Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to Wayne Sroud.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Welcome to the Love and Business Podcast. My name is Britt Arnold and I am president of Tagler Construction and Supply.
[00:00:16] Speaker A: And I'm Mick Arnold, president of Arnold Packaging and Arnold Automation. And here we are.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: And today we're going to be talking about hiring and firing, both professionally and in our personal lives.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: And can I say something? Because it's right on. It's right exactly on topic. I look like a total mess today. Hat, unshaven, barely, barely showered. I was in there enough to knock any dirt that might have been on me. Because we are in the midst of a bit of a turnover wave. And when something awakens me, it's the first thing on my mind. And I was out of bed at 3:10 this morning just because it's all consuming. When you are, you have movement or turnover inside of your organization. That's. And that's one of the ways that it affects me. It affects my ability to sleep.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Yes. And we are both in the middle of some turnover right now, so this is super relevant, like to get into both the tactical and technical of our firing and hiring processes, onboarding, if you will. I think that's a nicer way to say it.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, you know, it's. I, I'm even going to wind it back a little bit further Just, just in how you get there. It's, you know, I have, I have five direct reports, and we're super close. We talk about our executive meetings here, but it's way more than that. I mean, we socialize together. We have a lot of events. I mean, being social is a big part of our company culture, and therefore we do that together. And, you know, you're. As a leader, you're listening for signals, you know, trying to assess and make sure that your teammates, all of them, but especially your directs, the one that you're closest with, are happy and in a good spot and fulfilled. And all of the words that you would, that you would fill in, that makes them want to stay. And, you know, you, you get signals along the way where it could be as, could be as direct as one of your teammates saying, man, I'm really unhappy, pissed, don't like it, whatever, whatever those things are. And then I would say, you know, in general, we talk it through and understand what that is. And I don't know, it doesn't matter what happens leading up to it, you're still never really ready. You know, you're, you just, you just have this expectation that that person is going to be there as part of your team because you're so ingrained. You know, you get up every day, you go to battle every day. You truly care for the people that you work with at all levels, regardless of their, their juxtaposition. To me in the org chart, I truly mean that. But certainly the ones that I work most closely with, the executive team, you're never ready for it, no matter what. So the way the process starts, you mean, as I said, you're never ready, but now you're in a position where one of your, your, you know, very trusted advisors, because your executive team is a trusted advisor again, regardless of org chart. And now you're being with a resignation letter. And, you know, it's usually on a Friday. I'm not sure why that is, but that's just how it happens. I'm not sure if who decided to wreck weekends way back when, when they decided Friday was the clean cutoff. And for me, it's normally, you know, I let it marinate for a second. I have a process that I go through. But, you know, depending on you, if you're in a great spot and you don't have a lot of turnover and it can go in waves, and when you have five directs, you know, you could deal with it every couple years, you know, so and so leaves after their 10 years, and then two years later, such and such leaves after then Terry. 10 years. And it's been 10 years for them, but it's two for you. And you have to, you know, you have to dust off your skills and, and start the process. But yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's one of the most challenging parts of the role, for sure.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Yeah. And I resonate with a lot of what you said with our team being a small team. It really is. I mean, we're so close as, as a really small team. I mean, we. Very close.
And the one thing I've learned, although I haven't done nearly, I haven't touched the amount of hiring and firing onboarding that you've done, but it's that you just can't take anything personally.
Like, you know, you're as the leader of the company, and I personally know how much you think about the quality of life for the people you work with. And we're always batting forth. What can we do? What can we tailor to every employee? How can we take care of them? Like, we understand the massive responsibility to take care of the people that work with us and their families, and it's what keeps us up at night and we're Always thinking about it. So to have that much time and energy and just thought invested in people, it's something we think about constantly. And then to have somebody come and say, I'm out. It's very easy to take that personally.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't want to be here anymore.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: And it's so hard. And then, as we said, take it a step further with us. These are a lot of our friends, some of our closest friends. I mean, talk about Paul, who just retired. He's like one of your closest friends and will be for life. And so it gets instrumentally harder, exponentially harder to disassociate your personal feelings between that occurrence happening. And I think now I realize it just is what it is and it's not personal. And you cannot run a business until you can come to terms with that.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: I think the initial experience is one of loss like that. That's literally the experience. Right.
And you have to go through that. You have to go through that loss moment. And I'm not, it's not, it's not a passing of somebody, but, but it is as it relates to the relationship. And then you have to stay there long enough to learn from it. Right. You immediately have to shift gears into, okay, here's where we are and now how do I learn? You know, what, what was it about the role that, you know, my value teammate decided they didn't want to be part of? And listen, there's a thousand, there's a thousand answers. It can be that, you know, an opportunity presented that they absolutely pursue. One of my favorite salespeople along the way around Covid time, but nothing to do with it. Had a chance to go work with his son in the security industry, Jerry Kovac, you know, and 100% nothing we could have done. That was a once in a lifetime opportunity for him. And, you know, we high fived it out. And to this day we're still tight, you know, we're still super, super close. He's at our social events. So it can be something as, as, as simple as that. Where short of this opportunity coming, I would never be anywhere else. But there's other situation where, you know, I, we as an organization didn't do the, didn't do the correct job, right or wrong, at least the correct job for that person that allowed us to keep them as part of the team and continue on together.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: Sure.
