Anthony Ysasaga: Talent Strategy Without the Theater Live on Shally's Alley

Hey everybody, how's it going? You are live on Shelly's Alley. It is December 18th— no, wait, 18th or 19th? Oh my God, I lost track of time. This happens a lot. It must be the holidays. So December 19th, actually, not 18th, and you are on Shelly's Alley live. Our guest today is none other than Anthony Isasaga. Anthony and I almost worked together for a short period of time. Um, we had a bit of a false start. I hired him to come work with me at, uh, at a previous job, and then, uh, something tragic happened, and it was a bad family situation, so we ended up not being able to actually, uh, complete the project. But we've kept in touch, and our like-minded individuals with very different perspectives. So, I invited him on the show to pick his brain about, let's just put it this way, frameworks. And my ask was, let's talk about, because one of the things I wanted him to build when I hired him was, you know, help me build a framework, right, for what we were going to be executing on, some pretty lofty goals for a high-growth technology unicorn. So I said, let's put together a framework. And he came back and of course, you know, one-upped me and said, not just a framework, but let's talk about a framework that anybody can use in any industry and for any role with any tools available. And I'm like, that's not possible. And he's like, yeah, it is. And I was like, no, show me. And he goes, wait, I'll show you on the show. So this is the show.

Perfect.

Normally you have to pay me a lot of money to do that, so You know, now we're in the weeds here and let's just go. I guess my first thing is, is there really, like, is there really a framework that anybody can adapt immediately for any role? Is that even—

Absolutely. I mean, I, you know, I've been in the industry since 2002. So I started with a boutique firm, worked my way through different corporate organizations. Um, most recently ended up with, uh, Korn Ferry, um, worked for Amazon, done some work for Deloitte, like some of the best in the business.

And, um, you know, I, uh, you know, a lot of different types of jobs too, by the way.

Yeah, yeah, types of jobs. And so for me, I want to be able— I wanted to be able to create something that I could utilize, a strategy that I could utilize in any job, like kind of a plug-and-play. Um, and for me, I developed a 4-tier system that helped me really and truly develop some of the best talent. I mean, it, it provides me an outline or framework of what exactly needs to be done in order to be successful. And it includes every aspect of everything that needs to be included. All right.

Comprehensive.

Yeah.

Can you give us like a quick outline of it? Just a big picture overview of it. So absolutely.

So the 4-tiered system that I have, uh, is, um, uh, it's 4 stages. The first one is intake discovery. Um, the second one is identifying and finding prospects. The third is engaging prospects, and the fourth is submitting qualified talent. Um, so of course that, that's going to be less, but those are essentially the categories. I mean, I really— if you want to simplify it down, it's really intake, candidate discovery, engagement, and submittal.

Okay, that makes sense. Yep, totally aligned with that. Intake, in some cases people call it briefing, kickoff, whatever, but basically it's the intake is the part where you have a conversation with the decision makers about like what are they really looking for. And you might— my process adds a step before that called pre-search, but that's like the sourcers, you know, preparing for the intake. But the intake is really where the rubber meets the road.

So yeah, I like that, Shelley, by the way. I also do, I also prepare some calibration resumes before I go into a meeting just to—

Right. That's the research.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah.

So that's good stuff too. What, we can put that into the, I mean, it's part of the, the objective of the research is the intake anyways. So what are the tools that are involved in each of these like 4 buckets? Yeah.

And you know, regarding the intake discovery, I mean, it's really the tools that I utilize in the intake. I really like to identify the sourcing channels when I have my intake meeting so I can discuss that with the hiring manager. We're really setting the stage on how this business partnership is going to work. But the tools that I utilize in the intake in order to get business intelligence or to find individuals: GitHub, of course, LinkedIn, SeekOut, AngelList, and Intello. I mean, those are some of the ones that I've utilized. Sourcing.io. I develop, um, you know, Boolean is, is interesting. I mean, a lot of people aren't using it. A lot of people are going with ChatGPT. HireTool and SourceHub actually has a really good Boolean developer, which I really, really like a lot. You know, when you're talking about the intake discovery, you also have to manage, you know, the sourcing tech, you have to manage, you know, not only the ATS, but if you're using, you know, sourcing tool, maybe an online sourcing tool that can help you manage, you know, all of the candidate flow. Yeah, those are some of the tools, you know, just a high-level overview.

So you do have tools, I mean, not a specific, but you have tools that you use for the intake to help you record the meeting, transcribe it.

Okay.

You have tools that you use for the discovery, obviously, and for engagement. What about on the very end of the submittal? Are there any tools for that?

Um, on the what? Sorry, I missed that.

Yeah, submittal stages, like the, you know, the, once you've got your candidates, do you have any tools that you use to like package them and present them?

I mean, here's the thing. Mine is kind of a homegrown tool. What I do is I provide an overview of the screen itself. And so anytime I submit a candidate, I provide a fairly nice write-up. And I, you know, if I had a copy of it, I can show you guys a copy. I'll pull it up here in just a second. But basically, it's a structured outline. It provides all the basic details of that individual as a snapshot. So what this candidate— where the candidate location is, how far this individual is, you know, or how much of a commute that individual has, a skill overview that's relevant to what we talked about in the intake meeting, really just the highlights. And also I include the compensation range of where this individual is and what this individual is looking for. So that way, you know, the stakeholder can look at it and say they can make a really good decision very quickly on this. And I've used this in probably the last 4 jobs and every stakeholder that I have loves it.

