Beyond the Resume: How Great Leaders Really Hire

You're just never going to get a super legitimate representation of the total possible market if you're just posting and waiting. On this episode of Executive Edge, Greg is joined by Roy Langley, president and founder of Pelagic Search. Roy Langley shares his veteran perspective on building trust in the high-stakes world of retained search. There has arisen this huge need, in my eyes, from my vantage point, of people in these blue collar, boots on the ground, hourly worker type of industries that can genuinely connect with that kind of workforce and be authentic and can get results.

But can you also transport them into a boardroom or put them in front of an investor group at the private equity level? The ability to be able to play both sides of that table and translate data and information and back and forth, it's a difficult thing to do. Hello, and welcome to this episode of Tenzing's Executive Edge Podcast. My guest today is Roy Langley, and we're going to be talking about talent.

Roy is the president and founder of Pelogic Search, a retained search firm devoted to operations and commercial functions in companies across a variety of ownership environments, including private equity, public, and family-owned. Wow. Roy has spent the entirety of his career in client services. Prior to founding Pelogic Search, Roy spent six years in the retained executive search industry with Pierce Gray, both executing and leading nearly 100 searches across 28 mega cap and middle market private equity sponsors.

Roy has been serving private equity clients for over a decade, and prior to entering the retained search industry. He spent nearly six years with Kaiser Associates, the boutique strategy consulting firm. Roy graduated from Middlebury College with a BA in political science. I bet that's useful today.

And today resides with his family in Connecticut. Welcome, Roy. I'm excited to talk to you today. And thanks for joining us to cover the topic of talent, something that's near and dear to everybody that we speak with.

Absolutely, Greg. It is my pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I share all the excitement that you do.

Thanks. Well, I want to first start out, Roy, with, you know, how did you find your way into the executive search, you know, industry? Just tell us a little bit about how you landed there. Absolutely.

Absolutely. So I had a great run with Kaiser Associates in the consulting world. And it's funny, Greg, I'm asked this a lot. And I'm pretty honest with folks to say, after five plus years in strategy consulting, I learned a ton.

I think I really became a professional during my time at Kaiser, serving a number of different clients, learning how to talk, learning how to speak and communicate and Excel and PowerPoint and just a lot of useful things that you can take into a lot of different industries. So I like to tell folks that in some senses, it was time for me to find a real job. One of the things about consulting that frustrated me was that the reality that, you know, you pour your part of sweat into a four, six, eight week engagement.

You... You create a, you know, a presentation, a fancy PowerPoint for a client with a lot of phenomenal insights, right, that they need to make really critical decisions, but you're effectively handing off your work product and you have no control over what's done with it. So there was no way to see the fruits of your labor, so to speak. And so the reality with executive search is that people and professionals are your product.

And that was incredibly appealing to me and relieving in some ways. I feel as though I'm right where I should be with an industry that's really, really rewarding and where you can see the fruits of your labor and where it can sort of come back to you. So yeah, the long and the short of the transition, like many in the search industry, I stumbled backwards into it with the help of a recruiter, a very good friend of mine now who talked me into taking a conversation with Pierce Gray and spent six tremendous years there, the best stop of my career and a phenomenal team.

And late last year, made the decision to go out on my own and build something from scratch. Hit the hard button, as I like to say. Good for you. Well, you know, a big, big factor in success of I think any business, especially for, you know, a fledgling business like yours, just getting started out is really building trust with your clients.

And maybe if you could speak to the audience about how do you how how are you going about building that trust with the people you work with definitely so greg i'd say the first the first way that i think it's really important to set the stage on on building trust with with clients is being just being genuine and authentic right meaning what you say saying what you do right But in our world, right, in the search world and just in the environment overall today, I think, things are getting far more competitive the landscape is changing very very quickly and so.

It's really important to be honest in in my mind about what you're good at and what you're not good at right and in in launching pelogic search i made made the decision to really stick to the core of where is the core of my experience well it's in it's in operations and commercial right from a from a functional perspective and and i think that that is is ideally the right way to go about things right i i wanted to make this a functionally focused firm first and foremost and to be somewhat industry agnostic but you know the worst way to get in and build trust right if you're building something is to take on and bite off more than you can chew right and something that you don't have the the repetitions and the credibility in doing right so effectively it's it's your your past work product and your resume and where you have experience and where you don't have experience that's that's that's step one you know right right and, It's so tough, though, when you're getting started, you almost don't want to turn down any business because any business looks like good business when you're getting up off the ground.

