Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Empowering Women in Recruiting: Krista Tan's Journey and Vision | Staffing Series

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Empowering Women in Recruiting: Krista Tan's Journey and Vision | Staffing Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories, where leaders
• 0:07
  share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
• 0:10
  how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
• 0:13
  they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
• 0:18
  the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their
• 0:21
  experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
• 0:24
  by how they've overcome adversity.
• 0:26
  My name is Anthony Codaspodi and today's guest is Krista Tan.
• 0:30
  Krista is the Co founder of Talent Collective, a member
• 0:34
  community dedicated to empowering, advancing and
• 0:37
  connecting women in talent acquisition.
• 0:39
  They also provide recruiting services as well, which includes
• 0:43
  transforming startups into employers of choice by refining
• 0:48
  their recruiting operations strategy.
• 0:50
  They help companies solve recruiting challenges during
• 0:52
  times of high growth, deflations, or turnover.
• 0:55
  They can even incorporate fractional heads of talent and
• 0:59
  advisory services. Krista has over 15 years
• 1:02
  experience in people operations, talent acquisition, and business
• 1:06
  strategy experience. She was formerly the head of
• 1:09
  Premier Talent Partners, who is named one of America's Best
• 1:13
  Recruiting Firms. Now, before we get into all that
• 1:15
  good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
• 1:19
  Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and
• 1:22
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• 1:25
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  and some organizations may not be eligible.
• 1:38
  To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
• 1:42
  Add Back benefitsagency.com. Now welcome back to our guest
• 1:45
  today, Krista Tan. I appreciate you making the time
• 1:48
  to Share your story today. Thank you, Anthony.
• 1:51
  Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here and to
• 1:54
  get to know you a little and speak with your audience as
• 1:57
  well. Terrific.
• 1:59
  So let's start with kind of the origin story of Talent
• 2:02
  Collective. How did the idea for this come
• 2:04
  about? Sure.
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  So a little over a year and a half ago, myself and my two
• 2:12
  other cofounders and I had all gotten together.
• 2:15
  We, we've all been in the recruiting field for over 15
• 2:19
  years each. And as good recruiters do, we
• 2:22
  were getting together and having a glass of wine with each other
• 2:25
  and really just chatting about the, the market and the
• 2:32
  specifically the talent acquisition market.
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  With so many layoffs that had happened over the last couple of
• 2:38
  years, a lot of people in our industry that have kind of just
• 2:43
  been in crisis mode, right? Like what is the future of
• 2:47
  recruiting? What is the future of talent
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  acquisition? There's AI spooking, I think
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  every industry out there and talent acquisition is definitely
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  included in that. So a lot of people wondering,
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  you know, what is the future of my job?
• 3:00
  Is AI going to take my my, my position?
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  So we wanted to help in some way.
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  And so the three of us started brainstorming ways that we could
• 3:11
  give back to our community and and build a place where women
• 3:16
  could come together and have a safe space to share about their
• 3:20
  personal lives, professional lives, really connect with each
• 3:24
  other. I think also after COVID,
• 3:27
  there's really big desire for people to connect on a very
• 3:31
  personal level because we're all on Zoom all day and have been
• 3:35
  locked up in our houses for years now.
• 3:38
  So that was one piece. And then the professional
• 3:41
  development piece was another thing that we talked a lot about
• 3:45
  just how isolating sometimes, you know, if you're working from
• 3:49
  home, being being home all day can be not really having a lot
• 3:54
  of people that share basically like where's recruiting going
• 4:01
  and what are the innovative tools out there?
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  And just finding out like where where things are headed really.
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  So we wanted to provide a place where we could bring in industry
• 4:13
  experts, we can bring in thought leaders in the space to help our
• 4:19
  members grow professionally. So that's how we got started.
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  And we did a big launch party in San Francisco.
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  It went extremely well. We realized within a month that
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  we really had something special. And we had women coming to us,
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  you know, getting referred to us that we're saying, why, why
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  didn't you do this sooner? I've been looking for something
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  like this. And again, really it just came
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  out of something that we wanted for ourselves and and we wanted
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  to be able to give back. Cool.
• 4:49
  Couple things I want to unpack there, Krista.
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  First, what specifically about AI are people in your field
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  concerned about? What is it doing that threatens
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  or potentially threatens people's livelihood?
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  Sure, there's a lot of pieces of the recruiting life cycle that
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  can be automated and we're learning more and more what
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  those could be. So it could be, you know,
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  sourcing. So sourcing candidates, finding
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  candidates for the job that you're recruiting on, those are
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  some of the things that AI is really impacting.
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  So there's a thing called Boolean search strings when, you
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  know, back in the olden days, recruiters would have to learn
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  how to create these threads of search strings to go find the
• 5:38
  candidates that they're looking for.
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  Now, AI and technology can do a lot of that for you.
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  There's also transcribing interview notes.
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  So when you're on interviews with candidates, there are tools
• 5:51
  out there now that can transcribe those, but then also
• 5:55
  generate, you know, a bio based on those interview notes for,
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  let's say to send to a hiring manager.
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  There's I've been hearing a lot about tools that will actually
• 6:08
  screen candidates for you. So that really does, I think in
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  a lot of recruiters minds replace the recruiter.
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  However, the tools that I've heard of that do this, it's it's
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  on a very surface level, right? Like there's always going to be
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  a need for the human touch and for humans to get involved in
• 6:29
  recruiting. But there are tools out there
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  that will do kind of a high level screen.
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  So you know, if you're recruiting volume, right, like
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  if you have 50 hires to make customer service reps or retail
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  people and you have 3000 applications, you could screen
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  all of those people to get your top 100, let's say.
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  So and then and then you come in as a human and you know, do the
• 6:56
  rest from there. So there's a lot of different
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  ways. Scheduling is another big one
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  within within the recruiting life cycle that is tedious and
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  cumbersome and and AI is helping with that as well.
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  So a few others, but those are some of that ways.
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  Now is the concern that your clients who have been paying for
• 7:19
  your services are now going to discover these AI tools and want
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  to take this back in house? Because it seems like if these
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  are tools that recruiters could learn to use, incorporate into
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  their process, it could make them more efficient, open them
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  up to more client possibilities. But but maybe there's a flip
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  side of that where now, because of some of the software tools,
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  people are discounting the value of the, the human touch of your
• 7:46
  services. Is that kind of what's playing
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  out? All of those things and more.
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  So for example, if you're an internal recruiter and you work
• 7:55
  for, you know, a company, let's say, and you used to have a team
• 8:01
  of five recruiters. Now you maybe have a team of two
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  recruiters. Three of them have been laid off
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  and you're expected to do a lot more, right, Because you have a
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  lot, a lot more tools and technology at your disposal.
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  So that's where I think some of the fear comes in that like
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  those three jobs are not going to get replaced because now
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  technology has come in and is doing a lot of the work.
