Recruiting Trailblazers

Send a text

To celebrate our 40th episode, we feature 13 short clips from recent podcasts that each contain pearls of wisdom courtesy of previous guests.

Enjoy clips from Marcus’s conversations with Adam Conrad, Hung Lee, Jamie Beaumont, Joel Lalgee, Mitch Sullivan, Will Staney, Laurie Ruettimann, Vanessa Raath, Jonathan Kidder, Mike Myatt, John Randolph, Mike “Batman” Cohen, and Henna Pryor.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [02:08] Adam Conrad on the impression you leave with every candidate

●      [03:04] Hung Lee on the future of the workplace

●      [04:14] Jamie Beaumont on getting engagement on your social media posts

●      [05:11] Joel Lalgee on how content on LinkedIn can lead to more exposure

●      [06:24] Mitch Sullivan on telling your readers what’s in it for them

●      [07:10] Will Staney on employer branding

●      [08:38] Laurie Ruettimann on the four keys to taking control of your career

●      [09:53] Vanessa Raath on the top three skills of a competitive sourcer

●      [11:14] Jonathan Kidder on tools for automating your outreach

●      [12:22] Mike Myatt on the importance of thinking about business outcomes during the search process

●      [13:38] John Randolph on Benaiah Consulting’s mission

●      [14:43] Mike “Batman” Cohen the importance of authenticity in your emails

●      [15:42] Henna Pryor on writing insanely effective emails

Key quotes:

●      “You only place maybe 2-to-5% of the people you talk to. But you leave an impression with 100% of those people.” ~Adam Conrad

●      “There are going to be a bunch of companies that will successfully go on-premise only. They will basically be trading their ability to retain and recruit staff for what they get on-premise.” ~Hung Lee

●      “What people don’t realize about social media is that it’s a conversation.” ~Jamie Beaumont

●      “As you put content out [on LinkedIn], you start to see people checking out your profile. The biggest ROI that you’re going to see is more profile views and potential DMs.” ~Joel Lalgee

●      “What’s absolutely critical if you’re going to start getting more of the right people with the right qualifications responding to your ads or your InMails or your social media posts, is you’ve got to immediately tell your reader what’s in it for them.” ~Mitch Sullivan

●      “What I’m seeing—and this pandemic has brought it on, too—is this humanization of company brands overall.” ~Will Staney

●      “I think fixing work is an inside-out job.” ~Laurie Ruettimann

●      “A sourcer has to have a good online brand, […] is brilliant at identifying talent, [...] and is a wordsmith.” ~Vanessa Raath

●      “There are a couple of [great automation tools] out there: MyRobotWorks, Machine Sourcer, as well as Phantombuster are some of my top suggestions.” ~Jonathan Kidder

●      “Making the hire is not the endgame. [...] Where most search firms’ roles end at the placement, that’s where ours really begins.” ~Mike Myatt

●      “We want to work with clients and candidates on chasing down those lions that they’re facing in their career or in their business.” ~John Randolph

●      “When people ask, ‘What is the one thing I could change that would help me get better responses?” it’s, ‘Stop writing shitty emails!’” ~Mike “Batman” Cohen

●      “Think of how you feel when you’ve gotten a communication that was clearly for you [...] and how different

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

Send a text

In this episode, Marcus Edwardes speaks with Alex Margarite, a leadership recruiter who began his career in research for the executive research firm Isaacson, Miller and went on to become Head of Talent Research and Engagement at Asana before ultimately becoming the TA Lead for leadership roles there.

Alex is a lifelong singer and a musician trained on multiple instruments in jazz and classical. And he’s a fellow spinning instructor.

Listen in as Alex shares the most refreshing part about moving from being an external to an internal recruiter and the differences he has observed between the two.

He also gives his thoughts on behavioral interviewing and its advantages over situational interviewing.

Finally, Alex explains why rejecting a candidate on the basis of “culture fit” is almost always a smokescreen, and why his goal at every interview is to elicit “explicit and radical honesty” from his interviewees.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [04:12] Moving from being an external to an internal recruiter

●      [06:18] Why it was a relief to now be responsible for only one client

●      [10:06] Frustrations that Alex experienced in internal recruitment

●      [13:24] Addressing the claim that internal recruiters don’t headhunt

●      [15:18] Differences in approaches between external and internal recruiters

●      [20:09] How the stakes differ for internal recruiters

●      [26:24] Is it any harder to reject a candidate when you’re internal?