And so do you have any stories you can relate to us about that, about how do you make that difficult decision, maybe to turn something down that isn't a good fit that you feel you won't be successful at? Absolutely. I do have a few of these, right? Right.

And just the I think the precursor to that, Greg, is is it's not a not a scenario where you've you've got to feel feel down on yourself. And, man, I wish I could do that, but I can't. Right. It's just it's the reality of who you are.

You know, you've spent your career in this industry. You have expertise in this function and you can't create experience that you don't have. So it's it's easy and often I find refreshing and relieving to just be totally honest and upfront about that. Right.

And, and the client's going to, they're going to buy into that, right? They want to know what you're good at, what you're not good at. But, you know, I, I recently ran into an interesting situation with, with a client that I've served in the past who, who's now in a leadership position in the field services industry and was, was looking for some support. And this was a role, this was a P&O leadership role that was, was really interesting, I think for the right, for the right individual, however, a quite a small operation, right?

And I had to give, give this some hard thought about where am I best suited to serve this client and what is my confidence level that I can bring really, really good talent. And the reality was that it was just a bit below the leveling, right, from a size and revenue perspective that I would be comfortable with. And just having, you know, having a lot of direct experience with this leader who I really trust and really respect and so. It was it was difficult to say no in the moment you know to to to somebody that i trust and that that i've that i've served but the long game is it's really important and and trust is paramount and i in that moment was just not confident that i was going to be able to produce an exceptional candidate pool based on the the characteristics of that role and and i was up front with was up front with that individual about it and landed in a good place.

I hope to have, you know, some more bites of the apple there for sure for something that's a little bit more in the wheelhouse, but that's a very recent and real scenario. Right. And, and it's not going to be, it's not going to be the last. Yeah, no, I commend you for doing that because, you know, when it's not a good fit, if, you know, the downside risk is so high and you really, but in the moment, it's a tough decision, as we've said.

But ultimately, hopefully that leads to, you know, additional future business. It kind of hurts when it happens, but I think you got to play the long game and, you know, start off. If you don't start off on the right foot, every step after that is very difficult. Totally agree.

And just for those in our industry, it's about getting, I think we all need to get a little bit more comfortable with saying no in the right scenarios, right? Of course, we're going to say yes and jump all over the things that are right in the wheelhouse. But when it's not, just being okay with walking away, right? For the right reasons for that client, right?

Right, right. The trends are out there like what are people i think our audience would be interested in what are you know your clients looking for in terms of people expertise you name it you know, speak to that a little bit i know that some people just want want a warm body sometimes i don't i I don't think they're the kind of work you're doing or these executive positions that they do, but, you know, sometimes it's just we got to fill the capacity. I need somebody who can do this, but when they're really looking for a key executive, can you kind of paint a picture of what's important for your clients?

Definitely. Yeah, so my search experience comes entirely from a retained perspective and point of view, which generally means the roles are a little bit more senior. The stakes are, the stakes are a bit higher, right? And they are looking for, they're looking for the best of the best, right?

The best and brightest that the market can produce and that you're going to be able to produce for them. So it's important to get really, it's important to get really locked in on what exactly are we looking for, have all those upfront scoping conversations. Sometimes that changes during the course of the engagement, right? But being locked in from the get-go is really, really important.

You know, there is, I'll use this example, Greg, you were asking about what's, what's really needed right now. There's a, there's an interest, a really interesting, phenomenon, I'll call it. In one of the industries that I've had the pleasure to work quite a bit in over the last few years, I'll call it broad industrial field services, branch-based field services business where the place of work is often changing. You've got a moving workforce to go and complete something either on a short-term basis or medium-term basis where it's sort of a percentage of completion revenue recognition model.

And in the world that I came from serving, you know, 86% of all the work I've ever done in search is in private equity. They are getting more and more interested in this world of field services, right? And it's a very interesting cross-section that you're getting with these businesses, many of which have historically been small, family-owned and operated. They have lacked sophistication.

