. So it can be a little different
that kind of Market, but I'm with you like, since I've joined
eight years ago, it's it's always been kind of an employee
candidate driven market, and it'll be interesting to see, you
know, how that progresses shifts.
That's always What I've seen so I have never been in an employer
driven Market. Maybe it's because of the
position I am or maybe it's the the environment here.
I do see people getting laid off or hiring freezes but I haven't
experienced it as much. I just see just as many jobs on
LinkedIn as I saw previously. So I hasn't really affected me
that well or that much rather but I'm curious to see where it
goes. If it will get to a point where
it is such an employer Market that people will be like, okay
just send my Rover. Right.
Do really. Just that connection and I will
have to send myself or Market myself more in that way.
Never never gotten to that point.
Yeah, it's scary, man. I mean, I think, obviously, you
and I might only know the market as, as that, yeah, whereas, you
know, some of these and I'm always, you know, I'm in Texas,
I always think of Texas in the States.
But, you know, the last major recession where we had the real
estate bust, you know, that bubble?
Bursted. Like, you know, they're they're
our recruiters. I know that we're a part of
that, you know, the dot the.com, boom, and the.com bust and like
what it was like to to recruit in that kind of world after
those big events happened. And yeah, I think it's, you
know, it's scary but in some ways, you know, as a recruiter
you probably haven't even bigger responsibility in times.
Like that exact. Hey, I'm genuinely helping
people find jobs that don't have Cops right now, whereas, you
know, in an employee Market, it's kind of like, I feel like
we're fighting more for the company than we are the employee
or the candidate because the candidate already has five job
offers like, it's not like I'm picking them off the street and
getting them a job, like they're going to be perfectly fine
without me. Yeah.
But I have a company over here, that's like, you know, they're
just dying to grow and get to that next round of funding or
hit that, you know, hit that certain growth trajectory and
they need A new hire. Like that's where I kind of feel
like our impact is, as a recruiter, it's more for the
company in a market like this, but if things shift to an
employer driven market, then it kind of shifts to like.
Now I'm really fighting for The Talented candidates who are
trying to get jobs. So it's a very interesting
Dynamic though. I, you know, I'm so uncertain of
how that world, you know what, it be like when we got it a
little bit, like, at the very beginning of covid, right?
I don't know if you remember that, where I do like, There
were some layoffs, people were start.
Obviously people were freaking out covid, but the layoffs were
starting to become a thing. You more like, holy crap, like,
you know, are we about to go into a recession or a
depression? Yeah, so I do remember that and
being like, it's scary, it's scary and it was different,
like, I talked to engineers and they're like, I just got laid
off and I'm not seeing, you know, as anybody even hiring
like everyone's Frozen right now, you know, people aren't
even going out to restaurants. Hans or grocery stores.
So if it's anything like that, then we're gonna have our work
cut out for us on trying to fight that but we'll see man.
How are things economically where you are, verse?
I know in the state's here people are the layoffs are
starting to really sink in. Yeah, I mean, as mentioned it
hasn't really affected me, I don't know of people that have
been laid off more recent during covid.
I I did notice it because then as you mentioned, like there was
a lot more Or lot less information about the situation
we were in or heading towards now that we know a bit more.
And now everything is calm down a bit.
It hasn't affected me as much, most of the posts I've seen
online have been kind of US market, or what have you or
bigger companies saying they are not going to hire any more, but
then I do see, still new jobs posting up.
So I'm like, what is up with that?
Is that maybe a market thing? So it hasn't really affected me.
But as you mentioned, right? It doesn't matter if we're An
employee Market or an employer's Market.
Finding the right Talent is going to save a lot of friction
and a lot of time down the line, right?
Finding that really good match for what a company needs or
finding a really good match for what an employee is looking for.
How do you find the right match though?
Because that is like the bread and butter of what they have you
for right? Finding the right candidate
candidate the perfect candidate or from a candidate's position
finding the right company for them.
Yeah, that's, that's what we get paid for.
I mean, I think finding Talent, you know, for we get paid like,
you know, to find these Engineers to find these product
managers wherever they are, you know, and when companies will
covid, they went from hiring just here in Austin, Texas.
And I'm like, hey, like I know almost all the companies in
town. So, if you're looking, if you're
a cyber security company and you're looking to hire a product
manager that has cyber security knowledge, You know, I already
am thinking of like 10 companies in town that I could go poach
from. Yeah.