And my most recent was somebody that was moving, you know, and then got another opportunity, moving back home, got another opportunity there. And something that I took, I took a page out of Your book. So learning, right, Learning. I don't know if there's anything we could have done differently, but particularly when you're leading on good terms, like you did with Jerry and like I did with my last employee, take that opportunity to do what you call an exit interview. So we did that. And it was a standalone meeting. It was not mixed in with anything else. A standalone meeting dedicated one hour to. What did you really like about why you were here? What didn't you like? What do you think we can improve on and what are your ideas on how to improve on that? And we've learned a lot. Like we got some really good feedback. You take some of it, some of it you're going to throw out, some of it you're going to take in. But if you can have the opportunity to do that with people that are coming out of your leaving your organization, especially on good terms, that are and that are honest, going to give you honest feedback, I mean, at that point they really have nothing to lose.
And they're not obviously not going to burn a bridge, but they don't have much to lose. And they, they are able, they are in a position to be transparent, as are you. There's a lot to be gained out of that.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it's, it is as objective as that as they'll be, which is exactly what you're, exactly what you're looking for. So. Yeah, and then, then you know, fast forward into the process, back to the learning, you know, and then you. Then it's.
Then what I at least do, I can only speak for me, is take immediate stock of what I know of the market. In that position, I have five very unique individuals that work for me, boast in their personalities, but also the responsibilities that they have. If you look at the VP of Automation role, let's just say, versus the VP of Marketing role, very unique, very different skill sets and, and at any given time, very different positions in the market. You know, it seems to go in certain ways. Right now engineering talent is very highly sought after. I mean, we added a controls engineer today, but that search was hard. It was really, really hard. If you look at supply and demand in any spot, and I'm not trying to be cold or callous, but it truly comes down to a supply and demand and getting the alignment. Then I immediately think about, oh boy, what's this role going to look like? And I, at any given time, as things and you know, business evolves and certain parts of the economy become very hot, like engineering right now is absolutely one of those not that they're all not hot in their own way, but some of them get white hot. And it usually happens when we as a country have not done a good job of growing the supply. And I'll point back to engineering, right? This particular role was a controls engineer, and we were not graduating cultivating inspiring enough controls engineers. And if you think about it too, I mean, controls engineering, that is the, you know, the programming of the brains that run the machines to be very simple about it. It's, it's a challenging discipline. It's not easy and it's not sexy. It really isn't. I mean, it is code writing in an industrial machine environment. So I could see how unless someone was really engaged in inspiring kids to see it and show it to them, I could understand how you'd have this, this big lapse of that type of talent coming through. And here we are in this moment in time where the demand for controls engineers probably never been higher. If you think about robotics and what's going on with industrial automation, I look at certain rows and go, oh boy, this is going to suck. This is going to suck for a while. And what does my plan A? Plan A is somebody walks right through the door, they just left their last job and they're here in the two weeks that I was given to replace. It's rarely like that. I mean, plan B looks like. And if it's extended, what does it look like? And what do we do in the meantime to service our customers and our prospects? That's the mode that you kick into after you get over the loss part.
[00:11:17] Speaker B: Let's get into the ins and outs of the hiring process. So how does that look from. Let's go from the minute, you know a position is about to be available and open, right? From that day, what does your process look like?
[00:11:37] Speaker A: It's interesting. There's a lot of great tools on both sides of the equation, right? So for the people that are looking to be hired, you know, the supply part, I'm the demand part. I've started to use AI very aggressively.
I remember having to go through this library, a folder on my computer of job descriptions, right. So the very first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to create a job description so I can start to have a conversation with the world about my needs. And I will use AI for that. I will go to Chat or Bard or one of the AI, the large language models, and I will give it a very, very descriptive request of what I am looking for. Sentences and sentences, I think Quick aside, I think that people don't put enough into large language models to get out what they want. So I'm incredibly descriptive. But I start with a job description. I let one of the AI models create it, and I will say it's night. If I give it great input. It's probably 90 or 95% of the way there. I have to tweak it or nuance it for our exact needs. But that's my first step in the process, is to create the first part of the communication, which is the description. This is the type of supply that I'm looking for. I'm gonna keep it super really nutsy bolty, right? Not to be again, cold, but this is the type of supply that I'm looking for. And. And that's where it starts. That's at least the first thing that I do. What do you.
[00:13:03] Speaker B: That's the same. The same exact thing. And the great thing is once you have a great description for a particular position, you might have to change it a little bit, but you can continue to use it as you hire more in that position or somebody leaves. So that's like, in my situation, I was so glad I got so granular with that last project manager description because now I have that to utilize again as I'm looking for new candidates.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: And I'll tell you what I do. So back to that loss learn thing, what I do very quickly as I'm looking for my next teammate.