They have lacked talent excellence. They've lacked systems excellence, right? And we're talking about many times, you know, an hourly blue-collar workforce, right? Well, you bring in an institutional investor, you know, middle market private equity fund that has limited partners and the stakes get quite a bit higher and they've got to produce and they've got to perform.

And it's often the first kind of, you know, institutional capital or liquidity for a legacy family owner, right? But these industries are known, right, for having, I'd say, you know, talent that is a little bit more lackluster than what you might find in, you know, other more professionalized industries, right? So there has arisen this huge need in my eyes, from my vantage point, of people in these blue-collar, boots-on-the-ground businesses. Hourly worker type of industries that can genuinely connect with that kind of workforce and be authentic and can get results, right?

But can you also transport them into a boardroom or put them in front of, you know, an investor group at the private equity level, right? And the ability to be able to play both sides of that table and translate, you know, data and information and back and forth is a difficult it's a difficult thing to do and it's exciting because i think there's a lot of potential for people that maybe have not thought about these these you know dirty job type industries right but we all we all need them we rely on them you may not realize it or think about it and it's a corner of the world that is ripe for consolidation and buy-ups and that sort of thing so it's it's anyway this is just this is kind of an angle of what are people really looking for and what's going to become more important.

And, you know, in my mind, this is a really interesting intersection of that. So they want people with, do they want people that have direct experience in those kind of environments coming in? Or is it okay to bring somebody who's maybe an accomplished executive at a public company and, you know, wants to go and try something like that because they've got, tons of experience, you know, turning around a division of a company or something. Yeah, it's an interesting question.

And I think the reality is it's, I think it's difficult to come into hardcore industrial field services as a complete outsider, right? It's just hard, right? And, but I think the reality, right, for these businesses is that thinking outside the box and maybe taking a little bit of a risk on somebody from a, maybe an adjacent industry or an adjacent business, but not boom, right there, square in the wheelhouse is what you're seeing a lot more of. But to get back to my earlier point, I think there's a bit of a gap in the number and volume of sitting leaders that are really, really excellent, you know, already in those industries that have grown up in those industries.

So there is, I think, definitely a need for some cross pollinization of folks from, let's call them adjacent, you know, industries, adjacent companies and that sort of thing is what I would say. I see. Okay. Okay.

So they want, they don't necessarily have to have experience in, let's call it the, uh, let's say pest, pest extermination or something. Pest control. Yeah, exactly. Pest control.

Thank you. That's probably the more appropriate way to say it these days. Sure, sure, sure. It's really about, yeah, I was going to say really, you know, think branch-based businesses, the place of work moves, hourly workforce.

You know, a technician and a truck kind of thing, they all are, I'd say they all are, are somewhat fungible. And there is a lot of, there is a lot of ability to, to, to pull people from within that corner of the world. So to that question, I would say, yes, sir. Okay.

No. Okay. Yep. Gotcha there.

Okay. So you mentioned you do retained and there's always discussions about what's better attained or contingent. Uh, let me share your thoughts on that with the audience about, about, you know, your preference and why you believe one is better than the other. Sure.

Sure. Well. You know, a disclaimer for you and our audience, Retained is the only world in which I've ever operated. So I can speak from the experience of, you know, leading searches on a Retained basis.

But I think there's a time and place for each model, Greg. And, you know, there's a reason that Retained, this model exists and it's been successful. And there's a reason that there are a plethora of contingent firms out there, right? And my experience is that the more senior the role gets, you get into head of function.

Positions, they require more, you know, they require more attention. The time to fill gets longer. There's, there's more complication around, you know, finding qualifying candidates, the interview process, compensation is higher. It's just a little, it's a little stickier.

It's a little more challenging, right? Versus your more junior roles, you know, even down to, to hourly type positions in a company where they need, they need a lot of volume. And maybe it's really the same job description for a number of roles in the same geography. That is a perfect scenario where a contingent model can be quite advantageous for a hiring manager.

I need 10 field service technicians and we're going to pay a partner to bring those people on as they find them and we agree to bring them on versus I need a chief operating officer, right? That needs a different level of attention and a different skill set. And I, as a client, as a hiring manager, I really need a partner that's an extension of my team that can be a thought partner to me and help me navigate the candidate market to get the right person and vet them correctly and bring them in.

