How Recruiting Is More than Gut Feeling | Andy Hu

All right.

Hi everyone.

Welcome back to another episode of Bits and Bytes. Today we have a very special guest with us named Andy. He's actually a close friend of mine and we managed to get him on the show today. Andy, I'll let you take things off and introduce yourself from here.

Sounds good. Thanks for having me here. Sam, Kami, Jane, good to see you all. My name is Andy and I've worked as a recruiter for the past three years within a multiple industries and diverse roles, some of which includes tech, hr, accounting and the rest. But what's more relevant to today is tech. Always been fascinated by the ability to seemingly create something out of nothing. And from an outsider's perspective, programmers generally seem like magicians for me. So that's honestly why I stepped into recruitment to begin with because I was fascinated by the tech realm.

Awesome. And so for those that you know, might be curious, like what were you doing before you decided to go into recruiting? Like did you have like a HR background? You do any kind of education or certification to get into recruiting?

I have probably one of the most interdisciplinaries background from an education perspective, psych major, BISC and minor. None of which touched on really recruiting per se. But as luck will have it, it's one of those things where I was at the right place at the right time. I would say generally most people can go into recruitment but you do have to know the right people if you have no experience or you have some type of sales experience from the past. I've worked in retail sales, I've worked in software sales before I stepped into recruiting. So after I departed that software sales job I connected with a friend and he always thought I would be good in recruitment. Gave it a shot and fast forward to today. I three years on my belt. So it's one of those industries where the more you give is and the more you'll get because you're honestly making a difference and not only the lives of those around you and your company, but also enriching the ones of your candidates that are ideally coming into a better environment, you know, closer to home, better pay, more opportunities for growth and the likes.

Awesome. Just for those that I'm kind of curious because obviously I've never worked in a recruiter recruitment myself. What's the correlation between sales or even retail experience and recruitment?

So think about it this way. You can have a fantastic product generally in a sales consens but if you have no one to push or market or sell this product, no good. Same goes for a job. So the core essence or product of a recruiter is the role that you're trying to fill or hire for. Um, in order for you to appeal to so many different candidates out there competing at the same time with other companies out there hiring for the exact same roles, you have to be able to effectively communicate the main highlights of the role. But before you even do that, you have to understand what that candidate is looking for. And so this requires a variety of different skills. But first and foremost, I would say communications, thorough research skills, and then once again, time back to the sales skills. Because once you understand what they're looking for, now you have to position the role in such a way that it resonates with the other side.

That makes a lot of sense. This is really fascinating because, like, I think both Gene and I can mostly speak to, to the other, to the other end, right? Like, we're, we're looking for a job in tech, and we're, we're trying to hunt down, you know, the right fit for, for us. But I think most people don't think, from the perspective of the other side is that they probably want, you know, the ideal version of you just as bad as you want to be. You know, find, find an occupation. And I think that's, that's something that I think could be really interesting for, for potential, you know, whoever's listening on online right now that's looking to get into tech, I think that's really interesting as well.

Definitely. And so for me, like, I'm more curious because, you know that you said you have to kind of learn how to, like, market yourself and like, you're essentially kind of selling yourself, right? So like, in terms of, like, the process, then, like, from a recruiter standpoint, when you have, let's say, someone that wants to hire your services to find a job, like, do you do kind of like an interview with them? Like, do you, you know, meet with them in person? Like, how do you get a better idea of, like, how. What kind of candidate there are and like, how do you help them improve their marketability?

For sure. So I would say this is more relevant to my agency experience because as a corporate recruiter, I have to differentiate between the two. So agency, recruit, recruiter, you're hiring for any company that's willing to hire you on for your services, a corporate recruiter or internal recruiter, you're only hiring and looking out for the company usually. So when it comes to really being able to put yourself out there and help more candidates, I have actually found that you have more power and capacity to do so in an agency perspective, because your, your job is to meet candidates, as many as possible, that are quality over quantity, and then try to find them a, you know, ideal fit within the variety of roles that you're working on. So going back to your question, just to confirm my understanding, you're saying, if I'm a candidate right now and I'm trying to look for a job and I connect with an agency recruiter, what would be the other side's services or process to help me out? Is that the idea?

Yes, exactly.

