Mastering Candidate Experience: Technology | COAR S2-E4

We're back with Confessions of a Recruiter and we're joined by Anna Collo. Walked out halfway through us like this is not for me and they called me back going, "I think it'd be great." As a recruiter, I resigned. Our CEO that time ripped up my resignation at any best friend tax and no, you will go to Melbourne, you need to get your **** together and you will love it. That desk got to $986,000. It was hectic. When I deal with candidates, the most important thing. I'm here to build a relationship with you. Whether it's a client or a candidate, you need to make sure that they see a person. What is their why? Yeah, no, I love that. Thank you for joining us, Anna. Thank you for having me. And you've got a really interesting background and I did put it forward in an interesting way before and said, "Don't do it like that." So rather than me butchering it, why don't we spend a couple of minutes you're sharing about your journey and some of your achievements and what you've worked on in your recruitment career? Yeah, definitely. Look, I, like everyone else, probably fell definitely into it. Went to an interview with an agency, walked out halfway through. I was like, "This is not for me." And they called me back going, "I think you'd be great." As a recruiter, that's kind of where it started off. This was up in Newcastle. We moved up there for my partner's work. So I knew it wasn't a long term thing. Six months in, absolutely hated. I was doing business support. I was like, "This is so boring." It was numbing. The day that we found out we were moving back to Melbourne, I resigned. Our CEO at the time, we had these really, really amazing French guy Frank happened to be in the office visiting and he was in his best French accent, ripped up my resignation letter. "No, you will go to Melbourne. You will sit down for two weeks and then you will meet with our office." And I was like, "No, Frank, I actually hate these. I have zero passion for it." And he's like, "No, no, no, you need to get your shit together and you will love it." So I moved down to Melbourne. Anyway, he organized for someone to call me, to pop me in, meet with them. And I, again, leaned at him business support. Had an amazing lead, I, that was probably the only reason I stayed there. But we were situating the same office as our manufacturing, blue colleting. And I just kept looking over to the other side. And I was like, "This just looks so much more exciting than what I'm doing." And a couple of months down the track, there was some movements in the team. Opportunity came up and I put my hand up for it. And honestly, that's where I felt when I loved it. Arranna really, really successful. Blue college desk, I inherited a really good client. There was a couple of clients. There were on a smaller scale that we had really high terms with at the time. One of them was in particular looking to leave. We had a competitor that went in like, significantly lower rates. And this guy was like, "Why are we paying you 15%?" And unheard of, like in blue collocytre of things, think we had about 15 terms there. And I was like, "Made, let me give you the love that you need." And you'll know why we, you know, charging what we're charging. Essentially, I think we think sort of the next six to nine months build that up to about 50 terms just with that particular client, as well as these other global client that I had that did seasonal recruits of about 80 to 90 staff at a time. What happened at the time was my partner got a business opportunity for us to move to Japan. So that desk got to 986,000 building a year, which was unheard of that never had essentially a million dollar desk in the blue collocytre space. And I probably spent about six weeks kind of going, "Do I leave?" I want to get to that million. Like we had this opportunity to live in Japan when I was like, "When am I going to do that ever again?" So the CEO at the time was still the French guy, was there and he called up our Tokyo office and he's like, "This is what's happening. I need you to find space for it." I didn't speak Japanese. So couldn't make it happen. So it took a step back, took the opportunity to leave overseas and, you know, have that experience. When I came back, Rainside called me back after a couple of years after I had my kids, I said, "We went in, come back." This was during those COVID times, but I had to step into a team leader role during COVID in Melbourne. You guys are from Brisbane, so you wouldn't have known this, but literally it was like managing working permits. It was a different ballgame. So spent, I'd probably said better under a year in that space than moving into a branch manager role, fell out of love with the blue collar side of things. He just wasn't what I remembered it to be the fast-paced, fun, engaging side of things. And then got poached to an ask to step into managing the tech team in our CBD office. So it took that opportunity. That's actually different. Completely different. And I was actually considering leaving the business at the time altogether. Had a quite a small team. There was a few internal changes that happened. Another team leader decided to go back into a billing role. I inherited his team. This was at the peak of COVID or the back end. And then I had to grow the team. So it was full-blown scale of recruitment, getting the delivery support. We scaled that quite quickly. So I went from having three people up to 12 within two years. But I just didn't love the leadership side of things. Like I didn't have the jaw. And I think it was a really challenging time post COVID. A lot of people were suffering from a lot of mental health issues. As well as many other things. Like an eye, it was always an individual bill. I love working with 18, but I think when you're responsible and your personal outcomes depend on other people's achievements, I couldn't control that. And that didn't really sit well with me. So I was like, you know what? I enjoyed the tech side of things. I'm going to look at getting maybe into tech sales. Then Davidson poached me and then they were talking about a few different roles. And over the next couple of months, we were going back and forth. And they created this account, the Rector role, which was everything that I loved. Being in front of the client, servicing the client, being able to manage the recruitment side, or the candidate side of things without being stuck to a desk. So I was able to be in front of the client all day and manage and make sure that they got the best experience. That was going to be the next question. It's like what is fantastic summary of your career, by the way? An account director, specifically, what do they do? Like what is your success measured on as an account director? Growth of accounts. So essentially, with a range that have the same model, and Davidson started implementing that similar