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  So there's there's many different facets to it, but I
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  think you nailed definitely a big part of it.
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  And then also just replacing the human in actual job positions.
• 8:40
  Yeah, yeah. It's a big question that a lot
• 8:43
  of people are discussing across many industries right now and I
• 8:47
  don't know that anybody has an answer to it.
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  I'm curious though, I, I want to focus on the launch party
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  because coming out of the gate sounds like you guys had a great
• 8:57
  kick off. What did you do?
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  How did you promote yourselves? How did you get people to that
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  first party? Sure.
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  So we, we did a lot of, well, we're lucky.
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  So LinkedIn is a big place that recruiters congregate, right.
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  So our ideal customer profile, so to speak, is already on
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  LinkedIn. So we used a lot of LinkedIn,
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  you know, posts and advertisement and 1:00 to 1:00
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  outreach to not only our own networks, but also doing a lot
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  of cold outreach. There's AI tools out there now
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  as well that will do like automated LinkedIn messaging.
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  So you can reach a lot more people than just doing 1:00 to
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  1:00 to 1. So we did all of those things.
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  So definitely the warm, you know, there's three Co founders.
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  So all of us have networks of people that we've either
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  recruited with or just other recruiters that we've known are
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  heads of talent, heads of people.
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  They're doing a lot of 1 to one outreach.
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  But then also, as I mentioned, you know, LinkedIn posts and
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  people re sharing our content, re sharing the invite, we asked
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  a lot of those people to share with their networks.
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  So I think a lot of people were excited about this new community
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  coming in and would re share it and invite, you know, the women
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  in their network that they were excited to to be at an event
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  with. And so you guys are located
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  personally, physically just outside of the San Francisco Bay
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  Area, right? So this launch party, I'm gonna
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  guess, were people who were local to the Bay Area for the
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  most part. For the most part, and
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  surprisingly, there were actually a couple of people.
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  One woman had flown down, flown down from Oregon.
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  And then there was another woman who is actually from the Midwest
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  and runs a recruiting agency out there but happened to be in town
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  and caught wind of it. So she was there.
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  She's actually an advisor for us now.
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  So there were a few people that were not from the Bay Area that
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  attended, but mostly they are Bay Area people.
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  And so going forward, is the membership look mostly like
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  people from the Bay Area or are there the benefits and
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  advantages for people outside of there who can't come to the the
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  in person events that you have? Absolutely, yes.
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  So we've actually in just the last year, we've launched in 10
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  different locations around the US and Canada, so and another to
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  come soon in Atlanta. So we have 10 different
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  locations where we have physical events on a very regular basis.
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  So that's every four to six weeks.
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  And then really a majority of the membership and what we do
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  for the community is online and virtual.
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  So we do a lot of virtual workshops and webinars.
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  We have a mentorship program where women can connect with
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  each other virtually, of course. And we have peer groups that
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  meet on a monthly basis. So kind of like niche groups
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  within the recruiting field that come together and discuss topics
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  that are specific to them. We have a couple job boards
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  online that we have a toolbox online as well for different
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  resources and whatnot. So anyone, any woman across the
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  US and really globally, actually our members, our global can join
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  and will get value out of the membership regardless of if
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  they're in a physical location of where we are right now.
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  And so to take part in these benefits, you do need to
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  subscribe, pay some kind of a membership fee, correct?
• 12:33
  Yes, that's right. We have three different tiers.
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  We kind of have like an entry into the community.
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  We have one that's a mid tier that really is a majority of the
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  value that you're going to get. And then we also have a tier for
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  executives specifically, so heads of talent, directors, VPS,
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  and they have a couple of special perks that they get in
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  addition to, you know, everything else that the mid
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  level 1 would get. Yeah.
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  So most of your members, why do you think they're joining?
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  What is it that they're seeking? Yeah, I think that goes back to
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  really like our two main goals with the community, which we're
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  providing a space for women to connect and network.
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  And we're big on not just networking just for networking's
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  sake, but to actually build long term relationships.
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  So some women feel very isolated and or, you know, you know, just
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  that they really want to connect with other women in the space
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  and be able to, you know, share war stories and share what's
• 13:38
  going on with them and get best practices and tips and whatnot.
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  And then there's also a lot of women that are here for the
• 13:46
  professional development piece, right?
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  They might not have a big team around them or a company that
• 13:52
  has training resources or you know, other ways of keeping them
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  on the cutting edge of what's going on in talent position.
• 14:02
  So they join for continuous education and growth
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  opportunities. And so in your industry, is
• 14:11
  there like a licensure like is continuing Ed required or it's
• 14:16
  optional? It's just for personal growth.
• 14:18
  Hey I want to level up in in what I'm doing.
• 14:21
  Yeah, great question. There's actually not a a
• 14:24
  licensure or certification at this point in recruiting in the
• 14:30
  broader HR field. There is.
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  And that's one of the reason we one of the reasons we wanted to
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  start talent collective is because if we're talent is
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  typically seen as a subset of HR.
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  But we really believe that talent acquisition is its own
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  function and should be, we should have more again like a
• 14:52
  certification or something in place to be able to make sure
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  that people that are practitioners are actually, you
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  know, really quality. So that's something long term
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  that we could see ourselves getting into and and really
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  investing in is, is some kind of certification or licensing or
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  something like that. But that's like a very, very,
• 15:15
  very long term goal of ours. What are some more of the short
• 15:20
  term to mid term goals for Town Collective?
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  Sure. So we're really focused on
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  growth now. So we right now we have over 450
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  global members, which we feel very fortunate to have grown to
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  this mark, you know, just in a year.
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  However, we know that we can reach more women and, and
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  provide you know, value and impact in more women's lives.
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  So we will be launching in new locations in the next year and
• 15:49
  I'm sure you know, after that as well.
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  And then a really big priority for me is to not dilute the the
• 15:58
  value that people do get from the membership.
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  So we don't want to grow at all costs.
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  We want to remain, you know, very competitive in the value
• 16:07
  that we're giving to our members.
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  So one of my main goals is to really make sure that the
• 16:13
  programming we're providing is really giving our members impact
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  and and helping them with the day-to-day of their job or the
• 16:20
  connections they're getting, helping to grow their business,
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  etcetera. And so how do you think about or
• 16:28
  how do you structure that growth?
• 16:30
  I mean, I think you said you're in 10 different locations
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  already and there are more on the way.
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  Do you have to sort of anoint somebody as kind of a, a local
• 16:40
  chapter president? Is that how it works?
• 16:43
  Yeah. So we discovered very early on
• 16:46
  that tapping someone on the shoulder is not the best route
• 16:51
  because then that person like they may or may not organically
• 16:56
  have the passion to hold events, right?