That sounds like, uh, yes, we might be able to share it or figure out a way to— but, but it is— so it is a tool, but it's more of like a, like you said, a homegrown tool that anybody could adapt really, right?

Yeah, yeah, it's a template that I utilize. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, but it's a really, really good template. And like I said, um, it's, uh, people, people seem to love it. By the way, um, I've got a screenshot of it if I can share the screen.

Yeah, there's a little thing at the bottom that where you can share the screen.

Hey, now let me see. I think this is it here. Yeah, this is it. Okay. If you're able to look here, and this is basically what I utilize. So it's a really, to me, it's a very clean format. You're able to see this, right? Yep. Cool. So candidate name, phone number, salary expectations. I, at the very beginning, I put reason for interest and motivation for looking.

Oh, wait, it's showing your desktop.

Oh, weird.

Not the—

hold on. Can you see it now?

Let me try that again. Share it again. Yeah.

Yeah. Bear with me.

You have a fan.

Yeah, that's great. Okay, cool. Okay, can you see it now?

No, I can't. It's still the desktop.

Dang it, dang it. I don't know why it's not sharing.

Is it a document?

Yeah, it's a document.

And you— and you share your screen?

Yeah, yeah, sharing screen.

Oh, maybe you have a different screen.

Yeah, hold on. Um, do you see it now? Do you see it now? Do you see it now? Well, anyway, I'll include it in.

That's all right. We can put it up later.

Yeah, you guys can see it at some point. But yeah, it's disappointing that you can't see that because it's really one of my favorite things.

When I do, I don't share screen. I do like I add like an image. There's like an image sharing, but I don't know if it's an image or if it's a— is it like a PowerPoint? What is it?

No, no, no. It's a Word document.

Oh yeah, maybe that is why the screen shared. Yeah, I'm sorry.

Yeah, no worries, no worries. But I'll share with the group if I can do that. But it's really just a form.

We'll put it in the— I'll tell you what, we'll put it in the extras. So, um, you know what, when people go in online to the TSI University, they'll be able to get the extras. So we'll put it there.

Yeah, and it's really easy to export too, and it really is just a fill-in-the-blank. But yeah, for, you know, whenever I utilize this, I mean, it really provides a really good snapshot of the individual and, you know, essential skills, whether, you know, they're open to hybrid or on-site, what the job title is. But really, most importantly, I put an area that has the essential skills that are relevant to the position based on the intake. But the thing that the clients love most is I create a value-add area, and I Okay, points that really talk about, hey, this is what this individual has done, this has made, saved, or achieved something.

And that's you doing that. That's not the candidate saying that. You're like, so you're like, here's this candidate's value add.

Yeah.

And so the hiring manager has like a, I don't know, like a snapshot of correct your evaluation of the candidate.

Correct, correct. And you guys will love it. And once I send it over, like I said, it's easy to plug and play. And it's got the different bullet points and whatnot you can fill in. So Yeah, it's great, man. I love it.

So, you know, everything's supposed to go great, everything's supposed to go well, but you know it doesn't. So what are the pitfalls that we need to look out for, um, and avoid at each one of these? You know, like, give me the top 1 or 2 pitfalls at each one of these stages.

Yeah, yeah, I'm going to tell you this, um, being fully engaged in the intake, um, really the pitfalls for me, the biggest pitfall is that not establishing the business relationship right from the very beginning and expectations. You've got to line out, this is what I'm going to be responsible for, this is what I need you to be responsible for. When I submit candidates to you, I really, really like to get feedback within, you know, at least 24 hours, um, because we don't— we don't like candidates to get stale, especially individuals. I mean, I'm out there kissing a lot of frogs and I'm providing literally the best talent that's out there. The last thing I want them to do is waiting on feedback. So I do establish a threshold. So So those are really the pitfalls of the discovery meeting. And really, for me, another pitfall is not digging in and really asking the questions that you need to, because people can go, yeah, these are the responsibilities of this role and all of that. But other pitfalls are like, hey, I mean, a lot of recruiters don't do this. I'm shocked that they don't, is that they don't go through and look at or ask about the tech stack. Like, what systems are you guys utilizing? What are you using for reporting? And, you know, what systems do you use? Where do you integrate? Like, where do you pull data from? All of those things are extremely relevant because you want someone, you know, that you recruit that can obviously hit the ground running. And if you've got all that information, that's great. In order, you know, in finding and identifying prospects, one of the pitfalls there for me is really, Um, if you've done, you know, the business intelligence and, and, you know, you're a master sorcerer like you are, like I am, you spend a lot of time whittling down the best of the best.

Yeah.

And when you do that is, is, okay, how are you going to manage this, this, this reach out? Like, anytime I reach out on LinkedIn, I always look at the percentage of responses that I'm getting. Um, even if I'm doing, uh, you know, in-mail or If I'm doing email or—

Right, it's one of the things you need to, if you wanna improve, you can't get there from here if you don't know where here is.

