Gabi Preston-Phypers on Shally's Alley

All right, all right, all right. So you know what I say, better late than sorry and better late than never. So, uh, my apologies for being so late today. I hope you probably, um, haven't, uh, tuned out and went to go do something more important than watching this show, which is probably everything else that you do. So, uh, if you're still here, thank you and welcome. We are live on Shelly's Alley. It is Friday, September 15th. I don't know why I always say that, because what am I, a clock or something? But anyways, it is Friday, September 15th, and our guest today is Gabby Preston Pipers from— if you don't know this, which maybe you do— from Tooled Up Raccoons. Okay, so first of all, uh, hilarious. Secondly, what the hell? How did you— that's got to be my first question. How did you come up with the name of a company, which I assume this is your company because you're like CEO and founder. How did you name Tooled Up Raccoon? First of all, tooled up, what does that mean? And why raccoons?

Tell me the story. So come on, here's the story. So me and my husband used to run a recruitment agency together. And when we decided in this world of geniusness that we should actually create a tech company to help sources be better, It was at that point on LinkedIn where everyone was like, what's the most stupid question you've ever been asked in an interview? Right? Like the best question in the world. And there's all this dribble about—

Tell me about your experience.

Oh, that's even worse. It's like so cringing. It's like, oh God, can we all get a little bit more creative in this world?

Tell me about yourself. How do you—

Tell me about yourself.

How do you see yourself in 10 years?

Yeah. I'll have a job in 10. Actually, make that 5. You can just have a break now. It's fine. But for us, like the question that came up, like the The question that people kept asking was, what animal best represents you? Okay. It's a question I hate more than anything in the world in an interview, but it kind of got me thinking. And when we were naming the company, it's like, well, actually, what animal best represents a recruiter? And my husband being the man that he is, was like a lion, a tiger. And you kind of got this posturing, right? You get the vibes. And I was like, well, what about a raccoon?

A dragon? Why?

And he was like, well, because people hate them, but then they love them. They kind of want them. And then raccoons rummage through rubbish all day.

They're scavengers.

They're scavengers. And then actually, the more I Googled it, like, do you know the black mask that they have, the black fur?

It's camouflage.

Well, actually, it's not. It's to minimize glare from light when they hunt at night. So I was like, that's a recruiter sitting late at night kind of scavenging the candidates.

Yeah, okay, nope, you lost me there, but keep going, keep going.

I like it. I'm in this, okay? So if we decided to—

I turn the light on, but I'm too old for low low lighting. Also have a backlit keyboard. But anyway, keep going.

I've got one as well. It lights up and everything. I need to have the lighting up. It's something like dark outside. I'm like, what the hell am I doing?

So that's mine's also like remote.

Oh, look at you. See, I can't be trusted because I'd probably like get angry and like throw it off the desk or something. At least when it's connected, it can't bounce back. So that's the raccoon element of it. And then the tooled up bit was, how do I say this? So I didn't always used to be in recruitment.

Okay, I know that. Yeah, I was reading your profile.

Very different career.

You definitely have an eclectic sales background. I don't know what custody is, but something with banking, trading, investing.

Yeah, you're gonna love it, you're gonna love it. But what was interesting is when I sat that side of the pond and I was working in banking and I had recruiters kind of trying to approach me to be like, you should come to this job, all the ones I engaged with were absolute tools. They just bugged me. There was no skill, there was no finesse about it. And I was like, well, let's tool them up. They're just absolute tools. And Mitch was like, oh, we're giving them tools to be better. So you can take whichever line you want for why we're the tooled up part, but that's how Tooled Up Raccoons came to being, should we say.

Please say raccoons again.

Raccoons.

Oh my God. I'm gonna play that on loop. Raccoons, raccoons, raccoons.

I'll make like a DJ mix for you and send it over.

How about that? Yeah, we keep raccoons. Wait, no, I can't say it. Raccoons. I'm terrible with that. Other than the Hispanic accent, which is my original accent, I'm terrible with that. But I love that you have a raccoon icon on your profile, but I hate that it's in your name. Because, because it's like my, my pet peeve. I do a lot of automation.