So those are just some initial thoughts on those two models. Okay, okay. So it seems the further up the org chart you are, the more important it sounds retained is because of the criticality of that position. Absolutely.

Makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense. So I just wanted to see what you thought there. Switching it up a little bit, you do something that's pretty interesting when we talked before about really understanding the role that they're trying to fill.

I don't want to steal your thunder. I'm just setting you up here. But you talked about how you go and sort of you like to experience what the candidate would experience once they've maybe accepted the position. Sure.

Tell us about that. Yes, I see where you're going with this one for sure, Greg. I love the stories. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, what you're getting at is the concept of a search partner, you know, being in person and meeting the hiring manager, meeting that team and other stakeholders, but also just being boots on the ground in that company, in that location. And I've had an opportunity to do this over the last several years. You know, rightly so and understandably, this slowed down big time during COVID, right? I mean, I remember coming into my last firm and, you know, phone calls and conference calls was sort of the way that everybody did things.

And then we all hit COVID and then everybody and their mother went to video conference, you know, mediums, right? Just the phone call just wasn't enough. And we've sort of never gone back. But what I think we got away from to a great extent was just this, this in-person interaction.

And so this, to me, as I, as I launch Pallogic Search, it's, it's really important. It's, you know, you're, you're never going to be able to replicate what you're going to get meeting somebody in person, sitting across the table from them, sharing a meal with them, and you're going to get a video or phone. And I'm not, I'm not saying anything here that everybody doesn't already know and, and, and agree on, but what you were specifically talking about, I think is, is really, you.

Is really important and I think can be a big differentiator for any hiring team and maybe considering going the route of bringing a search partner in is seeing and feeling out the vibe and the culture and the situation on the floor of where that candidate is going to go into is a big deal, right? For a couple of reasons. One, the reality here is that we in the search industry overall, all. I don't think we've done a good job of showing face, period.

I just don't think that we have, right? I was getting lunch with an individual that I hold in very high regard, a career procurement leader. And this was back before the end of the year. And I just asked him towards the end, just out of curiosity, how many search partners have come to meet you in person at some point during the search?

And effectively, the answer was, Roy, you could maybe count on one hand. And I've been in procurement for 35 years, right? So this is a micro example, but it highlights the point of, I just think it's important to get in front of who hired you, right? They're paying you good money for a service and you need to really go and deliver.

And so I think it's important for them to know that you, the search partner, you're really committed. You're really committed. And that is a very clear way of demonstrating that. But the second piece is you then are that much more credible to the candidate pool, almost as an extension of that company's internal hiring team to say, let me tell you about how things go on here.

You know, if it's a discrete manufacturing environment and you're there walking the floor and seeing how the sausage is made, so to speak, it just puts you in a different position and elevates you when you're on the phone and over video and in-person meeting candidates and qualifying them to articulate what they're going into, but then also to just be able to qualify them better, right? So that's what I would say about that topic that you- Yeah, no, I just want to pull a few things out of there because I think it's important.

One, I think all of us, especially people of my generation, sort of, we started with in-person. That was the only way to go, right? It was rare to get on a call and there was never any video up until, you know, most, you know, the last maybe five or five. Maybe five to eight years, right?

You saw a lot more video coming online. Zoom and Teams and everything. But you had to go shake that person's hand and meet them, look them in the eye. And I think that's becoming, unfortunately, a lost art, right?

People will say, oh, it's more efficient or we don't need to meet in person. But I still think there is a connection that happens in person that cannot be replicated the way you and I are talking now. Roy and I are not in the same room. I think that's pretty obvious.

If anybody's watching this, if you're listening, it's clear just from what I'm explaining here. But, you know, it's it's it's I think in the era of efficiency and then, you know, we kind of got used to it during COVID, as you mentioned, we still fall back to it. But I still like to get on site and on person, even before we sell an engagement. We like to go see the operation or, you know, go meet the people who we'll be working with just to just to make sure they understand that, you know, we're real people.

And and, you know, you can make certain connections there that you can never make over the phone. And then for the candidate, I think it's super valuable that you can say, hey, yeah, I've been on the floor. I did a ride-along in the van at the service company. I went out with the tech for four hours.