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  Holding an event and planning an event requires I think one a
• 17:02
  very specific type of person. But then also a lot of
• 17:05
  initiative like this person is going to be in that location
• 17:08
  without us there nudging them along.
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  So how we've instead grown is as we have new members join from
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  any location, often times a woman will raise their hand and
• 17:20
  say, I really want these, you know, events in my area.
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  So how can we do that? And that's when we start a
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  conversation with them. They've already raised their
• 17:30
  hand. Often times they'll either go at
• 17:32
  it alone and, and really be, you know, that lead point person.
• 17:36
  And then other times they'll want a partner in crime.
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  So they'll go find, you know, maybe a friend of theirs that is
• 17:42
  also interested and they'll they'll partner up.
• 17:44
  But we really help them do the big launch and we'll fly out to
• 17:48
  that location, do a big launch party similar to what we did in
• 17:51
  San Francisco, help get sponsors there, you know, and, and really
• 17:56
  kind of teach them how to launch that location and teach them how
• 18:00
  to run events. And then, you know, then they
• 18:04
  kind of are able to, they know how to plan events from there.
• 18:09
  And then we still provide support.
• 18:11
  So we help them market those events.
• 18:12
  We help get people there. We provide back end, you know,
• 18:15
  all the tools and resources that they'll need to run events,
• 18:20
  etcetera. And they can be really small
• 18:21
  events, like it could be just like meeting up for coffee, you
• 18:24
  know, once a month or something like that.
• 18:26
  Doesn't have to be a huge lift on their part.
• 18:31
  Do members have a way to sort of trial the value of the
• 18:35
  membership? Is there some way for them to
• 18:37
  kind of dip their toe in the water and test it out?
• 18:39
  Yes, they sure do. So we do have that, that middle
• 18:42
  tier membership. We have a 30, a free 30 day
• 18:45
  trial. So they can get in there, you
• 18:48
  know, see what what kind of programming is there, see what
• 18:51
  kind of groups are there. And that way they can really
• 18:54
  know and understand, you know, how much they're going to get
• 18:56
  out of the community before committing.
• 19:02
  I'm curious, does the cause your organization is specifically for
• 19:05
  women in this field? Does the field of talent
• 19:08
  acquisition tend to attract more women than men?
• 19:13
  So yes, it does. However, what we tend to see is
• 19:20
  as you get more and more senior positions in the talent
• 19:25
  acquisition space, there's more men at the top.
• 19:28
  And so, you know, let's just say theoretically there's 60% women
• 19:33
  in in TA or in the US and 40% males.
• 19:38
  I would say, and this is anecdotal, but that that number
• 19:40
  is probably flipped at the upper level.
• 19:42
  So, you know, director level, sea level and you know, VP that
• 19:49
  a lot of the men are the ones that are getting promotions.
• 19:53
  And so that is you kind of nailed it.
• 19:56
  That's another reason we started this was really to empower women
• 19:59
  and, and help them get those opportunities to get promoted.
• 20:04
  And how do you position yourself and how do you speak for
• 20:06
  yourself and advocate for yourself to to really, you know,
• 20:11
  continue to grow your career if that's something that you want
• 20:14
  to do? And so most of your members, are
• 20:19
  they like solopreneurs, maybe just like, you know, two or
• 20:22
  three people in their firm. Do you kind of have a wide
• 20:24
  range? What's it look like?
• 20:25
  We have a pretty wide range. So we have people that are
• 20:28
  internal, so internal recruiters and then we have agency folks.
• 20:31
  And I would say it's probably split like pretty 5050.
• 20:35
  And then within the firm side or agency side, a lot of people
• 20:40
  recently in the last year or two have started their own agency
• 20:44
  because of their own business, because of the way the market
• 20:47
  has been. You know, maybe they've been
• 20:49
  laid off three times in the last year and they can't really rely
• 20:53
  on a full time job to be their family or to pay the bills.
• 20:56
  So they've started their own recruiting company and are, you
• 21:01
  know, maybe piercing together a few clients to make, you know,
• 21:04
  one full time income, so to speak.
• 21:08
  So a lot of the women in our community, that's a huge value
• 21:11
  add for them that they now have other women who have recently
• 21:15
  through the same thing, starting their own business.
• 21:18
  And they can share all of those best practices and tools they're
• 21:22
  using, what's working well, what's not, and really help
• 21:25
  support each other. And even sharing clients like,
• 21:28
  you know, you might have a client reach out to you and it's
• 21:32
  a job that you've never really recruited for, but you don't
• 21:35
  want to turn away the business. And so you partner with another
• 21:38
  solo recruiter in our community to help recruit on that role,
• 21:43
  and then you both win from it. So, So yeah.
• 21:46
  So we have again agency, internal and then everything
• 21:50
  really in between. Yeah.
• 21:54
  I'm curious, how are most people finding you?
• 21:56
  Are you doing like outbound marketing?
• 21:58
  Is it mostly word of mouth? What's that look like?
• 22:01
  We're doing everything you mentioned and more.
• 22:04
  So we, you know, we're on social media, we do a lot of thought
• 22:09
  leadership, so writing our own blogs, but then also partnering
• 22:13
  with other companies and, you know, Co writing blogs.
• 22:17
  So again, a lot on LinkedIn, we share a lot of our content and
• 22:21
  our events, which are a huge draw on LinkedIn and our other
• 22:26
  social media channels. Mostly just Instagram right now,
• 22:28
  but I could see us, you know, having like a TikTok at some
• 22:32
  point, maybe in Facebook, but we also do cold emails.
• 22:37
  So while we have kind of a sales engine running in the background
• 22:40
  where we do cold emails out to women in the talent acquisition
• 22:44
  space, we also do 1 to one outreach on LinkedIn.
• 22:48
  And those are just messages, you know, connection requests and
• 22:51
  then kind of inviting them to maybe an event, an event we have
• 22:55
  coming up, those types of things.
• 22:57
  And then ton of word of mouth. I mean, I can't tell you the
• 23:00
  number of times I'm on a call with a new member or prospective
• 23:03
  member member. And I asked them, how did you
• 23:06
  hear about us? And they're like, oh, like three
• 23:08
  people told me about you and you know, so that's really neat to
• 23:11
  hear because, yeah, I think like our name brand is really getting
• 23:16
  out there and our reputation is very strong.
• 23:21
  So yeah, definitely warms my heart to hear that when when I
• 23:24
  hear that. I'm curious, do you ever
• 23:28
  envision yourselves maybe putting on, you know, something
• 23:31
  like a trade show? I know that you've got sort of
• 23:32
  these local chapters, but would you ever kind of want to get to
• 23:36
  that point? Yes, so I personally don't I am
• 23:40
  not the event planner and I I like to attend the events.
• 23:43
  I don't like to plan them. But my Co founder Natalie, she
• 23:47
  is our events guru and she's so good at them and she has
• 23:53
  definitely talked about wanting to do something like this.