Yep.

And when I scrape content that comes from, you know, aggregators and stuff like that, the name that, that the person has on LinkedIn ends up being the name that gets imported. And the field, first name or last name, if it has a character, it like just throws everything off because it's extra I love it.

And that, to be fair, is why I do it. I don't do it for any other reason.

You do it to disturb me. Okay, I get it.

But the problem is, is when you run a company, everyone likes spamming you. Like, they're like, I can do everything.

Do you get spam that says, hi raccoon?

Oh, don't. I get, hey Gabby, because the emoji doesn't work for them.

It's like a square squiggle. Yep. No, I clean that up. I'm gonna always clean that. I always clean it up, but it's a hassle.

These guys don't. And what I love about it is because I'm like, I don't even have to read the rest of the email. I'm like, you couldn't give a monkey's who my company is, what I've done. Delete, delete, delete, delete. It's like, it's for me, it just does a really quick cleanse. If you want to talk to me, you want to— yeah, write a bloody email and write my name.

That's a really good reason to put an emoji on your name. But, um, I actually have a script that I run that cleans that up.

Yeah, but that's because you're clever.

No, that's because I'm lazy and I don't want to have to manually do it. And I also don't want to be the embarrassing person that says, hi Gabby, blah blah blah. That doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't. Like, but this is the thing I get. I just sometimes I think there's so much automation out in the world that it's just you have to find a way of quickly identifying the rubbish from the genuine. And this for me, having that little raccoon is a nice little red flag. That this stuff's automated and actually you haven't even researched my company or know what I do for a living.

Funny, you know, I have a, I have a filter, um, on my inbox. Yeah, that looks for— basically it looks for my official job title, right?

Right.

Because if anybody is messaging me and their message says something like Hi, Shelly, as the official job title of name of company, blah, blah, blah, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam. So nobody who ever emails me uses my official title, and it's not in my signature because in my signature I have a more, you know, toned-down title. So the only way they have my official title is if they literally scraped LinkedIn and are using the full global head of talent sourcing and people analytics. So it was like, hi, Shelly, as the global head of talent sourcing and people analytics, delete.

But we, I think everyone in the world is getting to that point where there is so much mass mailing. We're all setting up little traps ourselves to be like, don't have to read, don't have to read, don't have to read. Cause you have to, right? You have to protect yourself against the rubbish that you're being inundated with, and you have to cull it somewhere, right? So if you can call it— why not?

Yeah, now for those Americans, culling means, uh, getting rid of.

Oh yeah, sorry, I think I have to translate these things. I'm so British.

Yeah, yep. But it's cool, you know, we in the United States think that that's a very cool accent. Second, or maybe first only to the Australian accent, which we also think is very cool. But reverse, I don't think is the— like, an American in the UK or in Australia with an American accent, I don't think is the same kind of like, oh, say that again.

You know what, it's really true. I've never seen anyone come over from the States and had people be like, say it again. But when I went over to New York, honestly, everyone I spoke to was like— they would take little quotes from movies and be like, can you say this for me? Yeah, like, what is it? The one they loved was spot of tea.

Oh, right, right, right.

I'm like, what are we doing here? Like, I should charge for this.

You're like, we never say that. That's not something that we say, right?

No, but for some reason they've obviously watched like a Jane Austen or read a Jane Austen book.

Yeah, that's why we think that proper British greetings are like, for hello, are like pip pip.

Yes, honestly, I swear every American believes that, which is kind of cute.

I've never heard anybody say pip pip in the real world.

We can change it. We can change that.

I mean, you know, you say hello like everybody else, so yeah, we're human. So, okay, well, one of the questions that I, that I like to ask is— you, you, you sort of circled around it, but I'm gonna go out and actually ask it. What was it that— you came from another industry and you said you had a search firm, and now you're— if I understand correctly, you're, you're advisors, you teach people how to do sourcing, right?

Yeah, we got— well, it's a tech— well, we do technology and the training.