When the fully remote thing, you know, is obviously become a big
deal and when that happened with covid, you know, all of a sudden
companies were kind of asking us to recruit in other cities
cities that weren't our backyard, right?
So, so that took a lot of research and like, building out
kind of a process for our Recruiters, in our sorcerer's is
Like how do you, you know, if a company is looking for a product
manager with data security experience and also they want
someone that's worked in a start-up.
Before, you know, how do you tackle the entire United States
or even the globe for that Talent?
Yeah. Where we were so accustomed to
like, you know, they need to be in Austin and now it's like,
they can be anywhere. Exactly.
That was a huge, huge shift for recruiters that, you know, I
think the big recruiting companies that had like, you
know, They had 100 offices in the u.s. like they have offices
all over the country. Like it might have been a little
easier for them because they could just call up their Denver
offer their Miami or their San Francisco office and be like hey
you got any product managers exam whereas for us like as a
team of 20 here, Justin Austin, you know, it was a difficult
challenge. So I guess to answer your
question about how we'd go about Kind of like finding that you
want to understand from a company, what are their key
must-haves like what are those you know?
Do they need somebody that can work in a small environment that
doesn't have a lot of hand-holding.
You're going to like you need an engineer that can just hit the
ground running or do you want somebody that's going to be an
up-and-coming Talent? Where it maybe they haven't had
the opportunity yet to be a product manager.
But you want to take a chance on them because, you know, that
Amazon and Google aren't Take a chance and I'm until they have
more experience. So I think there's like
different angles you can go about, you know, when you're
talking to the company, but then applying that, you know, we use
a lot of LinkedIn. Use a lot of indeed, you know,
job boards, different different ways to get in touch with people
who might be open to a new job. Yeah.
But I think a lot of probably the toughest part about
recruiting in this market has been the sourcing is been like,
you know, if I need to find this data security product manager,
you know, how do I build up a pipeline of 100, 200?
300 people knowing that like less than 5% are actually going
to get back to me. Exactly.
So you know I think most companies like it's just it's
very generic Mass messaging like check all and it sends the same
in mail to a thousand people. You know where as what we're
going to do as a smaller companies like you know, if I'm
sending you an inmail like I'm I have read your page and I'm
going to do my best with the knowledge that I have to be.
Like, this is why I think you might be a fit like I think even
listeners. I mean, you probably can
resonate with like you've received something from a
recruiter that's just way off. Yeah.
And you're like, what the heck are you and message it like, you
know, it maybe it's a role that's like the salary is so
low. You're like seriously, it's kind
of insulting or you're looking for a Java developer and you
sent it to a Ruby on Rails engineer.
And it's like okay like Come on man, like you're wasting my
time. So I think it can be minor
things and recruiting of just like attention to detail and
knowing what you're looking for. And then from there, yeah, it's
kind of just an onslaught of in mailing emailing, you know,
hitting people up on GitHub, like, however, far your will you
want to go without kind of like being too aggressive.
But yeah, you got to find a way to get the talent on the phone.
And then, from there, it's on the recruiter to be like, okay,
I'm pitching you on this company and why, you know why they're
interesting and what they're looking for and seeing, if that
excites you or not? Exactly.
That's I think that's probably the second biggest duty is like,
as a recruiter. You're not, just your not just a
gatekeeper. Like, you're not just there to
be like here. I have these three questions
that the manager told me to ask you, you know, do you use any
front-end languages? It's like, no.
Like, you know, if you're trying to recruit somebody you need to
give them a reason why you know why they should talk to you?
Exactly. And why you might have something
that they don't know about for us.
We recruit for small company. So like you probably have never
heard of most of our clients but you might hear of them someday
because they're trying to like they're disruptive.
They're well funded but they're only a couple hundred employees
and you know, when I talk to candidates I'm like hey you
might have never heard of this but But this is the value I'm
bringing is you would have never heard about this.
I didn't reach out to you. Yeah.
So I think that's kind of the responsibility recruiters have
when it comes to that kind of stuff.
Yeah, I really like that. Like that personal approaching
getting the foot in the door. Right?
That conversation. Starter conversation opener.
I really appreciate that because I know LinkedIn.