And I learned this when I was searching for ERP software years and years ago. We had to do a very large ERP upgrade and to approach it or attack it. What I did was I went to each group inside of the company. I said, I want you to write down everything you love about our current ERP system and I want you to write down everything that you hate or everything you'd love to see improved upon. So I do use that as a moment if I look back at the candidate. None of our teammates are perfect, right? Including me. Everybody has warts and. And you just have to make sure that they're not toxic, right? But everybody has their own things. No one is perfect, period. No one is even perfect in a role. And then when you put things into motion and they become dynamic, then roles change and there becomes this element or aspect where sometimes you have teammates that aren't quite changing at the pace of the business or the role. So very shortly after what I then weave into that chat GPT, the first pass that it makes, and I'll. I'll tweak it for that part, which is usually pretty technical, I will go and I will weave into it all of the things that I would like to have seen my prior teammate do a little better. And if they weren't doing it either, because they were never on board, like just an idea where, you know, if you have someone that's been around for a long period of time, the company changed, the role change, and you might be just handing them things that they never really signed on for. Oh, well, we have this expanded need now. So we're bringing on a person and they're going to report to you and you could be sitting there, someone that joined the company when it looked a lot different and you think, yeah, you know what? I'm going to shake my head. But I'm not sure how much they're going to get out of me because I never really ask for that. So that's an example of something then that gets written into the new expectation. So that's the other part is looking for some of those things or when we go to the hiring process, talking to that person's direct and asking them the same question, doing it very carefully. Nothing that sounds negative. What did you hate about John? You know, it's nothing like that. It's. Well, if we're going to be in transition and we have to transition, let's be as productive as we possibly can and let's keep everything that we loved and worked and let's set expectations for a new teammate around what we would like to have also gotten done prior to this. And that's, that's the other big piece that ultimately builds out that job description which becomes then your advertisement for the type of supply you're looking for.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: Okay, so start with the job description. You did a really nice job of explaining how you get there. What is your next move as far as what platforms you utilize to put that job description on. And is recruiting companies, recruiters, is that part of your process?
[00:16:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it depends.
So the very first thing I do, and this is very, very job specific, you know, my network. Your network. Right. I mean, we have very. We're very so fortunate to have vast, broad networks, but they're not infinitely broad. So depending on the role, I might have a lot of people to contact. Let's just say hypothetically be for one of our operations jobs, I'm in that space. Like that's what I do. So the first thing is, who do I know that might be able to introduce me to a candidate in a referral basis? Right. So referrals are the Absolute best. That's the best. So it would be reaching out to one of my trusted buddies. Hey, Joe, gonna be. Gonna be interviewing for new operations, whatever. You're super connected. Anybody come to mind as well as you know, our company that might be a fit that I could have a conversation with? That's how it would sound. Yeah.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: And in addition to that, it's hard, obviously. Like we're. I might be looking for people that would traditionally come from the vendors I use or the customers. And you can't go and poach or I wouldn't at least.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: No.
[00:17:35] Speaker B: So a good avenue I found to go down is if you're working with either professional services like the bonding world, accounting that aren't directly competitors with us, but work with a lot of people in our industry or industry network group. So for us, ABC Associated builders and contractors and they touch every contractor, everybody that's even associated with construction in the state. They are a great avenue to. So those industry folks who's part of.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: Your war room too, right? We talk about the war room all the time. Or you would reach out to your war room. That's one of them. It's no secret that I'm in the midst of trying to hire a new controller slash cfo. The bank is one of those. Any controllers or bad, you know, you can think of that are recently available that you know might not love their current situation, that you could make an intro that's one for us and in the controller or CFO role. Absolutely.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: And I don't. I'm not sure you can tell me. I don't know if this is a dirty tactic or not, but we use it. So it's not. It's not. You know, as I said, I'm not going to directly go after anybody that we work with. They're people. I'm not going to do that. But I have told my teammates, if you're talking to a bunch of people you love and you're working directly with them, mention that we have an open position, say if you know anybody that may be a great fit because that person might be like, I hate my job and I'm looking for a new opportunity. So again, not soliciting that person, but making sure they know there is an availability here. Another thing, just in addition to that, I always put under if we're hiring, under my signature block, we're hiring for new project managers. Here's the link. Just so anybody I email sees it. So not directly going after people, but making sure that people that we love know that we're hiring just in case they are looking.
[00:19:22] Speaker A: I mean, look, it's, it's a, it's, it's a world, you know, humans are. Have free will and certainly I think where you run into challenges. If you're going to have a problem, it's going to be with the leadership of the other side. So let's just say you know it, let's say you don't even mention it. But in your, your signature, someone that you love and do business with pings you on the side and says, I saw your signature and I think that person you're looking for could be me. And you're going, oh Jesus. You work for, you know, monster contractor and the revenue typ to it is. And you're going to give a lot of consideration. All right, who, who is that? What could it mean? And you're going to have to make a decision on whether that is someone that you feel like you're able to approach and if it would be, you know, what, what the ramifications of hiring them could be or could look like. And, and it's, it's, it's not, it's not, it's not easy. Right. You. And that's where your big network is, is a blessing and a curse.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: Well, I.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: Because you do know a lot of people.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Yes. And I can tell you if I had somebody that was coming to me that was part of. I was friends with the leader of the company, it's probably a no go for me. Sure. Or it would have to be a dis. It would have to be a situation where that I would have a discussion. See, it's tricky because that you can't have a discussion with the owner of the business because this person's applying or potentially applying and they don't know you.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: Put a target on them.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: Literally put a target.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: So that's really tricky. Bounce. I have not had to do that, but I could just tell you, I mean my friendships in the business are going to become for anything else. So it's probably going to be a no go for me.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Which squeezes your applicant pool.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: So I'll tell you what, one thing I have done before. So there's a customer we work with and I am pretty friendly with the now president of the company. But I think we were going back and forth when he was the vp. Doesn't matter. And I said to him, listen, I'm looking for a great thing. It was project manager a couple of years ago and I would like to know if there's anyone in Your organization that could benefit under my tutelage and that I could give unlimited opportunity to grow that might not have the same opportunity within your organization. I'm looking for someone great. I know the chances of you letting go of somebody that's really good inside your organization is almost zero. But if you care about their quality of life and you're being honest, I'd really be interested in somebody that I could take under and embrace under my arms. If you don't think your company's gonna.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: Be able to do that, what was that answer?