And this is kind of how they go to market and what the model's like and what I took away from the experience. I mean, that just is so valuable to give them those kind of insights. Yeah. Yeah, it costs some money to go do that in-person meeting sometimes, right?

But I think it's totally money well spent. And there's a high ROI on that from the trust you can build with the client and the trust you can build with the candidate by what you learn and experience in those face-to-face meetings. So I'm with you there. I think we got to get back to more of that and less of the phone, less of the team's calls.

So that's awesome. That's awesome. All right. I want to move into some stuff I think that's going to be really important.

I'm always thinking of our audience. And, you know, if I look at a hiring team or a manager who's hiring somebody, what is your advice if you have to give them advice about how do they attract the best talent to their company? Yep, absolutely. Absolutely.

Let me start with this and and this is in no way to to suggest that everybody needs a search partner to go and fill roles we can't we can't operate like that and i'm not at all advocating for that but a common a common you know reality that i see particularly for larger companies out there greg is this action of post and pray when i say post and pray right you create a job description a company posted on their website maybe they posted on linkedin and the job distribution could be great it could be a phenomenal role right but they're not actively offensively sourcing targeted candidates that could be a good fit for that role right and in my seat and in my experience the the best candidates are very very frequently those who really aren't active at the time at which you reach out to them, right?

That's just what my experience has been. So I'm always, you know, and again, bringing a little bit of my bias in here, given my profession, but this action of, we're going to create the day G, we're going to post it, and we're going to choose from the pool of candidates that sees it A and B chooses to apply and C that we elect to speak to, but you're just never going to get. A super legitimate representation of the total possible market. If you're just posting and waiting, it's a passive, it's a totally passive strategy to get great talent.

So, so this is my advice for, for anybody, you know, regardless of how you're going about finding the talent, you're using your internal resources, or you're using a partner is you need to, you need to source folks, right? Whether it's networking and, and, and shared mutual connections from folks on your, within your organization or through the hiring manager, but there needs to be an effort to actively source candidates that fit the profile and the mold of what you're looking for versus just waiting and relying on the pool that just so happens to see the post and just so happens to apply.

So. Right. Okay. So it's like throwing your line in the water and hoping there's some hungry fish out there.

You're only going to get the hungry fish. You're not going to get the ones that are maybe bigger that have already eaten. I think this fits well with the name of your company too, right? But really, so you're saying, I think if I can sum it up that you've got to make some effort to go out and find those candidates that are not actively in market looking, because that's the only ones that are going to find you if you post a job.

There could be a great candidate who's maybe passive who who will take a call with a with a search professional from time to time about a position yes but isn't like you know scrolling on the links in jobs or or any of the job boards or any of these websites for looking for a position right exactly so you gotta sort of promote the promote the role and then also probably work work the networks of the people that you know who say hey do you know anybody who. You know, might be, might be good at this, right.

I want somebody who's proven and that proven person may not be in market, but they may be, who knows, maybe it's time for them. They're getting the itch and, uh, you know, they just haven't started looking yet. Right. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And, and, and so many times, Greg, in my, my experience in the last several years, you know, it takes one, two, three, four times into several different mediums just to get somebody to respond and lo and behold the client hires that person that we almost couldn't get a hold of to begin with right is that person ever passively applying to a job post online they're not they're not that's great okay so that's okay that's on the kind of hiring side let's talk about candidates though because we have a lot of candidates in our audience as well.

Well, what can a candidate do to really get noticed and differentiate themselves once they are noticed? What advice would you give to people who are seeking a job, seeking to make a change? And you read all these stats. I've got to stop aside here for a second.

But all these stats about all these people that are dissatisfied in their current role, right? But they're not in market. And maybe the reason they're not in markets is because it's been a tough experience to go to try to find something new. But what can they do though to go out and get noticed to be to be stand out in the crowd totally so i'm going to answer this two ways greg the the first way is really bare bones step one how to get noticed maybe before you have the opportunity to meet a hiring manager or a talent acquisition leader over video or in person right and to me it's it's two it's two things for starters, right?

Your resume and your LinkedIn profile, right? LinkedIn, we may not like to admit this, but they've got a pretty good hold on what they do. They're very good at it. And, It's important to be noticeable there on that medium, on that platform, right?