That's exactly right. You gotta look at, if you've got deficiencies and you've got a low response rate, you're not talking to your audience correctly. You need to change your message. You need to go through and whittle that down. And a lot of the time it is recrafting that message over and over again until you're able to get the responses you think you need to get. You know, in terms of engaging prospects, you know, for me, Um, one of the pitfalls there is, is really not managing that prospect all the way through the process, including, um, you know, when that candidate actually doesn't make it through the next round. I mean, there are a lot of recruiters, and I know this is simple stuff, I know this is just Recruiting 101, but I can't even tell you how many people said, look, I, you know, such and such, you know, reached out to me, I never heard from anyone again. Um, for me, it's continuing to engage and pre-close as much as possible. And I cannot emphasize that enough. My, my present rate, and, you know, is very high. Like, I have a client now that I presented 6 candidates, they were great, all great. Well, 5 of them went to the second round of screening with the senior vice president. And we ended up with 2 offers out of that. And we had 100% acceptance rate. And that was because I pre-close and I pre-close. And a lot of recruiters, they don't really emphasize that and talk about it all the time. You've got to talk about salary, what their expectations are. If you can line that out, and I do it every single conversation that I have. So even when I engage a prospect, I tell them about the opportunity, go through all the nuances that, you know, everything that they're looking for in this job. And I reiterate that time and time again. So when we get to the close, I know that it's a done deal. The other thing is that submitting, you know, one, a huge pitfall of submitting qualified talent to recruiters once you're in the submittal phase, sometimes recruiters can get desperate and they'll be like, I don't know if this candidate's necessarily a fit, but I need to submit somebody. Um, don't do that.

I mean, it's just to have anybody, right?

Like, yes, have anybody. You have to build somebody on there and you have to be honest with them. And sometimes, you know, we, we all know as sourcers you have good days and sometimes you have not so good days. And you've got to say, look, I, I went through, I reached out to 45 people, I had 15 people respond. And I just did this last week with one of my managers, one of my VPs. And I said, look, I just don't have anybody. She wanted to fill the slot for Thursday, and I filled Tuesday and Wednesday with onsite interviews. And she trusted me. She was like, hey, just whoever you want to bring in, like, I trust you. You've brought such good talent. And I told her, I said, I just don't feel comfortable with the people that I've interviewed because I don't really think that these people are worth a deep dive. So I don't have anybody to fill your calendar. But I was honest. I mean, I really put an effort toward it, you know, toward finding really good candidates. Unfortunately, we just didn't have anybody. For Thursday. But, you know, it is what it is. And as you continue to do that, you really build trust with the hiring manager. Because my manager told me, she was like, look, I really appreciate that. She's like, now I'm able to get some things done on Thursday that I need to get done. I know I wanted to interview some people, but, you know, the fact that you're out there, you know, screening these individuals and, and helping me determine whether or not these are a good investment of my time, I really appreciate that. So even though we don't have anybody She respected that. So that was really cool.

That's— yeah. Oops, sorry. Do you hear that?

What is that?

The air just came in. The heater just came in. I wasn't sure if you saw that. Sorry, took me a second to recalibrate there. Yeah, just let's just throw somebody in there just to put somebody on the counter. No, you know what? My biggest pet peeve is I get, you know, really hard to find candidate. Get them engaged. They're, they're not really looking, but they'll consider the opportunity because of the conversation they had with me, right? They get really interested, and I know they're 100%, you know, on the mark. I send them to the recruiter, and then the candidate never hears, like, back from anybody. Like, I just— nothing happens. And so they come, they come back to me again. They're like, hey, I haven't heard from anybody. It's been like 2 or 3 weeks. I thought you said this role was, you know, fairly critical and urgent. Like, this doesn't feel very urgent, right? And I'll— and I have to go back and check with the recruiter, and I'm like, yo, what's going on? I literally passed you a hot potato. Are your hands burning? Because like, you've got this hot potato. And they'll be like, oh, I, uh, yeah, let me go ahead and let me go and look at that. And that's the first time they're even looking at that, and it's been 3 weeks. And I'm like, what?

No, You can't do that.

How do you not understand the, you know, and these are recruiters, so they should know. But just nothing pisses me off more than that because now I'm like, how do I explain to the candidate that literally nobody looked at their profile? Just sorry, we didn't look at your profile, right?

Especially passive candidates that aren't really looking and you entice them.

Now they are.

They are now evangelizing this opportunity. You're like, hey, this is a great company. This is a really, really—

they weren't looking for it.

Yeah, okay, I'm interested.

Yeah, for me, it always goes back to setting those expectations, even with the, you know, you have an SLA and everything, but then just the recruiter just never does. They just don't do that one step. All they had to do was reach out, like literally email the candidate and say, hey, great to meet you.

That's it.

The moment that I send you the candidate and introduce them to you via email, and like I copy you and the candidate, all you literally have to do at that immediate moment is just say, great to meet you.

Immediate responses.

I'm like, literally, just great. Even if you don't want— I'll send you a calendar link, you know, in a few— later, or I'll get back. But like, just, hey, nice to meet you. Like, that's all you have to do. You don't have to do anything else. But they don't even do that. And of course, I don't pay attention because I'm moving on to something else, right? Well, I come back and check, and when I come back and check, it's already been a few days or a week or two weeks.

Or, uh, that's, that's frustrating, you know.

I have to check more frequently is what I have to do.

I'm like, look, I do a lot of due diligence trying to find these individuals. Of the 7 people that I talked to today, this is the individual that I thought was worth responding to and at least pursuing. So you've got to, you've got to respond to this.

Say something. Just say hi.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Check this out. So Yvonne was asking, how do you deal with scenarios where a hiring manager has strict guardrails with who they want from the market? Yeah. You know, I'm just saying, like, I'm assuming really narrow skill set here. Yeah, so they're— the hiring manager is making it worse than it— like, the, the requisition could qualify lots of people, but the hiring manager says, but I only want to see this, and then that eliminates, you know, most of the people. So how do you handle that?

