True Talent Partnership

Speaker A: If you tick every part of a job description, are you already overqualified for the role walk? Again, we need to be able to have our uh, BS detector on this job description doesn't make any sense in the market, especially with the very early stage founders. That thing that you want is not what you want. Let's assess who you are, what you bring and what your skill sets are. Reality is recruitment needs to

Speaker B: welcome to what the fte, the podcast for HR leaders who are done playing defense and ready to shape the future of work. We romanticize the idea of in house, but when hiring slows, it's your own people who get cut first. My guest today is Joseph Withers. He's co founder of Highlight TA&A Guy who's built, scaled and dismantled more hiring teams than most people ever will. He's seen the inside of the talent machine, when it's booming and when it breaks. In this conversation, Joseph will explain how, how most companies get wrong about hiring, why projects are a red flag for TA and how to build a flexible, resilient talent model that actually fits the rhythm of modern business. Before we get into it, I want to add a little bit of a disclaimer. I'm going to work really hard to not make this uh, podcast sound like a sales pitch because at certain we do uh, have highlight TAs our talent partners and could not be happier. I often say it's one of the best decisions I made. Uh, moving into a head of people role was high hiring Highlight uh, as our TA function. But I'm going to try and keep my bias out of it and just have a chat with Joseph and what they do.

Speaker A: Let's get these. Don't let's, let's uh, let's keep that bias.

Speaker B: Blather it on. It's not hard to do. It's not hard to do. You're easy to make look good because you do the work yourself. But uh, why don't we start with what's the biggest myth startups believe about recruitment?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think from a startup perspective it's probably that anyone can do it, right? Like any, anyone can do recruitment. And I think that there's a big difference between being able to do great recruitment and being really effective in it and just getting a hiring manager to do it. So if you're a small company, um, and we work with startups where the hiring managers are just, they have to run the entire process, they'll put up a job ad, it's a full time job. Right. You might get 100 applicants you might get a thousand applicants and reviewing all of them without that tools and tech and that knowledge is painful. So yeah, I think that's probably the big one. Don't you find that?

Speaker B: Yeah, I really do. And I think like as you say that what I'm thinking of, like it's a full time job. The problem is when it's not, it's still a full time expertise. But when maybe you're not hiring at the moment, maybe you're downsizing a bit, maybe you're right sizing, maybe just you've hit the p. The right number of employees for the stage that you're at, then what do you do?

Speaker A: Well, that is the biggest challenge in recruitment, right? Like if you think about every function within a business, this one is probably the most reactive to the business needs. So when hiring's high, you need a big team and most of the time that team that you've got internally cannot actually support the amount of hiring that you need to do. And then the second part is that you're going to go through that pause and you're just trying to support, sort of look busy to executives like you. You're trying to provide value when it's not there. So that's, that's is such a challenge for companies now. Like you really do have to, there's market conditions, there's um, business strategy changes. There's so many things that can affect hiring and you really have to react to it. And so I mean, I don't want to pitch the company. This is very difficult for me because this is why we built Highlight TA for this exact reason. Because like there's two guarantees. There's in, in sort of hiring for tech companies. One is that you're going to slow down and be, have, have too much time. And the other one is you're gonna have not enough resources. And so we build it to go with that flow, right? When you, when you need more people, then we're there. And when you hiring stops, we, we pause. Right. And so it's difficult. That's a difficult one for me, not to just pitch the business.

Speaker B: Melissa M. See, this is the answer. Well, I don't know. As I think of it, as a uh, as a head of talent, you have two options, right? You either make your TA professional, be a generalist, or you try and make your generalist be a ta. Right? That's the, we don't get a lot of headcount in people and culture, right? It is always about, you know, what is the return on investment. A Lot of people and culture teams are relatively small in the startup space and they do an outsized amount of work. For me, that was the debate I was having. Do I have one of my generalists spend time or one of my business partners spend time hiring or do I hire a full time TA and make them be a generalist because they're going to have to pick up other things when it's not busy. I can certainly speak to the kind uh, of hazards making a TA a generalist. I wonder what you think about when you try and force kind of like that generalist to be in a TA role. What does that show up as in your experience?

