Latest / Luke's English Podcast / Hiring Is a Skill - Interview With Laura Mazzulo of East Side Staffing and Ken Monroe_ CEO of Bchex

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Hiring Is a Skill - Interview With Laura Mazzulo of East Side Staffing and Ken Monroe_ CEO of Bchex · Luke's English Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: This is the Bad Hire, the show with the best
0:02
Speaker 1: stories about the worst employees.
0:05
Speaker 2: We fired him.
0:05
Speaker 1: Of course, people are crazy.
0:07
Speaker 3: It's like an HR nightmare.
0:09
Speaker 1: Right, one bad hire stole all of.
0:11
Speaker 4: It crazy stuff. She got what she deserved.
0:15
Speaker 1: Oh. I'm your host, Ken Monroe, and every week we
0:19
Speaker 1: dive into real life stories from the wild world of
0:22
Speaker 1: work and what can happen when the wrong person gets
0:26
Speaker 1: the job. These stories aren't just crazy when they are
0:29
Speaker 1: cautionary tales about lessons learned the hard way. Let's get started.
0:35
Speaker 1: This is so interesting that I was really intrigued that
0:39
Speaker 1: you only hire HR leaders, right. I was just like, okay,
0:42
Speaker 1: well that's you know, that's that's super Yeah, that's the thing. Well,
0:49
Speaker 1: you know what I got out of that was, you know,
0:54
Speaker 1: when you're and I think that's probably true. And at
0:56
Speaker 1: some point you get old enough to have or big
0:59
Speaker 1: enough to have, you know, an HR professional come in
1:03
Speaker 1: and and and help you so much of when you're
1:06
Speaker 1: growing your company as CEO, you're trying to you know,
1:08
Speaker 1: you're doing that role, right, You're involved in every hire,
1:11
Speaker 1: You're trying to do whatever when it comes to culture
1:14
Speaker 1: and you know, the good ones figure it out and
1:18
Speaker 1: then you know the bad ones don't. But you get
1:21
Speaker 1: to a place where you know you have to have
1:24
Speaker 1: somebody carry the torch there and build the systems you know,
1:26
Speaker 1: that allow you to scale. And I never really thought
1:30
Speaker 1: about you wrote You wrote something that said, uh, how
1:36
Speaker 1: you hire determines who you hired. Basically, if I recall,
1:39
Speaker 1: you wrote, how you hire determines who you hire, and
1:41
Speaker 1: who you hire determines how great your company becomes. And
1:45
Speaker 1: I thought, well, in no other position do you hire
1:48
Speaker 1: someone who now affects every higher after that? You know how?
1:55
Speaker 1: And so you know, it kind of struck me in
1:58
Speaker 1: the business that in the business that I'm in, the
2:00
Speaker 1: businesses that I do, you know how I make a living.
2:04
Speaker 1: You know just how critical these HR teams are, and
2:07
Speaker 1: you know, I especially on the hiring side. I was
2:10
Speaker 1: telling someone the other day, we were talking about this, Laura,
2:14
Speaker 1: and I was talking about what I perceived their life
2:17
Speaker 1: to be like, right, I don't I'm not not, I
2:20
Speaker 1: don't do it right. I'm a cog in the wheel.
2:24
Speaker 1: But I feel the same kind of pressure, and that is,
2:28
Speaker 1: you know, a thousand a thousand things right goes unnoticed,
2:31
Speaker 1: one thing wrong is completely focused in on in the
2:34
Speaker 1: hiring process, you know, and it's this. The hiring is
2:40
Speaker 1: a long process. It starts with somebody saying I think
2:43
Speaker 1: I need this person, and then there's a discussion, and
2:46
Speaker 1: then somebody frames out a job atter, you know, a
2:49
Speaker 1: job description, and then you know there's an agreement, and
2:52
Speaker 1: then they'd run ads and then you know, all this
2:55
Speaker 1: happens before even talk to the first person. Then you
3:01
Speaker 1: go to this interview cycle and you know, you finally
3:04
Speaker 1: hone down and you make an offer, and then you
3:07
Speaker 1: start the onboarding. Sometimes you all on boardings. You know
3:10
Speaker 1: it's challenging, and you know it's talking about helping someone
3:15
Speaker 1: in my business. Understand, that's the pressure they're under. If
3:19
Speaker 1: we're if we're late, if we're not fast, if we
3:23
Speaker 1: make mistakes there, they get yelled at. They get the
3:27
Speaker 1: pressure from whatever it is. You know, hiring managers out there,
3:32
Speaker 1: you know divisional leaders that are trying to put people
3:34
Speaker 1: in place, and you know that's that's the pressure. You know,
3:38
Speaker 1: the same pressure we feel. We're feeling the exact same pressure.
3:41
Speaker 1: So when someone calls and says, why is this taken
3:43
Speaker 1: so long, you know that's the reason we want to
3:47
Speaker 1: eliminate that at every at every corner, because that's a
3:50
Speaker 1: pressure filled life to live. You know, you hire ten
3:54
Speaker 1: great people, no one you know, ground says man, great job,
4:00
Speaker 1: the flawless you know.
4:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's just such a complicated issue, which
4:06
Speaker 2: is why I said, we just need to kind of
4:07
Speaker 2: hash it out a little bit. I think that a like,
4:11
Speaker 2: the more I've killed back the layer of the onion,
4:13
Speaker 2: you've realized no company really invest in training their internal
4:16
Speaker 2: talent acquisition team or their internal recruiting team. So you
4:20
Speaker 2: have these bad recruiters or we you know, we hear
4:23
Speaker 2: these horror stories on the other side of candidates complaining
4:26
Speaker 2: about a bad hiring process. And I interviewed twelve times
4:29
Speaker 2: and I was it was four months. It's not you know,
4:32
Speaker 2: I feel the same with candidates. It's not like they
4:34
Speaker 2: want to be bad, like the internal recruiter doesn't.
4:37
Speaker 3: Want to be doing that.
4:38
Speaker 2: They often just haven't been trained on ways to be
4:40
Speaker 2: more efficient and use better processes and have better systems
4:44
Speaker 2: and be more assertive and confident and pushed back. So
4:48
Speaker 2: you're everyone's kind of the victim of a bad process
4:52
Speaker 2: that could so easily be fixed with a little humility
4:55
Speaker 2: and a desire to.
4:56
Speaker 3: Actually get better. Yeah, and that's where the ball drops.
5:00
Speaker 2: And I think, to your point, because I recruit HR,
5:02
Speaker 2: I have to convince HR leaders to become humble, to learn,
5:06
Speaker 2: and to unlearn. And that's hard for them because they
5:09
Speaker 2: feel a pressure to be perfect, especially at something like hiring,
5:12
Speaker 2: which falls under their umbrella. So my job, the hardest
5:15
Speaker 2: part of my job, I would say, is to get
5:17
Speaker 2: them to a place of are you willing to totally
5:19
Speaker 2: dismantle how you've hired up until now and try something different?
5:23
Speaker 1: I love it. Yeah, it's I was I was reading
5:27
Speaker 1: your some of your some of your posts and you know,
5:32
Speaker 1: by the way, congratulations on being super successful online. That's awesome,
5:37
Speaker 1: thank you.
5:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, years of LinkedIn and kind of but I think
5:41
Speaker 2: we we haven't been talking about hiring as a skill
5:44
Speaker 2: all these years. We've just talked about it, to your point,
5:47
Speaker 2: kind of like being a transactional thing. So there are
5:50
Speaker 2: like bad candidates and bad recruiters and bad processes and
5:53
Speaker 2: we all just kind of.
5:53
Speaker 3: Complain about it.
5:54
Speaker 2: But actually it's it's like being you know, I always
5:57
Speaker 2: attribute it to people who play a sport or musical
6:01
Speaker 2: instrument or kids. You struggle in a subject, you know,
6:05
Speaker 2: you just need to put in some time to get
6:06
Speaker 2: it right. And to your point, like, there's a whole
6:09
Speaker 2: process before you meet candidates that has to be so
6:11
Speaker 2: tight and so efficient and then.
6:14
Speaker 3: It will move fast.
6:15
Speaker 1: Yeah.
6:16
Speaker 2: I just think it's there's a kind of an arrogance
6:18
Speaker 2: around hiring that I've been noticing in recent years, just like, yeah,
6:21
Speaker 2: I know how to do it.
6:22
Speaker 3: And at some point we all get to a.
6:24
Speaker 1: Point of like I was going to ask you this question,
6:26
Speaker 1: because there's a there's a little bit of there's always
6:30
Speaker 1: been this kind of talk around the lack of you know,
6:34
Speaker 1: HRS trying to rattle the organization and say, hey, pay
6:38
Speaker 1: attention HR strategic right, it's not it's not it's not
6:43
Speaker 1: compliance And and that was a reel for a long time.