But let me just back up to the resume for a moment. Because I've looked at so many over the years, right? And the first, you know, most important aspect of resumes, in my mind, right, as a search practitioner, is its results and detail orientation. So let me give you an example, right?

Countless times in my years in search, right? I've looked at resumes with former colleagues and this immediate reaction is, these are great companies. The roles look pretty meaty. This person seems to have, you know, they seem to have ascended the ranks pretty nicely, but I don't see any numbers.

There's no there's no numbers in this resume it's all words right and there isn't any quantification of perhaps scope of role or results or accomplishments so that's that's step one and i still give this feedback to folks a ton today not not to not to suggest that i'm you know god's gift to resume writing because i'm not but it is important to be able to articulate and The size and scope of the organization, the extent to which you've been able to influence change and move the needle in your organization.

And so how do you quantify that? Numbers and percentages are a big deal. And particularly in the world that I'm most familiar with, the private equity back world, it's taken up to a little bit of even a different degree. Right.

So that's the first thing that I would say. Numbers, numbers, numbers, results, details in the resume. What have you done? What have you accomplished?

How did you do it? And how do you quantify it? Right. Now, the next thing is, is important.

Right. And this, this, this is before even having a conversation with anybody is bring a lot of that detail to your LinkedIn profile, transport it, bring it over. Right. You want to you want to increase the potential that a hiring manager, A, sees your profile, B, they click down into your roles and your career history and they conclude, wow, this candidate's got great detail in each of these roles.

The scope is clear. Maybe they have information on the reporting structure and the size of the team. And there's a lot of great detail in here on, you know, ownership and results and how they influenced, you know, this outcome and that outcome. And this is pretty nice.

I actually have a decent... Flyover on this candidate's career and the meat and potatoes of each of these roles, just from a quick glance of the LinkedIn profile, right? And to me, it builds a good amount of confidence that A, they took the time to beef that out, to make themselves visible, but they also backed it up with some numbers and some precision, right? So that's what I would say on the first part, before you even have a conversation with somebody, those are, those are just right off the bat thing, how I think about this.

Well now, okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to recap a little bit, make sure your resume, your LinkedIn profile, reflect your accomplishments, use as much data as, as possible, like numbers provide, you know, tangible results or, you know, a sense of the size of the organization and the revenue or whatever factors are used to show size and scale and make sure that that stands out. And I'd also say, I'd add to that, make sure you can back it up with how did you accomplish that?

So tell me the story behind that, right? Did you fall into an easy one here or did you really have to make it happen, right? Yeah. And so have that story.

Okay. So now they get noticed. They get the interview. I think that's where we're going next.

Yes. What's your advice once they're, you know, in the process? Yes. Okay so so step one initial conversation let's just call it video right um and stay with me on this one because it's going to sound incredibly simple but the first thing right that i'm looking.

It's energy energy energy period period that's the first thing that i'm noticing when i get on the horn with anybody, right? And I've met thousands of people over the years, thousands of candidates and energy, energy, energy. It's the first thing I notice and feel, right? How did this person show up today?

Am I just 15 seconds in pulling and trying to drag the conversation on for some icebreakers to get started? We haven't even started talking about the role. It's just niceties. Right.

But my, my, my advice is just show up with great energy. You're excited to be there. You want to be there. You know why you're there.

You have a lot to say. You have questions, just show up the right way. Bring that energy, bring that excitement and that enthusiasm. You know, I can't tell you how many times in a, in a client call we get feedback on, you know, background's great they seem to be results oriented but man they were low energy you know that's not on that's not on the scorecard or criteria it you know if you read down in the fine line yeah energy and ability to influence and and that sort of thing is there but it's not necessarily a core criteria item but it's the first thing we're talking about on this call is this person seemed pretty confident they've accomplished quite a lot but the energy was totally low.

But it's in a client's mind, in a hiring manager's mind, they start going to areas like, well, if I wasn't necessarily impressed and they weren't really getting me jazzed up, are they going to be able to build and lead a team from scratch, which is what I need in this job? That's how they're thinking about it. And in my opinion, why it's so important, right? So that's really the first thing.

There's two other things that I'll hit on, Greg, one of which is similar to how you show up on paper when you don't have the opportunity yet to show up in person is the detail orientation, right? You're going into a conversation. You're putting yourself forward for a job. Yes, you need to interview them, and they need to interview you.

