Unlocking Career Mastery: The Secrets Behind HR's Closed Doors

What's up, listeners and watchers? This is another episode of the Ally from Corporate Podcast. If you are listening, first of all, I want to thank you. If you're watching on YouTube, if you're listening to this in your car on your commute, I want to thank you for being here. You guys and your support is the reason I do all this, all this crazy posting on social media, all these podcast episodes. It is truly for you. It is for the people who want to advance their careers, the ambitious professionals who want the behind the scenes look at behind the hiring process, the promotion decisions, everything career. So we have a very special guest today. Her name is Ellie Hochman and she is a career coach for industrial organizational psychologists, which is also called IO Psychology. In this episode we're going to go over why recruiters ghost people. Do recruiters really only spend 10 seconds looking at your resume or less? What is one piece of advice that Ellie would give people if they're early in their career? And also how to support somebody identify what skills they have and what they want to do for work if they just have no idea and they feel overwhelmed by the choices. So without further ado, I want to introduce you to my good friend and fellow career coach, Ellie. Ellie Hochman. Welcome to the Ali from Corporate podcast.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Yes, I'm so glad you're here. We have lots we're going to discuss today, but first I want to introduce you to our listeners. So as you know, our listeners are people all over the world who are looking to advance their careers. Now, you have had a very interesting career. You've worked in recruiting, and now you are a career coach. And you are a career coach for a very specific type of person. Tell us about what is IO Psychology.

Absolutely, I'd love to. So IO psychology is the way that I view it is it's a philosophy. And any type of IO psychology work is work that is done to improve the workplace and improve work lives. So Adam Grant is a very popular IO psychology professional. We love Adam Grant.

We love Adam in his.

The beginning of his podcast starts with we make work lives suck less. And that is the philosophy that I like to go off of and that's how I personally define it. But there's a lot of definitions out there. So some potential fields of expertise are HR consulting, workforce analytics, employee health and wellness. Those are just a couple of examples. But essentially it's anybody who does work to help the workplace thrive.

Got it. That sounds so interesting. I am fascinated by what makes people Thrive at work. What increases and decreases productivity, especially with remote work? So tell me the clients that come to you, the people that you work with and you are able to help successfully. Tell me what is the biggest thing that you see them struggling with and how do you help them overcome that?

Great question. The number one thing I see people really struggling with is knowing exactly what to do. Specifically, when you get a degree in Industrial Organizational psychology, that's what I.O. stands for. Folks feel overwhelmed by the choices that they have available to them because there are a lot of things that you can do to help a workplace thrive. And so what I help a lot of people with is identifying exactly what they want to do. And oftentimes it comes not down to interests, but actually the skills that you enjoy using. So a lot of people in IO psychology, they have a general interest in helping the workplace thrive. They just don't know exactly what skills they. They're going to use to create that.

So.

Having just a list of options is not as helpful as going through your top skills, the skills that you're very good at and that you like using to identify what is it that you can do in the IO field to be. Be successful as well as be happy with what you do. So that is. That is probably the number one challenge that I'm seeing with the. The folks that I've been helping primarily.

Okay, I love that. Okay. You're my favorite kind of career coach because you're not just trying to make money and get somebody through your program. You're trying to help somebody identify what they love, which helps with employee retention and talent acquisition and retention later on for companies. So you are the best kind of career coach. So how do you help people identify, like, what they're good at or what they like doing? Do you have like a personality test or how do you figure that out with people? Yeah.

So we do a skills assessment. So I have identified the skills that are applicable to the IO psychology field, and I have my clients actually rate how much they like that skill and how good they are at it, and then to take off any skills that they don't like using. And then through that exploration, we identify the top five and the bottom five, and then we identify the job titles that use those top five skills and don't use the bottom five. So, yeah, it's a bit of an assessment and it's really just a Google sheet, but that is how we do it. So lasering down into those skills of what you like and what you are.

Good at, that is so cool. I wish colleges did that with people.

But I don't think they do absolutely same. And I also know too that you are really big on work life balance. I've heard that in your past podcasts. I see that in your TikToks, and that is a big part of IO psychology as well. So I just wanted to point that out that I know that you have such a vested interest in this too.