6:49
Speaker 1: That was a real you know, you could go to
6:52
Speaker 1: conferences about. It was a movement, right, Yeah, you had,
6:55
Speaker 1: you know, and then you started seeing chief HR officers
6:58
Speaker 1: and you know, take in a position to C suite
7:01
Speaker 1: And I wonder now if you think that CEOs, especially
7:05
Speaker 1: in up and coming companies, if they're smarter, if they
7:10
Speaker 1: have if they're any better in terms of understanding you
7:15
Speaker 1: know that you know, you're a mantra recruit and retain
7:18
Speaker 1: the retain part. Have they figured out the retain piece
7:21
Speaker 1: of culture, you know, and all the pieces afterwards that
7:25
Speaker 1: I guess add up to retain You think they're getting
7:27
Speaker 1: any smarter.
7:30
Speaker 3: There is such a disconnect between when you talk to
7:34
Speaker 3: a CEO and a founder or ahead of HR, and.
7:38
Speaker 2: So a CEO will say to me, I wish HR
7:40
Speaker 2: would have come to me and let me know they
7:42
Speaker 2: needed training, they needed help, they needed external recruiters, they
7:45
Speaker 2: needed vendors, they needed partners, like, of course we would
7:48
Speaker 2: have spent money or invested in them to make their
7:50
Speaker 2: life easier. Instead, what happens is HR typically burns out
7:54
Speaker 2: and then goes to them and it's a little too late,
7:57
Speaker 2: and so it's a little bit on HR to feel
8:00
Speaker 2: like instead of just complaining about it, because I think
8:03
Speaker 2: they're often negotiating against themselves and they're often saying like
8:06
Speaker 2: if I go to my CEO, they're going to say no,
8:08
Speaker 2: whereas the CEO is like, I absolutely would not have
8:11
Speaker 2: said no. So there's definitely a disconnect there between. I
8:13
Speaker 2: think the strategic HR pros have learned how to be
8:16
Speaker 2: more assertive and confident, but that's actually still a massive
8:20
Speaker 2: problem because I meet a lot of them who aren't
8:22
Speaker 2: capable of just those kinds of conversations, right, And it's
8:27
Speaker 2: I guess not easy for everybody to go to an
8:29
Speaker 2: executive and say what you need and want, But I
8:31
Speaker 2: think it's so important when you're trying to move something forward.
8:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the that's a theme. That's a theme I
8:37
Speaker 1: hear from you is the assertiveness. And I assume you
8:41
Speaker 1: mean that in a super positive way, but the ability
8:43
Speaker 1: to have a conversation with an executive, with the CEO,
8:46
Speaker 1: with an owner founder and say, hey, you know you
8:49
Speaker 1: may not want to hear this, but or this is
8:52
Speaker 1: the way it has to happen or should happen, or
8:54
Speaker 1: this is good counsel correct.
8:57
Speaker 2: It's so funny because that never came hard to me.
9:00
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's like the New Yorker and
9:01
Speaker 2: me or what. I that was never hard for me,
9:04
Speaker 2: even when I was early in my career. If I
9:06
Speaker 2: saw something wrong in a company I worked for, I
9:08
Speaker 2: just went to the top and told them what I noticed.
9:10
Speaker 2: But I do think for a lot of people that
9:12
Speaker 2: does not come naturally, and so they see a problem
9:15
Speaker 2: and then they just like swallow it, and it doesn't
9:19
Speaker 2: make any sense. So I always when I'm coaching internal recruiters,
9:22
Speaker 2: I remind them, like, if you're seeing problems with your processes,
9:25
Speaker 2: you need vendors, you need help, you need tech that
9:28
Speaker 2: you're not getting access to.
9:29
Speaker 3: You have to tell somebody. They're not going to know.
9:32
Speaker 2: Your CEO doesn't know what a hiring team needs or
9:35
Speaker 2: what an HR team needs.
9:37
Speaker 3: So we always want to blame the executive.
9:41
Speaker 1: But I think sometimes we think we do, right. I
9:45
Speaker 1: think sometimes we think we do. I get approached, so
9:48
Speaker 1: I get a you know, the sales mantra to salespeople
9:51
Speaker 1: is like call to the highest level, right, So they're
9:54
Speaker 1: calling above the HR leader, they're calling the CEO, they're
9:57
Speaker 1: calling the chief operating officer, and they're pitching stuff, right.
10:02
Speaker 1: And I think about the the if you are an
10:06
Speaker 1: HR leader and challenged to confront, challenge to speak up,
10:10
Speaker 1: and and uh, you know, CEO says, oh, I've got
10:14
Speaker 1: this super cool new technology that this guy pitched me.
10:18
Speaker 1: It's it's super good. It's going to make us way,
10:20
Speaker 1: it's going to make us way efficient. You're going to
10:22
Speaker 1: love it. We're never going to have to speak to
10:23
Speaker 1: anyone else, AI is going to do it all whatever
10:25
Speaker 1: it is, you know, And then you've got you know,
10:29
Speaker 1: on the on the opposite end of that, you got
10:32
Speaker 1: CEO founder tumbling down this thig and you you know,
10:36
Speaker 1: an HR leader looking at it going, oh, this is
10:38
Speaker 1: not going to end good. You know, I just told me.
10:40
Speaker 2: And it's interesting that you said as sort of could
10:41
Speaker 2: even be perceived as negative, because in my mind, it's
10:44
Speaker 2: only positive if you want to be perceived as a
10:46
Speaker 2: strategic leader the way I would define that as you're
10:50
Speaker 2: a person who comes forward with solutions, and so that
10:53
Speaker 2: means you also have to press the problem right. You
10:55
Speaker 2: have to be willing to say and you know, I
10:58
Speaker 2: listened to so many of your stories and a lot
11:00
Speaker 2: of it could be solved with better hiring processes. It's like, yeah,
11:03
Speaker 2: you know, we're complaining about all these bad hires we've made.
11:06
Speaker 2: It's probably solvable if we actually try to improve.
11:09
Speaker 1: There's two that there's a lot of themes in there
11:11
Speaker 1: that's like I hear listen to these stories and others
11:14
Speaker 1: that coming like how in the world did this person
11:17
Speaker 1: make it into the system. And second, often after some
11:22
Speaker 1: of these stories, we're looking at it going why didn't.
11:27
Speaker 1: Why did they wait so long? Like this person just
11:31
Speaker 1: was tumbling out of control, you know, and and they
11:35
Speaker 1: just kept sending them back to work and this and
11:38
Speaker 1: it and it continued, didn't you hear it? And then
11:39
Speaker 1: finally a year later we you know, and you know,
11:44
Speaker 1: I think about I guess.
11:45
Speaker 3: We've nailed it. With lack of assertion.
11:47
Speaker 2: There's usually somebody who sees a problem who's scared to
11:50
Speaker 2: say it. Yeah, And I don't know why, because to me,
11:53
Speaker 2: there's only upside.
11:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, lawsuits, you know, everyone's afraid of. Yeah, everyone's afraid directly. Yeah.
12:02
Speaker 2: And if you're having a conversation with your executive about
12:04
Speaker 2: something that's going.
12:05
Speaker 1: On, that's not that's that should be that shouldn't be driving, Yeah,
12:11
Speaker 1: for sure, exactly.
12:12
Speaker 3: That's just a a I'm noticing something that we might
12:16
Speaker 3: need to escalate or get legal invoved with. But it's
12:19
Speaker 3: at least just flagging it, right.
12:20
Speaker 2: It feels like that's the problem is these things just
12:22
Speaker 2: don't even get flagged.
12:24
Speaker 1: So back in twenty thirteen, you're tell me about the
12:29
Speaker 1: journey to then, what had you been doing?
12:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had been working for a big recruiting firm
12:34
Speaker 2: from two thousand and seven in twenty twelve. Two thousand
12:38
Speaker 2: and seven was like a height of hiring.
12:40
Speaker 3: So there were.
12:41
Speaker 2: Twenty two recruiters on my team just placing HR people
12:44
Speaker 2: in New York alone, and then two thousand and eight
12:47
Speaker 2: came and so we had layoff, layoff, layoff.
12:50
Speaker 3: It was rough.