Speaker A: And we see companies do it. I just think that they're not necessarily given the tools that they need to succeed. Right, right. So nowadays you want to be able to headhunt and you need to be effective with that ah, headhunting to make it uh, a viable option. And so most generalists are not trading that way. They're not given great tools like Ashby. We, we both use Ashby and love it. And so having that a LinkedIn license, I just think that they're not as effective and it's, it's a big time constraint. If you think about most hiring demand. It's like that first sort of week, two weeks, you have to do a lot of uplift, a lot of screening to get that sort of quality of talent that you, you want to be able to feel confident putting in front of that hiring manager. And it's too time consuming for them. Like I just don't see it working to be honest. It's, it's not.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And the other way around, like TA going into pnc. I don't know many TA people that can be doing anything good in pnc. Like it's, it's a liability. Yeah.

Speaker B: Well when I think about really great recruiters, I think they are more uh, like closer to business development or sales. T's right. Like if I'm looking for someone to sell an HR product like we have TA's may be one of the first places I'm going because they've got in that built in sales culture and then they also have the lens of HR through the business. So you're right. They're probably closer to that in my view anyways than they are to someone you want to be acting like a business partner within, within your PNC team.

Speaker A: Definitely. Yeah. And the ability to sort of pick up the phone or not. Nowadays it's all done via video call but just jump on a video Call be confident in what you're talking about, understand what their needs are and then, and then pitch the business. I think that's, that's a unique skill set that does really more align to business development and sales rather than people and culture. Should we say. Yeah, um, yeah, the empathy side of things.

Speaker B: Yeah, I know another kind of question that often comes up, uh, for me, especially again in the startup space. How do you know when it's time to scale up or scale back your TA capacity?

Speaker A: Okay, this is difficult because it's the biggest challenge in recruitment. Scale up's pretty straightforward in the sense of if a hiring manager's like, oh, what do you need to use an agency? Or I, um, that you're just not hitting those sort of like time to fills. Like reality is recruitment needs to flex to business needs and if we're not getting the people in the seats fast enough and that's affecting the overall business goals and objectives, then that's the, the writings on the wall. You can really tell it by, by statistics. And so then that's where we need to make an additional headcount or find another solution. It's the other part which is a little bit less data driven and a bit more an emotional decision. Right, right. When we have to reduce that headcount, that's, that becomes tough. Like I've been in talent teams where it's like we're literally just trying to show our value to execs. Like, oh, okay, if we're going to do a, like an employer branding project or we're going to do certain things like this, like when things are good and we've got so many roles that we can't think, those things are like literally the last thing you're thinking about. But then when you're having to do that, that's when you, you really have to make that emotional decision and it's very hard to uh, sort of forecast. I mean, you know this very well, right. When you, when it comes to budgeting for hires, you do that initial sort of yearly budget and forecast. How often does that come true?

Speaker B: I want to say one day we'll get there.

Speaker A: But even the most like stable companies that forecast for that year is often like, okay, we want to do like maybe like 40 or four a month is what we're anticipating based on turnover and then 150 hires later. Like how do you deal with that as a taa? Right? Like yeah, yeah, very, very difficult. So yeah, scaling up is, is easier. Scaling down is, is, is much harder and you do Need a solution that allows you to do both.

Speaker B: And I would say like that. I don't even think that is startup, uh, specific. It's certainly my experience in startups, my experience in very robust like industries like banking and insurance. Everyone is having to move at the pace of markets. Right. And to keep up with, with needs. Your hiring m plans do change throughout the year. It's, you know, you can, you can set that goal and it's important to do that. So you've got kind of a vision of where you're going, but you have to be able to be reactive. And sometimes that means hiring more people than you thought.

Speaker A: Yeah. If you think about the baseline. Right. What is it? It's probably headcount and the attrition rate. So say for example, you're 100 people, you have an 8% uh, attrition rate. That's going to be what, eight hires per year plus maybe a bit of scale on that. You've got what, a recruiter in there that's going to have a guarantee of eight if we don't do any hiring. And then we look at the forecast and we say, okay, we've got 20 hires for the next year. That's a uh, 20% growth. That's 28 hires for the entire year. Is that enough for a full time person? And you could bet most of those are going to be in January.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So they're going to be weighted towards some part of the year. So say if it's in Q1 because everyone gets their, their uh, budget and they're like, we need to hire to meet our goals for the year. So we're going to probably front load maybe 15 of those hires in Q1. That one recruiter, uh, could be overwhelmed with that. So there really is a very, very difficult job as an internal talent leader to predict what you've got. There's too many influences that can affect things. Yeah. And at the end of the day, no matter what, you get judged on hiring. Right. So you can do all these projects. You have to bring the people in. There's no, oh, uh, can we just not hire this person? Or we, we didn't hit uh, our deadlines. We just have to do it. You can't say no.