• 23:55
  And we do have a goal to do some kind of summit, so to speak.
• 24:00
  And maybe it's just a day long summit in 2025 S more to come on
• 24:04
  that. And you know, if that goes well,
• 24:06
  then I could see us doing something longer, you know,
• 24:09
  maybe a few day show conference, so to speak, moving forward.
• 24:13
  But yes, definitely on the radar.
• 24:17
  Any other growth plans that you want to give voice to at the
• 24:20
  moment? Sure.
• 24:22
  So we are in talks with a couple of different partners to expand
• 24:28
  on this idea of like either a recruiter marketplace or jobs
• 24:32
  marketplace to incorporate into the community.
• 24:35
  And again, it's this idea of like connecting the employers
• 24:40
  who need to find people with the recruiters who are looking for
• 24:43
  work. And so, you know, that's a big
• 24:47
  initiative of ours is to find, you know, a really good solution
• 24:50
  for that. Oh my gosh, we have like a
• 24:54
  million and one other ideas. But that's that's the thing I
• 24:56
  think we're working on hardest right now to really find the
• 24:59
  right solution for. That's pretty cool.
• 25:04
  I want to go switch gears a little bit and talk about how
• 25:07
  you first got involved in the talent acquisition industry.
• 25:11
  What drew you to it? How did the the door open for
• 25:14
  you? Sure.
• 25:16
  So this is stems back to childhood.
• 25:20
  My mom had always told me if you find something you'd love to do,
• 25:25
  you're never going to work a day in your life.
• 25:27
  So that's kind of the, the story that, you know, I, I grew up
• 25:31
  with, which I loved and I'm very grateful that she instilled that
• 25:35
  in me. So moving forward to high school
• 25:39
  or sorry to college, I, you know, as everyone who goes to
• 25:43
  college does, like what am I going to do with my life when
• 25:45
  I'm done here? I knew I wanted to give back.
• 25:47
  I knew I wanted to help people, but I didn't really know what
• 25:50
  that looked like. So in that process, I went to
• 25:53
  the Career Center at my own college and ended up developing
• 25:57
  this really lovely relationship with one of the career
• 26:01
  counselors there who I still am in touch with and I just adore.
• 26:06
  And through that process, you know, she was like, OK, there's
• 26:09
  like the nonprofit route. There's like, you could be a
• 26:11
  social worker and, and it really had me going through the process
• 26:16
  of like speaking with people in these industries or doing
• 26:19
  internships. I did a couple of nonprofit
• 26:22
  internships in college, and really through that process, I
• 26:25
  was kind of checking those boxes as like, OK, I know I don't want
• 26:29
  those things. And so I still had this idea
• 26:32
  that I wanted to help people that I didn't know how one day
• 26:35
  it just dawned on me like, I would love to do what she does.
• 26:39
  Like, it's what I've, I've enjoyed this relationship that
• 26:42
  we've built so much and she's helped me so much that I would
• 26:47
  love to be able to do that with college students.
• 26:50
  So I asked her, how did you get to where you are?
• 26:52
  She said, I went and got my master's and it was a counseling
• 26:55
  degree in career development. So I said, Oh my gosh, that's
• 26:58
  what I'm gonna do. So that's exactly what I did.
• 27:00
  Luckily, the college I was at in San Diego actually offered that
• 27:03
  exact degree in that. I think there's only two
• 27:05
  programs in the entire US that did.
• 27:08
  So I stayed there. Yeah.
• 27:10
  Yeah, there's, I think Boston College was another one at the
• 27:12
  time, and then University of San Diego.
• 27:14
  So I took a little time off in between but went back to school
• 27:18
  there for my master's. So through the same, the same
• 27:23
  idea happened in grad school where I did a few internships in
• 27:27
  career centers and I realized it just was not the right
• 27:32
  environment for you. For me, I loved helping the
• 27:35
  students and I loved the one-on-one with them.
• 27:38
  But the university setting was not right for me.
• 27:41
  It was just too slow too, like antiquated, like very
• 27:45
  bureaucratic. And I found myself bored, right.
• 27:48
  So I knew coming out of my, my master's degree that I wanted to
• 27:53
  get into corporate and recruiting was a clear, you
• 27:58
  know, path for that. So moved up to the Bay Area.
• 28:02
  My dream job was to be at Google doing like university recruiting
• 28:07
  for them because then I would still get to recruit college
• 28:10
  students and I could work for an amazing company, you know, in
• 28:14
  Google or something like that. So Fast forward 2008, I moved to
• 28:19
  San Francisco. I had no idea that there was
• 28:23
  like a huge economic bust at the time.
• 28:27
  You know, they don't tell you those things in a counseling
• 28:29
  program in grad school. So move up here.
• 28:31
  There's no jobs to be found. And I just was in this moment of
• 28:36
  desperation, like meeting anyone I could.
• 28:39
  I did a million like reach out on LinkedIn and in those days
• 28:42
  LinkedIn wasn't even big, but reaching out to any recruiter
• 28:45
  that would give me the time of day and doing informational
• 28:48
  interviews and just, you know, really trying to network as best
• 28:52
  as I could. And through that process, I had
• 28:56
  gone through a recruiting agency to try to find a job.
• 29:01
  And one of the three agencies that I went to, I actually
• 29:06
  really enjoyed. I like got along with my
• 29:08
  recruiter. We had a great relationship.
• 29:10
  She was so just personable and empathetic and really helpful to
• 29:17
  me, helping me redo my resume and all of these other things.
• 29:19
  So I had a good feeling about that agency, but I did not want
• 29:23
  to work at a staffing agency. Like I was like, I'm not a
• 29:27
  salesy person. I like, I've heard these horror
• 29:30
  stories about agencies that it's like cutthroat and you know,
• 29:33
  it's really salesy and all of these things.
• 29:35
  I'm like, that's not me. Fast forward three months later,
• 29:38
  I'm running out of money. I'm like still just like no jobs
• 29:43
  to be found. And I was at a a networking
• 29:46
  event and somebody said, oh, I think Premier's hiring, which is
• 29:48
  where I ended up. And I was like, OK, I'm just
• 29:50
  going to reach out to my recruiter and just see.
• 29:52
  And she said, well, yeah, we are hiring, but I thought you didn't
• 29:56
  want to work in agency. And I said, well, so I had a
• 29:59
  great experience at your agency. So let's just let's try it,
• 30:04
  right? Went through the process, ended
• 30:05
  up getting the job and I was there for 13 years.
• 30:08
  It was like the best fit. I still don't consider myself
• 30:13
  this big salesperson, but realized through that process,
• 30:16
  because I, I landed at a really good agency, that it was more
• 30:19
  about the relationships than like a hard set sell.