12:50
Speaker 2: By twenty twelve, I was the last man remaining and
12:53
Speaker 2: I was running their HR practice alone, and I thought
12:56
Speaker 2: I should do this on my own and do it
12:58
Speaker 2: the way I want to do it, with my own
12:59
Speaker 2: back values, and so that's what led me to launch
13:02
Speaker 2: east Side Staffing. Twenty thirteen was also an exciting time
13:05
Speaker 2: for hiring. I mean I would not launch a recruiting
13:08
Speaker 2: firm today. Right then, it was like everybody was hiring
13:11
Speaker 2: and everybody needed help and they welcomed the helps and
13:15
Speaker 2: then it's you know, then it was a happy ride
13:17
Speaker 2: until twenty twenty, and then the last couple of years
13:19
Speaker 2: have been tricky. You kind of have to ride a
13:21
Speaker 2: roller coaster.
13:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, all of us that depend on hiring are
13:25
Speaker 1: like that, right we you know, all of my most
13:29
Speaker 1: of my businesses are all aligned to HR. So it's
13:35
Speaker 1: in different verticals, but yeah, it is. Now we also
13:40
Speaker 1: do a lot of work in schools, which is super
13:44
Speaker 1: interesting hiring cycles. Yeah, I was good explaining to someone
13:50
Speaker 1: the other day, you know, an HR pro who's hiring
13:54
Speaker 1: in school, the entire the entire year of hiring is
13:57
Speaker 1: compressed into a two and a half month period, two
13:59
Speaker 1: month per like, and there's this impending event like if
14:02
Speaker 1: you're late, right, uh and and you and you deliver
14:07
Speaker 1: someone late on a a in a typical role, you
14:10
Speaker 1: know you're gonna make some it's gonna ruffle some feathers
14:12
Speaker 1: people to be you know, they're gonna call you slow,
14:14
Speaker 1: They're gonna be you know, there's lots of reasons they
14:15
Speaker 1: could be upset. But in a school, class starts and
14:19
Speaker 1: there's gonna be kids in that classroom, right, and there's
14:21
Speaker 1: gonna be like, we don't have anybody to teach second
14:24
Speaker 1: grade or you know, seventh grade English. There's no one
14:28
Speaker 1: in that school that can you know, qualify to teach
14:30
Speaker 1: it on this day in school starting, So lots of
14:34
Speaker 1: pressure for them.
14:38
Speaker 2: Sometimes the deadline and that you actually are working on
14:41
Speaker 2: a timeline.
14:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, they compress so much into into that, and you know,
14:47
Speaker 1: supporting them and helping them is a lot of times
14:50
Speaker 1: about just refining process and getting better and better and better,
14:53
Speaker 1: becoming faster, efficient, effective at at you know, not only
14:57
Speaker 1: doing things fast, but also creating a positive experience for them.
15:00
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, you want the experience of coming on
15:05
Speaker 1: to be positive. That's your first taste of the culture. Right,
15:08
Speaker 1: How do I treated? How did they treat me along
15:10
Speaker 1: the way? Do they know what they were doing? You know? Right?
15:13
Speaker 1: Those are all like really positive things.
15:14
Speaker 2: That so interesting because as you're talking, I just had
15:17
Speaker 2: this like light bulb thought that because because you were
15:20
Speaker 2: saying strategic, hr, it was everyone's goal to be strategic,
15:23
Speaker 2: but no one really knew what that meant or how
15:25
Speaker 2: to get there, and so it's just kind of been
15:27
Speaker 2: a buzzword in a lot of ways. The same is
15:30
Speaker 2: true on the recruiting end. So we've always on the
15:33
Speaker 2: external side, we've always referred to ourselves as recruiting consultants,
15:36
Speaker 2: like that was always my title since twenty years ago.
15:40
Speaker 2: And then I think I understood what that meant, as
15:43
Speaker 2: you know, you're an external consultant, you add value. However,
15:46
Speaker 2: I think in the last few years it's become even
15:48
Speaker 2: clearer that it's about being creative to find different solutions
15:52
Speaker 2: to meet the actual problems of the clients. Historically, it
15:56
Speaker 2: was always okay, we need an external recruiter, we pay
15:58
Speaker 2: a fee, you find the it's a transaction. Lately it's
16:03
Speaker 2: been more of, you know, I don't know if we
16:04
Speaker 2: need an external headhunter, but we need help. Our internal
16:07
Speaker 2: recruiters are struggling. Our process needs work, our hiring managers
16:10
Speaker 2: need training, our processes are too long. Like it's like
16:14
Speaker 2: I've actually started really peeling back layers of the onion
16:17
Speaker 2: and realizing the right solution isn't always.
16:19
Speaker 3: Just fill the job. It's actually to use your point
16:22
Speaker 3: about education, like teach.
16:24
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting. Yeah, so not necessarily, not necessarily like
16:27
Speaker 1: staff augmentation, here's some additional recruiters to go find some people.
16:31
Speaker 1: But more we're broken in these places. This doesn't feel right.
16:34
Speaker 1: This is inefficient. My people need to be better trained
16:38
Speaker 1: to do this. Yeah, it just requires working to fill that.
16:43
Speaker 1: Are you working to fill that now? Is that what
16:44
Speaker 1: you're doing? You're helping the bulk.
16:47
Speaker 2: Of my business is still filling hr jobs where they're opening.
16:51
Speaker 3: So I'm still very much kind of seen as an
16:52
Speaker 3: external recruiter.
16:54
Speaker 2: However, I think what I'm getting better at and what
16:57
Speaker 2: I'm enjoying is when clients call me and say something like, Laura,
17:01
Speaker 2: we've been working on this HR job for four months,
17:03
Speaker 2: our internal recruiters hitting a wall. She's brought in twenty
17:07
Speaker 2: five people for us, we're not filling it. Instead of
17:10
Speaker 2: me just saying okay, great, I'll fill it, sometimes I'm
17:13
Speaker 2: offering like, do you want me to work with them
17:14
Speaker 2: one on one for a few months, see what's going wrong.
17:17
Speaker 2: Maybe I can help figure out why it's been problematic.
17:20
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's a reason. You probably already have your
17:22
Speaker 2: candidate there. It's not usually an issue of more people.
17:26
Speaker 2: It's usually an issue of kind of identifying the talent
17:28
Speaker 2: or are we asking the right questions as the process efficient.
17:31
Speaker 2: So I'm having fun with kind of hearing the problem
17:34
Speaker 2: and identifying exactly what they need.
17:37
Speaker 3: But it's not always just pay a fee and be
17:40
Speaker 3: done with.
17:40
Speaker 1: It, right, you know as soon as well. I guess
17:44
Speaker 1: they're both rewarding. I mean, yeah, I enjoy I enjoy
17:48
Speaker 1: I enjoy fixing things and building things, and so there's
17:51
Speaker 1: it probably feeds that for you. That's really good.
17:54
Speaker 2: Well, I think we've I think historically in recruitment there's
17:58
Speaker 2: been an internal recruiter versus external recruiter battle, and the
18:02
Speaker 2: internal recruiter, rightfully so, is usually annoyed when they go
18:05
Speaker 2: to search because it's like they've already been working on it.
18:07
Speaker 2: Now we have to bring in an external person who's
18:09
Speaker 2: going to get all the credit and get it done.
18:12
Speaker 2: And so I started noticing that dynamic and thinking, shouldn't
18:15
Speaker 2: I just help them, like they probably just need some support,
18:19
Speaker 2: and that could be in the form of training or
18:21
Speaker 2: coaching or something else, so that we're working as an
18:24
Speaker 2: actual team. And I think part of being strategic is
18:28
Speaker 2: also teamwork and not just kind of like outsourcing.
18:32
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19:13
Speaker 1: C h e X dot io. Yeah. I was had
19:19
Speaker 1: a conversations this past week, earlier this week with a
19:23
Speaker 1: former provost of major university and we were talking about
19:30
Speaker 1: we were really talking about behaviors and hiring for behaviors
19:34
Speaker 1: and looking for certain behavior sets modeling, and you know,
19:39
Speaker 1: he's doing something at his university using some technology that
19:43
Speaker 1: defines a set of core behaviors, tests for them and
19:46
Speaker 1: allows them to kind of open up their candidate pool
19:48
Speaker 1: beyond just resume fitness, right, just like to try to
19:52
Speaker 1: find Hey, these people might not have the total you know,
19:56
Speaker 1: the total experience or the skill set, but they have
19:59
Speaker 1: the behavior years of what we perceived the best performers
20:03
Speaker 1: to be. And we were in it was in a
20:06
Speaker 1: university setting, and it struck me as he shared with
20:10
Speaker 1: that I never really thought about this, but he was
20:13
Speaker 1: sharing that in university setting, this a very long process
20:18
Speaker 1: to hire someone and that they've introduced this behavioral a
20:23
Speaker 1: piece to help them get through the process to selecting.
20:27
Speaker 1: And the reason it's so important is the people who
20:32
Speaker 1: show up often show up with tenure. They bring their
20:35
Speaker 1: tenure with them. It's a permanent hire. The moment they
20:40
Speaker 1: pull the trigger. There's no escaping the bad hire there.