●      [29:00] Are active candidates treated differently from passive candidates?

●      [30:00] How status updates differ in importance for internal recruiters

●      [32:39] Alex’s thoughts on behavioral interviewing

●      [39:18] Does behavioral interviewing accommodate different personalities?

●      [40:50] Does behavioral interviewing reduce the need for subjective evaluation by the recruiter?

●      [42:52] Alex’s thoughts on culture fit in a society that aims to have more inclusive and diverse workplaces

●      [46:07] Why Alex sets up his interviewees for “explicit and radical honesty”

Key quotes:

●      “Executive search consultants have such commitments to process—a clean, repeatable process that has some sort of real legacy behind it.”

●      “If you are someone working with a recruiter, whether internal or external, the quality of the relationship (like any relationship) is exclusively based on how much you put into it.”

●      “I think, as an internal recruiter, you have a little bit less in common with a consultant and more in common with a salesperson.”

●      “Behavioral interviewing is more accommodating than situational interviewing to a broader set of personality, communication, and even cognition types (or folks that approach problem-solving differently) because it gives them the chance to describe the way that something happened through their own words.”

●      Values are not necessarily the same thing as culture. Culture is the thing that forms around values.

Resources Mentioned:

●      Asana

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

Send a text

In this episode, Marcus Edwardes speaks with John Randolph, the founder of Benaiah Consulting Group, a boutique CPA Recruitment firm. He is a 33-year veteran of the industry and has worked in senior leadership positions at Kforce and Robert Half.

His LinkedIn headline quite simply states: “I provide recruiting solutions to local CPA firm owners delivering untapped talent at a price that won't break the bank.”

Listen in as John shares the link between the Old Testament and the name “Benaiah Consulting” and how it informs their service philosophy towards clients.

He also speaks on the importance of being clear with your niche in the industry, and why this is especially crucial if you are a smaller firm.

John then touches on the value of nurturing long-term relationships as opposed to adopting a purely transactional approach to doing business.

Finally, John explains his content creation strategy on LinkedIn and what a recruiter should really be looking for when posting job advertisements.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [02:49] The story behind the name “Benaiah Consulting”

●      [04:33] Contingency versus retained recruitment

●      [08:01] How John pitches his service to his clients

●      [18:10] The importance of defining and staying in your niche

●      [21:12] Why it pays to be transparent with clients about your entire process

●      [26:40] The value of nurturing long-term relationships in business

●      [32:38] How John builds on his brand by producing content on LinkedIn

●      [37:33] Benaiah Consulting’s approach to niche marketing

●      [42:22] Good candidates that came in through Benaiah’s advertising efforts

Key quotes:

●      “Contingency recruiting is akin to chasing your tail all day long. There are not a whole lot of industries and a whole lot of businesses out there that will put the work and the effort into a process that we do as recruiters with the hopes of what might come on the backend.”

●      “For most anything that we do in life, if we take a long-term approach to it and a long-term mindset, the value that comes out of that is immense. This business is exactly that same way.”

●      “Most of the clients we work with do not have a brand ambassador in their organization that’s helping drive the recruiting engine for them.”

●      “We don’t post positions to fill jobs. We post positions to attract candidates.”

Resources Mentioned:

●      Benaiah Consulting Group

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

Send a text

In this episode, Marcus Edwardes speaks with Adam Conrad, the founder and CXO of Great Recruiters, a SaaS platform that empowers recruiters to actively manage their professional reputation online in order to remain competitive and grow their business.

Adam has been in the recruiting business for over 20 years, including a 15-year stint as VP of Business and Recruiting Operations at Brightwing.

