October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and in the age of e-commerce, it's important for businesses to know how to keep their assets protected.

That’s why host Michelle Dawn Mooney spoke with Richard Negron, Chief Information Officer at Catapult Solutions Group and David Moon, Chief Executive Officer of Arx Nimbus, on all things cybersecurity and how even the things left unknown can be truly harmful.

“In many cases it's not that they're not prepared, it's that they don't know the degree of their unpreparedness. And in the cybersecurity profession we are still on a learning curve… we’ve got a long way to go,” Moon said.

Hackers never sleep. They are constantly looking for ways to get into a system, and to even trick overconfident businesses who assume it wouldn't happen to them, Negron added.

One of the greatest amounts of risk exposure seen is with contextual spearfishing where hackers monitor corporate emails and servers.

“Now through analytics and artificial intelligence, a hacker can be more descriptive when they send phishing emails or texts. They’ll send something familiar to build a level of trust that gets you to respond. Because it only takes one account to be compromised and once a hacker is in, they’ll continue to do reconnaissance until they access the accounts that can do the most damage to a business,” Negron said.

As threats increase the software and armors to protect businesses also increases that can help in the battle against cybersecurity.

“One of the things that we do recommend is to go back to the basics, understand where you are today, look, and analyze those vulnerabilities. Then when you [the company] have and address them, focus on the training for both your employees and the end users, so they can understand it is a dual responsibility,” Negron emphasized.

“We encourage that level of analysis and then there needs to be a discussion internally on how much risk do they need to take on realistically and ask where we need to be on the risk level, how long are we willing to take to get there and what are we willing to spend. Having that understanding helps organizations time and again develop the will to really go after these issues and fund the proper fixes,” Moon concluded.

In the Catapult Solutions Group podcast, “Hire Education,” host Daniel Litwin talked with the company’s CEO, Patrick Burke, and its CFO, Alex Anderson, about the creation of the company and how they’ve managed its successful growth, their leadership, and what’s in store for the future.

Catapult Solutions Group is a Dallas-based staffing agency founded by Burke, along with his brother and business partner in 2013. They help companies find talent in various industries such as healthcare, IT, skilled trades, engineering, and more. Burke had over a decade and a half of staffing experience when he started his company. Shortly after, he met Anderson, who was working in finance and enlisted him to be a part of his team in 2016. Today the two men are good friends who are running an efficient staffing agency.

The leadership of Catapult Solutions Group is a major key to their success. Burke and Anderson have different but complementary methods of leadership. Burke said his style is more fervent because he prioritizes the interpersonal aspect, particularly because he wants to see how people will branch out on their own.

“I’m pretty intense. I love to inspire and motivate people. I love to believe people and have people believe in themselves,” said Burke. “I think once you believe in yourself, you can do a lot of powerful things and I say give people autonomy and have them feel like they're an entrepreneur.”

While close monitoring can have its pros, Burke stated that there’s a time and place to seize control in the workplace. He said he sees the benefit of it, but only employs it when necessary.

“I like to not micromanage, but there are times to micromanage and times not to,” he said.

He also said that he uses the opportunity to learn from every walk of life, including from his young daughter, and cited that he likes to learn from everybody.

Anderson said he admires Burke’s desire to learn from various aspects and discussed how that influences Burke’s leadership style. He said Burke is “learning constantly from people regardless of status, what industry they work in, and where you meet them,” said Anderson.

However, Anderson’s leadership style is different. As a former college athlete, he credits a lot of his leadership skills to the valuable things he learned while in school and playing college sports. In terms of leading, he said prefers clarity above everything and pinpointing areas that detail someone’s capabilities.

“The kind of leader I wanted to be was very much: set clear expectations, try to identify great talent, but understand that not everybody is going to be the MVP caliber athlete or professional,” he said.

He added that knowing how to recognize strengths and weakness is resourceful in understanding someone’s professional abilities and even their competition.

Burke stated that creating any company has its difficulties, especially when you’re reaching out and expecting help from somewhere, and that help doesn’t come.

Nevertheless, he managed to grow a lucrative business. When Anderson joined the company, he stated that Catapult Solutions Group had already been a $19 million business simply through Burke’s work ethic. In the last six years, he said the company has expanded internationally and continues to follow the growth of certain industries to specify where they could grow as well.

Since then, Catapult Solutions Group has grown to a $50 to $60 million dollar company. Burke said he constantly gets the question about how it was possible, and he said it was through dedication and building a good rapport with banks.

By doing that they didn't have to seek loans or provide equity and managed to still grow as a company.