20:46
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, it is it is they cannot and
20:49
Speaker 1: oftentimes it's it's they're well paid. It could mean and
20:57
Speaker 1: research grants and other things that are under their control
21:00
Speaker 1: roll you know, they might lose or if they if
21:02
Speaker 1: they pull the trigger on the wrong person, or you know,
21:04
Speaker 1: it's just not a get fit. So I thought, I did,
21:07
Speaker 1: you know, I just never never imagined that. And listening
21:12
Speaker 1: to him describe the process and we were talking about
21:15
Speaker 1: how to improve the process. He was asking me questions,
21:18
Speaker 1: and you know, I really thought about walking away from that.
21:24
Speaker 1: You know, these some of these things are just the
21:26
Speaker 1: differences in scale between trying to pull the trigger on
21:30
Speaker 1: a decision like that and how important the process was
21:34
Speaker 1: in very unique ways compared to how important the process
21:37
Speaker 1: was for target or somebody who's hiring lots of people,
21:43
Speaker 1: and you still got to do it right, you know.
21:46
Speaker 5: Well, and you're referring to really this push towards using data,
21:49
Speaker 5: which is so smart and logical, right, So you use
21:51
Speaker 5: competencies and use skills as a data point to make
21:55
Speaker 5: an accurate hiring decision, not off of gut feel, not
21:58
Speaker 5: out of not out.
21:59
Speaker 3: Of instinct, and those of us that were trained.
22:01
Speaker 2: That way twenty years ago, it isn't un learning to
22:04
Speaker 2: be like, well, I like this guy more, but the
22:06
Speaker 2: other guy actually matches exactly what we need. You have
22:09
Speaker 2: to go that route, and I think it's it's beautiful
22:15
Speaker 2: when you follow a process and it actually works.
22:17
Speaker 3: That's how managers start to trust it more.
22:20
Speaker 1: I had a question right now for you, but I
22:21
Speaker 1: think I deleted it. I had a question for you.
22:26
Speaker 1: It's going to be I'm a big believer in that
22:31
Speaker 1: like most jobs, there are core behaviors that make people
22:37
Speaker 1: successful at most jobs, but not all jobs require high
22:43
Speaker 1: skills like you can. You could train skills, yeah, faster
22:50
Speaker 1: than you can train behaviors. Behaviors are built over, in
22:52
Speaker 1: my opinion, years of coaching and development, and it's hard
22:55
Speaker 1: to change who you are. But it can't happen. It
22:58
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it can't, It just means it's I think
23:00
Speaker 1: it takes longer. And then then then so skills based
23:06
Speaker 1: versus behavior based. And I was gonna when I think
23:11
Speaker 1: about an HR leader, it's a comby, Well, I'm gonna
23:17
Speaker 1: that's okay, that's a rating because I thought like, this
23:20
Speaker 1: has got to be eighty percent behavior. Like if I
23:23
Speaker 1: was hiring somebody, I think I will I'm I'm interested
23:27
Speaker 1: in your reaction to that, because I would think, let
23:29
Speaker 1: me find the right behaviors because they can go figure
23:32
Speaker 1: out the compliance hole they have or this whole but right,
23:37
Speaker 1: you know, do they have the assertiveness, do they have
23:41
Speaker 1: the curiosity? Do they have you know, the courage? What? What? What?
23:45
Speaker 1: What are those behaviors that you need to profile that
23:48
Speaker 1: that makes the perfect HR leader? Like and maybe that's
23:51
Speaker 1: a different depending on where you're at. You know, if
23:54
Speaker 1: you're at my company, it's one thing. If you're at America, every.
24:00
Speaker 3: Team, every role should be different.
24:02
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, And usually it's a combo platter because let's
24:06
Speaker 2: say it's like a head of total rewards job that's
24:08
Speaker 2: all about.
24:09
Speaker 3: Benefits and compensation.
24:10
Speaker 2: They do need some skills to run that department, obviously,
24:14
Speaker 2: and so you need to check some of those boxes.
24:16
Speaker 2: But of course you need to check those you know,
24:18
Speaker 2: we're still unfortunately often referring to them as culture fit.
24:21
Speaker 3: Questions, but they really are, to your point, behaviors, And
24:26
Speaker 3: you know, there's a million ways we can refer to them.
24:28
Speaker 2: You know, I like sometimes cultural ad they're adding to
24:32
Speaker 2: your culture, they're not necessarily fitting your culture, They're bringing
24:34
Speaker 2: something in that is needed.
24:38
Speaker 3: And I think the.
24:39
Speaker 2: Other piece, like when I listen to a lot of
24:41
Speaker 2: the bad higher stories, I'm thinking, you know, are we
24:44
Speaker 2: asking candidates what they want and what they need? Because
24:46
Speaker 2: that's such an important part of it too. It's not
24:49
Speaker 2: all about what's our wish list and then let's go
24:51
Speaker 2: find it. It's like, what does the candidate want and
24:53
Speaker 2: need from us? And usually if it's mutual and the
24:57
Speaker 2: person identifies why this job, this company, this leader is
25:00
Speaker 2: right for them, that's when it's a good sign. Like
25:03
Speaker 2: if I have a client who's down to two candidates,
25:05
Speaker 2: like I don't know which one to choose, they're both
25:08
Speaker 2: scoring the same on the scorecards, they're both kind of
25:10
Speaker 2: showing up the same in interviews, I'm like, well, let's
25:13
Speaker 2: ask who wants it?
25:14
Speaker 3: More like, let's ask kind of what they're feeling. And
25:16
Speaker 3: usually there's one person.
25:17
Speaker 2: Who's really like, this is the place I want, and
25:19
Speaker 2: this is why, and this is what that really does
25:23
Speaker 2: help kind of you know, it is a two person
25:25
Speaker 2: journey here.
25:27
Speaker 3: I think we often forget that and we just kind
25:28
Speaker 3: of go looking for what we want.
25:30
Speaker 6: I'm just gonna ask you if you have a so
25:35
Speaker 6: you've had, I'm gonna I'm just gonna I'm not gonna
25:38
Speaker 6: ask you how many, but I'm gonna assume hundreds of
25:40
Speaker 6: placements you've done.
25:41
Speaker 3: If not thousand, Yeah, I've never even counted, right, So.
25:44
Speaker 1: Just gonna assume a lot, all right, So a lot
25:46
Speaker 1: of repetitions to learn from. You know what still shockshoot
25:51
Speaker 1: you know about how CEOs treat the HR leadership role
25:56
Speaker 1: over that.
25:56
Speaker 2: Seat, It's still shocked me that they don't communicate well
26:01
Speaker 2: with each other.
26:02
Speaker 3: So it still shocks me.
26:03
Speaker 2: Like I said earlier, that a CEO wants to help
26:06
Speaker 2: HR get better, but HR is not speaking up about it,
26:09
Speaker 2: and so there is often this bitterness where HR feels
26:13
Speaker 2: like they're not seen or heard but they're not really
26:15
Speaker 2: saying anything. And then I think executives feel like they're
26:17
Speaker 2: not getting enough from HR because they're not kind of
26:21
Speaker 2: helping them. And so I try to remind both parties,
26:24
Speaker 2: like CEO, you have to ask your HR.
26:26
Speaker 3: People to speak up.
26:27
Speaker 2: They're not naturally as good at it, maybe as your
26:29
Speaker 2: other department at so get them to tell.
26:31
Speaker 7: You what they need and more, you know, kind of
26:34
Speaker 7: there's a piece of what you're saying that sounds like
26:36
Speaker 7: you're a dating matchmaker and a therapist.
26:46
Speaker 2: I've always said they say they say recruiting is like marketing,
26:50
Speaker 2: and I've always said, no, recruiting is like psychology. There's
26:53
Speaker 2: no doubt that's a much stronger comparison, because you have
26:57
Speaker 2: to be in the psyche of like, what is the
26:59
Speaker 2: high hiring manager up against with themselves? Why are they
27:02
Speaker 2: feeling bitter about this? Why are they struggling with this,
27:04
Speaker 2: Why are they resisting this? And then why is the
27:07
Speaker 2: candidate being guarded? And why are they You know, it's
27:09
Speaker 2: just so much nuance, and when it's hr to your point,
27:13
Speaker 2: there's this extra armor up because they feel like they
27:16
Speaker 2: should either know how to hire really well or know
27:18
Speaker 2: how to job search really well. They're feeling very resistant
27:21
Speaker 2: to advice. So first piece is getting all that guard down,
27:25
Speaker 2: just like, right now you're a candidate, Right now you're
27:27
Speaker 2: a hiring manager.