Listen in as Adam shares how technology is impacting the recruiting industry, with a particular focus on the pros and cons of automation and the best way to use different automation tools.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [02:56] How technology has enhanced the human experience in recruiting

●      [04:52] Verticals in the industry that have been impacted by technology

●      [08:46] Distinguishing yourself from other recruiters with candidates

●      [11:33] Using technology to stay connected with candidates

●      [14:06] Becoming your candidates’ recruiter of choice for future roles

●      [18:11] The downside of metrics and becoming an advisor for candidates

●      [21:15] Having tough conversations and setting expectations

●      [26:36] The limitations of automation

●      [30:30] Adam’s favorite automation tools

●      [33:17] Examples of great automation

●      [34:43] Ways in which automation can crush the brand experience

●      [36:51] The proper way to use automation to build your database

●      [38:41] About Great Recruiters and why Adam founded the company

●      [42:52] How Great Recruiters works with companies of different sizes

●      [45:09] How many reviews a recruiter needs to be considered high-quality

●      [46:09] Leveraging the data obtained by Great Recruiters

●      [47:09] The biggest objections Adam gets from potential clients

●      [50:01] What Adam is looking forward to in 2021

Key quotes:

●      “Technology is evolving for the staffing industry to make recruiters better, create a better experience for the candidates and the clients, and help people get to what they want faster.”

●      “Having a large database, to me, doesn’t matter. You need an engaged database.”

●      “You can’t put your own agenda ahead of your candidate’s agenda.”

●      “You only place maybe 2-5% of the people you talk to; but you leave an impression on 100% of those people whether or not you’re asking how that experience was. They don’t remember what you tell them. They remember how you made them feel.”

●      “I’d rather over-communicate than under-communicate [with my candidates].”

●      “We can’t force somebody on the other end to make a decision; but we can control the experience that candidates are having throughout that process.”

●      “Just because you can automate it doesn’t mean you should. [...] If the automation is going to be a value-add to your candidate, automate it.”

●      “If you think about it, recruiters are the number one marketers in your company: They talk to more people—they put your brand name in front of more people than anybody in your organization.”

Resources Mentioned:

●      Great Recruiters

●      Herefish

●      Sense

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

Send a text

In this episode, Marcus Edwardes speaks with Will Staney, the founder of Proactive Talent, an employer branding consulting and staffing company focused on helping companies evolve the way they hire and attract talent. He is also the co-founder of Talent Brand Alliance, a community for employment branding and recruitment marketing practitioners to learn, collaborate, and network.

Listen in as Will shares how the pandemic has shifted perceptions on hiring in the business world as a whole, the keys to creating a great candidate experience, the ROI of developing a strong employer brand, infusing the human story into the company brand itself, and the evolution of the tech landscape for talent acquisition during the pandemic.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [02:07] An introduction to Proactive Talent and Talent Brand Alliance

●      [04:10] Growing Proactive Talent (and any company) throughout 2020

●      [09:22] How soon startups need to commit to a proper talent strategy

●      [11:53] How Will helps company founders think about culture

●      [15:38] Sharing your value proposition to prospective clients as an RPO

●      [20:02] What is employer branding?

●      [24:05] Being intentional about your company’s reputation

●      [28:49] Fundamental steps to improve your company’s employer brand

●      [33:14] Examples of companies that have nailed their employer brand

●      [35:45] How your employer brand impacts your ROI

●      [37:55] The business of talent acquisition in the COVID economy

●      [42:40] Why the hybrid office is the future

●      [45:50] What Will is looking forward to in 2021

Key quotes:

●      “My personal mission since I got into this industry is to modernize recruiting to make it more client-centric. It is an outdated industry and sector. I want companies to be better run and more profitable and people to find the right career.”

●      “I think both VCs and CEOs are coming to the realization that talent is really important right now. If this pandemic has done anything, it’s shown us the humanity of hiring and business.”

●      “Obviously, startups need to commit to a proper talent strategy as soon as possible, and they need to update it at every phase of their growth. It’s just as important, if not more so, than your go-to-market strategy for your product or your service.”

●      “Culture and values are so important. They are usually an afterthought; but they are really core to how you define your hiring process.”

●      “The goal of employer branding is to help organizations attract and retain the right talent but, most importantly, give candidates the information they need to either self-select in or to self-select out.”

●      “I’m seeing a humanization of company brands overall. You’re telling the consumer brand story by telling customer stories as well as the employees’ stories and the impact they’re making to the company.”