Uh, you know, I, I will tell you that I give them a snapshot of what I see in the market. So I'll usually do a LinkedIn search or maybe do a SeekOut search, and then I'll pull up some calibration resumes of individuals that are in that market. But generally, I'll let them know, look, of this narrow skill set that you're looking for in this particular town, um, especially with the tier 1 competitor or whatever it is that you're looking for, I just did a high-level search on LinkedIn. I only, I only found 15 people. And of the 15 people, I'm going to send you 4 of the resumes that I thought were probably as close as possible to this. And I'm just— and I usually tell them, look, if your, if your scope is so narrow like this, you're going to limit your candidate pool. Now, are— can we give and take on some of these, uh, on these qualifications? Because in most jobs you can give and take. Like, what's really critical? You know, I know that you wanted 5, but really, what are the 3 most important ones? And then I always try to negotiate with, with the stakeholder to say, look, I think this guy would be worth the call, or this girl would be worth the call, because they have 3 of the essential skill sets. Yes, we're missing a couple here, but this individual, I obviously, just from having a conversation, is well studied, um, is very much a go-getter in terms of learning new technology. Like, this person can ramp up very—

and you provide the evidence, like, here's the evidence for that.

That's exactly right, provide the evidence and say, look, this, this person's a shot, you know, uh, worth a shot. But yeah, give them, give them, uh, an idea of the landscape and show them how narrow the landscape is. And once you do that, Send them the best resumes, even some that aren't necessarily 100% qualified. Send them the ones that are 80% qualified, 70% qualified.

I do that. I like to make what's called a sandwich. Well, I call it a sandwich where you find the person that like fits everything, and then I'll go up a little bit and find someone that's like a little bit more. So let's just say, to be practical, that the job requires 10 years of experience in XYZ. So I'll send that right? But then I'll also send somebody with 12 years of experience, and then I'll also send someone with 8 years of experience, but, but they have like, they have everything else and maybe even extra, but they don't have the 10. So it's like, you know, I, I meet what you said, but then I'll give you a little bit more, a little bit less. I call that my sandwich. And then sandwich, yeah, help calibrate, because if they come back and they like the one with the more experience, I know that's where they're headed. And if they come back and they say, well, that the other one looks great, and they don't mention the fact that they have less experience, then I know that they're looking at the other stuff that's not years of experience. And I know where— like, it kind of helps me, you know, figure out where to go.

That's exactly what I do. That's exactly what I said. So yeah, that's, that's awesome, man. I love it.

The sandwich.

Yeah.

Um, folks, tons of resources like that at TSI University, by the way. We also have extras from the, uh, information that, that Anthony is sharing. And so to access it, you do have to be a member. It is free to join, but you do have to be a member in order to access all the handouts so that I don't openly publicly put, you know, people's private information out there. So, you know, nice, nice tools when guests give us gifts like that. I'm gonna upload them in there and you'll find them in the episode guide. So please join us there. Um, you mentioned something, Anthony, that I wanted to jump back in on and kind of circle back to, I should say. Um, you know, you talk about the, the real qualifiers, and then you like, you said 3, for example. But so my question back to you, or my pushback, is, are those the real qualifiers because the other ones are fake? I mean, why are those the real qualifiers, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah. You know, I, uh, when I look at qualifiers on the job description, um, some are like aspirational, like, hey, this is what we really want.

I got you.

Really operational. And, you know, I, I like to focus on, you know, for me, like, like, what are, you know, in terms of the, you know, in terms of the fake qualifiers, you know, for me, the stupid things that people put on job descriptions are like, must be self-motivated, must be a self-starter, must work well with others. I mean, how can you qualify any of that? It's all That's all subjective. Like, like, it's really based on, you know, you can ask anybody, hey, are you a self-starter? Oh yeah, I'm a self-starter. How about, are you really motivated? Oh yeah, I'm motivated. Like, how do you vet some of that stuff? You can't. Um, and so I don't like those qualifiers. I don't like when there's verbiage in, in the job description that, that says things like that. To me, it's just all silly. Um, you know, where, where I really get down to the core of, of a job description. And when I'm doing my intake, I'm like, look, let's talk about the essential, you know, requirements for this position. What does this role do? And, and what do you need this person doing? Where, you know, when this person does this job, where's the value add that this person is going to add based on what his job is? And so I always like to get to, you know, like, like, not just, hey, you know, are you motivated? But it's really When I look at the job description, I do the same thing with candidates. I don't like to just see bullet points. I like to see more meat to it. And that's why an intake call is so important because you weed through all of that subjective stuff, right? And get to the really, really important stuff. You have to call first.

Is there anything in the intake that you ask, any question in the intake or kickoff call that you ask that nobody else does or that you're not aware anybody else doing?

Yeah, yeah. Um, I, uh, that was a month ago, and, uh, I had this lady who said, hey, we've got a senior financial analyst position open again. And I said, again? And, uh, she said, yeah, we've had 3 people in this role that didn't work out this year. I'm like, my God, that's pretty high turnover. So what do I ask that no one else asks? I ask, so of the people that you've hired, like Who has burned you and why? Like, what, what has burned you in the past hires for this role? And why did those individuals fail? You know, and, you know, for me, I want to know where the failure was. Like, in my intake, I always ask, why is this position open? Is the new position— is it a position that's a replacement for somebody that got promoted? Or is it—

why does the job exist?

Yeah, why does the job exist?