So generally I usually connect with them either via online, so social media, LinkedIn as an example, or in person, friend of a friend, connection of sorts. After the initial point of contact, we usually set up a time to connect and some prep work I'd like them to usually do is to be able to bring first off their resume. I don't need a cover letter because as I'm speaking to these folks, I generally have a good understanding as to who they are, and my job is to effectively sell their relevancy to these hiring managers. I would say the biggest challenge that I found when I was starting to look for a job, and this seems to resonate with a lot of the candidates as well, is how do you get yourself out there? Because when you're applying for a job, especially right now during a pandemic when there was a lot of turnover and kind of shuffling of jobs and people and bodies, it seems like there's hundred different candidates per role. So how do you really get a foot in the door so that, you know, you have a person on the other hand, that you can communicate and speak with and have a chance to present yourself? This is where I would normally come in. I'd be able to get an understanding as to, hey, what are your motivations? What's your relevant educational experience from professional work experience perspective or volunteer work perspective, or even group projects? A lot of times people don't necessarily have the experience to begin with. That's okay. All you got to do is put in extra effort and seem earnest and keen in doing side projects and learning trades from, you know, online education and connecting with people to show them that you have that interest and drive at the very least.

Gotcha. So I'm actually kind of curious then, like, when you look for, you know, potential candidates, what are some of, like the, like, green flags and what are some of the red flags?

And I guess to add on to that, like, does that depend on the role? Like, like, I think specifically we're looking at the tech industry, like, we usually divide into two. Right. Like technical roles and non technical roles.

For sure.

Right. Like. And I'm guessing there's different requirements for each.

Yeah, every requirement is different because it's a different role you're trying to fill. Yeah, so that's a given. But when it comes to green flags, some of the, aside from what the hiring managers have communicated to us, I would say generally speaking, the skills that I'm looking for are communication skills. Because regardless of whatever role you're working in, you're going to be communicating with, whether it's internal stakeholders, your teammates, your project leaders, or external stakeholders, your clientele's your customers. So as a result, that's the first and foremost thing that I'm looking for, your ability to present or communicate. Secondly, I would say I'm honestly looking for someone who has a genuine intent and interest in the job and company. Because I don't know about you guys, but have you ever spoken with someone who's at an interview but they, they're just giving off this aura like they don't really need or want this job? It's very evident. So that's a waste of time on both ends. Probably been on that side too. Like, I think I speak for myself too. When, you know, way back then, I was interviewing for a variety of companies. There was one or two where I just went for the sakes of practicing or for the sakes of getting a better understanding as to what the company's about. But I already knew internally that I wasn't interested.

Right.

So we've all been there. And then the third green flag that I would say I usually look for is to make sure that they are friendly. They don't have to be extroverted, like when it comes to the energy that they're giving off or derived from. But at the very least they're friendly. Because once again, you're working with people. And usually if you're going to be working with these guys, whether it's virtually in person Monday to Friday or even weekend sometimes. Right. Ideally, you can connect on a professional level or a casual.

Awesome.

Maybe it's speaking more to your time working internally with recruitment. But where, where does culture come into play in terms of like, you know, you were talking about friendliness. Right. How to, how. And then culture, I find, is this kind of like voodoo word that employers tell you when they don't want to hire you. Right. But I also think on the other side there is truth to that. Right. Like if they're not the Right. Fit culture wise, whatever that means, then it's reality that both sides won't be happy in the long run. So how does that usually get tackled?

So there's a variety of things that I want to address there because that was a multitude of aspects that you're talking about. So I'll try to address each and every one. But first and foremost, I would say how a culture is defined to begin with starts from the top so that first employee or the founder of the company ends up sequent hires is what formulates the culture on top of. Usually if you don't have an hr, if you do, that's great, but you also have to maintain the culture too. So two aspects. Whoever you bring in forms of culture, and then to maintain and also strengthen or even grow the culture, you have to ensure that there's, you know, strict guidelines, or I wouldn't say strict, necessarily more so general guidelines with people to help support and reiterate on it if necessary. And then beyond that. Yes. Oftentimes there's a variety of excuses I've heard both as a candidate and as a recruiter for my colleagues. And I think I've had to give some. I generally try to be transparent, but sometimes my hands are tied where they use culture or, you know, there was a better candidate as an excuse. And unfortunately that is the industry norm. A lot of people do say that, but I would say these days I'm meeting more and more recruiters that are trying to be transparent where possible. Right. Because they've been candidates. We've all been candidates at one point. And it just feels so disheartening when you put your heart into it. And on paper, maybe even you seem like you're a great fit, but then they come back and tell you, hey, it was a culture fit issue. Yep, for sure.