model. So you might have contracts and agreements with large businesses. And often, people said, as in, you look at a big full bank as an example, where do you start? Like most recruiters that I know would be like, called a T18. And hey, I'm your expert in this. Can we get a meeting in any TAA that you know? I'd be like, oh, gee, like another person's moving to that desk, third person in 18 months, whatever it is. So think account directors is more of a holistic approach. It's, hey, I'm your one point of contact. This is what we represent. This is everything we have to offer. Any issues that you have deal with me. Now, if you look at a, as an example, again, big full bank, they kind of have like 50 to 70 people that work in the intelligent acquisition. How do you manage that? How do you make sure that your names known? So predominantly, the talent team would be connecting with you or line would be connecting with you as well. Different businesses have different models. So if I specifically talk about the client that I manage was, it was a bit of both. So they had an internal team that dealt with agencies based on their performance and relationships, essentially. That was on contract and permanent side of things. But a lot of it was driven by line managers. So again, how do you get in front of that? So I think probably for sort of six to nine months, I was doing on an average 15 plus meetings with this client. And it was starting at the bottom and build going, okay, let's meet with you, who works on business side, who works on the tech side, who else should I get in front of? And I would never leave a meeting with at least two names. And then call that person and go, hey, sorry, so recommended, we catch up. I don't spend a lot of time on the phone. For me, it's like, let's catch up. Let's have a coffee and I'll fill you in. You'll be pretty proactive in the business of people. Very much so. Like the beaty side of thing was intense. Like I was exhausted and there was days, you know, people were canceled and like nothing's happening, nothing's happening. And I remember, it was like seven or eight months into that role and I can only picked up a few roles. And you know, everyone was lovely. Everyone wanted to catch up. Everyone wanted to get a free coffee. It was amazing, but there just wasn't nothing coming back. And had this senior leader in our business, she bumped into her while I was making a tea and she's like chin up, she's like, evil or pay off. And this was when the market started turning, you know, when a lot of the internal roles, where filled internally, I should say, or there was, you know, just hiring freeze. She's like, once the tap is on, she's like, you know, they will call you and honestly, like two months later, the tap turned on. and it was hectic and then from there essentially I was like well Well, the team that I work with that supported the candidate engagements out of things, I was like, well, what do we now need to do to make sure that we prove that we are what we say we are? Jobs will come to me. The clients will call me going, all right, you've bought me three coffees in the last nine months. I've got this requirement. Let's talk. So I'd get the brief if possible. You know, I'd get the delivery team to attend those meetings with me. And essentially, just make sure we've got a clear understanding. The directive between myself and the delivery team was, I don't want to be another agency that's uploading six CVs. Ultimately, we're dealing with very, very busy hiring managers. They don't want to be looking at it. They don't have the time to look at six CVs from three agencies. You know, what we want to do is give them two of the best where they're literally going to call us and go, I can't pick. Who do you recommend? And we had these. I reckon 50% of the time we would have hiring managers call us with that issue. They're like, you've sent us two of the best. So that was something that I could really pride myself on. The team really understood the business. And I think that's the most important thing. You've got to understand what the business wants. How did you brief the team to understand the business? Because is that your responsibility or do they have to do their research or something? Because it's something your name online, now your name is. It's mine. I take everything like I genuinely treat everything like it's my own business. If my name's attached to it, I treat it like my own business. At the end of the day, I can go from brand set to Davidson to Hayes to where I go. Then I'm going to go Hayes gave me a shit CV. They're going to be like, "And I gave me shit CVs." So if I go from one agency to another, why are they going to use me? It's not like my shitty style of working stayed with one agency. It's going to be my name. So ultimately, a lot of my business and my growth came organically. You know, they're like, "Hey, so-and-so recommender that I reach out to you." You know, I know the candidates that you've placed in their team, they're amazing. I've got this opportunity that's coming up. But it was a lot more, I guess, on the, gone back to the account of directors, what they do, it's being more proactive. It's not reactive. I've got a requirement. This is what I need. It's about sitting down with them and going, "Hey, this is more of a consultive approach. What are your next six, 12 months look like? What's the road ahead? What do you need to deliver? What are the challenges that you're facing? What's keeping you up at night at the moment?" So, resourcing wise, what does that look like? Is a split, is a recruitment, is a consulting, is it offshore, is it? You know, you've really got to understand. So enterprise lens, you're bringing to it. Yeah, everything. So that's probably where I would say the conversations for me changed a lot. I also worked quite closely with a colleague that set on the consulting side of the business. And I learned a lot from him because the conversations when you're dealing in the consulting arm, not the recruitment arm, are a lot more long term, around the requirements and the outcomes, rather than job, feel, job, feel, which was, you know, where I came from being at Reinstead. So, you know, reflecting on that two-year period, I think that probably was what paid off a lot better. Ultimately, you need to be able to say when you can and can't deliver and being able to manage all the expectations in between the two. Yeah, that's really interesting. I've never understood exactly how the dynamic would pay off between the account director and the delivery team because one, it's kind of, as you said, earlier before we started the podcast, it's kind of out of your control what the delivery team come up with. So how do you make sure that the delivery team is aligned on selling the company properly, finding the candidates correctly? What level of influence do you have at that level? Super high. There was