I think people ask that. So I'm not sure that's one that qualifies.

Yeah, you know, for me, it's really, you know, what, what would make this, you know, hire fail within the first 90 days? What would— what could this person do that would make them fail in this job? And so once I get that, I get kind of the keys to the whole, you know, right, the opposite of that is, yeah.

So what would— what would be their bit? Like, what would make them fail? And then you want to make sure somebody's got extra of that.

That's good.

I like that.

And the other thing is, regarding a competitor list, I always, you know, I know nobody asked this, but I do. I, uh, I, I say, okay, you know, I've done my due diligence here. I've got a list of 7 competitors, um, that I'm going to be sourcing from, right? What company would you not hire from and why?

Nice.

Right.

You know, that's interesting that you said that because, um, well, I, I used to work at Coke, uh, Coca-Cola, right? Uh, not K-O-C-H, because I'm aware there's a company called, um, but anyway, Coca-Cola, the, the soft drink beverage. And, um, it took me my first couple of months, I was presenting candidates from quote-unquote competitors And of course, when you think Coke, what do you think is a competitor?

Pepsi, right? Pepsi, Dr Pepper.

Right, Frito-Lay, the other company. And they were not making it through the interview process. So I held back. I mean, I'm like, wait a minute, it's normal. My normal strategy is to find people from similar companies. It's not the only thing I do, but it's definitely in my book. It's my, in my playbook. One of the plays of the playbook is find people from competitors, duh. But I then later on, I had a conversation, a very candid conversation with one of the pretty senior hiring managers there that had been there for a really, really long time. And I basically, I said, now, as part of the intake, I said, now, if I bring some people from, for example, from Pepsi, would those be, you know, like highly desirable? And he kind of paused and looked at me. And I think he kind of took my measure and said, Yo, this guy doesn't know like our culture at all. Like, he was at that point, like, that, that was the rookie card on my forehead going, yeah, I don't know anything. Um, because he basically took a step back and then sort of changed his tone and said, look, let me tell you something. He said, we don't hire from Pepsi. And I'm like, we don't? And he's like, no, we don't. And Pepsi doesn't hire from us. And I'm like, is there some sort of agreement or 'Cause nobody told me that. And he's like, no, it's not an agreement. It's a culture. It's a way of doing things. It's a way of business. It's a, there's so many other things that, you know, it just, people from Pepsi, they have their own way of doing things. And if they learn how to do things that way, it's very different. It's almost like having to relearn. But if they learned from other companies that are in the same fast-moving consumer goods industry, Bird's Eye Foods or, you know, Tropicana or whatever, but they're not, you know, they're not in the, in the soda beverage, whatever. That's— those skills are transferable. But when they're in the same space— and then he broke it down and gave me a couple examples, and I was like, oh, that's— some of them are really logistical examples, but it made a whole lot of sense. But the best thing that he said was this. He said, let's say that you go to a restaurant in another, you know, state, right? Because I'm in Georgia. This is Georgia. Obviously, if you go to any restaurant in Georgia, they're going to have Coke. It's hard not to. But let's say I went somewhere— he's like, let's say you're in New York and you go to a restaurant and you ask for a Coke and they say, oh, sorry, we don't serve Coke here, we serve Pepsi. What do you say? And I'm like, I probably would just get water. And he goes, that's the problem. It— most of the time when people are Coke drinkers and they're offered a Pepsi, they just say, I'll take iced tea, or I'll take orange juice, or vice versa. If you're a Pepsi drinker and someone says, here's Coke, they're like, oh, never mind then, I'll take root beer, or whatever. And he's like, that's why we don't hire from each other. And I'm like, oh my God, that makes a whole lot of sense. It— there legitimately are like direct service delivery versus, you know, there's all those things as well, but that just made a lot of sense.

Yeah, that's great. And I love that question. Yeah, I love that. And I've presented that competitor list.

Yeah, here's the companies who would you never hire from.

Yeah, like we don't want anybody from— and they said we don't want anyone from Boeing. We don't like—

for whatever reason. Yeah, different process. Yeah, it's not, it's not like, oh, people from Boeing don't smell right or whatever.

It's just totally different culture.

They don't fit. They don't— they're not going to make it through the interview. That's awesome. All right, so that's— you give me two things. That you do in the intake that nobody else does. We're gonna need to put these— I'm gonna put that link back up here, man, because, uh, we got a lot of stuff. You're gonna have to get the show extras at tsiuniversity.com, otherwise you're not gonna get access to these things, folks. All right, so you mentioned competitors and you brought a list, 7 companies you said, right? Got it. But earlier you said companies with similar tech stacks, because one of the things that you do is ask about the tech stack. Now, um, what about non-tech companies, right? So when it's a tech— like, if the product is tech, the company is tech, and the hiring manager tells you, well, we do Kubernetes and Docker and JavaScript and blah blah blah, great, you're hiring for tech. But what if it's a non-tech company or a non-tech job? What's the equivalent of that?

You know, I always look at— and I've done some of these positions, uh, with non-tech roles. So I've staffed a lot of operational roles within aviation And so there's no real tech that's there. It's, it's really, you know, a business model similarity, um, like the operational complexity of the business itself. Um, I look at customer type, transaction volume, um, I look at regulatory exposure, um, you know, and, you know, for me, I just, I look at some of the similarities, like what companies you know, have that, that similarity. Um, and recruiting for aviation can be really difficult, especially some of the aviation, you know, the ground positions, the operational, the grounds people and all of that. Um, you know, because it's— for me, there's nothing necessarily technical about what they do, but how do they operate the business model for what they do? Like, one of the clients that I have, they do a lot of mid-air refueling and we— I look at the business model.