Speaker B: Yeah. So yeah, it's not an option. Right. I want to shift gears a little bit. Um, I wonder how you think about a, uh, hiring philosophy. Like what do you think about your hiring philosophy? How does that translate into business needs?

Speaker A: Oh, it's a good question. Hiring philosophy. I think we flex to our Clients in the sense to how they work, how they operate. I think that's, that's a big thing. I think you've got to look at the overall business and there's different businesses operate in different ways. Some are very sort of like we need like five processes. Some are very much we need to uh, to act quickly. I'm not very philosophical. A little bit. Do you know what I mean? That might be a bit too much for me. So I think I just, I love to just get, my attitude is lfg, like really just go after it. Yeah. Be aggressive. And I think I do have a data driven approach that you can always fall back to your numbers. So it's really, really simple to be honest. In terms of recruitment, if you look at how many hires you need to make and then you look at the previous data that you have based on either other hiring in similar positions or previous hires that you've made at the company, you can look at and say, okay, well we had two people at final to make that offer. We had three people at the second round and like five people at first. You just work back to the point where you know, okay, if I send this amount of inmails and I review this amount of applicants or I speak to this amount of people, I should have a good chance of making the hire. Now every recruiter is different and it's not as always as straightforward as that because there's a lot of uh, a lot of changes that can happen. But if you do that, it's very rare that you'll fail because you can always just rely on that data. And that, that's us. It takes the pressure off recruiters. When you've got 10 open wrecks, they're all coming off at once and there's so many different things that you're juggling. If you just stick to the numbers, it can take that pressure off of them. So that's, yeah, as long as you do that with a great attitude, I think you're, you're away with it.

Speaker B: Nice. Awesome. When you think about if you're right now you're kind of speaking to our audience, lots of TA leaders. How do you think about matching, uh, your approach to business needs? Uh, maybe not yours specifically as a highlight ta, but uh, what advice would you give to ta, uh, leaders and how to meet founders, executives, where they are and where maybe it falls apart.

Speaker A: This is interesting because obviously we've worked with Sarah, uh, for a good while now. How would you say that we've worked with you like that sort of come to your needs.

Speaker B: I'm interviewing you, Joseph Sahar. I'm kidding. I think, I think like the thing that I've observed with Highlight and with the best recruiters I've worked with is their ability to adapt to what the leader that they're working with is looking for, but also within the framework of how they understand the company's vision, mission and values. Because those things aren't always aligned. We would love if every single leader in a business was aligned to where the company as a whole wants to go or what our philosophy is about performance or about management, about leadership. Like all those things, it would be great if everybody was always on the same page. That's not always true, right? I think that's a ideal uh, state we should all strive for. But when that's not true, I imagine as a recruiter it's very difficult to match those because it's not unlike being a business partner which is more kind of the role that I play is like you have to be able to flex and adapt. And I think that has been one of the reasons that our relationship has worked so well is different parts of our business do need different things within the parameters of what we kind of uh, as the executive team want our overall mission, vision, values, those types of things to be. So how do you do that?

Speaker A: Well, I think this is recruitment in the sense of like people. Right. Like everyone's different. So every hiring managers have got a different personality, different way of doing things and we just have to adjust to that. But then we also have to take say for example your overall vision. Right. For the, the, the company from a ah, PM PNC perspective and an OPS perspective from your, your position as well. How does that translate to the sort of day to day side of things like, and the overall implementation. I'm talking like cultural aspects. I would probably say just flexing to the people is important and then knowing the overall business needs.