two people that I work with, Davidson and they were amazing, funnily enough. They both were quite early on in their recruitment careers. And I can't take the credit for them being trained up on their specializations. They had a leader that did that and she did an amazing job where I stepped in was, this is this client. So there was one big client to talk about, 90% of my time and then too smaller that, you know, fitting the other 10%. So let's focus on this 90%. This is what they want. Every time a candidate comes up, there was probably three to four things that this particular client wanted. And it was ideally that worked in that space before or as in the industry. So they just knew that we're a bank. If they worked at this particular bank, they're going to want it. And if they can't actually consider in coming back here, they know what they're in for. Like, you know, if you work at ANZ and you work at CBA, it's very, very different. You know, just because you work at ANZ doesn't mean that you're going to survive at CBA or go to McQuarrie and you'll completely fail. You know, it's a different approach. So these guys, I used to spend a lot of time with them at the start, you know, it was fine tuning. So it was a reflecting on what worked, what didn't, what knowledge they needed. Also understanding long term what the ambition was. So a lot of them actually wanted to get into step into an account management or a 360 type of role. So part of their development plan was you need to get in front more clients, so not just managing the care that it's at as you grow. So it would be me also bringing them to a lot of meetings, not necessarily always the first meeting when I'm because meeting a client, because that can be a bit of a overkill. But if I've met with someone, you know, that I regularly catch up every three or six months, I'd bring them along. And I'd be like, you know, what, why didn't you tell these delivery consultant from your perspective, what works and what doesn't? So there was a number of, for example, business analyst managers that had 30, 40 business analysts that they were managing, what do you look for? What's your style of interview? What do you like to see on a CV? What don't you? We actually want to help you get ahead. We want to save you time. And when people see that you're actually trying to help them rather than just shove CVs down their throat, they want to work with you and they want to talk. So I'd say to guys, listen, this is your opportunity to listen and be really curious. There's no time limit. Ask us many questions as you need. You need to walk away and go. I know exactly what this client wants. You might be speaking to a candidate for a different role and go, oh my God, so and so would love these candidates. Right? So you need to be able to piece all those pieces together. And I think that's really, really important for them to understand that. When the delivery team sources the candidates and they have a shortlist, do they come back through you to brief you and then you take it to the client? Yes. Okay. So I, my way of working was the expectation. It was always that, okay, let's turn this around within 48 hours if, you know, in the most contracting side of things. But let's catch up. Give me an update at the end of the day. I don't care if it's a text, if it's a team's message call, whatever you want, let me know how you went. Because if you had no time to find the right candidate, so you had no success finding the right candidate, it's what do we need to do tomorrow and to make sure we can meet at 48 hour deadline. And I think if I reflect back on early days, there was some consultants that I work with where things didn't go right, you know, where there was frustrations on both sides. It always fell through just on that communication piece. I forgot to call you. I had to rush off or I got distracted or whatever it was because then you get back to it an next day and we're like, we've got to submit TVs today by five o'clock. What have you got for me? Nothing. I've reached out to this many people, how many of you called nothing and then the follow-ups, there was nothing to, you know, grabbing roll-weath on their days. So yeah, I think you really have to, like, your team, like, even though I wasn't leading that team, like I wasn't their manager, I think just really understanding what the expectation is and way of working and making sure that you give clear feedback when things don't work. So there was, you know, early days. There was a lot of feedback, like, I'm very, very particular about the way the CV is look when they get submitted, spelling mistakes, formatting. Like me. It's not a line, perfectly. Shits me. Yeah. Absolutely. Shits me. So I'd go back and I'd be like, okay, you've put in this day rate, you know, they're expecting a $2,000. Is that inclusive or excluding super? I can't remember. Well, you better fix that because that's going to be a significant, you know, difference when we put it to client because if they're budgeting for someone that's on $1,000 day, inclusive of super, but then it's not that's going to be thousands of dollars over a 12 month contract. So you have to bring that up to their attention straight away. And I think it's important that you have those conversations, but equally, I pass that feedback on to their leader. It's like, hey, they've done expires they're really good. This is sort of where I need them to leave their game and then they would work with them as well. So it takes a village. I genuinely does. Like you can't do it on their own because I had one guy. He was an absolute champion. If I started my own agency tomorrow, I said to him, like you'd be the first person, like he's got the best work ethic. However, he was so keen to deliver that he always used to miss on those small details that really mattered. And I used to talk to him and give him feedback. And to go to the point, I was like, mate, like, you need to do better. And he's like, sorry, mate, sorry. like, you know, he took it well really, you know, it took the feedback. really well, but the mistakes kept getting repeated. Again, spoke to his manager, said, "I need you to work with him." He's amazing. It's just those 1% is, 1% is because he's so keen to keep going and going and going in deliver. Candida quality, amazing. Tension to detail. I said, "We need to work on that." What about employer branding and to give some context on that? How often are you having to reposition one of your clients because they've got a bad or poor reputation with candidates? You delivery team is going, "Hey, look, people just don't want to work for these people because of XYZ reasons. They've got a friend that worked at whatever." How often are you strategically trying to reposition your clients to sell the candidates and get the candidates more interested in going forward for a role? We actually had that back end of COVID. There was a client