Despite recession fears, the US job market is still advantageous for candidates. According to NBC, the great resignation is still in full swing, leaving many job openings. Recruiters are the liaison between clients and candidates. They help candidates navigate their needs and negotiate prospects.

Ashli Zimmerman, National Account Manager and Senior Recruiter at Catapult Solutions, said “Transparency is one of the most important factors when it comes to being a recruiter.” She understands that different candidates have different priorities, and getting to the motivating factors for each candidate will help her put them forward for the best fitting roles.

Transparency is fundamental to success in recruiting and woven throughout the process. The recruiter and candidate have to be equally transparent. “It’s so important to be upfront about compensation or any other caveats about the role,” said Drew Cumbey, a Catapult Solution’s IT Recruiter. Recruiters need to be upfront about the basics and deal-breakers of the role, like compensation, benefits, and on-site or remote expectations. To help understand a new candidate's desires, Cumbey likes to run through a thought experiment with them. He poses the question that if two roles tick the boxes on the candidate’s basic desires, what would motivate the candidate to take one position over another.

This dialogue prevents a communication breakdown or mismatched roles. “It gets to the root of what they [the candidates] are looking for. What gets them out of bed every day,” said Cumbey.

Zimmerman poses that this transparency helps the recruiter advocate for a candidate with the client. “Being able to bring that [the candidate's motivators] to your client and say, ‘if this candidate is who you want to hire, these are their expectations,’” said Zimmerman. The better recruiters know their candidates, the better they can position them to interested clients.

The honesty and transparency Catapult Solutions uses for every search help them create symbiotic relationships for future employees and employers. Aiming for symbiotic relationships “saves people time and puts people where they need to be,” said Cumbey. Symbiosis is key to long-tenured job placements. Compared to, “parasitic relationships, how long is that going to last?” asked Cumbey.

Outside recruiters and recruitment is widely accepted as a valuable resource as candidates enter the job market. Bobby Brill sits down with Michael Boyles, VP of Operations at Catapult Federal Services, and Josh Rainier, Human Resources Administrator of Catapult Solutions Group, to discuss what it takes to build a great recruiter and candidate relationship.

Boyles describes the Catapult approach as “old school meets new school.” He explains that while he values technology, the focus should first and always remain on the person and building relationships.

The first is the relationship with the candidate. Recruiters should focus on trust and transparency. Candidates should feel comfortable talking about themselves openly. “Be yourself, be honest with people, tell them up front where the gaps and warts are,” said Boyles. Catapult ensures that candidates don’t feel like they’re just another number in the system. Recruiters lay the foundation of the relationship with their candidates from the jump. “Catapult Solutions focuses on person-to-person contact,” said Boyles.

Rainier, who started recruiting but is now working within HR, understands the daunting task of being in the job market. First and foremost, recruiters need to build rapport with candidates. With empathy, recruiters should remember that this person is making a big life decision. “You need to have a certain amount of information [about the position] to make the decision that could impact your next 5 to 10 years,” said Rainier.

Trust and transparency are fundamental to the recruiter/candidate and the recruiter/client relationship. “Transparency and trust coincide. Trust is key to any relationship. If you don’t have trust, it’s really hard to build anything else,” said Boyles. From the initial description, it is up to the recruiter to clarify what skills the company needs; understand the absolute ‘must haves’ and ‘nice to haves.’ Knowing these elements will clearly define the role. “As a staffing firm, we need to do the right things to make sure we understand the [job] requirements,” said Rainier.

Catapult Solutions Group focuses on relationships and the people. These two elements are what remains the core of successful recruiting. To get your resume to a connected Catapult Recruiter, visit their website at catapultsg.com.

The digital laborer is a digitalized process that complements human tasks in various fields and helps generate efficiency and reduce errors while delivering consistency in quality. With nearly all workers utilizing digital technology, how can companies put AI solutions to work for their IT operations without reducing functionality or impeding standard business processes? Richard A. Negron, Chief Information Officer at Catapult Technology Services, and Mark Shivers, Founder and CEO at Ignite IPA, offered their insights on digital laborer trends that elevate the existing workforce to do better, more meaningful work.

Labor shortages are a well-known workforce side effect of the pandemic. “Tons of companies right now have open jobs […] but can’t find the right people at the right price to fill that hole,” Shivers said. “That is compounding with a market change right now where the market is slightly dipping, and companies are worried about expenses and wondering how to keep those margins balanced, right?” Companies are determining two things: how to lower expenses in a struggling revenue environment and how to grow when hiring for more operational and administrative roles is not feasible. Shivers believes this situation is what is driving the digital laborer conversation.