[00:21:57] Speaker B: It was a positive response. I didn't get any recommendations, but it was a very positive response. And he knew I was coming to him direct. I was being transparent. I would never go behind his back. And that showed that honesty. But I think if somebody came to me because roles reversed and said that and I knew there was somebody in my company that was great, that just. There wasn't a growth opportunity that wouldn't happen in my company because that's the most important thing. But if there were, I would think about it. I'm not sure I would seriously think about it again. I will never be in that position because I think growth opportunities are the most sought after thing for anybody that's inside an organization. But I thought it was an interesting. It was a very. I say interesting tactic. I think honest tactic was the right word to use, especially because.
And I do that for companies that are a little larger. This was a much larger company than mine. And really great people can get lost in the mix when there are really large organizations. I don't think I would ever do that to a small business that has.
I just don't think it's the same situation. But this was a bigger company and just seemed to make sense.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: Let me ask you a question.
If after that conversation where the individual you were talking to was obviously very mature, that's because that's a very mature. That's a very mature response. And you'd like to think that the leader of a large organization like that, it's pretty mature and pretty smart. Pretty seasonally. What. What do you think would have happened if you did get an applicant from that person's company? Right. It was basically saying, well, that guy just doesn't know it. But I really don't think I have the opportunities here. If you would have gotten an applicant, what would you have done?
[00:23:36] Speaker B: Well, I was looking for him. Yeah.
Based on him?
[00:23:42] Speaker A: Well, he said he doesn't come back with anybody, but you get an applicant from his company as you're out advertising elsewhere for that spot.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: Well, that's that good.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: Does that give you the green light to pursue?
[00:23:51] Speaker B: That's good question.
[00:23:52] Speaker A: That's a really good.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: I think I would cross that bridge when I got there because I do not have an answer for you. I did not think that far ahead.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: Isn't that the greatest non answer? Well, I don't know how it feels until I was there. I mean, it's like when you're asking questions about kids. Until I have a child, I don't know.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: The truth is I really.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: You can use that too.
[00:24:08] Speaker B: Listen, if they were. If they were great.
I don't know.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: Remember, Remember John? You said you didn't have anybody. Sally definitely disagreed.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: Actually, his name was John.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: Was it John?
[00:24:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, that's not a tough one these days.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: So wait, you're saying that there was a baby boomer in the corner office running a company and his name was John?
Oh, moving right along.
[00:24:30] Speaker B: Okay, so don't ask me hard questions anymore. That was too hard.
[00:24:35] Speaker A: I was over here thinking what I would do and I didn't have an answer. So I thought, you know what? I'll put you on the hot seat.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: And that's part of running a business you figure out as you go.
[00:24:43] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: I've never actually been in the situation. I sent the email. I never thought further than what would happen with the response that I got.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: Yeah, well, fortunately. Well, who knows? That's your.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: I'll give that some thought.
[00:24:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: Next time I send that email.
Okay. So we were back.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: We were back to the process.
[00:24:58] Speaker B: So. Yeah, let's rip it back. So the. I've.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Because we've only written the job description, we actually haven't done anything towards attracting.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: That was my question is. Well, we did, we said referrals always tap the industry. But beyond that, you're still. Even when you're doing that simultaneously, you're putting it on particular platforms. And then I asked about utilizing recruiters.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I would say in general to recruiters. No, but I'm definitely jaded and, and have a problem with what I refer to as the flesh pedaling industry.
And, and, and why I, why I'm frustrated with it is because I think it's of. It's of low value. And when I use the word value, that means what you pay versus what you get, I truly mean the word value. And I have a lot of friends in that business. So I'm not trying to throw stones or be nasty.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: Most relentless people I've ever met.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: The recruiters without question. Without question. And it, and it go, you know, and that's a very boomer bust, you know, when talent becomes scarce and I refer to it literally as a buyer's market and a seller's market of talent, you know, so, so when unemployment is high and there are more jobs and there are more jobs me set around. Yeah, when the unemployment market is high, that is what you call a buyer's market. You know, me as the employer, I get the pick of the litter.
The salary inflation is going to be have a lower look to it than it would generally versus and that is where the headhunter starve. Right. Because there is an abundance of supply and there is less demand, which means that the cost of talent goes down. They're just simple economics. Now on the other side for them, in markets like we've had most recently with unemployment pushing 3536 and by the way, some states even skinnier than that are the number of jobs that go unfilled, especially in manufacturing, then that becomes a seller's market of talent, which is employee side.