• 30:23
  And some agencies are like that, right?
• 30:24
  That there's a reason recruiting gets a bad rap sometimes.
• 30:28
  But I was very fortunate to land somewhere that didn't take that
• 30:33
  approach to recruiting, so grew from there and the rest of its
• 30:38
  history. Yeah.
• 30:40
  And you, you grew the company or you helped to grow the company
• 30:44
  pretty significantly while you were there.
• 30:46
  What was the in in the intro you said they were named.
• 30:50
  What was the award that they got?
• 30:51
  One of America's best recruiting firms.
• 30:54
  Yep. And we had a few different
• 30:57
  awards, you know, fastest growing in the US So we did go
• 31:03
  through a period of very, very high growth.
• 31:05
  I would say like coming out of the 2008 nine recession, you
• 31:10
  know the first few years were like so tough.
• 31:12
  I mean it was just cold calling like no other.
• 31:15
  And then about like 20/10/2011 it really started to pick up.
• 31:20
  And so we saw very high growth from like 20-11 to I want to say
• 31:24
  like 2016, 2017, something like that.
• 31:27
  And so I feel like it was like a little bit of right time, right
• 31:30
  place. I started in a down market.
• 31:32
  So like I knew what it was to work really hard and like fight
• 31:37
  tooth and nail for business. And I kept that work ethic up
• 31:42
  through the upswing, right? Like it was like this huge
• 31:45
  snowball where now we had business coming in the door.
• 31:48
  We didn't have to work for it as hard, but I still really had
• 31:51
  that work ethic to, to gain new business and, and to really make
• 31:56
  sure we were doing well and providing wipe up service for
• 31:59
  the, the clients and customers that we we did have.
• 32:02
  So yeah, so grew, grew the business over those years and
• 32:08
  then and I was managing our highest performing team.
• 32:12
  So that was a really great honor.
• 32:14
  And and then basically after having my first kid, I came in a
• 32:20
  non recruiting role. So I came back on the operation
• 32:23
  side, the management side, we were opening new offices in
• 32:27
  several different locations. So then I got the the business
• 32:31
  side and I got to know and understand that you know how to
• 32:35
  open an office. I got to know and understand the
• 32:38
  PNL and you know how to grow and gross margins and you know, net
• 32:44
  income and all the things. So that my second-half of my
• 32:49
  tenure there was on the business and operations side.
• 32:54
  You mentioned that you managed the top performing team before
• 32:58
  you took maternity leave and then came back to to run the
• 33:01
  business side of things. I'm curious from your, you know,
• 33:04
  13 years there being able to see this, what do you think it was
• 33:08
  that separated the top performers from everybody else?
• 33:13
  You know, I'm going to, I'm going to use a term that I think
• 33:19
  kind of get gets thrown around a bit.
• 33:21
  And but I really do think it, it made a difference on our team,
• 33:26
  which was psychological safety. And you know, I think Google has
• 33:30
  done studies about this, like the highest performing teams
• 33:32
  have psychological safety. And that was absolutely true
• 33:35
  with our team. Every single person we added to
• 33:38
  the team were a players. Like we just did not accept
• 33:42
  someone underperforming for sure, but even just like an
• 33:46
  average performer. So we were kind of like fast to
• 33:49
  hire, fast to fire. So someone wasn't getting it
• 33:52
  Within a couple of months. We were like, you're out like
• 33:56
  and, and we had a shared Commission pool, which is is
• 33:59
  very rare on the agency side. Usually it's like that's why it
• 34:02
  gets a, a cutthroat. You know, perception is that
• 34:08
  often times you're competing with your colleagues for the
• 34:11
  placement. But we had a shared Commission
• 34:13
  pool. So we were all working hard
• 34:16
  together for the same goal and we just hired really quality
• 34:22
  people who worked hard, were humble and just super smart and
• 34:30
  recruited really well. And yeah, I think all of those
• 34:34
  things combined. So does the psychological safety
• 34:39
  just it's innate to the person or is it something that you're
• 34:43
  fostering because of the environment that you're
• 34:45
  building, like that shared Commission pool?
• 34:49
  I think definitely the shared Commission pool helped.
• 34:52
  I also think, and I don't want to toot my own horn here, but I
• 34:57
  think my management style, you know, rubbed off on the team,
• 35:01
  right? Like I'm a very supportive
• 35:06
  person and I support the person and I understand things happen
• 35:09
  outside of work. We also like we would talk about
• 35:13
  our personal lives, right? Like we, we had relationships
• 35:16
  outside of work. So I really fostered that kind
• 35:19
  of environment where we were not only friends, not only
• 35:23
  colleagues but also friends. But then I have a very high bar
• 35:28
  for performance and how we treat our clients, so I held everybody
• 35:35
  else to that bar. You know, there are different
• 35:41
  types of firms sort of under the staffing umbrella, right?
• 35:47
  You've got like temp agencies, you know, where they're placing
• 35:52
  people that you know may work for short periods of time.
• 35:55
  That's obviously not your focus or, you know, the people in your
• 35:59
  membership group. And then as I understand it, you
• 36:03
  know, you're sort of more of a, you know what, what's the term
• 36:07
  like hire for placement, right? So they pay you a fee and, and,
• 36:11
  and you you help to find somebody and you place them
• 36:13
  there. Yeah, so, so the, the different
• 36:16
  models are so contingency recruiting is when a company
• 36:23
  comes and says, here's here's a job we need.
• 36:26
  They don't pay anything upfront. They only pay the agency if they
• 36:30
  end up placing someone. And that's the type of firm I
• 36:33
  worked for. I now after having 15 years of
• 36:37
  experience, like I think that model is absolute crap.
• 36:41
  Like where else do you ask someone to work for free?
• 36:46
  You know what I mean? Like other professional services
• 36:49
  firms, except for real estate, like real estate I think is
• 36:53
  probably one of the only other industries where they work for
• 36:58
  free until, you know, you deliver something, right?
• 37:01
  So there's plenty of contingent agencies out there.
• 37:05
  I think they often times just work so, so hard.
• 37:08
  And then you do all of this work and then you know, the company
• 37:11
  hires a referral or goes with another agency or what have you.
• 37:15
  So that's what I did. There's also retained search and
• 37:18
  those are typically executive search firms and, and again,
• 37:24
  there's different payment models and, and fee structures, but
• 37:28
  typically the company hiring will pay a third of the fee
• 37:32
  upfront, 1/3 when the interviews start and then a third at the
• 37:37
  placement. And then there's also, like we
• 37:43
  mentioned earlier, you know, people that are out there being
• 37:45
  solo recruiters and sometimes there's like a retain a monthly
• 37:50
  retainer that they're working off of.
• 37:51
  I've done that recently where I will tell my client, you know,
• 37:55
  I'm going to commit X number of hours to the search and then
• 37:59
  they pay me upfront that month and then we renew if the if the
• 38:04
  role hasn't been filled at the end of the month.