Yeah, okay, so you do technology and training, but you're no longer a staffing firm. Okay, but what— but when you got into this whole industry from the be— like way back, what was it that drew you in, attracted you, and, um, and captured your attention? Okay, clearly you have some other skills as well, so you were doing this other thing and you're like I'm gonna leave all that behind, yeah, banking, whatever, and I'm gonna go do this. What was it that grabbed you and said, come and do it?

How much inefficiency there was.

So you thought, oh, this is a really inefficient market, I think I'm gonna get into it.

Well, this is the thing for me, okay? I am that— I want to say weirdo— I am that weirdo, right? I love operations. I love looking at operational efficiency. I hate wasting time and I hate wasting money. And when I was in banking, like, it was a really cool career. I achieved loads of stuff, get promoted really, really quickly. But it got to the point where I was like, I'm working for a big bank. There's only so much I can change.

It's established, right? The banking process is like, yeah, these are in there and they're ingrained and actually you're not going to—

you're not going to change it. So then when I stepped in, I stepped out of that and kind of took the real punchy move and was like, See you later. After 8 years in that, I actually did a small stint at a software company. It was like, this isn't my vibe. And my husband for years had been nagging me about joining the agency. And I stepped in and said, look, I'm not going to recruit for you, but what I am going to do is I'm going to come in and clean your business. And he looked at me like most husbands would be like, thanks, Gabs, that's massively complimentary. But what I meant by that is I think there's—

right, it might have been the way you phrased it, but I get what you're saying.

Possibly. But to be fair, that's pretty much me. We've been married long enough that he's like, I get your vibe. I see where you're going.

Right, right, right, right.

But the thing is, for me, when I walked into the world of recruitment and I could see the beginning point, the middle point, and the end point, like where we were all trying to get to. And then when you're looking at all the tech people are throwing into the process, all the dynamics of different platforms, all this kind of stuff, all of a sudden you unearth all these vast number of inefficiencies that are existing. But because people have been so long in the trenches doing it, they've almost become like, well, this is what everyone does. So I came in and was like, we need to change this. It doesn't have to be this everyone else is doing it, let's go and be a lemming and jump off that cliff.

I understand what you're saying, but let me throw— yeah, but big but— let me throw a big wrench in that. Totally with you. I've been doing this for 26 years. 100% agree. Believe me, over those 26 years I have done very much a lot of what you're just describing right now. In fact, that's essentially really what I do, only I call it sourcing, but it's essentially efficient recruiting, right? Because sourcing is a part of recruiting, and it's not, it's not a, it's not a separate job. It is a specialty, not a separate job. It's not like you are a sourcer, you belong here, you're a recruiter, you're like— it's, you know, sourcing is a part of recruiting, marketing is a part of recruiting, You know, so it's the same kind of concept, but really it's about optimizing efficiencies is really what it is. So I've been doing this for a very long time, and you're in another country, so I don't know how much of your optimization has applied here in the US. Much? Not a lot?

Some businesses, yes.

Not a lot. Okay. Yeah, this is where I'm going with this. Um, there are some sadly and unfortunately inherent inefficiencies that here cannot be solved. I think in other countries that don't have some of the obstacles— I'm trying to be polite here.

Oh, come on, I want you to say it. I want you to say it. What particular ones?

Rules and regulations. So for example, we have— and I can be very specific— we have something that's required here in the US that most recruiters nowadays don't even know about, but it is an absolute requirement, and it's called an applicant flow log. So this applicant flow log, if you were in the business many, many years ago when it was still done in pencil and paper, you will remember having to fill out a document with the name of the candidate, the job that they applied for, and the reason that they were dispositioned, so that when you're audited, you can explain why you didn't hire Gabby and instead hired Shelly, and why it's okay that you hired a male, not a female, and that that's not an adverse impact based on their gender. So, right, nowadays ATS systems have built-in applicant flow logs. Yeah, but because there is the requirement to have that applicant flow, even though it's handled by the software and it's automated, there are certain things that we cannot do. For example, we can't just delete a rec. Because that deletes the applicant flow log.

You have to mark it up something different.