And then. And then I think along those kind of lines, I think you touched on a little bit because I think we've been looking from the vantage point of someone looking for work. Right. But I think a lot of our listeners right now are our founders themselves. Some may have hired before, some may have not hired in Canada per se. Like, what are some tips if you're like, let's say you're a new company in Vancouver just for the sake of this conversation.

Sure.

What are some things to kind of simply get going when you're starting to look for candidates?

Right.

First define exactly why you need to hire and for what position. So establish the scope of the role and whether it's, you know, a lot, a lot of mistakes that I've seen is people trying to, as an example, fit two or three roles into one. So that's a disaster to begin with. So I would say make sure that you've tried and tested either through research, you know, looking at other companies in similar roles to see what the responsibilities are and then try to see if that also applies to your company and the need that you currently have. Once the establish that has been established, your guidelines and roles. Now it comes down to sourcing, to finding the right fit. And from there on out you can honestly utilize just about anything at your fingertips, whether it's your immediate circle of influence. So your friends, your family, your loved ones, tell them the word that you are hiring, that there's a great company that's kicking off and is looking for some similar minded people that are willing to grow with the company. That sort of thing usually resonates with candidates because these days I would say more and more. So it's no longer a company driven market, it's a candidate driven market. Because there's so many options for candidates these days and the average tenure has changed from our parents days where usually one person would stay 40, 50 years and then retire, collect their retirement and that's it. These days it seems like people are jaw popping a bit more, which has its caveats also its advantages. We can talk about that another day or today if you'd like. But I would say at the end of the day, just making sure that you have an idea of what you're looking for, that you put the word out there and then you have a process set in place for interviewing and filtering the ideal candidates. And then once you've identified said candidate, be quick because if you drag your feet, someone else will snag them up. And similarly, if you really like this candidate, don't daily dally because the other side will also resonate and feel whether or not you truly respect their time and whether you appreciate them for who they are.

No, it makes sense. And just to. I want to get really practical for a second because some of the questions that maybe Gene or I have had with, with founders that are actually looking to hire is, is the, the concept of, of salary? Right? Yeah, so, so with salary, like I'm not saying that we need to go into specifics like, like a developer is worth X or, or, or a market is worth Y. I think that varies. But when you are new and you're trying to understand and maybe you have had a background, like we work with a lot of entrepreneurs, just as contacts that are in Canada for the first time. Right. So maybe a developer from their home country is with a. And now in Vancouver, they don't know if providing a as a salary is too low, too high. You know, how do they get information on setting, I guess, an appropriate amount so that they're not turning away good candidates, but also they're not like, they're not, you know, out, you know, outsourcing.

Great question.

Putting too high.

Yeah, I would say research information is power. So there's a lot of resources on hand. Whether it's pay scale or a glassdoor or I think there's even a national like from Canada, Canadian government side. They usually release the average salary for specific roles, but you kind of have to mix and match and put all those together. That's one way you can do it. The second way you could do it is connect with an industry expert, someone who's already been recruiting in the field or hiring in the field for some time. Leverage their experience and their wisdom. You don't necessarily have to have had a recruiter in your company. You could connect with someone on LinkedIn, someone that you know from a friend or a loved one or a family and have that conversation. Aside from that, you can also communicate with the candidate right after you've done your research, after you've connected with your friends, family or loved one or just a stranger, and you have that grassroots foundation understanding as to what the general scope of salary is, you can communicate with the candidate and try to understand what their range looks like. I would say the general guideline from both a candidate and a job, job seeker and a hiring manager's perspective is to not just fixate yourself on one number and not just fix it yourself on salary alone, because that's not enough to really get someone through the door nor to hold someone there for a longer period of time. These days, candidates are looking for more than just pay. They're looking for benefits. They're looking like as an example, health insurance. They're looking for great mentorship or leadership opportunity for growth. Whether it's remote work in the times of pandemic or just the flex schedule of being able to go into the office or out of the office. These are all items that you could work to negotiate on. So although salary is important, you have to also keep in mind that there's a variety of other factors that really determine whether or not you have a competitive package.