27:28
Speaker 3: I'm the expert. Let me help you, and then then
27:32
Speaker 3: we can move forward.
27:33
Speaker 1: What's the favorite part of your what is favorite part
27:37
Speaker 1: of what you do? What's a favorite part of your job?
27:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love.
27:43
Speaker 2: I love when hiring managers realize things they could be
27:45
Speaker 2: doing better, and so they start hiring better. I think
27:49
Speaker 2: that I really hate watching people hire poorly because we
27:54
Speaker 2: have all seen just these horror stories from it, and
27:57
Speaker 2: it's all fixable if you're just willing to say. Look,
28:00
Speaker 2: I've been in HR for twenty five years. I've hired
28:02
Speaker 2: a million people. But I'm happy to relearn new things
28:05
Speaker 2: and unlearn things that don't work anymore, and I want
28:07
Speaker 2: to get this right.
28:08
Speaker 3: There is such.
28:09
Speaker 2: Humility and curiosity required to do that, and when it's
28:12
Speaker 2: being done, it's like magic, and I love it and
28:15
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm really adding value there.
28:17
Speaker 1: That's yeah, you mentioned your three Your three values are
28:21
Speaker 1: what curiosity?
28:23
Speaker 2: Iess, curiosity, and humility and keep them on my desk
28:26
Speaker 2: so I don't forget.
28:27
Speaker 1: You also have a don't you have a doll around
28:30
Speaker 1: your desk?
28:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, Alice in wonder? Yeah, there you go, curiosity.
28:36
Speaker 1: Who give that to you? That to you? Who give it?
28:41
Speaker 3: Probably probably my mom?
28:43
Speaker 2: And I love I think I think I have the
28:45
Speaker 2: set of Alice dolls, but this is the one.
28:48
Speaker 3: I like the most.
28:49
Speaker 1: I just I was listening to a podcast you were
28:52
Speaker 1: talking about you were talking about that and how she
28:54
Speaker 1: helps you remember the curiosity piece.
28:57
Speaker 2: It does because you know, look, I live in New
29:00
Speaker 2: York City, which it can be a very fast paced
29:02
Speaker 2: city where people feel like they need to have all
29:04
Speaker 2: the answers, and I just don't think you hire.
29:07
Speaker 3: Well if you act like you I don't have all
29:09
Speaker 3: the answers.
29:10
Speaker 1: You know.
29:11
Speaker 3: It's we learn as we go and we have to
29:13
Speaker 3: like pause and do it right.
29:15
Speaker 2: And I think that it's you have to come from
29:18
Speaker 2: a place of curiosity, yeah, like ask questions and seek wisdom.
29:21
Speaker 3: And it's I don't know.
29:24
Speaker 2: To me, that's arrogance just doesn't win in this in
29:28
Speaker 2: this space that comes to hiring.
29:30
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't. I don't know that i've I
29:33
Speaker 1: think i've. I know how important people and hiring the
29:37
Speaker 1: right people are, right, that's that's part of who we
29:40
Speaker 1: are and exist and what we do. But I never
29:45
Speaker 1: I don't think I connected how important but how important
29:50
Speaker 1: that the role of finding the right person to find
29:54
Speaker 1: the right person?
29:56
Speaker 3: Yeah?
29:57
Speaker 1: Right? When when when I read your you know, your
30:02
Speaker 1: bio and I was going over it and I was like, okay,
30:04
Speaker 1: an hr pro that does just does hry because you know,
30:07
Speaker 1: I get pitched. I get pitched recruiting all the time, right,
30:10
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no shortage of people calling me and saying, hey,
30:13
Speaker 1: let us help you. You know. I get two or
30:18
Speaker 1: three phone calls a day from that, and I get
30:20
Speaker 1: to a three venture capitalits calling me going are you
30:22
Speaker 1: for sale? You know? So, I guess what. I've seen
30:29
Speaker 1: so many of them that are probably the specialistests here
30:32
Speaker 1: in sales, maybe in tech, yeah right, and maybe I
30:38
Speaker 1: just don't I'm not in that. I'm not in deep enough.
30:40
Speaker 1: And oh there's all kinds. There's just HR specialists everywhere.
30:44
Speaker 1: But you were the first person I had ever come across.
30:46
Speaker 1: It was like, oh no, I do HR and HR
30:48
Speaker 1: only Yeah, And you know, I just thought, wow, that
30:50
Speaker 1: is uh. It was just an indication to me the
30:53
Speaker 1: like and made me think about it more that how
30:56
Speaker 1: important that role is in my organization, you know, and
31:02
Speaker 1: to be to be to be honest with you know,
31:07
Speaker 1: really transparent. I've had somebody in HR in my company
31:12
Speaker 1: mm hmmm. And they were good and got me to here,
31:18
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure that's the same person to get
31:20
Speaker 1: me to there, that's right, right. And you know, when
31:24
Speaker 1: I got a hold of this company, and we had
31:26
Speaker 1: to go through a massive culture shift and change and
31:29
Speaker 1: and really changed the kind of underpinnings of the people
31:32
Speaker 1: dynamics of this business, which is which is incredibly important
31:35
Speaker 1: to me and I and I really had someone who
31:38
Speaker 1: could help me understand from the staff's perspective, all the
31:43
Speaker 1: dials I needed to be turning. You know. It wasn't
31:47
Speaker 1: just I'll just pay everybody more, that'll be you know.
31:49
Speaker 1: It was just so many little dials. And she did
31:53
Speaker 1: a really great job. And then and then she she
31:58
Speaker 1: she left. I didn't you know, I would have she'd
32:00
Speaker 1: been here forever she left. And now, you know, as
32:03
Speaker 1: I contemplate that role, I contemplate what, you know, what's
32:06
Speaker 1: next for me? You know, I'm going to begin, you know,
32:11
Speaker 1: hiring different types of people. You know, we're moving so fast,
32:18
Speaker 1: you know. And I realized how important because I've got
32:23
Speaker 1: a handful of friends who are recruiters, and they're all like, oh, no,
32:26
Speaker 1: you help you find somebody, right right, They're like veenerlest hey,
32:31
Speaker 1: it's you know, and then.
32:32
Speaker 2: Oh, of course I always remember I had a client.
32:36
Speaker 2: It must have been like twenty fourteen fifteen. It was
32:38
Speaker 2: in the market, was really booming. They invited in a
32:40
Speaker 2: bunch of their vendors for like a lunch, and I
32:43
Speaker 2: was sitting at the table with fellow recruiters and they're like,
32:45
Speaker 2: what do you do? I was like, I specialize in
32:46
Speaker 2: placing experienced HR pros, mostly in New York. And then
32:50
Speaker 2: like the rest of the table was like, I just
32:51
Speaker 2: work on whatever I can get my hands on. Right,
32:54
Speaker 2: I don't know how that, how does that work? Like
32:56
Speaker 2: my clients like that I'm an expert in something, But yeah,
33:00
Speaker 2: I mean I think as you were talking to I
33:02
Speaker 2: was realizing that we generally aren't listening to the candidate
33:07
Speaker 2: feedback as a whole. So we all hear horror stories
33:11
Speaker 2: of you know, our friends who interview and the process
33:14
Speaker 2: was awful and I took me seven months and I
33:16
Speaker 2: finally got a rejection.
33:17
Speaker 1: Right.
33:18
Speaker 2: I don't know many executives who just pause and ask
33:21
Speaker 2: their internal recruiter or their external recruiter or the candidate
33:25
Speaker 2: that they hired, like, how was your process with us
33:27
Speaker 2: comparative to what you experienced elsewhere?
33:30
Speaker 3: What could we have done better? Did you notice anything
33:32
Speaker 3: that was kind of annoying?
33:34
Speaker 2: Like tell me again, let me seek the information because
33:37
Speaker 2: maybe we can use that going forward.
33:39
Speaker 3: You'd be amazed. People are happy to share.
33:41
Speaker 2: And again, it's not a scary conversation, it's a helpful conversation.
33:45
Speaker 2: And so when I started search with a new client,
33:46
Speaker 2: I'll always say, do you want me to share the
33:48
Speaker 2: feedback I receive?
33:49
Speaker 3: Because I'm going to receive feedback.
33:52
Speaker 2: And to your point of curiosity, the best managers are
33:55
Speaker 2: like absolutely laid it, like, let's gently tell me, of course,
33:58
Speaker 2: and I will, but tell me where we could be
34:00
Speaker 2: doing better.
34:01
Speaker 1: I think one of your I think one of your
34:03
Speaker 1: value propositions and life and businesses. Your willingness to collect
34:08
Speaker 1: information and shoot straight.
34:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, thank you, Yeah hash, I didn't.
34:14
Speaker 1: Want to hear that I sucked. Yeah, told me I
34:21
Speaker 1: sucked very bad at.
34:22
Speaker 3: This very that's very insightful information.
34:26
Speaker 2: I feel like early manager of mine used to say
34:28
Speaker 2: to me, you say things to clients.
34:31
Speaker 3: I would never say. I'm like, well, I don't know
34:33
Speaker 3: what else to do.
34:34
Speaker 1: Can you be connected to some of the people that
34:37
Speaker 1: you hire? Yes, I can imagine that's like a It's
34:41
Speaker 1: become like a It's kind of circular, especially when you
34:46
Speaker 1: when you crush it. You know, when someone gets somewhere
34:49
Speaker 1: and may it.
34:49
Speaker 3: Be your client.
34:50
Speaker 2: Later on, they might need your help somewhere else. Yeah,
34:54
Speaker 2: it's a long game. I mean I'll get texts or
34:57
Speaker 2: emails from people that I placed fifteen years ago that
34:59
Speaker 2: are like, I might need your help with something.
35:01
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, if you if you think about those
35:07
Speaker 1: people who are crushing it, what's the what's the like
35:14
Speaker 1: it factor? You're like, oh, you know, I know, like
35:18
Speaker 1: the group, I know, like, what's the what's the it
35:21
Speaker 1: factor for them? What do you think makes them?
35:24
Speaker 3: I think we nailed it.
35:25
Speaker 2: We've nailed it so much in this conversation around humility
35:28
Speaker 2: and curiosity, and I think, and it's it's worth just
35:31
Speaker 2: repeating in the sense that the people who aren't crushing
35:34
Speaker 2: it are arrogant and they're in a fixed mindset. They
35:37
Speaker 2: believe they know everything and they don't really want to
35:39
Speaker 2: learn anything else.
35:41
Speaker 1: Well, on both sides, really, on both sides, it's the CEO,
35:44
Speaker 1: who think said.
35:45
Speaker 2: N HR, and the candidate, right, all three players, the
35:48
Speaker 2: internal recruiter, Like everyone involved with a hiring process think
35:52
Speaker 2: about it. It's often an internal recruiter, sometimes an external
35:55
Speaker 2: the candidate, the hiring manager, and the interviewers. I mean,
35:59
Speaker 2: it could be six people that were talking about and
36:01
Speaker 2: if they're arrogant and they're stuck in fixed mindset, it's
36:04
Speaker 2: a disaster. If everybody involved can just stay humble and grounded,
36:09
Speaker 2: curious and try to just learn as we go. You know,
36:13
Speaker 2: those are my favorite experiences because people are usually pleasantly
36:17
Speaker 2: surprised somehow, the candidate is delighted, the hiring manager is happy.
36:23
Speaker 2: It's hard to teach that, and I think the only
36:26
Speaker 2: way I kind.
36:26
Speaker 3: Of try is just by expressing how important it is. Yeah,
36:30
Speaker 3: and it's worth it's worth a shot.
36:32
Speaker 1: You know. I read your stuff when I came across
36:35
Speaker 1: one post and I was like, I said, I actually
36:40
Speaker 1: sent my chief operating officer a letter and already email
36:43
Speaker 1: and I just said, hey, can you send me all
36:45
Speaker 1: of our job ads? Yeah? When posting, you had pointed
36:52
Speaker 1: out some like code language, and I was like, yeah,
36:54
Speaker 1: I wonder how much code language we have in our
36:56
Speaker 1: job postings where I've got people like Laura telling people
37:00
Speaker 1: run from some company that.
37:02
Speaker 2: Says care or to my point about feedback, like asking
37:05
Speaker 2: the people you interview that you have a good.
37:07
Speaker 3: Rapport with, like did you think of the ad? How
37:10
Speaker 3: did it look?
37:10
Speaker 2: And you know, people are really happy to tell you
37:13
Speaker 2: when they're an expert in something. You know, Actually, my
37:16
Speaker 2: favorite advertisement was this company's all for it she so
37:19
Speaker 2: you can get inspired.
37:20
Speaker 3: Or my favorite interview process was with this company. And
37:22
Speaker 3: this is why. I mean, that's how I learned. I'm
37:24
Speaker 3: constantly asking you, like, what was your favorite? What was it?
37:27
Speaker 1: Like?
37:28
Speaker 2: You can't believe how many hiring measures are on their phone.
37:30
Speaker 2: They're distracted and they don't know nobody's ever said to them.
37:34
Speaker 2: Just notice if you're texting like it sounds simple, but
37:39
Speaker 2: you have to be taught it. Sometimes like this is
37:41
Speaker 2: important because in that thirty minutes, that person is judging
37:44
Speaker 2: everything you're doing, and so being super present and really
37:47
Speaker 2: listening and really engaging matters.
37:51
Speaker 3: So a lot of.
37:51
Speaker 2: Times it's like the feedback that I have to give
37:53
Speaker 2: is subtle. It's not massive stuff, but it's little changes
37:56
Speaker 2: that are going to make a big impact.
37:58
Speaker 1: Yeah. Have you ever your LinkedIn profile is so good?
38:03
Speaker 3: Thank you?
38:04
Speaker 1: Have you you ever like looked at you? Ever get
38:06
Speaker 1: a LinkedIn profile like from somebody? When I think about
38:11
Speaker 1: an NHR person, I'm like, oh, well, these are the
38:13
Speaker 1: experts at HR. I mean, they're the experts in LinkedIn
38:16
Speaker 1: because they spend so much time on it. Probably have
38:20
Speaker 1: you ever have you ever just looked at a LinkedIn profile?
38:22
Speaker 1: Oh my god, oh jeez, what was she thinking or
38:25
Speaker 1: what was he thinking?
38:27
Speaker 3: Like, you know the biggest LinkedIn blunder.
38:30
Speaker 1: Ice, what is it that?
38:32
Speaker 3: It's remarkable? Yeah, this is important.
38:34
Speaker 2: People put their email address because contact information is listed.
38:38
Speaker 3: They will have their email.
38:40
Speaker 2: Address from a job they had six jobs ago. So
38:44
Speaker 2: if I email them now to be like, are you
38:46
Speaker 2: looking for a new job, it's going to their old
38:48
Speaker 2: colleague five years ago, right, And I think they must
38:52
Speaker 2: be missing so much communication just by not updating their
38:56
Speaker 2: contacted or putting their own Gmail on it or whatever,
38:59
Speaker 2: like why do you have your You're gonna put your
39:01
Speaker 2: work info?
39:02
Speaker 3: Then it has to be updated. I think, just don't
39:04
Speaker 3: update it.
39:05
Speaker 1: I think that answer is as I get to know you,
39:08
Speaker 1: I think that answer is so you because you're not.
39:11
Speaker 1: I was like, I'll ask her this question and maybe
39:14
Speaker 1: should have a funny story about maybe something funny, and
39:17
Speaker 1: you immediately go to you know, here's what's broken, and
39:21
Speaker 1: people could talk more and this should be fixed. I
39:24
Speaker 1: think you're a fixer.
39:26
Speaker 3: I'm a fixer because you know what it is.
39:28
Speaker 1: I don't.
39:29
Speaker 2: I'm all for humor too, and I love a good story,
39:33
Speaker 2: and I just I'm like, let's not.
39:35
Speaker 3: Shame people for the mistakes they're making. Let's actually tell
39:38
Speaker 3: them like, Okay, he made a mistake.
39:40
Speaker 2: It's like what I would say to a kid, like,
39:41
Speaker 2: all right, what are we going to do differently next time?
39:44
Speaker 1: Right?
39:44
Speaker 2: It's like and I tell. And that's all we can
39:47
Speaker 2: do is keep pointing it out and letting people know.
39:50
Speaker 2: And I think that these bad hires and these bad
39:52
Speaker 2: experiences are all opportunities to do it better than Yeah.
39:55
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's one part of the show is
39:57
Speaker 1: to is to you know, have a little fun around
40:01
Speaker 1: the bonfire a little bit. Maybe these are our bonfire stories.
40:05
Speaker 1: But in the end, you know, we all, we all,
40:08
Speaker 1: you know, we know what makes life tough for you know,
40:12
Speaker 1: people who live in the space. And but we you know,
40:15
Speaker 1: we all want to be better, we all want to
40:17
Speaker 1: do it great. We all want to avoid those things.
40:20
Speaker 2: So and you know what, I remind people like, you're
40:22
Speaker 2: a bad hire might be somebody else's best hire.
40:25
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean it's a wild thing.