That sounds like the military.

Yes. Yeah, it's really cool, man, what they do. And I look at the business model and how similar other competitors are. I also look at the operations and the complexity of that, you know, how difficult it is, is it to do some of the grounds job within aviation. Um, and I list those things out. But yeah, those are some of the areas that, uh, that I focus on.

Um, so are there places that you— so like, I mean, there's— I use some tools for tech stack discovery, uh, like BuiltWith and things like that, but that of course, that again, it goes back to the product. Um, are there any tools to discover— are there any tools that you use to discover target companies that are in the same space but, but they're— but, but it's not a tech stack thing? I'm trying to— not putting this the right way. Um, like the Coke versus Pepsi right? Like, how would you find the other companies that are in that space if you don't have like a ready-made list of things that, that you can look up or Google?

Go to Built With.

That's what I was talking about for tech.

Webalizer is also really good.

Uh, Webalizer. Okay.

Yeah. Um, their stack is good. Stackshare is good, but it can be limited.

Again, technology.

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, uh, Wappalyzer is really good. Um, that's—

you know what I used to do? I don't, I don't do this as much anymore, but I used to use the related command on Google with the company domain. So like related colon, uh, you know, Lockheed, or related, and then it pulls up a list of other websites that are similar. But that results for that have deteriorated lately, so it doesn't quite— you know, if you did related and then Motorola and looked it up, it now comes back and it gives you like things that are like literally directly related to Motorola, as in like Motorola subsidiaries and, and things like that. It's not actually giving you the what it used to be, which are like similar websites.

Yeah, you know, 10 years ago when we were doing a Boolean like that, um, you would get really great results. I'm finding the same thing too. Finding some.

It's okay, it's just not as accurate.

Okay, yeah, it's okay.

Yeah, it like gives you, you know, and I noticed that there's a difference if you use www versus not. So if you do related:www.motorola, I'm doing this right now, and like, yeah, it's the same thing. It gives you like the Lenovo story, that's sort of similar, but then it all was like Motorola carriers, Motorola support, Motorola, like these are all related to Motorola. What I wanted are the ones that are similar. So I wish there was like a similar colon, but that doesn't exist. So I'm wondering what— so Webalyzer sounds good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, try it, man. It's good. You'll love it.

Um, and so the other thing I wanted to ask you about, once you kind of have your tech stack, your company list, your competitors, um, you, you divide up your competitors into tiers. You got tier 1 and tier 2. Is that because a tier 1 is bigger, more employees, more revenue, more population, or is it a reputation? Like, what, what makes a tier 2 not a tier 1?

Yeah, um, you know, it's skill transferability, um, cultural proximity, um, like you talk about Coke and Pepsi, uh, competition overlaps, um, so it's almost a quality—

like, it's a formula, a qualitative formula.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It could be a smaller company but still tier 1.

Yeah, and for me, tier 1 competitors produce like plug-and-play candidates. Like when I look at tier 2 competitors, it's, yeah, these guys have some skills, they're definitely trainable, um, you know. And I always present people that really have an upside, like, hey, these, you know, this one guy, you know, he's got 4 years of experience, but boy, this guy has really done a lot in his, you know. And those, those to me are really, really good candidates. It's like the ones that are on the management track and they're trying to get as much exposure and much experience as possible. Yeah, for me it really is, you know, when I look at tier 1, it's really, I can take this individual with, you know, that tier 1 tech stack and the culture and they can go from one company and we can just plug and play. Um, for me, any tier 2 competitor, just, yeah, they're good, but they're going to have to be trainable. And, um, but you know, I'm looking for—

so it's transferable versus like a direct—

yeah, yeah, got it.

Okay, that makes them tier— uh, well, transferable is tier 1, and sort of like ancillary could be a little bit of evolution would be tier 2.

Okay, right, right. And, and you know, to me both really matter because I'm— I, I can't—

yeah, you're not saying don't do tier 1, you're just saying— yeah, and I'm assuming you go after tier 1s first, exhaust that, and then go to the next.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

That makes sense.

You have to have a tier 2, a tier 2 list. Absolutely.

Yeah. Um, let's talk a little bit about engagement. So now you've got your, you know, you sourced your, your leads and you're starting to do— you talked about some tools that you use for engagement, um, but you mentioned, um, Buffer. How do you use Buffer to optimize timing and reach? Because I, I thought Buffer was like a I thought Buffer was for like LinkedIn posts. How are you using it?

You know, I, I use it, I mean, I maintain consistency, you know, a consistent employer brand visibility that, that Buffer allows me to do that. I, the Buffer also allows me to promote roles without it sounding like spam, which a lot of people are turned off by. And the buffer also allows me to coordinate messaging and outreach and pull data on response rates, you know, make adjustments when necessary. Um, you know, and the goal, you know, again, isn't volume, it's really strategic repetition, you know, repetition at the right moment. You gotta be smart about what you do. And recruiting is a very much— it's a thinking role. You can't just, you know, you're not just plugging in data and you're just, okay, next, next. You can't do that. The thing about recruiters, a lot of the people that I know that are recruiters, a lot of the good ones are very, very smart, and they're very intuitive. Um, they're very present about their job, and, and they're, they're extremely adaptable. Um, I found that the best recruiters are really adaptable. They're like, okay, this isn't working, we got to try something else. Um, you know, you've got to adapt, you've got to improvise, and then you've got to go after it again. And, and for me You know, the buffers really allow an opportunity for me to kind of catch my breath and just go, okay, you know, is this really working? Um, am I getting what I need out of this?