100%. I have definitely been at the wrong end of work life balance and mental health in my corporate life. And it's not fun. Okay, so. So I love this. So you help people identify their skills and what they love. Let's say they are working on their resume, they apply for a job. Is it true that you help people? Let's see, I wrote it down here. You help people see a 30% increase in responses to their applications after implementing your feedback. Like in. Like in terms of getting interviews.

Yes. And let me describe where that comes from too. So my background is actually in data analytics. My role before I went career coaching for full time was a workforce analyst. So I love to track data and I know that you, you do this too. And so something I've been tracking is what is the increase? So we track how many applications you get ghosted on and then how many you get responses and then how many you get interviews for. And so based on all of that data from my past clients, I found that after we implemented resume feedback, I was seeing a 30% increase. Interview invitations, specifically, not just any kind of response, but interview invitations. And so a lot of that came down to actually creating the resume and turning it into more of an accomplishment statement, an accomplishment document, rather than a list of responsibilities and tasks document, because that just made them stand out so much more and be a much stronger and confident candidate. Because also, not only just having that on the resume, but doing that exercise of putting, hey, here's what I've accomplished on a resume really increased their confidence and made them more confident to apply for more jobs as well. So that is. Yes, that is true.

So that is. So if somebody asked me what's the biggest issue you see on people's resumes, that's my number one, that I, that I work with people also, they're describing their job duties, not the impact they had. And I just walked my clients through an exercise, I think it was last week, where this is how you convey your impact before an interview, like on your resume, how to convey your. In your impact during an interview and afterwards, like in between interviews. So I love that we have similar methodologies. Okay, you mentioned ghosting. I ask everybody who is a recruiter, who's been a recruiter, who knows a recruiter, whose grandma's a recruiter. Why do recruiters ghost candidates? Can you, like, for the people right now that are listening or watching, that are job searching and they're getting ghosted, what is going on from a recruiter's perspective?

Okay, so my answer is actually going to come a little bit more from my IO psychology background than my own recruiting background. So as a recruiter, myself and the recruiting teams I worked on, we worked very hard to make sure that we did not ghost our candidates. And what that meant was we had to put systems in and processes in place to ensure that we could review the candidates that came into our system. And if we got overwhelmed with candidates, then we would pause a requisition or we would ask for additional help. It was our priority to get back to all of our candidates, whether it was a rejection or interview invitation. So that's from my own personal experience, but from my IO background, and I've also done some freelance recruitment consulting, I find that the recruitment process is very disorganized and very much centered around priorities. So if we think about a company that has a hundred openings, 100 requisitions, there are certain requisitions that they need to fill immediately. Right. And then there's those other requisitions that are deprioritized. Those ones are just going to take longer. So if we take. I used to recruit for restaurants, for example, the front line, those spots need to be filled immediately, or else we could not open the store, we could not run the business. Whereas if we were hiring an accountant, we could take a lot more time with that because we still had other accountants on the team who could do the work. And then those priorities change as well. So there's disorganization, deprioritization, and then two, just organizational change as well. So sometimes when a recruiter goes on PTO or leaves the company, there can leave too.

Or sick.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And so as a recruitment consultant myself, I. I say, okay, like when we're going on pto, we're going to let all of our applicants know we're going to hand off the contact to other recruiters. But it's surprising how much of that feels like common sense to us, but it's not actually put in place in an organization. And it's sad, too. My other response to why recruiters ghost is because they don't have the skills to Reject with care. And so they assume that if they just don't respond that. That you'll feel better.

So you're saying not everybody has empathy and good communication skills. Mind blowing. Yeah. Okay, so it's like, it's like if you can't say something nice, don't say something at all.

Right. And I think a lot of recruiters, too, are people, people, people, people, persons. And they don't like to make other people unhappy. And. And they know that when they reject them, it will make them unhappy.

But yeah, I would agree with all of that.

I definitely think there's a way to do it. There is definitely a way to reject with care and respect.

Yeah. And I also think that it sheds light on the company and how it treats people the way they handle a rejection.

Absolutely.

And lately I've been trying to come up with some ideas on how these auto rejection emails that job candidates get, how companies can repurpose or reimagine the auto rejection email, because do you have clients that get auto rejected?

Oh, yeah, all the time.

And it sucks. It sucks for, you know, you just know, especially if you get auto rejected within hours of an application, you know that nobody looked at your resume except for the ATS system maybe. Yeah, so.