40:27
Speaker 2: I have worked with candidates and I'm like, I can't
40:29
Speaker 2: imagine anyone wants to hire this person. But they land
40:32
Speaker 2: places and they do really well, and there's just a
40:35
Speaker 2: match for everybody. Back to your dating analogy there, truly
40:37
Speaker 2: is it would not work for me. It would not
40:40
Speaker 2: I could not work with this individual. But believe it
40:42
Speaker 2: or not, somebody else is to.
40:44
Speaker 1: Oh, we had we had a guy on the show
40:46
Speaker 1: who's got this little it's got that it's not a little.
40:48
Speaker 1: He's got this great production company now owns it, scrow it.
40:51
Speaker 1: And he was telling a bit of his journey, right,
40:54
Speaker 1: and so he was telling a story about bad hires,
40:56
Speaker 1: and he goes and the story he told was that
40:58
Speaker 1: he was the bad higher right, and it was just
41:04
Speaker 1: and it was really a great It was a story
41:06
Speaker 1: about how he wanted this one role so bad because
41:10
Speaker 1: this was the ego role. This this one role was like,
41:12
Speaker 1: this is the one that you want, right, And so
41:15
Speaker 1: he was on and on on about it and but
41:20
Speaker 1: and he went after it and it just but it
41:22
Speaker 1: didn't fit his It really wasn't what he was great at. Right.
41:27
Speaker 1: So a mentor gives him the role. He completely smokes
41:33
Speaker 1: it bad, like just blows it up, crashes, you know.
41:37
Speaker 1: Mentor has to come in behind him fix it. You know,
41:39
Speaker 1: they nearly lose a huge client over it. And you
41:43
Speaker 1: know that goes out to dinner and does some coaching
41:45
Speaker 1: with him, right, and they and but he put him
41:49
Speaker 1: on a path, you know, it helped define who he was.
41:52
Speaker 1: And I was like, you know, not every bad bad
41:54
Speaker 1: hire as a reflection of the person in terms of
41:58
Speaker 1: who they are. Sometimes it's a reflection of just an
42:02
Speaker 1: it's just an ill fit, right, you know, and and
42:06
Speaker 1: it and so some are just terrible, crazy people, I've
42:10
Speaker 1: lost their mind kind of stories, and others are just
42:14
Speaker 1: a misalignment. And this was a great misalignment story that
42:16
Speaker 1: just you know, uh one as a leader reminded me
42:20
Speaker 1: that when I find people that I feel like aren't
42:23
Speaker 1: a fit, you know, I thought they were great. I
42:26
Speaker 1: hired them because I thought they were great. There was
42:28
Speaker 1: something there that made me think they're great, right, and
42:33
Speaker 1: I want them, and then they don't perform, and so
42:36
Speaker 1: I often try to take responsibility for that. I'm like,
42:39
Speaker 1: I did something wrong, I miss something. It's something not
42:42
Speaker 1: right here right, you know, either now before in the
42:44
Speaker 1: selection or now and when it's running. This is I
42:48
Speaker 1: own this, And so I just kind of made a
42:51
Speaker 1: point to say, make sure to coach these people and
42:53
Speaker 1: mentor these people, you know, as we try to make
42:56
Speaker 1: a change, even if that's a change to somewhere else,
42:59
Speaker 1: you know.
43:00
Speaker 2: And it goes back to my point about asking the
43:02
Speaker 2: candidate what they need and want. Like you might fall
43:05
Speaker 2: in love with a candidate because you think they're going
43:08
Speaker 2: to be perfect for your team. But if they're not
43:10
Speaker 2: feeling excited about you as their leader, or for some
43:12
Speaker 2: reason they picture a different environment that they would thrive in,
43:16
Speaker 2: it's going to feel off, you know, like because I
43:18
Speaker 2: always say there's HR directors who want to work at
43:20
Speaker 2: big New York investment banks that are super corporate, and
43:23
Speaker 2: there are HR people that thrive in startups and everything
43:26
Speaker 2: in between.
43:27
Speaker 3: And I love that part.
43:28
Speaker 2: I think it's good that we you know, not one
43:31
Speaker 2: is bad or good or whatever. It's so much you know,
43:35
Speaker 2: the other piece we haven't touched on that we could
43:37
Speaker 2: talk hours about another time. It's just like self awareness,
43:39
Speaker 2: Like so much of all of this is knowing who
43:41
Speaker 2: you are and admitting it. You know, we are a
43:44
Speaker 2: corporate investment bank and we're very boring and stuffy, and
43:47
Speaker 2: we follow a ton of rules Okay, you'll find the
43:49
Speaker 2: right people.
43:50
Speaker 3: But don't act like you're a startup. It's gonna that's gonna.
43:53
Speaker 1: Be a problem, I guess. And they're so inspiring you.
43:59
Speaker 1: We should need to do like that. We need to
44:01
Speaker 1: like that. That's not what it's like to work here.
44:03
Speaker 2: But I remember, like a decade ago, as some company
44:06
Speaker 2: said to me, we're like the Google of insurance businesses.
44:09
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, you're not. It's insurance is not thrilling.
44:13
Speaker 2: It might be a great place to work and very stable,
44:16
Speaker 2: but you know, a high cutting edge tech company, it.
44:20
Speaker 3: Is not so Yeah.
44:22
Speaker 2: I think authenticity is so important, and I guess that
44:25
Speaker 2: goes back to my street shooting.
44:27
Speaker 3: I just think, own who you.
44:28
Speaker 2: Are as a candidate, own who you are as a
44:30
Speaker 2: hiring manager, know your limitations, know your weaknesses, and then
44:33
Speaker 2: you can kind of tackle it all.
44:35
Speaker 1: I love it, but.
44:36
Speaker 2: The bravado is where everybody gets messed up. They bring
44:40
Speaker 2: all these.
44:42
Speaker 3: I don't know obstacles.
44:44
Speaker 1: Where you live at New York in Manhattan.
44:47
Speaker 3: The East Side, east Side's death all right, yeah, where
44:52
Speaker 3: are you?
44:53
Speaker 1: I'm in Charlotte, North Carolina.
44:55
Speaker 3: Love it.
44:56
Speaker 1: Just north of Charlotte in a little lake town suburbs. Yeah,
45:04
Speaker 1: it's good stuff. What you would you would love it here?
45:08
Speaker 1: I would you would?
45:09
Speaker 3: It's very green breaks from city living for sure.
45:13
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, it's very green, very beautiful, am I Right? Uh?
45:19
Speaker 1: Nathan was in you met Nathan Nathan Uh, he was
45:23
Speaker 1: in I guess sil close to Silicon Valley and in
45:29
Speaker 1: California for for a good bit five or six years,
45:33
Speaker 1: and so I got him to move back to the
45:35
Speaker 1: East coast or smart words. Yeah, yeah, he was good higher,
45:41
Speaker 1: he was a good egg. Laura. That was great. I
45:45
Speaker 1: loved I see, I know why you're just so good
45:48
Speaker 1: at this.
45:49
Speaker 3: Thank you.
45:51
Speaker 1: Hey, Laura.
45:52
Speaker 4: We've we've recorded a couple of these kind of like
45:54
Speaker 4: in this format and what I've been asking, I guess
45:57
Speaker 4: and and closing, and you've kind of already covered just
45:59
Speaker 4: throw conversation. But just just one piece of it of
46:03
Speaker 4: advice that you'd give to somebody who's in hiring, whether
46:07
Speaker 4: if it's like to somebody who's like you, who you
46:09
Speaker 4: know has a very specific role, or does anybody who's
46:12
Speaker 4: building a team right now, what would that advice be?
46:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, notice when you're getting in your own way when
46:17
Speaker 2: you're hiring, So notice if you're making it harder than
46:20
Speaker 2: needs to be, or you're feeling a certain way, as
46:24
Speaker 2: the kids would say about hiring, just identify what's going on,
46:27
Speaker 2: because you can make it better. You can learn how
46:30
Speaker 2: to do it better, but you've got to be willing
46:31
Speaker 2: to kind of catch what might.
46:33
Speaker 1: Be going wrong. And I'm going to be a.
46:35
Speaker 3: Shame and there's always a room for improvement. There really
46:39
Speaker 3: is that.
46:39
Speaker 1: I'm going to take your advice and ask as we
46:43
Speaker 1: get better at doing this podcast. After being on here,
46:47
Speaker 1: what feedback could you give? Nathan and I had to say, Hey,
46:50
Speaker 1: here's how you could do a better job.
46:52
Speaker 3: No, you guys were amazing. This was really fun. I'm
46:55
Speaker 3: excited to see kind of what clips you could pull out.
46:57
Speaker 2: Me too, And yeah, I think that it's you guys
47:01
Speaker 2: have very much similar personalities to me, which is just nice.