• 38:07
  There's hourly, you know, so you could come in and and just be,
• 38:11
  you know, contracting with the company hourly.
• 38:13
  So there's a lot of different models out there.
• 38:16
  There's embedded recruiting RPO models.
• 38:20
  Yeah. So a lot of different, different
• 38:23
  models out there. So you are still with your
• 38:26
  partners, you're still offering your own talent acquisition and
• 38:30
  recruiting services. Talk about the approach that you
• 38:34
  and your team take. Sure, sure.
• 38:36
  Yeah. So I still recruit and I, I
• 38:39
  absolutely love it. And I don't ever see myself not
• 38:42
  recruiting. I for years, like I, I mentioned
• 38:46
  earlier, I was, I wasn't recruiting, I was on the
• 38:49
  operation side. I was, you know, growing the
• 38:51
  business. And I still like knew in my head
• 38:54
  that I liked recruiting and that I was into the industry and I
• 38:57
  believed in it. But it wasn't until I left
• 39:01
  Premiere and went in house, I was head of people at a small
• 39:05
  startup. So I was recruiting again where
• 39:07
  I really my like passion and love for recruiting was
• 39:12
  reinvigorated. I would say so I knew then that
• 39:19
  OK, like I need to still stay connected with recruiting.
• 39:22
  I need to still be recruiting to keep that passion for it.
• 39:26
  So when I started Talent Collective, I still have the
• 39:30
  goal of, you know, at least having one client that I'm
• 39:32
  recruiting for at any given time.
• 39:34
  So again, my model is I'll do a monthly retainer.
• 39:38
  That way I'm getting paid something upfront and really my
• 39:42
  goal is to fill their job that first month because then they'll
• 39:46
  keep, you know, providing more opportunities for me to work on.
• 39:49
  And I've been very fortunate to work with companies that are
• 39:53
  move quickly and I have been able to hit that goal of filling
• 39:58
  their roles within a month. So I I mostly recruit for
• 40:03
  non-technical positions. So anything you know GNA go to
• 40:08
  market, operations, finance, etcetera, you know sales,
• 40:13
  customer success. And yeah, again, it's, it's a
• 40:18
  monthly retainer and I provide very, very high level of
• 40:22
  service. And you know, kind of like that
• 40:24
  white glove approach to my clients.
• 40:28
  Yeah, that's a little bit about what I do there.
• 40:30
  Talk a little bit more about that, Krista.
• 40:32
  I'm curious to hear what kind of separates you from other folks
• 40:35
  in the space. Obviously when somebody is going
• 40:38
  to hire for this kind of help, it's a big deal, right?
• 40:42
  Like this is a, a really important role to to fill so
• 40:46
  that they can get the right team members in their company.
• 40:49
  And so they're probably shopping around before they say, ah,
• 40:52
  Krista's the right one. And when they make that
• 40:54
  decision, why have they made that?
• 40:58
  You know, it's so funny because after leading and managing teams
• 41:04
  for so long, like there are people that just get recruiting
• 41:08
  and are good at it naturally. And then there's people that
• 41:11
  have to work really hard and really long hours and it just
• 41:14
  doesn't come naturally. And so I think one, it's just a
• 41:19
  very natural fit for me. I actually, when I got back into
• 41:22
  recruiting, you know, I, I had not recruited for six or seven
• 41:26
  years. And so I was a little like, I
• 41:29
  had a little bit of insecurity, like, Oh my gosh, am I gonna be
• 41:33
  able to do this again? And you know how, how am I gonna
• 41:36
  be? And just immediately got right
• 41:39
  back into it. And my most recent client that I
• 41:42
  have been with since October of last year, she just gave me, I
• 41:48
  think the most meaningful and impactful praise.
• 41:50
  She's worked with a lot of recruiters over her years.
• 41:53
  She's CEO of a marketing firm. And she told me she's like, you
• 41:58
  aren't just marginally better than all of the recruiters I've
• 42:01
  worked with, but you're like significantly better.
• 42:05
  And when I heard that, it just gave me so much confidence that
• 42:08
  like, OK, I love what I do, but I'm so really good at it.
• 42:13
  And I think part of that is I am fast, but I also have high
• 42:22
  customer service skills and high touch, so I can get my work done
• 42:27
  very quickly. And I'm good at picking top, top
• 42:32
  caliber candidates, building relationships with them so that
• 42:36
  they're committed and loyal to me throughout the process of
• 42:40
  placing them at the company. And I also like if I believe in
• 42:44
  the company I'm recruiting for, which luckily I have with all of
• 42:47
  the companies I've recruited for, like I can get people
• 42:50
  pumped, you know, like, like the people that I recruit don't bail
• 42:55
  out of the process because they're like lukewarm on the
• 42:57
  company. Like if if that happens,
• 43:00
  somebody at the company made them look warm.
• 43:02
  It was not me. Like I get people like super
• 43:05
  excited about the companies I'm working for.
• 43:08
  So I'd like to better understand what the qualities, the
• 43:12
  personality traits are that make a great recruiter.
• 43:16
  Obviously, from what I'm hearing, you talk about like,
• 43:18
  you have to be really good at developing relationships with
• 43:21
  the people that you're trying to recruit.
• 43:23
  You know, this isn't, you know, an hourly job at a fast food
• 43:26
  restaurant. Typically this is, you know, a
• 43:28
  more prominent position and people probably have a pretty
• 43:31
  good job already. And so you're trying to lure
• 43:33
  them out of a comfortable situation.
• 43:35
  So yeah, developing that rapport and getting them psyched up
• 43:38
  about this. Other companies probably a big
• 43:40
  deal. It would it be correct to say
• 43:41
  that it's also a lot about being able to judge somebody's
• 43:47
  personality pretty quickly to see are they the right culture
• 43:50
  fit? Yes, absolutely.
• 43:53
  And there's a whole hot topic out there right now in
• 43:58
  recruiting, and that's has to do with like, you know, the hard
• 44:02
  skills of a job and can someone actually perform the job versus
• 44:05
  the whole culture fit idea. And there's a lot of bias in
• 44:10
  that. And how do you mitigate that
• 44:12
  bias? And do companies care as much
• 44:15
  about culture fit anymore if they're all working remotely?
• 44:19
  Like, so there's a lot of insurance and outs of all of
• 44:21
  that as a recruiter and someone who, you know, again, I feel
• 44:26
  like I'm I'm good at what I do. There's this term recruiters
• 44:30
  intuition. And when you have it and you
• 44:33
  know it, you just know it. Like you just have this gut
• 44:36
  feeling about certain people. And every single time I've gone
• 44:40
  against my recruiters intuition, it has blown up in my face.