Or they advanced it for a quick second. Right.

And thought not qualified. So, so do recruiters. So my question here is, I've heard this crazy statistic that recruiters only look at resumes for 10 seconds or less. Have you heard that and do you think that's true?

I've heard it, and I think it's true some of the time and not true all the time. So I think any generalization about recruiters in general needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Of course, any generalization about anybody in general needs to be taken with a grain of salt. But I think that. That recruiters do get really good at knowing exactly what they're looking for. They get really good at also making assumptions, which is not good. And after years in the recruitment profession, you start to make assumptions based off of past experiences. So let's say you have an interview with somebody who worked at Google and they were really. The interview was really bad. They were really disrespectful. Next Google person that comes across, there's kind of that, like that idea in the back of your.

That wound. That wound from last time. That.

Yeah.

And it might even be unconscious bias because I know recruiters. Nobody's supposed to be biased in hiring, but people are. It's. It's kind of human Nature, I think.

And I think that's where AI needs to be used, is when. When you can't take bias out. So I don't think AI should replace the human side of the process, but I think that AI can be helpful in making equitable decisions, but it shouldn't be the final decision maker.

I agree. That's a great idea. I've seen AI try to be implemented in the recruiting process, in the hiring process. For example, somebody I worked with got a request, basically by AI to make a video answering the question, why do you want to work here and send it back to us? And it was like batching the interview question and sending it to 500 people. And they must have had to review 500 videos or maybe AI did it. So I think there's definitely. I'm glad you brought up AI. I think there's an appropriate place for AI in recruiting, but there's definitely places where it should still be that human contact. Um, so. Yeah, good point.

Yeah.

So go ahead. Yeah, go ahead, Go ahead.

I was just gonna say recruitment professionals in general, I think we're all trying to find where the appropriate balance is because we do wanna automate some of our processes and use AI for some of our processes so that we can get back to more of our candidates. Um, especially when we have a very big candidate pool. Cool. Yeah. But at the same time, we have to make sure that we're still using it in an ethical fashion.

Yeah, 100%, I know that. So I have a friend who just went to Washington, dc, gave a talk on responsible AI to congressional staffers and board members and investors. So I know those conversations are happening, like, on a federal level. And the question is, like, how do we implement these responsible practices? How do we standardize this across the board?

Board.

But I completely agree with you. It's. It's tough. It's an interesting world we're in right now with all these crazy digital, you know, these tools and techniques that are new.

Right. And it's. This is one of the reasons I became a career coach was because as a recruiter, I saw the back end and I needed people to understand the back end so that they could excel on the front end.

Yes. So what else would you tell people that are listening right now that are like. I'm trying to think of, like, what other questions they ask. Um, we talked about ghosting. We talked about looking at resumes for 10 seconds. We talked about what people look for on a resume. Impactful statements. Um, what. Let's take it to the interview. So what in recruiting, what are people looking for in an interview? What tips do you, do you want to give people about how to interview impactfully?

Yeah, I love that. Interviewing impactfully often comes down to the connection, the human connection that you're having with the other person. So how can you meet their needs? And their needs differ. So recruiters needs a hiring manager's needs and your peer. If you ever interview with a peer, all of their needs are different. So the recruiter is looking for somebody who they can give to the hiring manager that will make them look good, that they're also looking for somebody who will fill the role that they have open. I think one of the important things to remember is that a recruiter's entire job is to fill their roles like they are motivated, they want to fill their roles. Then the hiring manager's motivation is to find somebody who is going to come into the team and do great work. And then the peer's motivation is to find somebody who's going to fit in with the team and not need a bunch of hand holding or a bunch of training. And so based on who you're interviewing with and if you're interviewing with multiple people at a time, you'll need to cater your responses to exactly what their motivations are. So when you have your very first phone interview and it's with a recruiter, focus on how you are certain that this role is for you and that you're really excited about this opportunity for the company. Then when you meet with the hiring manager, talk about how you have created impacts in the past and the ideas that you have to create impact for this company. Then when you meet with your peer, you know, talk about how you have facilitated growth within your fellow teammates. Talk about, you know, kind of your, your work style and, and be friendly and have a conversation when you're, when you're meeting with a peer. So I, I like to keep that in mind too of like thinking about our interviewers motivation.

