hiring strategy

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hiring, hiring stinks and interviewing stinks. In my experience, a little story time for everyone here. I was in Raleigh, North Carolina in our Raleigh office. Shout out Raleigh, shout out that office. They are fantastic. If you are in the Raleigh office and you have not worked somebody at Vacua in the Raleigh office, reach out to them. They are fantastic people. My thing is we're responsible for staffing and staffing up. And I tell this story a lot. I tell this story a lot because it was one of the few times in Lausalle. I've been recruiting for 10 years. It is one of the few times a company has actually used this like the most effectively.

Literally, like really it's just one time. I'm trying, as I'm having this conversation, I'll think of another time where a company has used us really effectively. But literally this one company in Raleigh, and then I mean, I was just giving a shout out. Channel advisor. Channel advisor was the company. Back in 2013, they got a bunch of, I think, series funding or something. And they were hiring a ton. And or they're trying to go public. I don't know. I can't remember the exact details. But they needed a higher and aggressive amount of people. And they were basically Microsoft shop. They were using some modern JavaScript.

Back in 2013, so React was just becoming big. And so what happened was this is we've placed, I'm not kidding, we placed 15 people with them in two months, 15 people with them in 60 days. And literally a lot of those people, a lot of those people are still there. A lot of those people are still there. And so what happened is that what, the way they set up their interviews, this was pre-coed, they did an hour phone call. Hour phone call, hey, hey, tell me about yourself. Like what have you done? What is your background? Here's what we're doing. Just kind of a chit chat, right?

See at the vibes there, see if that person's background's there. Then that company would fly that person down. like immediately. Like we'd get feedback the next day. And then we would book the flight. We would be responsible for booking the flight because again, right? People don't understand this. Companies, if you're watching this, hiring managers, if you watch this, at least you're watching this. So I know you know this. I know you're watching. I don't know if you know this. Is that recruiters can do more than just find you people, right? We can do a lot of the administrative stuff. So for example, right, this company goes, hey, can y'all book the plane tickets?

Y'all just bill us. Well, you can you arrange to travel, just bill us everything like cement and expansion port to us. But can y'all organize everything? And we did that. We did that. And this company, I'm not kidding you. Scaled up 15 people, direct hire, not contract, direct hire, they hired in two weeks. And I say this all the time. I say this all the time. If your company cannot hire within two weeks, your process is broken. And I probably like Taylor, well, what if I have 17 steps? Doesn't matter as long as you do it within two weeks. I'm working with a client out of DC right now.

If that manager's watching, he follows me on Twitter. That manager's watching. Thank you. Thank you. What they do is I submit the candidate. They do a ton of interviews, right? They're small, small shop, big on team culture. They have knocked out like I'm not kidding you like seven interviews in two weeks or six interviews in two weeks. I don't care how many interviews steps you have, as long as you're incredibly efficient, incredibly efficient going through the process. The issue is is that I feel like there is a power struggle. There is a power struggle that happens during the interview process where tech leads, architects hiring managers have to insert their dominance and insert their ego because they're insecure with who they are as a leader.

So they try to add value within an organization and search themselves, slow down the process. Everything starts to go crazy. Can it start to doubt the process? And then they lose out in the candidate because people cannot get out of their own way. There are too many egos and hiring. I'm sick and tired of it. So if you're a hiring manager and you have a lot of people try to butt in on your interview process, you need to evaluate those individuals while they're trying to butt in and streamline the process. Hey, listen, listen, listen, I get it. We, you know, we, you know, we, company, we have maybe done group interviews, panel interviews.

With everybody, well, we're too big now. So we're going to do these five individuals because of these reasons. And these five individuals interview our people. And that's it. Right? It's expectations setting on the front end, which is again, companies do not do effectively. Right? What they do is they go, hey, all right, it's going to be three interviews and then offer. Recruiter goes, hey, candidate, three interviews and offer. Six interviews later the candidate goes, well, that's not what was told to me. So what's going on? And I go, I don't know. Because again, companies only tell us as much as they want to tell us, right?

So again, those are my thoughts there. I'm going to go through some comments here. LinkedIn user what's going on. I wish I could see you. I think that maybe Denise, Tinsley, Sean, yes, North Carolina, love it. Casey, hiring stinks and interviewing stinks. Taylor, I've been recruiting for 10 years, Destiny. Yeah, listen, listen, I think at the end of the day, if job seekers and hiring managers can be totally brutally honest and say neither one of us have any idea what we're doing, I think that starts a very healthy conversation. Just my two cents. Ped your good morning. Yes, RTP's awesome. I loved my timeout and RTP.