47:04
Speaker 2: There's just a genuine kindness in your company and you're
47:06
Speaker 2: and it's just it shows And even though it's there's
47:10
Speaker 2: an edge to this content, I think it to your point,
47:13
Speaker 2: it comes with kindness. It's not meant to.
47:15
Speaker 4: Be you know. Mean, Yeah, it's funny because some of
47:19
Speaker 4: the uh, the only some of the negative feedback with
47:22
Speaker 4: gun who's like, oh, I don't. I don't want to
47:24
Speaker 4: join in on like, you know, laughing at people's misfortune
47:27
Speaker 4: that they're And it's like if you actually listen to
47:29
Speaker 4: the show, like no, like you know, we've said there's
47:32
Speaker 4: there's some bad stories and sometimes times people themes just
47:35
Speaker 4: how bad.
47:35
Speaker 1: I love good stories that have a positive ending. Like
47:40
Speaker 1: I love positive ending stories. So if you're gonna tell
47:43
Speaker 1: me something bad happened, tell me that got got a
47:47
Speaker 1: great job and something good happened. You know, I think
47:51
Speaker 1: you're doing.
47:51
Speaker 3: A good job of that. But it's important. I think
47:53
Speaker 3: that's important to it's so funny. I don't like I'm
47:57
Speaker 3: not like an Oprah person.
48:00
Speaker 2: But she came in my TikTok feed just recently actually,
48:03
Speaker 2: and she said early on her show, they booked like
48:06
Speaker 2: I forget what the story was, but it was like
48:08
Speaker 2: an awful story and she felt like it was kind
48:11
Speaker 2: of delicious. She didn't like that, like she felt gross
48:14
Speaker 2: about it. After, like, why did we do this? We
48:16
Speaker 2: brought somebody on showcasing their negative stuff. So she said
48:20
Speaker 2: to her producers after, we need to be clear on
48:23
Speaker 2: what our intention is, because if we're going to bring
48:25
Speaker 2: on people with very tragic stories.
48:27
Speaker 3: I want to know what our purpose is. Are we
48:28
Speaker 3: trying to.
48:29
Speaker 2: Like just put them on the stage, or are we
48:31
Speaker 2: trying to help them? Are we trying to like and
48:34
Speaker 2: she's going forward. After that, every time they booked a show,
48:37
Speaker 2: they all talked about like here's who's coming on, and
48:39
Speaker 2: here's kind of what our intention is with this thing.
48:42
Speaker 2: And I thought that was beautiful because it's easy to
48:46
Speaker 2: get sometimes wrapped up in the gossip, like all of us.
48:49
Speaker 2: And that's I think that's what helped me when I
48:50
Speaker 2: started offering like training and coaching, because it was usually
48:54
Speaker 2: clients just bitching to me of like our internal recruiter
48:56
Speaker 2: is terrible and da da dad, and I would like
49:01
Speaker 2: I was used to just going with that like kind
49:03
Speaker 2: of that's okay, and that's what we do and that
49:06
Speaker 2: and it's something just switched to me. I was like,
49:08
Speaker 2: hold on, we can make it better. We don't have
49:10
Speaker 2: to just like hate them.
49:11
Speaker 1: We can.
49:12
Speaker 2: So I think that's as you move forward, just kind
49:14
Speaker 2: of like, Okay, we can talk about how awful the
49:16
Speaker 2: person was, but what was the lesson or what was
49:19
Speaker 2: the upside? So that yeah, because also we had one
49:25
Speaker 2: the other day Laura that that I don't nat that
49:28
Speaker 2: I know, you know what I'm talking about.
49:30
Speaker 1: Like, it was like midnight and I was working, and
49:33
Speaker 1: I was and I scrolled through TikTok and I saw
49:37
Speaker 1: one that we did. And I saw because a lot
49:41
Speaker 1: of times I don't see the funnel edited version, you know,
49:43
Speaker 1: the clip ups, you know, they do all that and
49:45
Speaker 1: they just start and so and I saw it and
49:49
Speaker 1: there was it was. The story was about someone who
49:55
Speaker 1: got injured the first day of work, right, and made
49:58
Speaker 1: this crazy decision to like like ten fifteen miles to
50:02
Speaker 1: the hospital the hospital, right instead of calling on one.
50:06
Speaker 1: And you know, in the moment we're talking and you go, oh, yeah,
50:11
Speaker 1: that's crazy, and you kind of make fun of it, right,
50:15
Speaker 1: You're like, oh that's crazy, you know. And I called
50:18
Speaker 1: Nathan or I sent him a text that night and
50:20
Speaker 1: I said, take that off. Good, ticked up tonight, like
50:24
Speaker 1: get put tonight and take it off because I don't
50:27
Speaker 1: feel good about what I said. I said, I don't
50:29
Speaker 1: want to be seen as somebody that's not your values.
50:31
Speaker 1: Yeah it wasn't. I was like, I feel like I
50:34
Speaker 1: can have fun about someone who freaked out at a job,
50:38
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to have fun at the expense
50:40
Speaker 1: of someone being injured, Like, that's not happening. I don't.
50:42
Speaker 1: I have no idea how that got past me in
50:44
Speaker 1: the moment, but seeing it clipped and put there, I
50:48
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, that's that's not me. I don't. I
50:51
Speaker 1: don't want to answer that question.
50:53
Speaker 3: You know, No, I agree. It's a fine line. I
50:56
Speaker 3: think that I think.
50:57
Speaker 2: When we hear these horror stories, they're important to share
51:01
Speaker 2: so people don't feel alone that they're not the only
51:03
Speaker 2: one who's happened.
51:05
Speaker 3: But then it's like, what what are we doing with it?
51:07
Speaker 3: What are we doing about it?
51:08
Speaker 1: You know?
51:09
Speaker 2: That's really I think that if we if you guys
51:11
Speaker 2: can keep and we can keep exploring that together. But
51:13
Speaker 2: I think it's important that people know like it's it's
51:18
Speaker 2: there is no shame.
51:19
Speaker 3: It's like what can you do better next time? Like
51:21
Speaker 3: what was the lesson learn? And maybe that's a good
51:23
Speaker 3: question to start asking.
51:24
Speaker 2: You know the host too, so what do you learn
51:27
Speaker 2: from that? What would you do differently next time? It
51:31
Speaker 2: is it is tricky, but yeah, I find like even
51:33
Speaker 2: when I'm at those events, like you're saying, ken and
51:35
Speaker 2: that starts happening, like lately, I'm like, so what are
51:38
Speaker 2: we doing about it?
51:38
Speaker 1: Because I, well, that's that's you.
51:43
Speaker 2: After a while, it's like, I guess I'm the fixer.
51:47
Speaker 2: That makes sense, That is totally my role. But people
51:51
Speaker 2: need fixing, so I'm happy to keep.
51:52
Speaker 1: It necessarily people. But the process, you're wondering, what's what's
51:57
Speaker 1: why is that happening people? You know, it's it just
52:00
Speaker 1: it pours from you. This this system systems, high level
52:06
Speaker 1: thinking comes comes. You know, when talking to you, you realize
52:10
Speaker 1: that you're less transactional home more systemic in terms of
52:15
Speaker 1: how to do you know, and I think you're in
52:17
Speaker 1: a world and where transactions occur and you have to
52:20
Speaker 1: live it. You live by the transactions.
52:22
Speaker 2: But everybody wants an internal recruiting team that's really strategic,
52:27
Speaker 2: and that's where I'll see it. I'm like, I think
52:29
Speaker 2: the reason you often go to a headhunter is because
52:32
Speaker 2: we are more strategic because we just by nature looking
52:35
Speaker 2: at things a little bit from the outside. So that's
52:38
Speaker 2: why I have such joy training them because I'm like,
52:40
Speaker 2: they just don't know.
52:41
Speaker 3: How to do this. They wouldn't know.
52:43
Speaker 2: You know, you're thrown in there and just looking at
52:45
Speaker 2: resumes all day. But they're not really sure exactly what
52:48
Speaker 2: they're doing.
52:48
Speaker 1: Well, this has been awesome. I appreciate you, thank you.
52:51
Speaker 3: For the time. I'm excited to see the clips. I'm
52:53
Speaker 3: sure you'll find some stuff taking through it and that's.
52:56
Speaker 1: Your joke, Yeah, for sure.
52:59
Speaker 4: And we'll keep you loop on on all of it.
53:01
Speaker 1: We'll let's you know where everything's up.
53:02
Speaker 4: And yeah, we'll definitely stay in touch.
53:04
Speaker 3: Let's keep talking.
53:08
Speaker 1: Thank you.
53:10
Speaker 2: Mm hmmmmmmm