So I did most recently for my controller position, full disclosure, I did invite a recruiter, staffing headhunter, all the same thing to participate. And one of the reasons I did is because their model was a little different. You know, traditionally you pay a very large percentage of the first year salary to hire that person. It can be 25, it can be 20, 25. 30% is not uncomfortable percentage of that person's salary, the person's first year base, which is not uncommon. And, but if that person fails out, you know, and you have 90 days to figure out if they're going to make it and if they fail out, you don't get your money back, you get a credit towards another piece of flesh. So I've always had a problem with that and, and I haven't had a lot of success. So in this moment where my band, my personal bandwidth was very skinny, I did elect to bring someone on to help with the advertising for the position. But also the screening really what I got, you know, when I looked at that hourly piece, it was the screening that was very interesting because we knew we were going to throw a lot of lines into the, into the water. And regardless of where they came from, you know, they were throwing out lines, we were throwing out lines. There was still that screening process where somebody was going to have to sit on a team's call or phone call and make sure that that potential applicant checked all the boxes to get to the next level. That was valuable for me. With everything that I had to do. And I've done it any number of ways. There's times when, you know, in my, my little evolution, because I'm just like you, I'm. I'm just a project manager. Like what does the president of the company do? Tell me about your roles. I mean, I'm a project manager. I'm usually tackling the hardest thing at any given time. And it could be fun, hard. Right. It could be a growth opportunity, it could be a software opportunity. But usually what I'm doing in is leaning into something and providing extra bandwidth in both physical power. Right. Just, just absolutely outworking it and then hopefully helping to out think it. So that goes in ebbs and flows. And in this moment when I needed to identify and hire a new controller, I was already pretty well booked up. So that was a moment where I sought help to, yes, put the word out. Help with the pure advertising part, but then also the screening part. So I wasn't sitting there just, you know, drowning in applicants and trying to find the time to screen them. 98%. I mean that's the number that ultimately came back. The vast majority of whom were not going to be a fit. So I paid somebody less per hour to do that than I'm worth. And I did outsource that part this time, which is rare, but I did this time.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And I've never used a recruiting service. But it's interesting some of the tools now, for instance, we both use LinkedIn very heavily. Recruiter. They've added in features that do have some of the screening processes up front that include that in which is nice. Like LinkedIn's done that. Are they qualified here, are they qualified for here, are they qualified here? And then they split the candidates up into not a fit. Maybe a fit if they got like, you know, two out of three of the questions. Right. Or definitely a fit. So that's, that's great. So we have recruiters, we've obviously talked about LinkedIn. We utilize you guys. And I have before too. Utilize. Indeed.
[00:30:13] Speaker A: Indeed. Sure.
[00:30:14] Speaker B: What else? Any actual specific platforms.
[00:30:17] Speaker A: Indeed and Zip.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: Indeed.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: Which are very similar. Right. Those are big aggregators of pushing out the messaging. And here's the big difference. I mean, if we're using Indeed, I will say that a lot of times you're getting candidates that are unemployed and that is something. And listen, everybody comes on hard times. I mean, there's a reason why people, people find themselves unemployed. But I've also found that when you are throwing your hook into that water, there's a reason that any number of those candidates aren't employed too. So that's just something you have to go on. Eyes wide open. And then if you think about the LinkedIn tool, just these are lanes for me. I mean I look at ZipRecruiter and indeed over here in Elaine and if I'm thinking about the lane that is LinkedIn, well, let LinkedIn recruiter.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: So you can just do regular LinkedIn where it's a job posting just like those.
[00:31:08] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:31:08] Speaker B: Although they do have the screening tool. I don't know if the other two do. But that's, but this is LinkedIn recruiter paid for.
[00:31:14] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:31:15] Speaker B: Sis.
[00:31:16] Speaker A: Which is a hunter tool. Yeah.
[00:31:17] Speaker B: Which is a hunter.
[00:31:18] Speaker A: It's a stalking tool.
[00:31:19] Speaker B: But it's still your time that you invest into the hunting process.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: And here's the thing, what I'm learning, you know, there's only so much, much efficacy that any of this has for a long time. And so I'm, right now I'm in this and I'm doing it right now and I'm, and I'm doing everything you say. I'm, I'm. Look, I'm, I'm sorting it by keywords, cfo, I'm sorting it by controller. I'm sorting it geographically. We'd like to have them in this area. I'm clicking the box that says generally in office. Right. I'm, I'm hitting the big ones that say, well, if you want a baby and I don't want a baby, then we probably shouldn't get together. Right. I'm, you're at least getting through some of that type of stuff. And then that'll, that'll bring it down to 280 candidates or something like that that at least have a buzzword or a keyword or something in the right geography. And you both want kids, so then you're going to open to work. Right. And that's someone that said, you know, if you ping me, I'd considering it. I'm okay over here. Some days I love it, some days I don't. Right.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: So that's, so I'll push back on just on that piece. So I, when I use the recruiter app, I don't, I don't look at open to work at all. It doesn't, I'm indifferent to that. Yeah.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: I will tell you that it doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot because of the ones that I sent out. Nobody actually saw them open them. Like you don't know how active they are on LinkedIn when they checked Open to work, was that just before they found their other job and never unclicked it. Like, there's just. It's not. It's. It's. Nothing is remotely foolproof. So just have to go on eyes wide open. It's not some magic tool where you just, you know, the perfect hire just drops into your lap. It's not how it works.
[00:32:50] Speaker B: No. 3 comments, though, on the LinkedIn Recruiter app. And I imagine there are other tools like this, but the one thing is, the difference is, so you're, you know, you're actively doing the hunting. You're not waiting for people to come to you. And my last hire, Marie, that's how we got Marie. And it was just. It was such a. I mean, she's a great hire, and she had everything we were looking for. And I said, never again will I do it any other way, because, you know, you are in control, at least of who the candidates are. Now, a couple of. To add to your point of the challenges here, one thing Marie told me was she had to reread my message several times, thinking it wasn't just spam. And that's why a lot of people won't. They're like, well, they couldn't. The president of the company wouldn't possibly be reaching out to me. Even if you tailor your message, which I did, I made it very personal. So I think a lot of people just don't respond because they're like, this is bullshit. I get a lot of messages like this. So that's one thing where he's like, I reread it several times before I've decided to respond to you.