Speaker B: I know what I've observed you do is on an intake like just asking questions about what's important, asking like I've seen you do that. I think you do it without even thinking about it. That's why it's hard to answer.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's it really. Like if we understand the problems that we're looking to solve. Right. Like every hiring manager's got like their own sort of needs and wants and they have, they're quite selfish and it makes sense to be selfish. They've got objectives that they have to hear and this hiring is going to be uh, affecting those Objectives. Right. So we have to really understand, okay, what's the problem that we're looking to solve with this hire? And then they don't necessarily have every answer. So we need to pull as much information from them so that we could build that picture. We can do a gap analysis between what they've written on paper and what they've actually said. And then we can create like, an effective scorecard system that allows us to evaluate candidates in their mindset. So we want to just be as, as, as one with that, uh, hiring manager as possible to make that process as simple. And then I think that just speeds things up on. I don't really have many hire managers complain to us when we go too fast. Right. And that's all about doing that discovery, really getting on the same page with that person and making sure that we're. We're gathering as much information as possible. And you've got like two weeks grace, where you can really ask what you want. There's no wrong questions. And then after that, you really need to know what you're doing. So I'd say that first couple of weeks is super important. Do that discovery, understand what they want and just fire questions. Most, most hiring managers are okay with that. Obviously, the higher the exec, the more respectful of time you have to be.

Speaker B: That's a great answer. Yeah, that's a great advice. Like that. Really take advantage of those early days to understand so that then you're ready to deliver when it's time. Right?

Speaker A: Yeah. Don't you think, like, even with your hiring, like the first 48 hours, that first impression.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: So important because then that heart, that Hiram manager goes away. Goes. There's. They've either got it and they feel confident in what your ability is, or they go, we need some support. Or they, they get a compl. Like if. If we go and meet, say, one of your partners, uh, within the business and they don't have competence, they. They are knocking at your door, Melissa, saying, why have you hired these people? Right. Like, there's no forgiveness because they, they literally need these people in place. They reality is it's already affecting them. Most companies cannot have the, I don't know, the Runway. Like, it takes, say, three months to make an executive hire. Most companies go, okay, when do you need this executive hire? Yesterday. Right. And if you're not getting them in yesterday, then it's. It's affecting a lot of stuff. Right. So the pressures immediate. We have to be on our, uh, a game from day one, making that impact and showing them that we, we know what we're doing.

Speaker B: Right. Yeah. I wonder you kind of touched on there too, maybe what, like, partnership looks like. And something I've been thinking about and I was guilty of doing this morning is like you said, recruiters do what they do day in and day out and day in and day out, and they're fantastic at it. Sometimes we forget that other people don't have that, uh, context. And maybe they've hired once or they hire once a year, or maybe it's been six months. Whatever it's been. How do you remind yourself to slow down? The thing I did this morning, I had on a slide. I see.

Speaker A: I don't.

Speaker B: If I say I see to you, what does that mean?

Speaker A: Independent contractor. Individual contributor.

Speaker B: That's. I was thinking individual contributor. I think individual contributor. You're either a people leader or you're an individual contributor. That's, you know, the thing in my lingo, day to day. That's what I mean. And I threw it on a slide, not even thinking. Right. And of course, thankfully, someone asked, because sometimes people don't ask. They don't feel like they can ask because they're feeling like maybe I should know what that means. Right. How does that show up for you? Because it is like, it's very, um, it, it rings very true to me that you want to move fast and you want to fill those roles, but you've got people who don't do this every day are such a critical part of the process. How do those things fit together?

Speaker A: Yeah, this is a, this is an interesting one because I think, like, say you get those, those people that make that transition from an individual contributor to a, uh, hiring manager, and it's their first, first go. Nine times out of 10, that process is long. It, it delays things. Right. They, they make, they're making decisions based on maybe interviews. They've had processes that they've, they've been part of as, as an interviewer, uh, not necessarily owning that process end to end. So I think it's important that we, we sort of set the stage as to what the process looks like. We give them as much information as to what we do and what we are, uh, responsible for and what they're responsible for. Right. So we're as. We, as recruiters, we're responsible for the process. We, we're responsible for effectively hitting certain deadlines and getting the people in front of them and managing that candidate experience through that. And then they're really, they're really responsible for the decisions. Right. Making themselves available and Then also partly creating a great candidate experience from an interview perspective. They also need to wrangle the team and know, uh, who's going to be doing what in that interview process. So I think you can really make it easier for them by just saying, hey, look, we're going to handle this, you're going to handle that. And you're the expert, right? You're the expert in, say, operations and I'm the expert in recruitment. Just tell me, like, what do you do? Why do you need this person? Right, like these sort, uh, of questions. It makes them feel confident if you can ask them things that they know. And then from there they start to get a bit more confidence. They see that, okay, this is what they're asking me, this is what we're going to ask for the process. And just very transparent with the numbers, the updates, proactive updates is a massive thing. You know this at a certain. Right. Like most Hira managers want to be told what's going on before they have to ask. And so doing that once a week, twice a week makes them feel in control of that process and it just gives them a lot more confidence. So it's a challenge. Though those early, early, uh, stage Hira managers, you know, it's going to be longer most of those times. Um, absolutely. Also another thing to add is what we like to do is say if it's that first stage Hira manager, bring in someone else that's already hired, maybe their, their leader into that conversation, maybe that first conversation or first two conversations, maybe every couple of weeks in the sinks, so that they're aware of what's going on, um, and can just give them that guidance. Because it's very difficult for a recruiter to manage and sort of upskill them in, in certain areas. Uh, whereas someone that's working with them day to day can just sort of give them tidbits of information.