●      “Your values and your mission are a collection of shared beliefs; but your employer brand determines how that is put into action.”

●      “You have to look at your hiring process and think about those moments where human connection really matters. Don’t automate those parts.”

Resources Mentioned:

●      Proactive Talent

●      Talent Brand Alliance

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

Send a text

This week, Marcus Edwardes chats with Joel Lalgee  from Hoxo Media, a prolific poster with almost 50,000 followers, and teaches recruiters to use LinkedIn content, to attract clients. 

 Why do recruiters need to sit up and pay attention and start posting meaningful content? 

 [4:54]   Joel saw a huge need within the training and development of new recruiters within the industry that are coming in because when he looks at somebody who's been in the recruitment industry for 20 to 25 years, most of their business is a result of referrals. 

[6:18] Joel’s mission is to bridge that gap and help educate, train, and help equip recruiters to deal with some of the modern challenges that they face in all B2B and sales/recruiting roles.

The mindset behind the initiative that you need to take as a recruiter

 [9:16] It's really about consistency, showing up every day, growing that arctic audience, nurturing them, and building their trust that you're going to show up every day. You have to change your mindset to this is a long-term investment.

How does Joel keep the ideas flowing on meaningful content?

[22:40] What Joel looks at as meaningful content is one, it's something that either entertains people, educates people, or inspires people. It motivates people. So those are the four goals Joel sees for content. For a long time, everybody was looking at LinkedIn is it's just education, education, it's quote-unquote professional. But what we're starting to see is this shifts, even to that paradigm of what professional means, like there's definitely a shift within our work culture.

[23:58] If you think of a good idea, write it down, doesn't mean you need to use that in content that day, but it's nice to go back then and have a specific content planning time.

 [24:28] The next step past that is to not be too afraid of what the negative result of posting something is.

 Strategy from Joel

 [26:40] If you're not posting anything, start with once a week. Post once a week for a month, get used to it. What you should be doing is posting and then engaging with other people's content. So you start to get a feel for what are other people posting. You start to get a feel for how to interact on the platform, start to leave meaningful comments. The strategy is every few months, start to add reps, start to add some weight to how much you're posting and you're much more likely to be successful with.

 Rules for creating, writing, and engaging content

 [30:37] If you've got a speaking engagement, it's like you're speaking to the crowd. There are different ways you can invoke conversation. There's the shock factor that people use and that that's used a lot on social media. That's how a lot of people have built-in LinkedIn.

[34:55] A lot of times, the easier you can make it for people to engage on your posts, the more likely you are to get engagement. 

[39:03] Try to not get hung up on one type of content. With LinkedIn, you have to switch up the type of content that you're posting cause there's a lot of different options. Joel’s advice to anybody is to switch up the type of content that you're posting and to be consistent.

[41:11] You want to give people something that's interesting and entertaining. And if you can master that on LinkedIn by testing what works with your audience showing up in different ways, using a variety of different content, you succeed on the platform longterm.

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

Send a text

Nick Livingston is  a math major who moved to NYC originally to get into the music business - but ended up as a Rockstar Agency recruiter and the ultimately the Director of TA for MTV. He moved back to the bay to get his MBA from Berkeley whilst running TA for TubeMogul and now focuses his efforts on his own company Honeit which is helping companies simplify the hiring process through the capture of conversation and interview soundbites and intelligence.

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

Send a text

As the Founder and Chairman at N2Growth, a top executive search firm with more than 50 locations globally, Mike serves as a leadership advisor to Fortune 500 CEOs and Boards. He’s advised some of the world's best known CEOs, entrepreneurs, and public figures  and been a guest lecturer at many of the world's top Universities and their Business Schools.  On top of all that, he’s authored a several books, including the bestselling "Hacking Leadership" (Wiley), and "Leadership Matters" (OP)

In this episode Marcus and Mike discuss the genesis of N2Growth from a Leadership Development business into one of the most successful, progressive Executive Search Firms in the market today. N2Growth prides itself on being the opposite of many of the well-known 'legacy' Exec Search Firms - with a methodology, a technology platform, a highly data-driven approach to research and pipelining - and an unprecedented degree of transparency throughout the entire process.