That is so smart. I just had this conversation with a client a couple days ago and it was basically the same thing. Know who your audience is. And one of my clients is a data scientist and I recommended don't get too technical with the recruiter. They're not a subject matter expert.

Yes.

Keep it high level, keep it positive, be excited. Then when you talk to the hiring manager and your future potential co worker, then you can go deep into like data analytics for example.

Yes. You are so spot on, Ali. I cannot tell you how many times I would be in a conversation with A candidate, and they would ask me a list of questions that were incredibly technical, that I knew nothing about. And it made me feel kind of stupid. And I didn't like feeling stupid. So, you know, obviously I didn't reject the person right then and there for that or anything of that nature. But, you know, if you want to stand out and you want to do well in your interviews, think about what you're. The person you're talking to, what they know. You can do research on them beforehand. If you've got their name, go look them up on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn.

See where their role is in the organization and try to understand what their motivations are.

Yes. I recently worked with somebody who was interviewing, and I had them go look up any patents or inventions or articles that their interviewer had been involved with. They found one. They mentioned it during the interview, and the guy was flabbergasted. He was like, you read my article? So, yes, absolutely. Prepare for interviews. Know who you're talking to. I love that. And I love that you've debunked a lot of, like, myths today about, like, what is happening on the back end? Why are people ghosting me? Where does that auto rejection come in? And I, I like what you said. Like, recruiters are people, too. They're trying to do their jobs, they're trying to fill roles. They have a goal. So if they can swipe on a profile and just. Nope, not a good fit. Not a good fit. They're going to save time doing that. So, yeah, the 10 seconds is probably accurate sometimes. Um, but I want to thank you before we end this today. If there is an IO psychology person who's, like, struggling right now, and they're like, I don't know what I want to do, or I'm, like, looking for some support. How can people get in touch with you?

Absolutely. LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the place to find me. That is where I am almost every day, except for Saturdays. I do take Saturdays off. Work life balance. You know, um, but I'm there almost every day, so LinkedIn's the. The place to find me.

I love your LinkedIn posts, too. I think I forget if you were telling me in a post. I think it was in a post recently, you said, I posted that people are bringing their parents to interviews, and you posted that you had a mom call once and ask how their child's candidacy, how their application was doing. Tell me about that real quick.

Yeah, for sure. I had a mom call and she wanted to check in on her son's application. We, you know, we just let her know that, you know, we can't talk about the candidate where. Where candidate is in the process with anybody but them. But, you know, thanks for checking in. But, like, on the inside, I was, like, mortified for this poor guy. And I bet he probably did not ask his mom to do that. I think she was just really excited for him. And so, yeah, that's a very interesting experience.

So if you're listening to this, don't get your parents. Don't get your parents involved in the interview process.

Nope.

You look much better without them. You're an adult. You can do this.

You can. And if you.

If you don't think you can do it and you need help, reach out to Ellie, reach out to me. We can support you. Follow her on LinkedIn. She gives great tips every day. Thank you so much for talking with us. I feel like I learned a lot just now, too, and I know my. My listeners will, too.

Very good. So happy to be here. If I can. If I can just give one last piece of advice that I think will kind of summarize. Everything that we just talked about is to review your recruiter as somebody who is there for you and somebody who wants you to succeed. We have. There are a lot. There's a lot of information out there on social media about, you know, how recruiters are thinking. And, you know, of course there are going to be recruiters out there that don't do their jobs well, but then there are also going to be recruiters who are rooting for you and they're on your team. So if you come in with that positive attitude that this is somebody who wants to support you, positivity just breeds more positivity. So that is my big piece of advice that if I could leave any listener with, I want you to just take that one at least away, that your recruiter can be somebody who is actually very excited for you and wants to see support you in the process.

I love that. And some people might see recruiters as the enemy. They're not. You are right. They want you to succeed. Recruiters probably celebrate when their. Their candidate gets the job.

Oh, yes. Every time. Oh, yeah.

Every time.

Absolutely. Yeah. Like I said, it's our. The whole motivation is to fill our requisition. We're so excited when somebody does. So they're rooting for you. They want you. They might not get back to you, but ultimately they do want you to succeed.

That's awesome. I'm glad you said that. That's probably shocking to some people right now, but I'm glad you put that. Thank you so much for joining us today. It was great talking to you, as always, and thanks, everybody, for tuning in. We'll catch you next time.