Speaker B: Right? Yeah, that's a great tip too. That makes a lot of sense. From whatever stage in your career as a recruiter, what is the toughest, uh, conversation you've had to have with a founder or a senior executive around recruitment?

Speaker A: You know, it sounds so obvious, but the toughest ones are like, this person's not joining your team, like you've hired this person and they're about to start, uh, Monday. Yeah, and they've packed out because you know that they're like crying for this person to join. And this real happening recruitment, it always is inevitable. As a recruiter, I bet every recruiter listening is thinking until they walk in the Building or they effectively log in. It's not done and I don't feel 100% confident. And I think that's just the reality. So just breaking that news of this person's not joining your team, it uh, hurts like it's so bad. It's actually the worst. That's the toughest conversations in terms of strategy, I think being, uh, uh, especially with the very early stage founders being like, actually that thing that you want is not what you want. Let's assess who you are and what you bring and what your skill sets are, what you're good at, what you're bad at. And having them self assess in, in front of people like, especially myself, like, what are you actually bad at doing? That's maybe who we should start to hire. Not. You've seen a video on LinkedIn and like, okay, I really like this new AI PDR or whatever. Yeah. What are you bad at? What you don't like doing what's going to make the most impact and sort of having them self reflect and yeah. Diagnose what their skill set is, is a fun one. I like doing that.

Speaker B: Fun. Yeah, fun.

Speaker A: And you have to do that as well. Right? So.

Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, I think PNC gets to do that an awful lot. Try and hold up a mirror and go, okay, you know, what do we need that we don't have? Versus the human default always is to hire more like you. Right. How often do you see that? Like does. Is that like a constant? It's just. And I don't even think it's. It's definitely not always conscious. It's like this human nature that we're battling all of the time of like, how do I. Someone. It's easy to talk to someone. We hit it off in an interview. Yeah, that's the person. But like, maybe they're just a copy of you. Is that what you need?

Speaker A: That's the worst, isn't it? Because like we even being a hiring manager myself now and hiring for the team, it's very, very easy to like just fall back to that. Oh, get on really well with them. You can't put yourself first. You literally have to think of the business first and you've got to withdraw from that situation and say okay. To make a great company, I think you need many different types of cultures. That's why, uh, my worst question of all time is what is the culture like at the company? Because it's generally defined by the people. And how do I know that you like the same people as me?

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So is that uh is a borderline pointless question. It's, it's very difficult and okay, this is a good one for you, right? When you are trying to build out a culture with so many different types of personality and different people, how do you even really, truly define what it is?

Speaker B: A culture really for me is, is systems because like you said, people experience and, and with a lens of how are people experiencing those systems, what are the uh, like what is your compensation philosophy? What is your performance record like all of those things build a culture because you're right, it's really easy to call camaraderie culture or like who do I like to go to beer for beers with culture. That's really not what a company culture is. Sometimes I define culture, uh, as the worst behavior that you're willing to accept. And that reminds me always that every employee experiences culture through the people that they work with and that their first level leader has their biggest impact on how they see the company than anyone else. More than the CEO, more than the founder, more than the head of people and culture. It is the person that you report to that really shapes your experience within a company, for better or for worse. So I like have some organizations that I've worked for that I speak so fondly of and I almost always remember to add the caveat that like I also fully understand in an organization that size, someone else might have a very different experience. Right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So when I set that bar as the worst behavior that you're willing to accept, I often mean from leaders, but it really is overall. Because if you're okay with that because someone's a high performer, if you're okay with that because someone's, you know, been around a long time or whatever it's been, then you really can't, you can't declare that your culture is any different than that. And um, like that's, if that's the floor, then you don't get higher than that. Right.