It was beautiful, the area is beautiful, the people are beautiful, I love it. Alicia, yes, recruiters can be your friend. LinkedIn user, no company has a perfect hiring process. Just as there are no perfect candidates, we do the best we can. Absolutely, again, there's no perfect hiring process, right? You can poke holes in mind, like, well, Taylor, listen, we have this, we have that. We have this process. Listen, I understand, I understand, but you as a hiring manager, you as a company need to ask yourself, why do we interview? And what are we judging? Right, I'm not kidding you. We had, we had a, we have our kind of our deep dive meetings on Tuesdays.

And I just got out of it before I hopped on here. And I can't tell you the amount of poor feedback from hiring managers just saying, oh, we're gonna reject the candidate. Well, why? Because they didn't answer the question the way we wanted it to be. That, that was that mean, you're gonna reject the candidate this market because they maybe didn't, they didn't get it wrong. It wasn't anything that wrong. They didn't answer it how the hiring manager wanted to answer it. Listen, hiring managers, if that's where you're at from a screening process, you just need to go take a walk. Because that is absolutely a sign on and you need to do better.

Hiring managers need to do better. Companies need to get to do better. I tweet this a lot of times. If you do not have time to give accurate feedback, specific feedback, I'm not saying long feedback, three bullet points where you love Tim, but this individual is lacking this, this and this. If you cannot provide that feedback, your shit is broken. Sorry for cursing on LinkedIn this morning, but this topic gets me so heated. The comments are rolling in right now. Y'all at me, comment me if you have any thoughts, comments if you want to vent. I'm here for you. Because again, Guy's Councilor 2.0, it's part time psychologists as well.

John goes long interview processing to turn into why we shouldn't hire this person when it should be, why we should. Yeah, I mean, listen, I think John really hits a head here and then I'm really loud about on Twitter. If you haven't followed me on Twitter, follow me on Twitter at t-decin. But companies need to start hiring for like overall talent within an organization, not for the specific position. Right. So if I interview John, which I've interviewed John before, John, it's good to see you. Right. So there's a spot on my mind that's driving me nuts. So, oh, no, that's on my screen, never mind.

So let's say I interviewed John and I love John, but not for the role. My butt would go immediately to HR and go, hey, I love John. John has this experience. Where can we use this? Where can we use John within the organization? John's got a great personality, can do attitude. We need to move him to eight. We need, we need to figure out where to use, where can we use John? And I would not move on from interviewing another, I would not move on to interview another candidate until I figure out where John could fit with an organization because people are your most important asset to any organization and even more so now, especially with the pandemic and what it's done to fully remote culture and people poaching the best talent from other people.

Alicia here, got an extreme yard. Can I put it in an IT ticket? Y'all need to adjust these daggums, daggums things. Let's see, Alicia, regarding the brutally honest comment. And why is person wants to tell me a company only hires for a reason if they can avoid it they would? Your success comes down to knowing what their problem is. That's important for hiring majors to clearly communicate during the interview. And for the candidates to know the answer, even if you're an intern, there's a reason why they're talking to you. And so I'm gonna harp on recruiters here for a second. This is why recruiters need to ask better questions.

Recruiters need to ask better questions because the recruiter should know why this position is open. You can't see my hand. Why is this position open? And like, is it growth? Well, why is it growth? Well, they just got a seed funding. Okay, great. Is this a backfill from somebody? Yes, it is a backfill from somebody. Well, why is it a backfill from somebody? It's a backfill from somebody because they didn't work well with others. Well, why didn't they work well with others? Well, this person was like very, very hard-headed. And like, they couldn't get along. Our personality is like very laid back, right? Recruiters need to know that.

If recruiters do not know that move on. Or sometimes I don't know. Sometimes I don't know. And I'll just go find the answer for you, but I'll tell you that. I'm Anthony goes so many entry-level jobs they posted for two plus months. I could have been trained, listen, Anthony, that'll preach. This is a whole nother-dang conversation. I don't understand. You're right. I love that a lot. Companies do better. And again, right? You're a listen. You know, if you're a hiring manager, you're watching this show. You're pretty confident or like, you're pretty cocky and you don't even, you're not even technical listen. In my experience, and this may be this, this may not go over well and that's okay, but I have the mic.