Absolutely. But you need to be able to talk about some pretty simple, straightforward things, right? Your career history, right? Any hiring manager is going to want to know in the search world, right?

Walk me through your background. Tell me the story. You know, you've had this many jobs over this many years. What influenced each of those decisions and those transitions?

That's important. We're going to want to know that. You need to have a good explanation for it, right? What was the size and the scope of your ownership and these roles and the team structure?

And what did you accomplish? And, you know, what did this organization look like when you came in? You were there for six years. They grew from 500 million to two and a half billion.

Tell me about that. Right. I want to know those, those details, but you, you need to be organized in how you tell that story and you need to bring the details and you need to bring the results. Right.

So I think that detail orientation and the numbers are, are very important in how you tell that story. And then this is another, this is another big one, but it's often overlooked. Greg is what is the motivation for that candidate? To entertain this job?

Why are they talking to you in the first place? Do you have a clear understanding of that? Can you ask that question to them? And can they give you a relatively concise, simple, straightforward answer that doesn't cause five more questions, right?

So if you're a candidate, it needs to be clear in your mind. What's my motivation for this? Why is this interesting to me? Why is this exciting?

You know, please, everybody out there, pull up JATGPT and do your homework about this company? What do they do? What's gone on recently in the news, right? That should be part of the, that should influence some of the questions that you have for that hiring manager.

But just be clear on why it's interesting to you. And I would suggest not having a one-trick pony kind of answer to that. Well, I'm worried about the financial stability of my current organization and my job may be in flux. That is not a good answer to why, why are you interested and motivated for this job?

You know, that's usually met with a sad trombone sound in my head. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah.

No, get it. So I heard a few things I want to, I want to bump in here just to, to, to really drive a few pieces of gold home that you uncovered here. A few gems. One is have a narrative about your career why did you go from this position at x company to a different position at y company right i just recently was talking with one of my nephews he was contemplating a change which he ultimately did make and i said one thing to think about is think about not now but think about 10 years from now and somebody's looking at your cv or your LinkedIn profile or whatever is going to be out there 10 years from now.

And they say, hey. Why would you leave a bigger company in the defense industry to go to a startup in the defense industry? And is that a story you can tell effectively? And I think in his case, it totally did, right?

They were looking for the kind of skill set he had. And so it's a way to frame it, though, and to think through your decisions on where you're making changes to get your head right. Because people want to understand, especially today when somebody might take a job and they've only been there nine months and they left, right? You want to did something go wrong.

Hey, here's what happened with the company. Here's what my choices were at that time. And I elected to do this instead of that. And it's it.

Conversation just moves on, right? If it's a logical, oh, that makes sense, right? But you've got to be able to tell the story. Don't expect the hiring manager to do their homework and figure it out on their own, right?

You need to say, in fact, you might even want to point it out. You might see that I was there for a short stint. Would you be interested to know why it was so short? Let me tell you.

Let me just get ahead of it, right? Exactly. Go on offense. Yeah.

The other thing, Greg, is these questions are going to be asked by a hiring manager, an investor, right? And when we get to the end of the process and we want to speak to some references we're likely going to want to reference some of that out a couple particularly a couple of you know fast transitions or short stints and that sort of thing you just want to be comfortable with what really happened i know your side of the story but i'm going to go cross-check that and make sure that we hear what we want to hear and and that everything sort of checks out so just something else to keep in mind, you know, I, I am, I'm a massive, you know, proponent of references.

I would never. Let a client, well, I guess to some extent it may not be in my control, but letting a client make a hire without running references is just not something I would ever recommend. It's pretty incredible what you can uncover. And look, most of the time they're phenomenal and it's what you expected to hear and maybe even better.

But every now and then you pick up things that you maybe weren't expecting and flags that you want to go in and a little deeper on, right? Hiring is really expensive. If you get it wrong, it's really expensive. It can, it can really set you back.

So, so have a narrative and have a, have a, have clear explanations of why you made these decisions that you made, you know? Yep. And bring the energy. I'm hearing that.

Oh my goodness. Energy, energy, energy. It is just in my mind, it is, it is absolutely step one every time. Yeah.