Speaker A: This, this is like really like it reflects in the interview process in the sense that I think that every first round interview with, with uh, with uh, the company should be with the hiring manager. M. Because some companies like they'll bring in peers or they'll do a tech, like they're a technical without that person.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And really you get that buy and you can get, you're interviewing the, the candidate just as much as they're interviewing you. And so you need to have that. You can bridge that gap. Early doors and really understand if, if it's going to work or it's not Going to work quickly. It's super important that first interview. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah, agreed. I have one last burning question for you and uh, it's a bit of a pet peeve of mine and I think I see it a lot in our space, like in the startup space. Who, what role does recruitment have to play in the problem of seeing say a posting that says, I want 10 years experience in a technology that didn't exist five years ago. Where is recruitment's role? Uh, if you're talking to other recruitment professionals right now, in thinking about the postings they're putting up and pushing back in some of those requirements because there is different, there's different people that need to play a part in setting up those role mandates and those job descriptions. But I see so many postings that require 10 years of experience with agentic AI. How does that work?

Speaker A: Yeah, and I mean this is where you really just have to, you have to sort of stand tall to a certain extent with that hiring manager. And, and it's all about knowledge, right? If you've been there and you've done it, you can see the writing on the wall. Like you're, you're able to read a job description now and be like, okay, 10 years makes absolutely no sense. And that's probably the difference between uh, a recruiter and a great recruiter being able to see, can we actually find this? Do we want to build a unicorn here? Do we want to actually hire someone? Or are we just going to the market thinking that we're going to find someone, but it's not actually realistic in any way, shape or form? So I think that we have a, uh, responsibility to influence a job description from the ground up. And we as recruiters would. Our value is aligning that job description to the market. So let's talk AI for example, or even just tech in general now what say five years ago when we were hiring five years of senior full stack or uh, full stack development experience using sort of node on the back end and reacts on the front end, that kind of made a bit more sense. Now it like these new technologies, you could learn stuff so quickly. It doesn't necessarily make sense to bracket someone based on years of experience in technical roles anymore, because especially with technical assessments, Waterloo grads are going to probably have a better chance at passing those roles, uh, those interviews than people that have got 10 years of experience. And if you've got, if you've done 10 years of experience, but it's without dated technology or it's not in that exact thing that you're looking for that could be worse than doing like six months of internship, right. Using those technologies. So we are a hundred percent responsible in my opinion because we need to be able to have our uh, BS detector on and be like, this job description doesn't make any sense in the, in the market. But you don't really get until you like sort of had a few years under your belt. Like, because it's like you standing up to the CEO, being like, this is not realistic. Right. You have to, you have to be able to have the knowledge and the, I don't know, the ability to do that.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Which is, takes time.

Speaker B: You've prompted like a couple of follow up questions for me, but because this one's right here, uh, again I don't want to go into pitch mode, but what I have noticed that I thought would be missing in a model like highlights is the ability to influence in the relationships. And like, if you would have, you know, kind of high level told me about your, your offering, that would be the worry that I would have is like, when I need to say no to the CEO, do I have someone that can carry that influence? I'll talk a little bit about how you pull that off.

Speaker A: This is a, it's a good question. I think what we do is we build great relationships with the people that we work with from a PNC perspective and that helps drive influence internally within the business. So it's first about building a great relationship with say for yourself. And then you've got that sort of backing in those conversations that sort of sets you up for success in that, in that regard. But we really, really act as that internal team. That's our, our pure goal is to not be external. It's to be embedded into their processes, into their systems. And if we can really understand that overall business need and goal, then that allows us to kick back with confidence. If we don't know what we're talking about in terms of say certain goals and objectives, it's very difficult for us to say, no, you shouldn't do something or have you thought about it this way? And obviously you have to be pragmatic with your approach. But we, we really try and understand what your objectives and business goals are and then we align those conversations from a discovery perspective, from a uh, kickback perspective moving forward so that we can provide real value in those conversations. Awesome.