You don't need to be technical. That technical to evaluate good talent. I have been incredibly successful in my career never touching Alana code and evaluating what talent looks like. Right? What's all about college football? What's talking about pro football? Right? You have a lot of guys who never play past high school or even like really started in college that are incredible, incredible evaluators of talent. You don't need to code to be successful evaluating talent. Right? So I'm sitting here saying that like, if you come across the stream, you're like, hey, Taylor's pretty confident. I've probably evaluated more people in my career than you have as a hiring manager.

Right? I mean, I essentially hire 50 to 60 people a year with companies. Do you hire 50 to 60 people in a year within your organization? Probably not. So, and I'm telling you that I'm telling I want to come from a place of not bragging. I want to come from a place of my background and why I'm so passionate about this. Because I feel like I can bring something to the table and the industry that's incredibly broken. That's incredibly broken. But Tina goes interview process transparency is a big one. My favorite one is we'll tell you once you make it through the next step, of course, of course the answer then the same.

Yeah, I mean, listen, interview transparency. You got to get better. Got to get better. Casey goes, what's the most effective thing that can do to take some of the frustration out of the screening process? It's a bit of a two-way street. I think driving and interview questions like, hey, Mr. Mrs. Manager, like, you know, so if you're working with the recruiter, you have to let the recruiter drive that because it's a little weird. Like, if Casey, if I submit you to a role and then your driving conversation, it gets a little weird and the manager doesn't know how to respond. So if you're working with the recruiter, let the recruiter drive the conversation.

Let the recruiter drive the conversation. If you are interviewing on your own though, at the end of every interview, hey, listen, like, I really enjoy talking with you. I don't know if you can tell me if we're going to move on the next steps, but, you know, should I follow up tomorrow? Drive conversation. So that's my biggest thing. Drive conversation. Also, two Casey, use the 10 questions that's done for recruiter on my web page, send that to the recruiter. And I think one of those questions is like, why is this role open? So you can get a better idea of what you're stepping into. Kristen, I don't know what you're aiming about, but thank you.

I appreciate that. Brian, you're preaching. Thank you so much. Casey goes as a candidate. I try to teach, try to treat my interviews like I treated in my classroom and I was in education. I want the learner, the hiring manager, to leave the interview, engage in confident on what they've learned regardless of whether I'm the right candidate or not. I want them to feel like they got a complete look at my character in skill set. I think this is incredibly incredibly important. Casey, thank you so much for saying this. I will also tell you this too. I will tell you this too. hiring managers and companies typically do not get their first choice in candidates.

So like if an offer goes out, like for example, there's a guy I've been DMing with on Twitter this morning, he was supposed to start a company like next week. His current company gave him a huge counteroffer he stayed. Now that company who is expecting him to start on Monday has to go to their number two candidate. And so what Casey said, employees, job seekers, if you can approach the interview process with grace, compassion, enthusiasm, being engaged, even if you don't get the spot and that person backs out, I got the spot that took your spot, but then that person backs out, who do you think the hiring manager is gonna call?

They're gonna call you because you were kind, you were empathetic, you were compassionate, you were engaging, you need to remember that. Again, you need to approach the job search is not interviewing but making new friends. Casey goes, let the recruiter drive the conversation. That's great to keep in mind. Yeah, if you're working through recruiter, let them drive that conversation because it gets weird sometimes. All right y'all, that's it for me today. That is it. Happy Tuesday. That's good to hang out with y'all today. I feel like this was a good one. Even though it was a little bit more geared to the hiring manager side, I think it's good, I think it's good for everyone to hear.

So listen, again, share this episode on LinkedIn. Also, by the way, share this episode on LinkedIn because I feel like a lot of people need to hear this. A lot of hiring managers need to hear this. A lot of job seekers need to hear this. So please share this episode if you don't mind. Another thing to my podcast is up and rolling. You're like, Taylor, what's your podcast? It's the audio version of my live show. So if you want to go check out my podcast, Google guidance counselor 2.0 and any podcast that you use. And it's there, please rate, review, subscribe. That would mean absolute.

Tund me, text me 615-235-6500. Tomorrow, so let's talk about tomorrow real quick. I have my man Jerome Hardaway on tomorrow. Jerome Hardaway is at Microsoft. He is a former developer advocate at Quick and Loans. He and I were kind of just spitballing back and forth on what we should talk about. We're gonna talk about remote work and why companies should offer it. And why is a job seeker you should only consider it. So tomorrow, not very intentional tuning is going to be amazing. Thank y'all as always, I appreciate y'all time. Each and every one of you for commenting, liking. It just means the time. So thank you so much.

Y'all have a wonderful, wonderful Tuesday and we'll see y'all first thing Wednesday morning. Peace.