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

Send a text

Jonathan Kidder - the "Wizard Sourcer" is back! He's published two books since we last spoke - "Top Talent Sourcing Tools for Recruiters" and "A Guide to Diversity Talent Sourcing”

In this episode of Recruiting Trailblazers - Marcus quizzes Jonathan on Top Talent Sourcing Tools for Recruiters - the tools he recommends for different aspects of the job.

Episode Highlights

1:25- Introduction

2:07- The inspiration and reason behind Jonathan’s book

4:08- Evernote as a great tool for LinkedIn                

5:30- Evernote and its integration on LinkedIn

6:32- Top few ATS tools recommended for an agency or in house

6:39-  Loxo and its different integrating features 

7:23- Airtable, a great personal ATS tool for in-house, plus Greenhouse, Jobvite and Salesforce

8:57- People search engines - PeoplePro, Spokeo, ZoomInfo  

11.30- Free tools: Free People Search Intellus Peoplesmart 

12.00- Contact finding extensions: Hiretual, Seekout purchase from PeoplePro and Spokeo

13.00 Lusha, Nymeria, Improver, Swordfish (get the book - there are loads!)

14:20- LinkedIn and how they view these tools

15.25 - Connectifier, TalentBin

16:43- Candidate outreach tools and email automation - primer on outreach

18:00- Take the time to personalize emails!

19.50- What percentage of messages are personalized?

21:43- Gem and its features as a top candidate outreach tools

22:19- Intersellar and its integration

24:34- Sourcewhale and its integration

25:03- The power of InMails - great for follow ups.

27:35- Recommendations of things for people to automate in order to save time and remain safe on LinkedIn

28:44- Tools to reach 1st degree connections MyRobot.works, Machinesourcer, PhantomBuster)

30:20- PhantomBuster and the meaning of web scraping and how it works

32:01- Recommended Boolean Generators-Recruitin.net

33:39- Email tracking tools- Saleshandy

35:00- Writing tools -Textio, Joblint, Gender Decoder, Graammarly

36:50- Scheduling tools -Calendly, Mytime, Setmore, Appointlet

38:44- How to get the book (Top Talent Sourcing Tools for Recruiters)

40:00- An overview of the second book “A Guide to Diversity Talent Sourcing”

42:26- Conclusion

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/

Send a text

Laurie Ruettimann is a  human resources leader turned writer, entrepreneur, and speaker. She’s been recognized by CNN as one of the top five career advisers in the United States, and she’s featured on NPR, The New Yorker, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and Vox. Laurie’s mission is to fix work by teaching leaders how to create cultures that support, empower, and engage workers meaningfully – and her new book Betting on You: How to Put Yourself First and (Finally) Take Control of Your Career is now available for pre-order!

1:25- Introduction

2:09- Inspiration behind Laurie’s book (Betting on you)

5:17- What do you think of American corporate culture as it stands today?

8:21 –Prioritizing your wellbeing and taking control of your career

9:27- The four cornerstones of the book

10:10- Learning as the fundamental of everything

12:51- Work life balance

13:50- Prioritizing your wellbeing

19:22- Promoting wellbeing in the workplace

22:05- The stigma of admitting you need help in the workplace and how it is being addressed

23:38- Creating a safe space in the workplace

24;07- Stepping up as the CEO of your life

26:55- Advice and steps to help people build the resilience they need in this COVID economy

28:00 – As regards to recruiting, how does the pre mortem work?

30:40- Looking at the worst case scenario and coming up with ways to mitigate the problem

34:34- Other ways pre mortem might be able to help recruiters

35:34- Examples of how a pre mortem has benefited a business

36:25- The company "GlitchPath" created by Laurie

37:23- What did that failure teach you?

39:27- The change in how leaders execute their role and how they treat their employees

40:03- What is your concept on servant leadership?

42:21- Investment in talent acquisition

44:55- Developing other skills aside talent acquisition

45:16- Automation in recruiting

46:24- How to contact Laurie 

www.laurieruettimann.com
LinkedIn - 20K+ connections
Twitter - 66K+ followers
Instagram - 32K+ followers
Facebook - 3.6K+ followers
YouTube - 523 subscribers
Laurie's Punk Rock HR podcast
Laurie's new book,

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/