Got it, that makes, that makes sense. So it's, uh, it's more for your, your buffer?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because I'm managing most of the time, I'm managing these things. So, and then I'm looking at it from somebody that has rec ownership, right? And, and like, and I've taken roles off, you know, and I, I do a lot to create a buffer, um, you know, within the ATS. So for me, it's really just about looking at the metrics and data. And, um, I've even gone so far as to completely pull a job that is not getting the right candidates and rewording it and maybe putting a different title on there that's more relevant.

I have— so my process is a little bit similar in that, um, it's, it's like, I want to say it's a recalibration. So I, I've got this 12-step, 12-step program. I— believe me, when I put this program together, I had no intent for it overlapping with any other 12-step programs. It just happened to actually be 12 steps. But since then, I've kind of, you know, yours is 4. Basically, my 12 steps are 3 of them in each one of the 4 that, you know, So like your 4 have 3 sub-steps, that's the difference. But I've actually put all 12 steps into a system that's got 3 now. Um, and you know, very similar to what you're talking about, you've got the, the strategy, right? Everything, all the, you know, how, where, when, all that stuff. And then you've got the execution of like the, the, the sourcing execution, the outreach execution, use everything. And then you have, um, on the other side The, the day-to-day, I just call it cleanup. There's cleanup or whatever you want to call it, but it's all the operational stuff that's day-to-day. So in mine, when, when I do a sequence of, you know, I'll find 20, 25 leads, then I'll first do the sourcing, then I'll do the outreach. I don't do find somebody, contact them, find somebody, contact them. I just find 20 people, 25 people, and then contact them, right? And then if I need more, I'll find more. And, you know, So there's always something moving up, moving along, but I don't like the task switching. So I'll do 25, do the outreach, and if I notice that my response rates are like way off, I'm like, all right, something's wrong, I gotta calibrate. If I notice that I'm submitting those people and the hiring manager is not biting— by the way, I'm here to tell any recruiter out there, if you're a recruiter and you're listening to this show, let me give you life-saving advice. This is the most radical and the most important advice that you will ever get in your entire life. For recruiting, and I am not kidding. Listen closely. If you're not getting feedback from a hiring manager about a candidate that you submitted, that's the feedback.

That's right, that's right. If they're not wowed, they're not, they're not going to waste their time.

If they didn't reply to your candidate submittal, it's because they didn't like them. Now, that might not be the feedback that you wanted, and you sure do deserve and should get some sort of like, well, I didn't like them because this— too big, too small, not enough, whatever. But you did get feedback. The feedback you got was silence, and that is feedback. They didn't like the candidate. So anyway, back to what I was saying before, I'll, I'll pause and be like, where I submitted 3 or 4 people, or I send them some resumes, I didn't hear back, time to recalibrate. So that's when I do my— that's my buffer. I go back and I start with, are we— did we hit the right requirements? Are all of these things possibly in the same page? Can somebody have all these things? If somebody had all these things, would they want this shot? You know, I kind of, I don't want to say second-guess myself, but I sort of go through the process of validating it again. So I like that that's part of yours as well. I think it's in a similar vein. Mine is more, you know, batch process and then reset and batch again. Yours is programmed into You know, you've got these spaces where you actually do verification and checks. I like that better. Mine is a little bit more haphazard, but, um, it's a— it— we're at the end now. It's time to turn it in. This is the proof in the pudding. You got a candidate, you're submitting. Everybody talks about quality versus quantity. It's better to have more quality than it is quantity, but at the end of the day, what I see the most most often as a consultant, as a leader, is people just send quantity. I see recruiters sending more resumes. Why? Because the hiring manager asks for it. The hiring manager says, I want more. So the recruiter sends 3 highly qualified people, for example, and the hiring manager says, I want to see more. And the recruiter sends more, and then they send more, and then they say more. Like, so we talk about quality over quantity, but then we just succumb to quantity. What gives? What's going on there?

Listen, you can't do that. I mean, first of all, but it happens. It does happen. And I've had managers— here's the deal. If hiring managers are asking for more, it means that they don't trust you. You got to develop a business partnership with the stakeholders. You got to tell them, look, for every person that I'm sending you, I'm pre-qualifying 3 to 5 people, and I'm sending you the very best. Um, for me, you know, I, uh, I really I never do that. I, even when the manager says, I'd like to see more, um, and I'm like, what's the justification behind that? Like, um, like, I mean, why, why do you want to see more? Like, why do you want to see more? How does that make sense? I said, first of all, you're involving a lot more people that you're going to have to look at. I said, why don't you just— let's, let's have a narrow focus. Look, I'm a professional here. I'm going to send you the best of the best of people that are absolutely qualified and fit. Every— they tick off every checkbox that you gave me. And, you know, I'm not going to send in and inundate you with resume after resume because it's just not for me. You're watering down for anybody your entire process, and you don't want to do that. You don't want to talk to 15 people, and you're not going to remember the person that you talked to a week ago if you're— if you've interviewed 15 people. I know because hiring managers— I've dealt with hiring managers before and I said, hey, what about this candidate that I sent over the second day? They're going to forget those individuals in the process. Not only that, but it also slows down the process because you're involved— involving, especially with these that are— have extensive hiring processes like what I worked with, like Amazon and HPE. They all have extensive processes. The last thing you want to do is get, you know, 8, 9, 10 candidates deep and into a process that can take up to 3 3 weeks. I mean, you want to— and for me, you know, I'm like, look, you've got to trust me. You've got to understand that, that, you know, and I reiterate, I go back to the intake call. Look, this is what I did during the intake call. The reason I have that— my intake calls are an hour, Charlie. They're not, they're not 15, 20 minutes. They're an hour. We get into every detail possible.