• 44:45
  So I've really learned over the years to listen to that.
• 44:49
  And so I think that the the best recruiters out there like know
• 44:53
  that gut feeling and listen to it.
• 44:54
  And it's hard to say what it is other than a gut feeling about
• 44:57
  people. So it is reading people's
• 44:59
  personalities for sure. But then also you have to know
• 45:02
  the company and like what kind of personality fit or culture
• 45:07
  fit? And there's also like culture
• 45:09
  add like are they adding to the culture?
• 45:11
  Not just like fitting in, like, you know, being another
• 45:15
  duplicate of someone that already works there, right?
• 45:17
  But yes, gut. Listen to your gut.
• 45:23
  True across many industries. Yeah.
• 45:26
  Krista, I'm curious, in all your experience, what are some of the
• 45:30
  most common hiring mistakes that you see companies?
• 45:32
  I do. This is a good one.
• 45:40
  I'm going to say moving too slowly.
• 45:43
  So there are companies that are so afraid to make the wrong hire
• 45:48
  that they make their interview process like 8 steps long or 10
• 45:53
  steps long. And they make the candidates go
• 45:55
  through the ringer, right? Like they want them to do all of
• 45:58
  these different assessments or homework projects or you know,
• 46:03
  other, other things of that nature.
• 46:05
  And I think to, to some extent those can have a time and a
• 46:08
  place, but if you make the process too long, I think it,
• 46:14
  you know, it just, it strings the process out much longer than
• 46:18
  it needs to be. It takes a lot of bandwidth from
• 46:20
  your internal employees and time of theirs to be interviewing so
• 46:24
  many candidates and at a such a long pace.
• 46:28
  And candidates like they're, they go fast, right?
• 46:31
  If another company's has a quicker process, you're going to
• 46:35
  lose them. And I've had that happen so many
• 46:37
  times throughout the years that companies just move too slowly.
• 46:41
  And I think that that's a huge like red flag even for me, as
• 46:45
  I'm, you know, as I'm working with a new company, if, if their
• 46:48
  interview process is too long, I really advise against it.
• 46:54
  You know, I haven't obviously hired at the scale that you have
• 46:57
  before, but for my own companies in the past, I, you know, I've
• 47:01
  developed my own kind of recruiting and vetting process.
• 47:05
  And, you know, I made the mistake with, you know, some of
• 47:08
  my earlier hires of doing exactly what you're describing,
• 47:12
  making that upfront process too difficult.
• 47:16
  And then, you know, was wondering, why am I not getting
• 47:20
  sort of more people in the, the funnel for this?
• 47:23
  And so when I took a step back and I recognized, OK, I need, I
• 47:26
  need to make this simpler, but I still wanted to include some
• 47:31
  kind of a test task to be able to gauge the quality and out of
• 47:37
  their output, you know, the, the work that they were submitting.
• 47:40
  And I realized that earlier on I had made the mistake of asking
• 47:45
  too much and, you know, and I wasn't paying them for that
• 47:48
  effort that they were putting in.
• 47:50
  And so I made the decision. Let's whittle down our list to,
• 47:55
  you know, some people that that look good, sound good, come
• 47:57
  across well, and then let's pay them for a simple test task.
• 48:02
  So it, it doesn't come across as too much effort or we're trying
• 48:06
  to take advantage of them or, you know, we're going to take
• 48:08
  this work, this free work that they did and, and you know, and
• 48:11
  use it is that is that track with kind of what you like to
• 48:15
  see happen. Absolutely, like 1000% And you
• 48:20
  hear that a lot from candidates that like, you know, the company
• 48:24
  might give them a true real world problem that this role is
• 48:29
  going to be trying to to fix. And then the, you know, the
• 48:32
  candidate will do do the work and then the company just
• 48:35
  basically steals that work. So I think one, it's important
• 48:39
  to make it close enough where you're going to be able to
• 48:41
  evaluate the performance of the person and the output, but not
• 48:46
  so real world that the candidates going to feel like
• 48:50
  they're just going to steal their work and bail.
• 48:52
  But to your point, if it is going to require, I think more
• 48:56
  than, you know, even an hour's time of theirs to prepare, I
• 49:00
  think paying them is a really, really smart way to go.
• 49:03
  And that sends an immediate message to the candidate that
• 49:08
  like this, this company values me and isn't going to take
• 49:12
  advantage of me as an employee, right?
• 49:14
  Like everyone, they're assessing you as much as you're assessing
• 49:17
  them. So sending that message early on
• 49:20
  in the process, I think is huge and critical and builds trust,
• 49:24
  right? Like they're going to trust you
• 49:26
  that much more if they do become your employee if you're valuing
• 49:30
  them at an early stage in the process.
• 49:34
  I'm curious, Krista, what you, if you had to narrow it down to
• 49:37
  one thing, and obviously it's not ever one thing, but what is
• 49:41
  the most powerful thing that makes someone want to move jobs?
• 49:48
  Do they buy into the mission? Is it more pay?
• 49:51
  Is it the benefits like or or maybe even sort of like give us
• 49:55
  a an ordered list of the things that are sort of the biggest
• 49:59
  triggers for them? Yeah, so there's this saying
• 50:02
  people don't leave jobs, they leave managers.
• 50:05
  So I think management and leadership are huge.
• 50:10
  And even if you work for a company that you believe in,
• 50:13
  there's a product you believe in, company culture at large is
• 50:18
  positive and and you enjoy it there and you feel well, well
• 50:20
  paid. If you and your manager don't
• 50:23
  align or you're not treated well by your manager, that's like
• 50:27
  living hell everyday, right for the person.
• 50:29
  So definitely at the top of the list, like I would say like top
• 50:33
  three or four are going to be the manager relationship.
• 50:37
  So like a toxic manager. Definitely people are still
• 50:41
  interested in working for a company where you know, they
• 50:46
  believe in the mission or believe in the product.
• 50:48
  So you know, some kind of draw. Their culture is still at a top,
• 50:53
  a top one. And then pay, I think there for
• 50:56
  a few years there was this whole thing about like, oh, pay's not
• 50:59
  important. Pay's not important.
• 51:00
  Of course it is like it absolutely is.
• 51:03
  And in all the surveys I see, it's usually in the top three.
• 51:06
  So pay benefits like the larger package is really important to
• 51:11
  people. What other perks and and
• 51:14
  benefits, health insurance, etcetera are being offered above
• 51:17
  and beyond just the the salary? Chris, I'd like to shift gears
• 51:25
  again and this time would like to ask about maybe a particular
• 51:29
  challenge either personally or professionally that you had had
• 51:34
  to overcome in the past and some lessons that you learned coming
• 51:38
  out the other side. I'll go personal on this one.
• 51:43
  I was going to go with something professional, but I'll go
• 51:46
  personal. So when I was in high school, I
• 51:50
  learned that my dad had a mental illness.