that we worked with at Reinstead. They went through a period of time where they had a really bad reputation. We had to do a lot of this. The candidate, as soon as you call them, every candidate will be like, "No, don't want a bar of it." They had a really bad reputation. They used to do panel interviews and there'd be three people online and that all have their cameras off. They never get back to agencies with feedback. They were paying slightly below market rate. There was a level of arrogance from their end. Every time we'd engage with them and give them feedback, they're like, "Well, we're a very well-known brand. People would want to work with us." We just couldn't place candidates there. Simply for that exact reason, they just kept raarning and tarnishing their own brand, but simple things. When we would talk to a really suitable candidate for the role, I said to the guys, "You need to be upfront and honest that if you're getting these feedback automatically going, 'No, I don't want to work with them. I've heard X1s and you need to address that before they give you an opportunity.' You need to say, "Look, I'm conscious they've currently got a bit of a bad reputation. I want to manage the expectation. They're not going to be able to give us feedback within a week, potentially after your interview. Why that is because the way the process works is, it's got to go through talent. Then it's going to go through to a hiring manager. If it's not a number one priority for the hiring manager, by time goes back to talent, by time comes back to me. I just want to manage that expectation with you straight away so you know what those challenges are. What your friend told you might have been the experience. Maybe the recruiter didn't explain it clearly to them, but I want to be honest as to where the gaps in the downfalls are." So they're also paying slightly below where the market is at the moment. Let's take your experience into consideration. I know you want $1,000 a day. Realistically, you don't have the experience for someone to be asking $1,000 a day. So let's look at what's being presented to us. Would you accept this role for $800, potentially ask for a pay rise in six or 12 months time, work that way. You've got to give him a bigger picture. What does the road ahead look like? Do you want to go permanent because you'd love to be working there as a permanent. You might not want to work there as a contractor. Then people would look at things differently because you're giving him a different perspective. We're only human. We often get caught up in one thing and we go, you've pissed me off. I don't want to talk to you anymore. Why? Because you pissed me off. Then you come and talk to me and you're like, "Well, X, Y, Z played big part in these. Think about that kindness piece. Think about why someone behaved the way they did." Then you pull back, you look at things differently and you go, "Well, actually, you are right. Let's consider it." Then there's only so much you can do. I think you really have to manage the expectation. From start to finish, you need to tell people what they can expect. Particularly if you know that a client that you're working with, it's got a shocking feedback process, which a lot of the time they do because depending on how many layers of people are involved, if they're reasoned to tell them that if it is a hotline manager, if it is a senior manager, it's got to get that approval. It's going to take weeks. Manage that. How do you influence the client to do better, specifically around the interview process, interview coaching, selling the company more effectively, asking more appropriate questions, having that dance and attraction of that candidate. As we all know, especially with the candidate short market, the employer who sells themselves the best will ultimately get the best candidate. How do you go about the coaching and advisory standpoint for the hiring manager on how to interview better, how to prep the client before the interview so they can ask better questions. What's your experience around that? I generally, when I meet with someone and there is a requirement that we can help them with, I need to understand what their process looks like. Someone likes to do meetings straight away, someone will take a bit longer. You need to know what the expectation is in their timelines. You also need to be realistic with them what the market looks like. A lot of the times you're working with hiring managers that have been in the industry for a really long time. I've been here for 15 years. They've got no idea how cheap the market is. No idea how hard it is to get a job, no idea how easy it is to get pissed off when you've submitted 50 applications and no one has come back to you. For me, it's reversing the conversation that I have with the candidates. I can talk to the client. Regardless of what that opportunity looks like is okay. Once we find you the right candidate, what do the next steps look like from you? What does your interview process look like? Who's going to be in that interview with the candidate availability? Can we put in a couple of placeholders in your calendar next week and then I'll try and get some interview slots in there? Can we potentially put in a couple of interview slots for the week after if you're wanting to do a second round interview? And just explaining to that employer branding piece, it's about this will make you stand out by a mile in comparison to another employer that's not doing any of these. Because then when I'm talking to the candidate, I can automatically say we've got time slots locked in for interviews so we can tell them straight away that hey, we can expect to look at an interview next week if you are a preferred candidate. So I see, how much can you push back on the clients? I've been in the current director in one of the banks as an example because that you've got to keep them happy in many ways. How much can you push the boundaries of you need to fix your process? I'll do this, but you need to change this. Hiring managers, it depends on your relationship with them. I'm very authentic and I'm very honest. Sometimes it's a strength and sometimes it's a weakness of mine. I think you need to build that trust and relationship with the hiring manager. Like even if I've made you for the first time, I'm going to be brutally honest about the reality of things and it's not in as reality. It's just that, hey, this is what's going on in the market. You're having these challenges because of X, Y and Z. Now, if we want to fix that, this is what we need to do. Are you on board or not? Now in 99% of the situations, the client will be like, yeah, okay. Now also, if I know that I've got a painful client that I've got a relationship with, I'll be like, mate, like you need to do better, okay? Because you're going to lose out this candidate for whatever that reason is. So it comes down to the level