[00:33:50] Speaker A: And. And I'll just. And you may, if you're getting ready to say this, I apologize. LinkedIn won't let you do anything else. Somebody let you stalk so much, Right.
[00:33:58] Speaker B: Until they respond, it locks you out.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: Until they give you the green light.
[00:34:01] Speaker B: Right.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: Which is interesting, too.
[00:34:02] Speaker B: It is. And then.
Oh, gosh, that knocked me off.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: I'm so sorry.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: No, no, no, that's okay. What was I going to say in addition to that?
[00:34:09] Speaker A: Well, yeah, you're talking about Marie, who had to read your email, your message a bunch of times to recognize that it was legit.
[00:34:16] Speaker B: Right.
Man, I can't remember. Okay.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Sorry.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: No, that's okay.
[00:34:21] Speaker A: It'll hit you again, I promise.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: Yeah. So to reach out, they think it's spam, blah, blah, blah.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: We'll just step to the next. Go to the next step, which is where you start to formulate your candidate Pool. Because that's.
[00:34:33] Speaker B: Oh, I remember. Sorry. I do remember.
[00:34:34] Speaker A: If I kept talking to you, you'd be back.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So one thing my VP and I have talked about is the interesting the psychology of humans. So when you reach out to people that are very happy in the particular position they're in, it's really interesting to see them go through this evolution in their head. Like, well, I'm really happy and I was never looking anywhere else, but this is a really good offer. And they pursued me. And then you see this whole psychology change, which is why the open to work to me doesn't matter, because when somebody is being pursued, it changes their mindset of, like, if they weren't, then they'd probably be happily in their position. But when they are, then all of a sudden things start to change and they formulate these ideas in their head. And now like, well, maybe that could work. They consider new things. It's really interesting to see. And it wasn't. Wasn't just with Marie, with a lot of the other candidates we reached out to who were like, well, I wasn't looking, but now I'm interested in what you have to say.
[00:35:34] Speaker A: Well, exactly what you say too, is this idea that. Because they don't have open to. Because I would imagine, you know, if I did fall into a trap, the trap of open to work could have them being pummeled by a lot of potential people.
[00:35:45] Speaker B: Right.
[00:35:46] Speaker A: So. So those people that have the open to work flag up, does that mean that they're getting bombed more? And the ones that don't and occasional comes, they're like, that's interesting. I didn't even consider that. Right. And then they do a little research and they dump down. Jump down your rabbit hole for a second website. I mean, I have to Google your name to know exactly who you are. Watch 43 episodes of a podcast, for example. You know exactly what you're getting yourself into.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: Yes. So I do want to. I do want to touch on what you are specifically looking for. When you have. When you've identified candidates, they've responded, and you get into the interview process.
But before we do that, really quickly, just a couple of very quick hit questions. When you have your job description up, everything on the platforms, you're reaching out to people, are you listing things like salary or range? Are you listing potential for bonuses, like that financial piece? Because I find that's a tricky. Some people are like, not going to mention it. That's not going to be part of the initial discussion. Others are like, it's going to be part of my initial description right up front. Because when you do that, you could knock out the possibility of getting certain candidates. Because for me, I've listed, I think every time I've listed a salary range. I've, I've, it's, I rarely like the final offer is not inside the range sometimes.
[00:37:02] Speaker A: So yeah, no, we do, we do offer a range. But you're, but you're right, we do offer a range.
[00:37:09] Speaker B: Now if you apply to our position, don't try to negotiate with me. Okay. I'm just not.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: You definitely, you definitely don't want to hire anybody that's a negotiator. Good point.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: The salary range is there for a reason, people.
[00:37:22] Speaker A: And you know, turn off your negotiation bullshit until you start working for me. Then turn it back. Yeah, there we go. That's what I meant. So just about timing. No, we do, we, we put a range up and it's pretty broad too. It's not meant to, it's not meant to chase anybody off. But my gosh, if you, if you, you attracted a candidate that was looking for 2x what you had as a financial resource, then you would just be wasting everybody's time. So I think it's, it's appropriate there.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: So anecdotal, let me tell you, you're spot on. You have to add a salary range. The first time I ever was hiring somebody, ever, we did not. And I was getting candidates that were asking for two, three times what we were looking for. And it was such a waste of our time. And then also LinkedIn statistically has.
They have stats around the success of job descriptions with and without salary ranges. And they are, it's not even up for debate.
You need to put some kind of range in there.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: Here's the other thing that makes it tricky too, is that job, is that job titles don't always translate equally in places. So I'll just give you an example. We're a small company, we have 85 people. But we do have vice president level positions around here. And it may not always translate to McCormick just picking a big company in our market. It may not always translate. So although, and I'll just pick one that is a big.
The person that is the top of our marketing organization is our vice president of marketing. If I take the job vice president of marketing out to the world, I'm going to get Nike, I'm going to get Adidas. So to do that and in that type of a job, that's the other reason to do it. Just because not all of those Titles, Transfer, transfer. And it could be inviting candidates that are just a little different than you're looking for. And you would end up wasting everybody's time. Same outcome, wasting everybody's time. But that's one that we. That we have seen happen. Where I'll give you another. Some tricky ones, right? The top operations guy at General Motors is called the vice president of operations. He has 60,000 indirect reports. Everybody that makes the cars. So those are. That be tricky too where. Or we'll even tone some of those back where we call it this and we'll. And that's where the recruiter was actually helpful, looked at the actual job tasks and said, this is a controller. What you're asking for in the world out there that we deal with day in and day out is a controller. So call it that. You can bring them inside and call them, you know, vice president of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We don't care. But if you want to get the right candidates on the first pass, call it this, don't call it that. And that's the reason for it.