And so, you know, speaking from experience as well, then like for companies like, have you seen a lot of them kind of hire on like agencies or like recruiters to find and source their candidates. Or do you find that's usually with like. Sorry, I should rephrase that. Like with like smaller startups, do they usually hire on like recruiting services like externally? Or do you find that it's usually like larger, like more established companies that reach out for those professional services?

I would say generally speaking, from my experience, it seems like smaller companies or startups do not normally leverage the services of external agencies for the main reason of budget. They're starting off. Oftentimes they're bootstrapping. So they don't necessarily have the capacity to leverage a professional services staffing industry like company. However, there are times when there could be one offs, for example, if they have connections once again, or if the recruiting or staffing company is actually also a startup and they're looking to get their foot into the door by building up their clientele. That could be a great way for a win win situation where the staffing company slash person is looking for, you know, building up their portfolio and the reputation as an individual contributor or as a new startup. Similarly, on, on the tech side or the hiring side, they're also looking for, you know, some, some help in the hiring context, but also more cost conscious services. So that could be an opportunity there. Yeah, generally speaking, that's what I see.

And so like just kind of going forward, more of a practical route too. Like, you know, if we have, you know, larger companies, they're, you know, large in like Asia or Europe, but they want to move to Canada and then they're like, crap, now I got to hire on at least like 10 people. Like, do you recommend in that case, like if they have the budget, do you recommend that case? Like, best bet is to just like, you know, go with a professional or do you think that, you know, is there enough resources available online for them to kind of figure out how to start, you know, posting those job listings and how to, you know, source out candidates? Like, what would be your recommendation?

So just for clarification here, even if you were to leverage professional services, you would still have a hand in the hiring process because at the end of the day it's your company and you, you want to have a say. Ideally, in determining whether or not this person is not, both is both a technical and a cultural fit. So regardless of whatever modality you choose, you're going to play a part. I would say if you have the resources available in terms of time and money, it's really, there's really no right or wrong because you could Hire it out. That's fine because you have the budget for it, but at one point you might decide to take it in house. That's really a choice for you and kind of the situation that you're in. Similarly, if you decide to do it on your own, one saying that I heard before is if you have the ability to hire it out because your time is more valuable, do so. Right. If you're really good at, for example, product design, but you're not really good at selling that product, would you really want to go and sell your product when you could be dedicating your time to creating new products or building better products? Similarly, in this context, if you're a new tech startup, and maybe, let's say you're in the gaming industry, you love creating games, you just don't know how to hire and you don't know how to sell, but you have the budget, right, why not dedicate your time to what you love doing and what you're really good at, and then the remainder, shuffle that time and money to someone else. Hire it out. So that's my personal perspective. I would say on a concluding note for that topic is one of the best things about hiring a staffing service is at the end of the day, you don't pay anything unless they hire someone for you.

See, Interesting. That's a good thing to know because I think, you know, one of the major roadblocks that a lot of companies come into is like, you know, the first thing they want to do is obviously establish their office, but then the next is like, starting to hire, like, you know, Canadians so that they can start, you know, building out their company here, just out of curiosity. Then like, just kind of in my mind, combining, you know, HR with recruitment, generally, I feel like those words can be kind of interchanged sometimes in terms of like a company position. So at what point do you think that a company should look into hiring, like a permanent, like in house HR or a recruiting role?

So HR is very broad. Recruitment is one facet of hr. And so that's why typically it depends on who you ask. But for me personally, I feel like those two are very separate. I've seen a variety of different setups and companies from both clients and companies that I've worked in internally. Where some companies have an HR that specializes in just, let's say, for example, benefits and some that specialize in recruitment and a variety of different specializations. Whereas other companies where maybe they don't have as much budget or maybe their emphasis is on other departments, they have one person that does it all. You do recruitment, you do administration, you do benefits, you do contract writing, terminations, everything. So I would say that's usually a choice that you have to make. But what I personally would prefer if I was launching a startup is to have someone that specializes within their specific capacity because that way I know for sure I'm getting the best for my buck.