• 51:54
  He's high functioning, always had a stable job, but he
• 51:59
  definitely, I mean, I knew this as a kid like he he had his
• 52:03
  quirks and he there were things about him that I wasn't seeing
• 52:07
  another parents and my experience was very different
• 52:11
  having a dad like him than I think a lot of my friends.
• 52:15
  And so we don't still to this day really know what it was
• 52:18
  because he never went and got diagnosed, but it was either
• 52:20
  schizophrenia or bipolar. But basically discovered that my
• 52:26
  mom, he had my mom tell me because he didn't like to talk
• 52:31
  about it and didn't didn't want to talk about it.
• 52:34
  And so after my mom told me that, it really just opened my
• 52:40
  eyes to why my relationship with my dad was so different than I
• 52:44
  saw other people's relationships and why he had those perks and
• 52:48
  whatnot. And so I think one just growing
• 52:53
  up and I know nobody's like family situation is perfect.
• 52:59
  And I know people have so many different challenges growing up
• 53:03
  and with their parents and they really vary quite quite broadly.
• 53:10
  And so this was just this was mine, right?
• 53:12
  So I think just moving forward, you know, having a dad that
• 53:18
  loved me but also couldn't support me in ways that I wanted
• 53:23
  to be supported or loved. So that was very challenging.
• 53:27
  And I think moving forward, he would open up every now and
• 53:32
  again, as, you know, I was a young adult and even, you know,
• 53:35
  into my 30s. And he a couple of times had
• 53:41
  opened up and said, you know, you and your sister are really
• 53:44
  the only reasons that I'm alive. Like he had lived such a
• 53:51
  horrific life with these demons, whatever they were voices in his
• 53:58
  head. You know, there's a lot of
• 53:59
  paranoia and whatnot. He lived just such a horrible
• 54:03
  life that I think he would have taken his life had, you know, he
• 54:08
  not loved me and my sister that much.
• 54:09
  And so when I tell people that there, a lot of people will say,
• 54:12
  like, wow, that must have been like a really heavy burden for
• 54:15
  you, You know, as someone who was in high school at the time
• 54:19
  to think like, I'm the only reason my dad's alive.
• 54:22
  I didn't see it that way. I actually saw it as my dad
• 54:28
  values me that much. I must be important, right?
• 54:32
  And so I think like a lot of women devalue themselves or, you
• 54:39
  know, don't have confidence and don't think they're important.
• 54:43
  And I'm sure men as well, but I, I really chose to take those
• 54:49
  comments in a different direction to, you know, rather
• 54:53
  than have it be this huge pressure on myself that like, I
• 54:58
  don't know. So anyways, I, I took it in a
• 55:01
  positive direction. I think that's just really how I
• 55:03
  live my life is, you know, you can see things that are
• 55:08
  happening to you and wonder why they're happening to you or you
• 55:11
  can wonder why they're happening for you.
• 55:13
  And I've always lived my life as like, why is this happening for
• 55:16
  me? And I think that's an example of
• 55:18
  that, that it was a gift that I received from my dad to know
• 55:22
  that and really was able to have confidence in a lot of the rest
• 55:28
  of my life and know that I I was important.
• 55:33
  Thank you for sharing that, Krista.
• 55:34
  It's obviously I'm sorry that your father, you know, had those
• 55:38
  struggles, but what a a beautiful way that you took his
• 55:42
  message, right. We've got choices in how we sort
• 55:46
  of receive things. We we can't control everything
• 55:49
  that happens in our lives, but we can control the way that we
• 55:52
  react to them. And you chose to take it in the
• 55:55
  most beautiful way possible that wow, I am so special.
• 56:00
  I matter that much to my dad that that's that's enough for
• 56:05
  him to to stay around and and to be here with us.
• 56:08
  That's a beautiful story. Exactly.
• 56:12
  Chris, I have one more question I want to ask you.
• 56:14
  But before I do, I want to do a couple of things.
• 56:17
  First of all, if you're listening today and you like
• 56:18
  today's content, please hit the subscribe, like, or share button
• 56:22
  on your favorite podcast app. I also want to let people know
• 56:25
  the best way to get in touch with you.
• 56:27
  Maybe they're interested in becoming a member.
• 56:29
  Maybe they're interested in becoming a client.
• 56:32
  Maybe they just want to have a general conversation.
• 56:34
  How do they get in touch with you?
• 56:36
  Yeah, absolutely. So e-mail is a really easy way.
• 56:39
  It's Krista with a KKRISTA at talentcollectiveco.com.
• 56:45
  Also LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn.
• 56:47
  My full name is there, so Krista Scarborough Tan.
• 56:51
  You can also look up Talent Collective and find me through
• 56:55
  the people tab on that. Great.
• 56:59
  Now last question I have for you.
• 57:01
  You know, you went through, I'll call it the dark winter of you
• 57:05
  know, 2008, 2009 and it sounds like there's maybe not quite as
• 57:11
  bad now, but certainly the the lots of struggles in the
• 57:16
  industry. Where do you see things going in
• 57:19
  the next five years in this talent acquisition space?
• 57:23
  What do you think the big changes are that are coming?
• 57:26
  Yeah, I I think there is going to remain some consolidation and
• 57:33
  we're not going to go back to like 2021 was like top of the
• 57:36
  market for recruiters like companies just could not just
• 57:39
  like software engineers like could not hire enough
• 57:42
  recruiters. I don't think it's ever going to
• 57:44
  go back to that like so competitive because we do have
• 57:48
  technology advancements and people able to do more with
• 57:50
  less. But I think because of those
• 57:53
  technology advancements and, and AII think we're going to get
• 57:56
  back to the more personal touch of recruiting.
• 58:01
  Like I think recruiting has gotten a pretty bad rap in the
• 58:04
  last few years that recruiters don't get back to you.
• 58:08
  Like there's no closing of the loop or there's no personal
• 58:11
  touch in the recruiting process. And I think we're going to
• 58:13
  actually go back to that because people are realizing like that's
• 58:17
  what's needed in order to to be a good recruiter and, and for
• 58:21
  people to, you know, want to remain in relationship with you.
• 58:25
  So I think there's kind of like a little bit of a paradox there,
• 58:29
  right? With more technology, I think
• 58:31
  people are actually going to go back to having more of a
• 58:33
  personal touch. That's terrific, Chris.
• 58:38
  I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your
• 58:40
  time and your story with us today.
• 58:42
  I really appreciate it. Absolutely, Anthony.
• 58:44
  Thank you for having me on. This was really fun and thanks
• 58:47
  for the honor of being here today and excited to connect
• 58:51
  with your audience. My pleasure.
• 58:55
  I would say our pleasure, folks. That's a wrap on another episode
• 58:58
  of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us
• 59:01
  today.