of relationship that you have with people. And I think that's where it's really important to build a relationship first. I think the toughest ones that I've had is where internal talent acquisition team will come and go, I've got a role for so and so and you can't even reach, get in touch with that hiring manager. And I've had some of the treasures experiences where we hadn't really urgent roles that needed to be filled. And then four weeks later, like we didn't even get feedback on CVs that we feel that we submitted. And you have got no control. So the only thing in those situations is that's that communication piece with the candidates, you need to tell them, unfortunately, I just need to be very honest with you. This has come to us via CRM or via internal talent team. We don't have access to the hiring manager. So I just want to be upfront and honest with you. We are trying to put CVs forward, but I can't give you the exact deadlines. Or timeframes, what that's going to look like. What I can do is get in touch with you once a week and let you know if I've got any updates. If you don't hear from me, it's not because I've forgotten about you. It's genuinely because I have nothing to give to you. And I think if someone said that to me, I would appreciate that honesty. I'd appreciate it, but I think I'll be irritated. 100%. That's what I can control. So that whole piece of focus on what you can control and don't put too much attention on what you can't, but be honest about it. How do you create urgency with the client? You need to understand how urgent it is for them. And then you also need to be honest what's going on with the candidate side of things. How quickly do you want to fill this role? I want it yesterday. Okay, so how quickly can you book in an interview two weeks? Well, is it really urgent? Oh yeah, you know, it's just that X, Y and Z and I said, well, if we've got really good candidates, you're going to have to move really quickly. Goes back to that piece, managing the client again. Putting in those placeholders in the calendar, if you want the good candidate that's interviewing elsewhere, you need to move really fast. You need to give me feedback very quickly. I'm going to call the idea of the day once you're being to be done. I need to be able to pass that feedback on. You've got to stay on top of them. That's probably the harder part, managing the client. Well, I shouldn't say it's harder part. I think it's equally hard managing the candidate and the client. Because I think a lot of recruiters that are what up scene is that put so much focus on pleasing the client. Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing. Yeah. It's not Always about pleasing. People pleases, don't get far in life. You've got to be able to manage and understand what they want and what they don't want. Do the same on the candidate side of thing and then you've got to peer the two up. - What if with a click of a finger, you could start your own recruitment agency? Well, now you can. With Extra Cruder launching your own agency hasn't never been easier. In less than three weeks, you could be taking home 85% more of your buildings with everything handled for you. You recruit, we take care of the rest. Click the link in the description to see if you are ready to take that next step. - It's naturally a bit easier to manage the client candidates' expectations, you know, with $1,000 a day they want. Clire says they'll pay $800. You'll get your candidate down to $800. That's how most recruiters do it. So it's a difficult one because you're not really doing the right thing by both parties you're doing the right thing by your client. So on that, what kind of trying to think of the right way of framing it, when you're taking a brief from the client and you're going to go find the candidates, how much do you push back on them and tell them about the market and they're off the mark or do you mostly just say, "I'll try and find somebody to fit your brief." - No, push back. You've got to sit the expectations clear. You want the best of the best. You're going to have to pay for that. If you don't have the budget and happens often, I completely understand that. You might not get the full package. So let's talk about what's a nice to have, what's a must to have, what can you be flexible on? Sometimes you can get a candidate's disparate because they've been out of work. The contract's ending and they're scared that there's nothing else. They might accept a lower salary. But a lot of the time, those candidates are not going to stick. What I've seen a lot of the time is it's like, "I'll take it because I need something right now." There is always that fear in a lot of people. And they'll take it. But the minute another recruiter calls them about a role that's paying $50 more a day, they're going to jump. So you've got to be honest with client and say, "Well, what's the risk? How's that going to affect you if they come in and you spend a week training them up?" They get on with it, they're doing a really good job and then they get this call. "I'll see if I can get $50 a day." And I said, "Well, honestly, that's kind of insulting. Why wouldn't you give that to them if you think that's what they're worth?" At the start. - Where do you draw the line on that, though? - I don't think you can. I think you can only be very clear around it. Sitting there around the client and wanting to say, "I told you so" without actually saying, "I told you so." And I think that's why it's important to have those conversations up front. Reflecting on my experiences, like you can find someone that might be able to do what they want for what they're willing to pay, but they're not going to be coming from the same level of experience. So they need to also be very realistic as to what they're going to get for what you pay, essentially. You're not going to go say, "I want to lend Bigini," but my budget's only $10. $100,000. You're not going to get it. Are you? You kind of get what you pay for, but if you don't have the budgets, let's find the best within that range. Also, you might take a bit longer. For us to find you the best of the best, we might have to search the market for a little bit longer to try and find you a few more options. So instead of delivering within 48 hours, can we have three to five days? Are you okay with that? Yes. After five days, let's look at the best, what we've been able to find, who's willing to take on the opportunity, what their reason is. Are they the right fit and then present them and essentially talk? So what do you do to keep the candidates sticky then? Because if you're moving out the timelines, these candidates highly paid contractors, there's got recruiters that are be calling them all the time. How do you make sure that one, they're always engaged, they'll pick up the phone, they'll talk to you and they won't just end up ghosting you and you'll end up at square