[00:40:09] Speaker B: I totally agree. And as an employer, I mean, you can get into this more when you're having an interview with somebody, but you still have to get to that point. So as. As a. If you are a small business and you are up against the big boys, the Nikes or the under armours of the world, if you're in that space, or for me, the big general contract or the big supply houses that just have a location in every city. One thing on the job description, I definitely hone in on being a small business and the benefits of being a small business, like being able to get creative, being able to tailor certain things towards, you know, I try to describe it the best way I can, but being able to tailor. Being able to be creative, being able to all of these things that a small business can do that the bigger big boys just can't do, like you. You have to talk about why that's special. And in fact, one of the candidates are my lead candidate right now that I'm hoping works out.
That was one of the things that really interested him. He's worked for a big corporation for a really long time and he's like, I'm looking for a small. Something different.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It would be the first line of your ad. Right? Tired of being a cog in the wheel. And you would build it after.
[00:41:13] Speaker B: No doubt. No doubt.
So what is the emphasis that you put on? What is the emphasis that you. By the way, we were going to do A fire or a hiring and firing episode. I think today we do hiring and the next. Next episode will be totally firing. Who knew we had so much to say about this.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: And what I would like to weave in and hopefully I can make a note around this. The other piece of this is what is going on. To continue to run the business while your person down. That's the part, right. That learn thing is it's twofold. You are, you know, you're learning about what that next candidate should look like and what their skill set should be as you're wrapping expectations around it. But then you know, and you're doing it too. You step back into a project manager role while you're hiring. Yeah, and I have stepped back into a controller role and I'm getting to watch things that I don't get to watch on a daily basis like payroll, sitting back, payroll always done, done flawlessly. Everybody gets paid. Well, now there are some questions that are being asked to me and of me that I've never had to answer before. And then I always answer with a question. Well, I don't know enough about the process. Why are you asking me that? You're asking me a very specific question and I'm trying to understand what the outcomes will be of answer A versus answer B. So I'm generally learning about it. So, you know, you're taking on. You're basically doing a second job in the short term while you're also. So I'm going into it, but there's something to be done or talked about here as far as meanwhile back at the ranch because the business has to go on whatever functions that person is leaving. Clearly they're important that they wouldn't have a BP of something or an executive something in front of it. Meanwhile, back at the ranch. I'd love to hear us talk about.
[00:42:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And we can get into that a little bit more next episode. But to yes and you. I mean, I am back in the trenches and if you are somebody that's hiring and you're like, holy shit, this is hard. Yes, it's hard. Yes. You'll spend a lot more hours because you're hiring and then you're also doing. Taking on more job tasks to cover for that open role or open roles, plural.
Positive lining. You're going to learn a lot about your business. You're going to be. I'm so happy to be. Part of me is sick. Happy to be back in the project management. More customer facing, more vendor facing. I enjoy it. I'm also seeing all the mistakes that were made that I didn't know about, which are just an opportunity to improve. But as I said to my team today, because we're all covering, not just me. Yeah, just understand that because we're talking about, well how are we going to bring in people, maybe greener folks because we're, you know, you're looking at well this person's experience, this person's not. What's the right hire? How are we going to bring on somebody greener if we have to spend so much time training? And the answer is understand that we will potentially need to take one step back to take a bunch of steps forward. And the reality is if you do not do that, I said this to my team, if we don't do that, we will not grow, period. So just wrap your head around it.
[00:44:13] Speaker A: Yep, absolutely. And also too it becomes about setting expectations with the hire. Right. I mean what that codes for is you're brand new. I'm saying this very, very bluntly, you're brand new, you don't know anything. Which means you're going to be an anchor for one of my very valuable people in the short term. Which means that sometimes you're going to have to sit and spin. Try not to get frustrated. It's going to happen. I'm telling you about it. It doesn't mean we're unprepared, it means that this is just the way it looks when I don't, you know, I'm not IBM. I don't have a training organization the size of mixed company. Right. I have. The people that are working in the jobs are also training you as well. So that expectation setting is what we attack or how we approach.
[00:44:54] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Now what is your thoughts and emphasis you put on resumes? Question one and two. Do you believe in there such a thing as over qualification for a role?
[00:45:07] Speaker A: You know, look, a resume to me is a representation of past and present and I said that to a candidate today as it related to we're to the point in the process making offers and as in heading to that. There's a, there's a pre coaching process that goes on that says I met with all the people that also met with you in the process because I wanted their feedback in helping to me to make a very important decision. Here's what they said and you know you're basically pointing out the warts to the person on the person and I mean part of that is watching and seeing how they handle it, what they do with that. You're immediately testing them for coachability. It's a real time test. They're not even working in the organization yet. And you're saying, look, you have some warts. We all do. We don't think these are toxic. But we would like them to be front and center for something you to commit to work to on the way in the door. So you'll fit great into the organization and we're really, really, really going to help you as well. So back to your resume question. To me it's a list of past and present and I think it's a good conversation starter. You definitely want to understand how the applicant got here. I would be picking out things that look relevant, that have a similar look to our business, but also different. Like I don't, I don't want to hire another first baseman. I want to hire someone that can bring things into the organization that we don't know. So there's that part of it, you know, the past and the present piece and obviously checking. And I think it depends too, how technical is the job? Controller technical, VP of automation. Technical. I mean, very nutsy boltsy. So that would have a little bit different sound maybe than some other positions that may not be that have a, you know, that, that very technical element to them. Yeah, I think the resume is fine.