I see. Cool. It's definitely great. Like yeah, I mean I feel like me like when I think HR is always just like this broad like oh, like HR person does everything like benefits as you mentioned, the wages and everything as such. But I didn't realize, you know, when you go, I guess higher level there are more specializations within the HR umbrella.

Absolutely. Also to expand on that because it just came up, I would say generally try to h on your own or get one off services when you're starting off because to bring someone in house is very expensive if you don't have, let's say five or 10 roles at least through a given couple months. Right. It may be better to just hire out because when you hire out it could be anywhere. Depending on the level of seniority or difficulty of the role, you could be paying anywhere from a couple grand to 10, 20 grand for more senior role. But if you were to bring someone in house, you could be paying them on average if they're starting off or if they're more Senior, anywhere from 40, 45k on the lower end to closer to 80 to 100k in Vancouver's market. So you know, you have to determine how many roles or capacity that you really need to bring in and then figure out which one makes the most sense. Other alternatives is. Sorry to interrupt.

Oh, no, no, no.

You could bring on a contract recruiter someone who comes in on a three month, six month or one month basis. One way. One reason why this is a good idea is you can test out to see if bringing someone in house actually works for you, for your style, your company. In addition, you're. It's kind of a win win situation where both sides has a chance to try each other out. The contract recruiter could think, all right, well I don't know if this company is going to be a fitting role for me, so why don't I try them out for months? And similarly on the founder side, hey, I don't know if I have the capacity or am I willing to take the risks to bring someone else on board full time, permanent maybe I don't even need that many people. I just have this brief three to six month period where I need a couple roles. So that could be an alternative as well.

Cool. And so I know we kind of touched a little bit on this, you know, how a company can scope out or I guess get the best reach when it comes to candidates. What are some other ways that a company itself can like market themselves even more? So whether, you know, to become more attractive, let's say, to a potential candidate.

So because this is more of a broader question, we don't yet know the, the candidate that we're looking for. I'd like to usually establish a demographic I'm targeting first as an example. If we're looking for co ops or looking for, you know, people with experience between one to three years, I would say your best bet is to start with universities, colleges, connect with their career services department, connect with their co op advisors because their job is to find jobs for their students. Right. So you can help each other out that way too. And you also have more willing candidates because they are looking for jobs, you know, they've got maybe heavy student loan debt, they're done and complete with their schooling, ready to make a difference in the world. And so they usually have a lot more Ernst and drive to find you as opposed to the reverse. So that's one way if you were looking for more mid level, three to five year tenured experience professionals in this regards, you would have to do a little bit more headhunting. So whether it's connecting once again with your friends, family, loved ones, asking if they know anyone. Right. Because the referral oftentimes is a lot better than usually someone that you don't know because you've already had someone vet for you that you've already personally known. And so you can head hunt via LinkedIn as an example. If you're looking for a technical role, you could Also look at GitHub to see if you know these because you can do different Boolean searches. Booleans meaning specific keywords to filter and search via a platform. On GitHub, there's a lot of repositories. If you're technical, you can analyze those and see if they actually have the technical aptitude to suit your need. If you're looking for more senior folks, now we're talking maybe like CTO level or manager or director level in this case. It's a very competitive field for a lot of your founders. I don't know if that's like, because I'm not as familiar with that side of business. I would say if they were looking for executives, it is probably better to connect with industry professionals that are all like, for example, within startups there's a lot of entrepreneurial circles. Or you could do executive search, hire a staffing service company to help you find the right fit because then they will dedicate, usually months to try to find you the best fit and not on your dime because it's only if they fill the role once again. And if they do and they bring you an excellent talent, that initial deposit or pay will pay itself in dividends because you brought in the right person.

Awesome. I'm actually really glad that you brought that last part up because I think one of the pain points for a lot of like both local and our international startups is like finding a co founder or finding a cto like the executives, I think is the most challenging. Like even ourselves as part of the program, we do try to do, you know, CXO dinners. We try to do, you know, or there's other events that are like, you know, CTO speed dating or CXO speed datings. So I definitely think that especially in Vancouver, it's like one of the unspoken challenges of having your own startup for sure. So I'm really glad you brought that up.