one? There's definitely more challenges that I'm seeing with that. And I think there's a lot of factors to play into that. I think today's day and age, our phones are constantly ringing. And you don't know, if it's an unknown number, is it a scam or is it a bank? Is it a marketing company? So I, with us, I think going back to the, what can we control these? I think you need to set the expectation clear with the candidate at the start as to how frequently you're going to communicate with them. And equally, if you haven't spoken to that candidate, like let's say we've done an outreach on LinkedIn, you've got to personalize that again because you don't want to be one of 50 that's gone out. Say, I'm going to call you tomorrow. This is my number, just so you know who's calling. Sometimes they might not see their LinkedIn message because a lot of passive candidates don't check their LinkedIn until they have to. And then maybe text them. If they haven't actually answered the call, you've got to text them. I text, I don't leave voicemails. I hate voicemails personally. I don't, I hate when people leave them from me, especially if it's someone that I know I'm like, mate, I can see you've called me. Send me a text message. So I'll send you a text message. I'm calling from here. This is who I am. This is what it's about. Let me know if there's a good time to chat. Otherwise, I'll try later this afternoon, for example. What can you do that? Because I think if you look at your phone, you're always going to see a text message. And you go, okay, Blake's trying calling me, you know, okay, number's ending in 936. Easy. If I see 936 call, I'll pick that up. If I want it. Second time you try. If they're not coming back to you, you might go for third, but go, hey, I've tried a few times. I haven't got a response. Give me a shout. If you are interested in chatting, if not just leave it, but manage it really nicely as well. Along that direct outreach piece, like you would be working with your resourcing team in your most recent role. Are you coaching them to how to outreach to potential candidates to personalize an approach or are you just trusting their judgment and they're going to do it in a certain way that's aligned to whoever your client is? It's a little bit of both. Pents on their experience. There's ones that are really good at what they do and they have a really high success rate. You need to coach and train people to understand why they're doing what they've been told to do or the advice. I don't think anyone should be told what to do, but understand the why behind everything. If I can copy and paste a message and send it out 50 times, what do you think the success rate is? Hey, I've got this really exciting role that you might be interested in based on your experience. Do you want to chat? Now, we get those inboxes all the time. I don't want to chat to you. What excites you about my history? What's the role? What do you want me to say to that? You know what I mean? So do a little bit of research on someone's profile and go, hey, the only part that I'll copy and paste is potentially about the position that I'm representing. Hey Blake, you know, I came across your profile in my search. I've currently got a role XYZ that matches to the experience. This is the role, this is the company, even if you don't want to specifically say who the company is. Let's call it. It's one of the big four banks. It's a 12 month contract. They're looking to start straight away. This is the project they're working on. Does this interest you? If so, would you be keen for a chat? Personalizing. Give people a bit of context as to what they're responding to. Not, don't make a so generic. I think that's the only way you can do it. I think you make a great point about personalizing it. So you read their profile. Like, at least I have to do this all time in my previous role. And it was, you'd have to spend some time going through social media, seeing what things they'd liked on LinkedIn and saying, I love how you responded to it. You'd have to personalize it to that level. Yes. So you get a response. That first bit you have to. I can see this is what you've done. I've got a role that aligns with these. Because there's been times when people come back go, actually, I absolutely, I got stuck doing that from one role into another, into another. I hate it. I don't want to do it. I hadn't really niche requirement that came up. I think it was probably about a bit over 12 months ago. And we did a seek search. And there was like 30 people in all of Australia that had this specific experience. And the hiring manager was like, she was a machine, like, million miles an hour. And she's like, all right, I need a type of personality. They must have these. They need to have expires that blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, like, so we were like, okay, I'm like, I didn't know enough about it. It was like, help me understand what exactly do you do? Because, you know, I'm thinking automatically is there someone that could step into that role if, you know, they had a particular type of experience? How did you get there? What do you do? What's a must, you know, must have? And what's a nice to have? And, you know, she was just the biggest thing funnily enough was that she was so set on this type of personality. This niche experience was all almost secondary to it. And that coaching piece came in where we actually found someone that had the type of personality that had that had this niche experience. And this candidate walked away from and she's like, gee, I could never work with her. Like, she's like, she would be like the worst nightmare to work with. And this is probably the only time where I had a role open. And it was a contract role that was very urgent for like four and a half months. Simply because these hiring managers just wouldn't take any feedback from us around that type of personality. So it was going back and going, hey, I've actually got someone that fits everything else, but they just really chilled late back. Etc. No, I don't want him. I don't want him. And she was like, I want you to top three things have to align. And we kept going back and forth and that people would interview with her and I'm like, no, she's just not the right leader that I want. I had two of my delivery consultants work on this role. And I think we're all pulling a hair out because we could only do so much. We gave this feedback, but you know, I don't know if you've ever been in that situation where you feel like doesn't matter what you say. How you say it? How many times you're really framer? You bounce things off other people. Other senior people, there you go. I've tried every, this is what I've tried and nothing's working. You know, challenge my thinking wouldn't stick. It got to the point where she's like, I'm under so much pressure to deliver this project. And if we don't, like it was going