You know, it's, it's okay. It has literally not evolved in a thousand years. It's a list of past and present and you're trying to, to get through it and validate that the things on the past, present that were attractive are actually legitimate. And then I'm asking a lot of questions that says here, it says that XYZ Company you did this. How did you do it and how did you measure it? And you're looking for the speed of answer, the accuracy of answer. Clearly if it's something that they implemented, they should be all over it. And then we, and then we, and then we, and then we. It should sound like that. I mean, and you can, and those are ways you just ferret out the bullshit. If somebody embellished or they grabbed something that the team really did or their direct report really did and they put it in there because it looked like it was going to be cool, but then they can't speak to it and that's a dead giveaway.
[00:47:52] Speaker B: I agree and I do the same. I use the resume as a foundation. I want to know that you've had some experience. I also. And we'll get into this a little bit more because the next question which will be on a different episode is what we are really looking for when we're in the interview process. But one of the things in a resume, I don't like to see somebody that's had a million different jobs. I'm not saying you've had to be at a business for 20 years. If I see that, I quite like that sometimes. But I like seeing somebody that's had a couple experiences at least. Like I like some experience, but also that somebody that's been loyal to a company and put some tenure in and it's not always going to be like that. That's not what all of our candidates look like. It's not black or white. But generally speaking, if I'm looking at resumes, that's attractive to me as someone.
[00:48:42] Speaker A: That'S in the throes of the process right now. I will, I will tell you that that is changing that the. There is at least in a lot of the resumes. And these seem like qualified people. Right. But. But I would say that going forward, the world or leadership should be prepared to see many more jobs on a resume than we may have seen historically in two and three year increments. That. That is something I've absolutely experienced. I. I didn't really come across any what I would call lifers in. In this search. Six years, seven years, ten years.
[00:49:17] Speaker B: I got a 20 year.
[00:49:18] Speaker A: That's long. Yeah, I mean that's, that's incredibly long standing by today's standards. And that's something that's changing. And I will say too, Covid had an effect on that. There is that window that's coming through where so many people were disrupted. And you can see it on the front end or in the middle or on the back end. There's definitely movement in that 19 to 22 to 2019 to 2022. There's some movement in there that I think that I know is unusual. So it's hard to ferret out if those are Covid type events in that type of movement. Or this person just she, you know, is attracted to a shiny new thing every three years. And should you plan on only having their services for three years? That's what you have to figure out.
[00:49:59] Speaker B: Right.
[00:49:59] Speaker A: And are you okay with it? Yeah. You know, is that a job that you're okay with?
[00:50:01] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:50:02] Speaker A: Swap it out in three years. Sounds brutal to me.
[00:50:05] Speaker B: Well, this is a good. I believe this is a good ending point for us, which. What we did in this episode is we had an entire episode on how to identify candidates.
[00:50:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:50:15] Speaker B: Next episode will be.
[00:50:17] Speaker A: We don't even have one in the door yet.
[00:50:18] Speaker B: Once you, once you now that you have your candidates identified, you have a pool, what are the next steps? Getting in them in the door. And I'm thinking through, so what is your first interview look like? Second interview, what does it look like from the standpoint of bringing your team in to what are the questions you ask, what are your negotiations ask? All of that will be in the next episode to get into because I know there's a lot that has, that goes into that and both you and I especially you have a lot of experience on what has worked and what doesn't work.
[00:50:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And do you bring in trusted advisors? We talk about our war room in the controller process, for example. We'll build this out. I actually do have a call center. I'm not a technical accounting expert, so you could bullshit me. So I actually do invite Todd Fuhrman from Ellen and Tucker in. He does a 45 minute call and he's, he's grilling them on debits and credits. So that's something we can build out.
[00:51:07] Speaker B: That's exactly that. We're going to blow everything. Once you identify the candidates you want them to interview, they want to interview what's next?
[00:51:15] Speaker A: And then meanwhile, back at the ranch while you're trying to run the effing business. That's exactly because that's the part that's, that's when the 3A. That's why I look like I look today.
[00:51:23] Speaker B: And because we're running businesses, I am one minute late, which is not cool to a meeting. All right, so.
[00:51:28] Speaker A: Clang. We're back to it.
[00:51:29] Speaker B: See, we actually, this is real life.
[00:51:31] Speaker A: We actually, we actually do this. We just don't sit here and talk about it.
[00:51:33] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:51:33] Speaker A: See you soon.
[00:51:34] Speaker B: Cheers.
[00:51:38] Speaker A: Well, she wasn't kidding. She does actually have a meeting and we do actually do this. We don't just sit here and talk about it. So I've been left to carry the rest of the show by myself.
So what do I always say? Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. Thank you for your time. If you love what we're doing, please reach out, send us a note, drop us a line, tell us if you like our hiring episode that we're working on. You know, you know, we're going to stick around with this going forward, so drop us a line and, and we'll weave in whatever you think it is that's important.
As always, thank you for listening and we're going to be back as soon as we can to share some more battle stories. She literally just ran off to battle. See you soon.
Welcome to H Superstars tonight.