I have a little microphone in front of my name if that
microphone pops up in one of the email messages, I know it's an
automated kind of thing that went out to everyone and I'm
like, okay, it's already, I'm not going to It, I'm going to
disregard it because they haven't read anything.
It's not going to be a good match, right?
It's not a tailor-made fit. But when for example, I've had a
recruiter reach out to me and I said I write your page and the
point out some details and then made a custom video.
I was like, man, they made a custom video.
They can't do that to everyone. They send it out to, right?
You can do an automated thing to thousands of people.
If you do a custom-made video of like five minutes that thousand
people that's going to be a huge time Sinker.
So with that appreciation in mind.
I replied. I said, I'm not currently
looking, but I really appreciate like the video that you've made,
or I said, let's, let's keep in touch her.
I will always remember that guy that did that, because he made
that video, right? But we put that Personal Touch
on there. Other people might disagree, or
they might say, think it's cheesy or what-have-you
strategy. I don't really care.
I like a personal touch. I'm simple.
Yeah, I'm with you, man. And, you know, If you're if
you're if I send you a message and I've got you know, the
Facebook meta logo at the bottom.
Like even if I sent you a message that yeah I sent to the
same message to 1,000 people. Yeah.
Like if it has that you know if you know the company is meta or
it's you know your dream company then maybe you kind of like
you're willing to overlook that and still have a conversation.
Yeah. Whereas you know and I think
that's the other hard part about recruiting for companies that
Aren't super. Well-known is like, you know, I
have to find a way to get you to at least take a phone call.
So I can tell you why I think it could work.
Exactly. So like you said, but I think
customizations key, and I also love it because it's like the
big recruiting firms. Have a hard time doing it
because, you know, because they're there a numbers driven
shop. So they're going to send out as
many messages as they can, and it's all going to be kind of
mass blast. Yeah, exactly.
I hate I am. When I was young it or when I
was younger my career, I'd get those recruiting messages.
I'm like, wow, man. Like I'm getting recruited by
all these people and then I started reading the message and
it's like, hey, Chase comma and then and then, you know, you're
the best sales guy I've ever seen on LinkedIn.
It's like, okay, like this actually wasn't written to be
such a shame. Yeah, depressing.
Hey, got my attention but as I became more knowledgeable and
Engineers especially I mean they're used to getting recruit
as you can be. You can relate to, they're used
to being recruited, receiving in males, all the time, Danielle's
all the time. So you kind of have that radar
of like is this legit or is this a little easier crab kind of
mass message? Yeah, I agree.
I wonder what your take is on this because getting the foot in
the door getting the conversation is one thing right?
But when you're on the phone adding value is really your next
step. I think I hope these that's my
expectation when I'm on the phone on the other end but what
a lot of people do is Is not really talked about which
company they're talking about, or they don't want to mention
the name because they're afraid, I'm gonna go behind their back
and apply directly. And I'm like, why are we doing
this little dance around the name?
Just tell me, tell me the thing. Like it's not like either.
I haven't heard of them which is fine or I have heard of them and
I have a preconceived notion which is also fine, right?
Then it's a mismatch but kind of dancing around the name in that
way, man. I really don't like doing that
dance sometimes. Yeah.
It's no fun man, especially if you've done like three or four
of them in a day, you're like, okay, like please don't waste my
time. Can you just send me the company
and the compensation range and all that, you know, before we
talk and Evert? Reuters going to hold that
hostage because that's their right on like that's how they're
going to get you. So I think you know it's a car I
like having worked at a big recruiting firm.
When I started my career like it is a cardinal sin to share that
information before you get him on the phone.
So sucks. It's It's not always a
recruiters fall because like their boss told them that and if
they gave you the info and you went around and applied online.
Yeah. Then all of a sudden like that,
recruiting firm doesn't have crept.
Like, they don't get credit more often than not.
Yeah, for that candidate. So that's the fear, but it's a
little easier for us with smaller companies because it's
like, hey, we're gonna just we're going to cut the BS and
we're going to share information with candidates right away to
speed up the process. So some of them might Apply
online. But, you know, as long as when I
tell you, we talked to them and that's why they went applied
online, you know, we have a good enough relationship where we
still get credit for that kind of stuff but I see.