There are other ways of this is getting a bit more creative. So a lot of times when people are looking for, let's say a CTO or CXO or whatever the case, they just look for that title. But there's a kind of a niche market where if you were to go and look at like the next step down and you look at folks that have been in certain companies and capacities for years and you've seen that they progressed, you've seen that they made impact, those could also be people that are ready to take the next step. And if you were to give them that opportunity, given previous alignments, when it comes to cultural and responsibilities and technical aptitude, they could grow with the company very well because they're incentivized to do so as well. Having been stagnant at a, at a position that they haven't really moved at in a while. But you know, if you, if you communicate with them, you understand where they're coming from and you do your research effectively, that could be your way of getting one step ahead of the game because everyone else is looking for the folks already in those positions, you're kind of going one step further and connecting with those that aren't yet there, but could be.

I see. So actually that kind of made me think of this question then, like, do you think that you Know, is it weird for a company to actually kind of consider like poaching someone else from another company? Like, is there, there's no bad blood or anything when it comes to, at.

The end of the day, you can't compel and force someone to change jobs unless they really want to. No one is going to move from their current role unless it makes sense for them. If I were to approach Eugene or Sam or Camille and say, hey, I've got this great opportunity for you, you know, and you love working where you're at, you know, you're, you're getting great compensation, good career growth, it's convenient. Like you love culture, everything. Why would you move? And so in this case, hiring, poaching from different companies, it's just, it's just a norm. Right. Even if you don't go poach from different companies, they might approach you. In that case, is it called poaching? Not necessarily. Sometimes though, there are. Whether it's communicated number or not on paper, but verbally or it's just one of those things where you have partnerships with certain companies. In that case there are written rules saying that you can't poach from them and that's fair. But generally in the market, everyone poaches from everyone.

Do anything like non competes do anything or.

Yeah, non competes do. I mean, I'm not, so, I'm not a lawyer, so I don't want to speak too extensively in that regards. But non competes are there for a reason. So once again, like I can't speak to too much of the technicalities or legalities of it. But say as an example, if I was, if I was working at Microsoft and then I immediately moved to another company, I can't utilize knowledge or experience that I've gained from, or, sorry, knowledge that I've gained internally at Microsoft to poach from Microsoft from my understanding because that would be using information that I gleaned during my time. There's, you know, inside info that's not publicly available. So if I knew that they had an upcoming project or they were doing massive layoffs or anything of the sort, like I may be restricted in terms of what I can do to poach from them.

Yeah, I actually kind of wanted to kind of loop back a little bit more on like the recruiting like profession itself a bit. So if there are any, you know, interested viewers that, listeners, both yours and listeners that, you know, they don't really have like the technical background but they want to use like recruitment as kind of like the stepping stone, what are, you know, some Practical advice. You know, I know you mentioned that, you know, I've gotten to meet the right people. It's a variety of, like, you know, skill sets. But do you think that the recruitment profession is kind of like, glammed up in any way? Like, what are some of the challenges of being a recruiter that aren't really spoken about?

I think there was two questions rolled up into one there. The first one, you let me think. Yeah, okay. So the first one you mentioned about not being technical, but using recruitment kind of as a way in. So for that, I want to make sure that I first understand what that person is trying to step into. If they wanted to be a programmer, I would say don't be a technical recruiter. Go study programming. Go be a QA first. Go be a development support and then work your way up to becoming a programmer. However, if, for example, you wanted to be, you know, maybe you want to have a better understanding as to what the industry looks like and speak to other technical folks, you could do that and then learn coding on the side. And similarly, you've built that internal relationships with hiring managers and other technical folks, you know, in a variety of seniorities. By the time you're ready to make that switch to tech, that could also work, but there's not one right way. So that's just one option out of many. To your second part, I believe you asked me, what are the challenges when it comes to being a recruiter? Is that correct? Okay. Just like any other jobs, there's upsides and downsides, I would say, from what I can think of on the spot right now, some of the challenges includes gaps in the scope of what I'm hiring for, whether it's timeline, budgetary, or the skill set. Because there's been times where there's a clearly defined job description that's been communicated to me or even I. I did the. The initial intake requirement G.