And yeah, an hour spent there is like 40 hours saved. Oh, somewhere else.

Exactly right. And I always go back to the intake, and then I send them a synopsis of what I gathered from the intake call, and just highlight the areas that he wanted to pursue, he or she wanted to pursue. And in doing so, I'm like, look, you know, I'm going to go through and I'm going to present, you know, 3 to 5 candidates max. But of those 3 to 5, know that for each one I've vetted, there's been a bunch of work, right?

Here's what I did.

Yeah, yeah. And so, and I always tell them, look, mine are going to be clearly pre-qualified. And I always, I always come in with my, you know, with, uh, some of my stats. And my stats are, you know, 95% of people that I have submitted to job orders in the last 15 years get hiring manager interviews, um, you know. And of those, you know, we— I have at least 65 to 70% go to the technical interview or second interview. So we've got to build some trust here. Again, you know, I, when I, when I talk about quality over quantity, you know, I want to, you know, I just, for me, it's really being aligned with what are the real deal breakers, you know, and if you're wanting to see a lot of people, not everyone's going to be the same. And so it looks like me, from my perspective, it's like you're willing to acquiesce some things that you really want, and let's focus on what you really want instead of muddying the waters with all of these additional people that, you know, may have some skill sets. But, you know, why do you want to invest time in individuals like that that aren't really relevant and I don't think you're going to be bored with? So, but yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's a, that's a tough one to get with, uh, hiring managers.

Yeah, more. I want to see, you know, my Sorry, say that again.

No, no, no, you're right. It's like, I want to see more, but you're like, no, that's not how this is going to work. And I usually set the precedence pretty quick.

So, uh, we have a question. How do you influence the CTO to consider individuals with experience in an adjacent technology that, you know, that's not like— they're close, but they're not the same?

That's a good question. I've had a lot of tech positions at HPE. And we had— we— okay, so I worked for Korn Ferry. One of our clients was HPE. They weren't meeting the thresholds of the SLA because, because of exactly that. The hiring manager said, look, this isn't necessarily what I'm looking for. And so most of the time, the recruiters that were working there before I got there were throwing up their hands like, I don't know what to do. For me, you know, the hiring manager isn't really that stakeholder. You know, the relationship that I have with the stakeholder and providing valuable candidates also includes data about the market and how some of these people can be transferable and say they don't necessarily have a language, but it's, it, at least it's relatable to what they could do. I mean, there And I always make a case for people. I mean, I always negotiate with the hiring manager. And I, I'm very good at talking to hiring managers and say, look, you need to have a conversation with this person based on what I know about this software engineering job. And in my experience with this is that these— this software language that they have, although it's not directly related, it is transferable. And it is something that we can teach on the fly. Now, most of the time, especially with HPE, they had some very, very difficult, um, um, positions to fill just because of the software languages, languages they were requiring for some of the people. I mean, some of the positions, they required at least a couple different software languages. I'm like, guys, this is, this is a dual role here. Like, that's not going to happen. We're not going to have these individuals that have, uh, that understand these two different languages. You're, you're not going to have that. But I do have somebody that understands one of the languages and also has experience but something that's very similar. And I really believe it's transferable. For me, it, it is always about negotiation too with, with the manager. You have to, you know, they have to rely on your expertise as well with what the market can dictate. Um, so kind of found that to be, uh, I found it to work, you know, for me. But again, you know, they're— you're going to have some hard asses that are just like, no, that's what I want. But I will tell you this, that I do, I do inundate them with enough data and allow them to make a decision to potentially, you know, to interview individuals that they might not have seen otherwise. And for me, it is about, you know, developing that data and saying, hey, this is why I think you should see this candidate. It's about making a case for these individuals that you believe in and know they can do the job. And I've done this long enough, you know, where I'm an expert in that area. But, you know, for me, it is, it is just about having that dialogue and not letting them push you around all the time. You know, they're like, no, no, we're not going to do that. And, you know, you got to give them an idea of what the, you know, what the market looks like. And, you know, what kind of candidates are out there. And, you know, I'm not gonna, you know, you're not gonna have a perfect one every time. But yeah, for me, it is about negotiation.

And just so you have to have that rapport in order to do that, you have to establish the rapport in order to get to the point where you can do that. Well, this has been incredibly illustrative and, and very detailed. I'm going to put the transcript up. Once again, everybody, you will be able to access this at tsiuniversity.com. The video is on YouTube, but all the handouts and everything else are going to be at tsiuniversity.com. I encourage you to go in there and check it out. We are probably not going to have an episode next Friday because it is the 26th, the day after, um, you know, Christmas and all that good stuff. So nothing next week, but we'll be back after that. So tune in and happy holidays, happy Hanukkah, happy Kwanzaa, Merry Christmas. If I don't see you, happy New Year, everybody. Anthony, thank you so much for being our guest today. We'll, uh, we'll certainly invite you back. And folks, thank you. Yeah, um, be kind to yourselves.

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