Resistance to digital automation fell away during the pandemic as more companies and workers realized how digital automation and laborers could enhance the work experience, not uproot it. “It introduces a concept that automation is a viable solution,” Shivers said. “And now, we’re more accustomed to automation in our lives right now.”

A lot of the automation taking place now does without anyone noticing. “Especially with IT folks working remotely, programming software for companies, doing cyber security, doing IT work where they require server capacity,” Negron said. “They need 10 servers. All of a sudden, they click a button, and 10 servers are provisioned on their behalf within minutes. Well, something is happening behind the scenes, and it’s not a human doing it.”

In Part 2 of this exciting 2-Part series, podcast host Gabrielle Bejarano sat down with Paul Shoe, RN, Suzanne Raymond, National Recruiter at Catapult Healthcare, and Shannon Kanakaole, Recruiting Operations Manager at Catapult Healthcare, to talk about how nurses and agencies can effectively work together and tackle challenges that arise while on contract.

Shoe, a registered nurse contracted through Catapult Healthcare, says that his experience with being hired through an agency has been smooth and he’s now preparing to extend his current contract. However, Shoe noted that traveling nurse contracts may have terms that those new to the industry may not understand. For example, many contracts include a floating clause.

Floating allows nurses to work on different floors and specialties to support hospital needs at any given time. Shoe noted that sometimes “people really get upset when they have to go to another place out of their comfort zone.” Recruiters would be prudent to discuss floating options with potential candidates, and candidates not comfortable with floating need to make sure their recruiter knows.

It’s important for nurses to “try to have communication as much as possible with your recruiter and the facility if need be,” recommends Shoe, RN. Travel “nursing can be very fluid… you’ve gotta be willing to roll with it,” said Shoe.

Suzanne Raymond, Recruiter with Catapult Healthcare, finds success with floating terms “if I tell people that upfront,” and they know what to expect. Of course, maintaining a comfort level with their skills and experience is essential. And if a nurse finds themselves outside of their comfort zone, they should get in touch with their recruiter right away. “We’ll do what we can from our side to advocate for our people,” said Raymond.

Choosing an agency as a registered nurse can be a daunting task. According to Nurse.org, “Hospitals are trying to cut costs by reducing the number of travel nurses and renegotiating contracts with staffing agencies, but some agencies are still making big promises to travel nurses that can make the whole situation seem like a bait and switch.”

Gabrielle Bejarano sat down with Paul Shoe, RN contracted through Catapult Healthcare; Suzanne Raymond, National Recruiter at Catapult Healthcare; and Shannon Kanakaole, Recruiting Operations Manager at Catapult Healthcare, to discuss recruiting best practices and how to work effectively with an agency, in Part 1 of a 2-Part podcast series.

“Communication and transparency are at the forefront of the relationship between the agency and the provider,” said Kanakaole. Nurses need to give recruiters clear direction on what they want and expect from a job. Recruiters need to understand the full range of responsibilities and expectations of the roles they are filling to ensure they are finding the best candidate.

“From the initial call, the first and most important thing is understanding the external factors of where they need to be for their next position or assignment,” said Kanakaole. Recruiters need to be clear on the top three priorities of their candidates. Establishing clarity on must-haves and nice-to-haves ensures recruiters can meet candidates’ needs and create a foundation of trust in the relationship. For nurses, that means knowing their desires and communicating them to a recruiter effectively.

As a nurse coming to an agency, Shoe recommended, “make sure all paperwork is up to date” including everything from licenses, medical records, shots, and vaccines. “The more you have ready to go, the quicker we can get you started after an offer,” said Raymond. It streamlines and simplifies the entire process. Once hired, nurses should continue to have open, honest, and frequent conversations with their recruiters. Maintaining the relationship will help when issues or conflicts need to be addressed.

Listen in to learn more about what to look for when seeking agency representation, how to work successfully with an agency, the role of communications, the changing landscape of the traveling nurse industry, and more. And don’t forget to come back for Part II.

Tyler Kern interviewed Hannah Anderson and Chris Lester to discuss hiring in an evolving market and what to know for the current climate. Hannah Anderson is the Managing Director at Catapult Solutions Group and is joined by Chris Lester, Chief Revenue Officer at Catapult Solutions Group.

There have been many readjustments over the years, and it is a candidate-driven market. Anderson highlighted remote work being a crucial part of the decision-making market in the more recent years. When COVID struck, the market went beyond the in-town network experience to a more expansive market. Furthermore, the expansion with the current market called for the competition to increase among job fields. Companies are having to make game plans to accommodate current market shifts.

Candidates are commonly looking for flexibility among hiring companies. Rate is another competing factor when candidates are looking to apply for companies. Benefits, technology, and a rich culture are also innovative ways to attract candidates.