to cost them like millions of dollars. Asick was coming in and you know, there was penalties. "Tee's for not delivering." And I said, "You know what, can I be very honest with you?" And she's like, "Yeah, definitely." And I said, "Okay, these are some of the challenges we've got. I said, can you trust me? Please trust me. I've got two amazing candidates that I want you to meet. They're nothing what you've asked for, but I just want you to meet with them. Like they kind of meet about 70% of what you want. They can definitely do the job. Bit reluctant, bit reluctant, like. And I said, "What you want doesn't exist. So let's just try something else." She met with them. And when we, I took her out for Christmas lunch with her, her head of department and his manager as well. And she was actually talking about these two, she ended up hiring in both of them. And she was like, "I would have never in my wildest dreams hired those two guys by the CVs, by the experience, by initially their personalities." She's like, "She convinced me." She's like, "They calm me." She's like, "I'm constantly wired." Like I'm at 150% like, you know, she tells everyone, talks about her ADHD. She's like, "But these two guys have been the best thing for me personally, for our project, for our team." She's like, "I will do whatever it takes. I will get increases. I will fight to keep them, even if the budgets are getting slashed." And I think that kind of tells you sometimes that we do have that power just might take a little bit longer. - Yeah, it sounds like you moved into that trusted and vise the type of relationship to be able to get a better outcome. - Definitely. And I think I like to think that I have that opportunity a lot sooner, but you will face challenging personalities. You know, and I think that, you know, when people talk about the out-of-body experience that you have, these moments, you know, I think as I've got no-ldar that I'm like, "Okay, this is that moment. I've done, I've used all the tools in my kit that I've been provided with to manage a situation and I can't because I can't control someone else's personality or their ways of thinking." - How did you manage your candidates in that situation? Because obviously, sounds like she just did what she did before. And some candidates said, "I couldn't work for that. How did you manage your candidates to be prepared for that?" - Honestly, honestly. The two guys that we ended up placing in that team, we were so honest about them and I said, "You don't have what she wants." I said, "I need to be very honest with you." Like, 'cause they'd worked for me before. - Right, okay. - That worked in other areas. I like hiring managers would cry, basically. They'll either have to let him go, but the project's done. Like, there's no funding. I can't have recommended them to other areas, but there's no requirements. So I knew what they were capable of and I'd say to them, "You know, I need to be very honest with you. This is what she's after." You are nothing like that. But I think you do are amazing based on what you've delivered and your experience. I think she wanted a duplicate of herself, thinking that only people like her would be able to deliver. Whereas these guys were a complete opposite. Like, they were so chill. And talking about opposites attract, candidates were like, look, like you've probably made it sound worse than what she was. But I think that's because their personality could handle. So there's this, I think recruitment, you kind of have to be like a bit of a psychologist. There's a psychoanalysis piece. It goes, "You've got to pull back and go." It's not just about matching technical experience and going, "Oh, you've done this. You can step into that role. It's very much about your personality can work with the other personality." As a leader, I think you're great, but what this person needs and wants and has complained about, you guys will never work together. Recruiters have a bad reputation. Let's be honest. They can be transparent. They'd rush things. They're always chasing that next job. You can match people up. But is it gonna last? Where did you refine this skill set? Did you listen to podcasts, do certain training? How did you come to who you are today around this kind of relationship trusted as a strategic account direct or type of skill set? It's a bit of the mixed bag, I would say. I started my early career came in. I worked for a ASX listed company. I started off with a corporate reception. It's my first job. I was kind of forced in this environment with senior executives and board members and we had a lot of people from the government, like from the agriculture department visiting often. So I felt like I had to grow up quickly in the sense that if I compare myself at 20 to some of the 20 year olds now, it's like you could never do a job that I did. So I guess there was a little bit of that and I guess along the way, I always look for different mentors in life because I think different people could offer you different advice. And it's a lot of the times how people approach. I've always been a big observer and I've always been curious. So if I reflect on like, from a corporate reception's role, I went into a PA to our deputy CEO and I made the biggest like, fuck up off my career, excuse the language. Like nearly cost the company was about to go into this joint venture and I nearly was the reason he didn't happen because when I booked his flights to go into state, I didn't leave enough time for his connecting flight. And I was sitting at my desk and he called me and he's like, "Just want to let you know I didn't make that flight because you only left like 25 minutes. Did you realize that from this airport to that airport?" And I died, internally I died. Went home, wrote up a resignation letter that and I came into the office at seven o'clock the next morning. I was like, I need to resign before he fires me. Like I didn't sleep. Like I was sheeting myself. And he came in the next morning and just rolling good morning and I was like, all right, he's like, let's have a chat. Like, you know, about planning for his day and I took my resignation letter and I went in and he's like, what's wrong? Sliding my resignation. I was like, I don't even know where to begin. Like I'm sorry, he just doesn't justify the mistake. He's like, do you think I'm gonna fire you? I expected to get like yelled at and screamed at and he's like, no, I know. Do you think I would fire you over that mistake and hire someone else that's gonna come in and make that same mistake again? And then it's gonna cost me more maybe next time. And at that time I realized that it's people's approach the way they approach. I had this, I think single-minded, or vision of how people approach things, there was consequences to everything and it's not. Like I think I had to learn more about the experience equals growth and what you put in is also what