And I think a part of that energy is the curiosity, right? I can tell when somebody just has standards kind of scripted questions and anymore, they're starting to get them from, you know, Gen.A.I.

sources. But I want the interesting questions like, why are you moving into that market? Or why did you guys abandon that industry? Or why haven't you released a software product or something?

You know, it's those are the ones that really get my attention because they're like, ah, they're actually thinking a little bit about the business and more of a strategic way. And asking a question that requires a more nuanced explanation than many others do, right? Absolutely. You want to feel like they're interviewing you actively as well.

Oh, yeah. It's a confidence builder in the reality. You hope that they are really genuinely interested in this and that you believe them. Yeah, yeah.

No, that's great. What other insights can you offer for the candidate, for the hiring manager, you know. What other gems can you share as we look to wrap up here? Yeah, for sure.

So, gosh, I'll go back to it again. Energy, energy, I think on both sides is really important. And maybe just a point to emphasize on the hiring team side. Just set the time aside and be deliberate and meaningful with the hiring process and meeting candidates.

It's something that a candidate can sniff out so quickly. You know you're you're you the hiring manager right you're late to the meeting you're looking around there's other things going on you know you don't hear back for weeks at a time you start to kind of feel commoditized as as a candidate you know are these guys really serious about this role and are they really serious about me because I might be hearing different things but I think just being genuine and being authentic and bringing the energy and being prepared to engage and have a dialogue.

And it's just as important for that hiring party, right? One thing I'll leave for hiring teams is don't jump right into the interview. Leave some space to get a candidate engaged and up to speed and get the engine temperature up a little bit. And one of the ways I like to do that as I meet candidates is to, you know, to ask them, right, ask these questions.

What's your motivation for this? You know, you've had a chance to read the JD. Maybe we had a conversation last week or a few days ago, and we're meeting again to go a little bit deeper. What do you think about this role and this opportunity, right?

And what questions can I answer for you, right? Right. Because it's it's giving them some giving them some additional confidence that can help shape the way they're going to bring and present information to you that can that can speed up the process. But it just gets them a bit more comfortable.

And I think is a more a more more of a fun, genuine way to have a dialogue. Right. I frame it immediately for candidates. I said, look, I want this to be a quid pro quo.

Certainly, you're investing time in this. I'm investing time in this. Right. So I kind of put us on an equal standing there.

And it doesn't matter if they're, you know, very junior or whatever. I don't look at it that way. I look at it as we both have taken time. We're both busy people.

This is important to you. It's a very important decision for you. It's a very important decision for us. Let's use this time most effectively to both walk away understanding what we need to understand to help ourselves make a good decision, right?

And I think, again, that's just sort of saying treat others like you'd like to be treated, right? There's a golden rule there. But I think it also opens it up to a more free-flowing conversation and a little bit more relaxed vibe to the call. So I try to put people at ease immediately.

And then, like you said, I love it, warm up the engine. That's a really good way to talk about it, right? Like, where'd you grow up, you know? And, you know, tell me about, you know, why you chose, you know, to go this direction with your life.

And, you know, I think it helps to create that better discussion. And then you really see, is there true, genuine energy and authenticity in that candidate? Are they, you know, it lets them let their guard down a little bit. And, you know, just makes for a better conversation.

And I think a better output coming out of that conversation. And don't be afraid to continue it. Running out of time is, I think, often a good thing, right? Right.

It means there was genuine connection there or sometimes it means somebody was rambling a little bit too long. You didn't get what you needed out of them, but that's also a genuine confidence booster and an interest demonstrator to a candidate. The hiring manager says, let's set up more time. You know, I want to spend more time with you.

It's a big deal. So don't be afraid to do that as well. Roy, this is great. I know our audience is going to appreciate this.

The subject of talent is something that's important to every human being. And so I appreciate you taking time to share your perspectives and to talk about and provide some great advice, I think, both for the hiring side as well as the candidate side of things. Anything else you'd like to say on the way out? I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you helping us out here.

Absolutely, Greg. Nothing else from me. This has been tremendously fun, and I'm really appreciative of the opportunity to chat. It's been a great dialogue, very naturally back and forth, and just how I appreciate doing things.

So a lot of fun. Thank you so much. All right. Until next time, take care.

Thanks, Greg. You too.