Yeah, it does suck. The dance is it's so annoying,
man. Yeah, I can only imagine how
annoying is for you. It's annoying for me, I feel
guilty sometimes so I'm just like I told our team.
I'm like we're sharing that information and like we're you
know, ask them not to go apply online but we're just going to
take that risk because it's Like that.
That's a calculated risk. I'm willing to take instead of
doing the dance and having putting candidates through that
annoying, you know, that annoyance, those who had cool
and then sometimes they just goes to, you candidates will
just goes to use. It's like, you're not going to
give me this information. I don't even want to, you know,
I'm not on you anymore. Fair enough.
So that happen. Sometimes you send them all the
information. They goes to you and you're
like, oh gosh like are they going to go online and apply and
just bypass us completely and sometimes they do and it's okay.
That how it goes still happens. I mean I so before I got this
job, the way I got this job is I went through recruitment
company. They called me and they said,
well, I have a company in hilversum which is the area
where at and I knew of only one company that was really good in
hell for some. So they laid out all the values
and all the principles and I was like, okay listen, it's this
company, right? You can still put my like resume
in front of their table. But from the moment we have the
first conversation, I have the first conversation I'm going to
do direct communication with them.
They were like, we don't advise that blah, blah, blah, blah.
Everything go through us. I said no.
And I also when I had that first conversation with my potential
manager which ended up being my manager, I said the same thing,
right? I'd like, I appreciate
connecting us but because I already know the values in the
company, I don't really need any help here, right?
So I appreciate the connection and sure, I don't know how the
compensation will happen, right? Obviously for the connection,
they should get something or that you get the whole Thing I
don't really care, but I felt it was my responsibility, the pick
it up from there and I did that throughout the interview rounds,
right? The feedback was directly
towards me and then from my managers perspective, to the
recruitment company as well, which then contacted me to talk
about that. And again, I said the same thing
all the way until the salary negotiations, where I was like,
I'm going to negotiate because I think I'm worth X, Y and Z and
they would tell me don't do that and don't do that.
The fact that you got an offer here is Really good.
So don't go too hard and I said, this is what I'm going to do.
I'm going to make my own mistakes and I did I didn't
really get that far with regards to the negotiations, but I did
learn throughout that process, right?
I learned how I came across when I actually got hired.
I could see all the internal Communications going on about my
application process, which was so satisfying to read.
But for me, it was really educational as well to pick it
up from there. I don't know in.
Your point of view. If I did the them, wrong, the
recruitment company. But yeah, that's kind of the
path I chose for myself. Yeah.
And and it's your, it's your job application.
It's your interview process. So, you know, I feel like a
candidate deserves that, you know, the right to be like, hey,
you know, I want to run with this.
Yeah, like recruiter you did your job.
You brought this to my attention.
You told me about the company. I'm interested.
But now, you know, this is I want to run the show, you know,
and I think there's a recruiter, you try, you try your best to
respect that but also you know, control the try to control the
process especially around I think scheduling and feedback is
like the hardest thing because your recruiters trying to like
okay well I'm afraid Patrick's going to go.
You know what, if he's got five of their interview processes
going on. Like I want to be able to tell
the company. Hey, you need to speed it up
because I just talked to the candidate and he said he's got
five. Interviews going on or he said
like you know he loves your Tech stack but he's not so sure about
James on your team. Who was kind of a weird dude on
the interview, you know, like that kind of stuff.
That's what a recruiter likes to know, so they can obviously try
to make those changes but at the same time, you know, it's I
loved how you took ownership and you're like, hey, like this is,
you know, this is my life, my job my career, and like I, you
know, I kind of want to, I want to be in control of this versus
having I'm a recruiter kind of manipulate the entire time.
Yeah, and I feel like manipulate kind of is maybe a more negative
connotation like I wouldn't put it in that way, but I just like
having direct communication, right?
Even in building software, I want to talk sometimes directly
to stakeholders to figure out what they actually want, right?
And having some, some person in between we did that, as as kids,
you would see in a chain and one person would say something to
the next one until it would go all the way to the end of the
chain and something. Different pops out.
Yeah that's kind of the same thing even though we only have
three parties. Instead of two, that is what
happens on a micro level. Then they're sure for sure.
And I think that's the hardest part of our recruiter to is.
When you talk to a candidate, they tell you what, how the
interview went then you go talk to the hiring manager.