you get out. So I've always had an interest in personal developments I listened to a lot of podcasts. We talked about Diary of CEO, absolutely loving. Anyone that asks me for podcast recommendation, I was like, have you seen Stephen Barley? - What about Confessions? Would you recommend that? - Definitely. - You would now. - We'll now vote it all the way. - Okay, full-ghost recommendation. Yeah, I'm sure I got one for you. - Definitely. So yeah, I think you've gotta just take away what works for you. But just because it's a good advice, does it fit in with what you're trying to achieve alive? They might not serve me right, but you might be able to be good advice for someone else. - Yeah, yeah, no, I love that. I think you've shared a lot of really key, important parts to the recruitment journey that you've been on throughout this podcast. If recruiters could only take away one key lesson from this episode, what should it be? - Whether it's a client or a candidate, that they see a person, like that they see who the authentic person is behind a call, behind a LinkedIn message, when you meet him for a coffee catch up. I'm not here as a recruiter. I'm here to build a relationship with you and show that interest in them as a human, not just as something that you're trying to sell to someone. 'Cause I think if you're looking at a candidate or you're sitting down with him, having a coffee or a phone call and you're trying to rush him because you need to get on the next call, you need to make sure that they see the person behind the CV. If you can see the person and their motivation and understand their why. - Authenticity and trust. - And what is their why? - One of my old managers side note my story. One of my old managers used to say to me, 'cause I have a recruit to you interview how many people, this is just another interview to you today. That person's working up, chosen what to wear, made sure they had their CV correct, read it, practiced it, it's so important to them. At the moment I just changed my view of there's money to that's a person, like you just said, did change my entire approach. So I think that's a really key message. - 100%. - 100%. And you've got to think about, I am always, when I deal with candidates, whether they've applied for a role or we've reached out to them is, they're still nervous. I mentioned it to you guys, like I hate the interview process. Like I don't perform well, it's not a natural environment. So you've got to understand, I so many hiring managers are talking, they're like, we've had a start method and give me an example of these. And when you want to be in five years, what's they got to do with a role? I, I, you know, in the, that is the we're living in now with AI, people will jump and chat GP to you and get that answer, because that's where you want to hear. And then you get them on the floor and they absolutely fail. Or like, and you're like, oh, well, you think it'd be a good candidate. Well, hang on, let's go back. Where did it all go wrong? And I think, you know, if I reflect on some of the best conversations or into these processes, even while I didn't get the job. And I've purposely applied for roles just to put myself through that excruciating pain of going, oh, you know, I feel uncomfortable here, because the minute you feel comfortable, it's a danger zone. So if I have reflect on the ones that have been the best, is where the interview is rocked up and just been casual to chat. You know what, five, 10 minutes, even them going, oh my God. So XYZ happened and, you know, tell you something about, you know, something bad that's happening in their life, which they can laugh about. Put you at ease. What, automatically, I don't feel nervous. I've forgotten about my nerves. Whereas they go, thank you so much for showing up today. So, you know, tell me about yourself and how do you see yourself, you know, fitting into this role? And I'm like, yeah, 100%. All right, we're moving on to our game. Are you smarter than Ed? I don't know. - I look at E.C. - No, it's not. - Everybody is smarter than me today. - Yeah. Has everyone been smiling? - I think, well, they've won. - Okay. - All right. So chances are that you're going to be, all right, I don't know. Your buzzer is your name. If you get it wrong, then I'll continue talking about what the answers are, reading out the answers, and then the other person has a crack at it. Are we ready? - I'm ready. - Ready? - I'm gonna try hard this time. - On average, how many applicants apply to each advertised job? - Inner. - 200? - Buh-buh. - Honestly, I love the fact you went for it. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Literally, that's what the stats of being lately. - I've heard that. - A, 50. B, 75. C, 100. D, 118. - Ed. - D. - I'm gonna challenge you on that. Where did you get your dog from? - Oh, search is on the pressure. - See even Ed said that. - Ed said he said he's a disciple. - Oh, look at me. Well, she's called search. Search is called Ed. - Well, bleak, send me this article once. But I think the purpose of this, you can have it because I'm the one. - No, no, no, we can't just give away three points. - But I think it was him. - He was hitting, like he had to data. He's sending the articles. - Okay, I'm sure that's right. - New question, new question. - Thank you. - Okay, all right, here we go. Here, new question. How long do recruiters typically spend looking at a CB? A, three to five seconds. B, five to seven seconds. C, 10 to 15 seconds. D, 20 to 30 seconds. - 10 seconds. - 10 to 15 seconds. - B. - Correct. - Oh, yeah, I've gone B too. - 5-0, I feel like 5 seconds. - I'm just too scared to say anything. (laughing) - What is the average number of days it takes to fill an open position? A, 30 days. B, 42 days. C, 52, 55 days. D, 65 days. - Ed. - Ed. - Ed, that's incorrect. - But bomb. - It takes longer than 30 days. - No, I'm just gonna say it. - 30 sounded. - It sounded a lot. I thought it'd be like 16 days or something. - Yeah. - What was the article you said? - I don't know who he's talking about. - Let's go B, the next one up. - Willow. - Oh! (laughing) - Sicking chances, eh? - Yeah, you know what, so that's 2-0. - This is gonna be a really interesting one. Whoever's got, quick on the buzzer, we'll get this. What's the average notice period for white collar professionals in Australia? - Ed, four weeks. - Yes. - Okay. - Quick on the buzzer, I knew it. Which recruitment agency uses the slogan, powering people? - Ed. - Ed. - Heyes. - Bapal. - Is it manpower? - Oh, it would be. - Yes. (laughing) - Well played, well played. - You won. - You won it. - And I think that is the right outcome today. - Yeah. - Hey, yeah. - Are you just giving up? - Everyone's well-being. - He's been rattled by your energy. - Yeah, it's terrifying. - Well, Anna, thank you for joining us on Conversions Youth. - Thank you for having me. - It's been a pleasure. (upbeat music)