Speaker B: It definitely works. Uh, what you're doing is working for you, I would say. And that's what I felt is like, although at times I'm, I, I feel like we have a large recruitment team because you've got lots of options within your organization. I also feel like we have a very focused recruitment team. It doesn't feel like we have multiple recruiters. There's a singular experience and I think it does come through your relationship with my team and your relationship, uh, and the recruiters, relationships with the hiring managers that they built. It's, it's a really great model. Again, I'm going to promise not to end on this, this pitchy type of note because something else that was coming up for me when you were talking, when we were talking about like the 10 years of experience and something that didn't exist is, uh, the risk there now? For me, this is a coming into my mind as a combination of what I know to be true from research where, you know, certain demographics won't apply unless they have all of the things right. And sometimes those are your most qualified. What I think I've seen, and I wonder if you see the same thing, is that you almost get, when you do do that unicorn hunt and you stick with all of these things that almost never go together, then you actually get less qualified people that are just kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall. They'll still apply. But the people who might be the really great fit for that role be like, well, I don't have that, so I'm going to go apply somewhere else. Do you, are, uh, you. Do you see that too?

Speaker A: I do, yeah. And I think it's, it's sad. There is some specific demographics that don't necessarily have the confidence or maybe they read things a little bit too literally. Right. Like a job description is almost like a wish list. And the reality is if you tick every part of a job description, are you already overqualified for the role walking eight, you probably want to be around about the 75th percent, like 75% of that job description. That's ideal because we need room to grow. And so it's sad that people don't look at a job description and say, okay, it's I tick off majority. I don't know how we change that.

Speaker B: Like, I don't know how we change that. But what I do know is that it's magnified when a, when a leader comes to you with a wish list, that they're like, I know I'd never get all of these things, but let's try. Yeah, sort of thing. And I know I've heard that certainly from leaders throughout the year of yeah. But I'm going to set my target right up Here with everything that I want with really good intention. But what the outcome of that often is is you don't even get the closest qualified people apply because they're reading it pragmatically and saying, you know, I don't have half of that. Whereas if you hit that at least 75% mark because you've kept the role to be really what it's supposed to be instead of, it'd also be great if they could do this and this and this and this, this and this. It's just the natural extension of something that's already a problem and we need to address which is that confidence level that how are we talking about postings, things like that. But then you compound it by making the, the posting not realistic. Then it's. I feel like it's got to get worse.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that's where it goes from like a wish list to a job description. Right. So I think we, we do have that responsibility to think, try and think a bit bigger picture, broader with a job description. Right. So we cast a slightly wider net and then from there ahead hunt. That's where you get that wish list. And then you can target exactly what that horror manager wants. I think it's important that job descriptions are as a fairly specific understanding when candidates, this is really just a recruiter thing where they see those, they see the candidates come in that might be slightly left field. And you love a left field hire, by the way, don't you? I do apparently do those people that are not necessarily in the box. And that's where it's about. A great recruit is able to, to see some, like some crossover and some things that we haven't thought of everything. If you've thought of everything, then I don't know who you are, but I don't know. Right. So generally I love being able to say, oh, ah, you said you wanted this. This person's got that, like I love to be able to do that sort of thing. And I think that just opens the mind. That's where you get a real partnership with those, those horror managers. Because it's like they, you, you thought you wanted this and then we've gone to market and we found something that could be even better or just completely different and uh, making you think. Right. When you start thinking about things and it gives you a real headache, that's when you know you've done some, some good work. I think we've done that with your team previously as well. Which is.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Which is good.

Speaker B: Definitely. I'm going to say I'm going to take a little self dig here and maybe it's like when you make me think I finally stop talking so that's probably helping on your side but we'll wrap there. Joseph, thank you. This was really sharp. Genuinely, genuinely so, so useful. A few things that I'm taking away. I know uh, from experience you don't need a permanent TA team. You need a fit for purpose one. And the real strategy isn't outsourcing and insourcing. It's the quality of the partnerships and it's the uh way that your TA function, knows your business and knows your hiring managers. I think that was key for me. If this episode gave you something to think about, sign up for our free insight drop. The link is in the show notes or check it out at certain co podcast. That's C E R t N dot co podcast. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being here with me Joseph and we'll see you next time.

Speaker A: Thank you Melissa.