Like sometimes the stories change or like they get more
dramatic, or they're more extreme, and it's like, oh my
God, you know, this candidates gonna, you know, they hated
their view with James and it's like really like they didn't
mind it but by the time it got relayed from my recruiter to me
to the client. It's like the story.
You know it's like the game of telephone.
Yeah like you said it you know this story ends up getting more
dramatic based on how you know how stressed out I was or how
stressed out my recruiter was so it's a sometimes we can get rid
of the middle men. Women it can be a good thing but
that's the hardest part. Is like trusting a recruiter
because some of them are good, some of them are bad and then
there's like a couple at the top are like really, really good.
Yeah. But that probably goes for any
Services, you know, real estate agents like, you know, you're
buying a home or Insurance salespeople, you know, there's
The Good the Bad and then there's like that small amount.
That is a really good at what they do and it's hard to tell
sometimes until you're kind of in contact with the recruiter
and you can start to get a feel for like, wow.
Like this person really knows what they're doing.
Like I'm going to trust them to run this process with yeah.
Yeah, that makes sense. I agree with that.
And I really like this conversation kind of getting
insights on the other side of the table.
I don't think I've gone in depth in that way with someone with
regards to their process and their their views on that but we
do a line on a lot of things I've noticed even though we're
across across the world it's interesting to see that the same
values. That I hold.
How do you say that values that you hold value in?
That's not really a good way of putting it but maybe that is the
way we value the same things basically, even though we're
across the world. Yeah.
Is there anything you still want to share?
I think, yeah, I mean we've gone over it but I think, you know
most recruiters. Yeah, you know, they get into
recruiting Because they care, you know, because they care
about people like they want to interact with people and they
want to have some kind of impact on people.
So I think, you know, from my by, you know, from my
standpoint. It's like, you know, sometimes
like if you're an engineer, if you're somebody, that's getting
recruited, that's awesome, right?
Like, people want to hire you people.
I want to talk to you now. You're going to get it people
reaching out then maybe you know, didn't put the effort in
that you wish they did. But I think just remembering
that like recruiters aren't there to they're not trying to
sell you to buy something like they're just trying to tell you
about a job or a company. They're representing.
So you know, I think that's the battle is like we're all trying
to accomplish the same thing. It's just like you said, it's
kind of like, I think as a recruiter you have a
responsibility to To send it, you know, if I send a message to
A to somebody who's being recruited by a bunch of other
people, like take a second and really, you know, Taylor that
messaging like Taylor, you know, make sure give Patrick a reason
to speak with you versus just adding another in mail on his
plate. Like he's already busy.
He's already being recruited like we respect his time.
I think that's the one thing, you know, and I'll shut up about
talking to other recruiters but I I I got into recruiting and
then as I've been in it, like I've stayed in the industry
because it kind of upsets me like how some of these other
companies just kind of treat it so transactionally.
Yeah. And I just wish, you know, you
know, and speaking to you as an engineer, the type of person I'd
normally be trying to recruit. It's just like, I want you to
understand, it's like that. That's my motive is like, trying
to get, we've built a team around like recruiters, that
care and try to understand what you do and add value to you.
Not just annoy the crap out of to you with a thousand and meals
a day. Exactly.
So there are some recruiters out there that are actually good.
So that's I guess that's my general point is like, giving
them a chance. Sometimes, it's not their fault.
They're just being told what to send.
But, you know, we're all trying to accomplish the same thing I
think. Yeah.
We like that.
At the end of the day, we're trying to find a win-win here,
right? And the way people go about it
is different, you have a good way of going about it, maybe a
less good way, but at the end, the goal.
The same. I agree with that completely.
And you want to be nice to recruiters man.
Because it's if the market, you know, if you lose your job or or
if your skills, you know, get outdated because some new
software language comes out, you've never heard of it.
Like you want to have a recruiter as a friend because,
you know, they're their job is to be plugged into companies
that are hiring. So that'd be the last thing.
It's like, you know, you can, you know, don't don't respond to
the crappy ones, but try to stay in touch with the good ones
because they might you might need them someday.
Yeah, it's a good way of looking at.
It relationships are good to have for sure, for sure.
We're gonna we're gonna round it off here.
Chase cohort everyone. I'm gonna put all his socials in
a description below. Check him out and we'll see you
on the next one. Thanks for listening.