That's right, we have to disposition people. So when you look at a recruiter nowadays, you look at a recruiter's inbox in an ATS and they have 5,000 applicants, you are thinking, oh my God, that is so inefficient. Let me tell you how inefficient that is. And they're thinking, yeah, I can't do anything about it.

I mean, but the thing is, I can't just delete all the candidates. But you don't have to. And I think this is the thing. When people look at efficiency, like, I agree, like having that many candidates in there that have been rejected, aren't relevant, da da da da da, just because they applied, I have to retain them. That ends up being a mass load of data. But the thing is, for me, the difference between that causing me a pain, like, yeah, it sits in a database. Yes, that probably is going to end up costing me money at one point because I'm going to have to increase storages and all this kind of stuff depending on the size of company. And you, let's be honest, every tech company in the world is like, well, you can hold 5,000 records. Oh, by the way, there's an extra charge of like 20 quid.

Yeah, but I'm talking about you have to disposition them to close out the rec. Yeah, so it's not the storage that I'm concerned with. It's unfortunately the inefficiency of the process. And let's face it, here's the real inefficiency. In amongst those 5,000 are the 20 candidates that you really want. How do you get to them?

Well, this comes down to the technology you're storing in, right? As far as I'm concerned, and this is where honestly, from what I've seen in my bubble and the companies I've been interacting with, data gets stored in a graveyard and it gets dumped and left to die and you will never dig it back out again. Because a lot of these platforms, and this is where the disconnect happens, okay? A lot of people go and buy technology because it looks shiny and sexy and duh duh duh duh duh. And they buy it based on this kind of shiny object, right?

Sure.

They aren't being taught how to acquire technology in a smart way and ask smart questions. So questions like that, right?

Sure, granted.

But how do I get it out?

But you have to keep it in there because of the law.

Absolutely. But the thing is, just because you have to keep it in there should still be a data set that you should be able to access and pull out. So like you said, if there's 20 people in it with that data that's being held, you've just bought a technology stack to hold it, right? That's what we've done.

You have to hold it in there.

If there are 20 people in there, that means there are potentially 20 people. Let's call it 20, right? It could be 50, it could be 1. You need to have a mechanism and a way that is efficient to go and get that data out. If you have adopted a piece of technology that you can't go and hunt for those candidates to refine them and pull them back out in an optimum way, you made a really stupid purchase.

That's every ATS though. So everybody made a stupid purchase. Is what you're saying.

But then this is the thing.

Everybody made a stupid purchase.

Well, yeah.

I think you're right.

I'm okay with that.

We don't disagree there. But that's what I'm saying is this is a built-in inefficiency.

It is. And I think, but for me, a lot of that inefficiency is driven as well. Like when you look at a lot of those technologies that are built and designed for recruiters, they're not actually built and designed by recruiters, by people who have actually had to handle what's happening.

And that takes me to the second point that I was gonna make about that. That's exactly right. So here we go to the second one. So you've got things like applicant flow logs, and there are many others, right? It's not just that. There are other— there are regulations that you have to post the job.

Yep.

So therefore you are forced to take applicants even if, right, and the appropriate response— by the way, the appropriate response from the market to a recruiter posting a job to every job board with a description that isn't very specific is that candidates apply to every job. So you're essentially causing the problem yourself by posting jobs like that. But anyway, we're required to post it. And so there's all these regulations. But here comes the biggest problem of all in this technology space, and that is that because of this rule in the United States, where most of the software comes from— it doesn't come from other countries, and if it did, it can't work here because of this reason— all these ATSs are not tracking candidates. They're not tracking applicants. The whole name is a complete misnomer. An applicant tracking system doesn't track applicants. An applicant tracking system tracks requisitions. The life cycle is around a requisition. Think about it. What do you do in an ATS? Open requisition, fill requisition, close requisition. Doesn't have anything to do with candidates. So by default, the system is designed to manage a workflow of an activity that, being a process-oriented person, you know the workflow centers around open rec, close rec, open rec, close rec. The candidates apply and apply and apply and apply and apply and apply.

It—

the system itself is just— the design of the system is inherently and permanently flawed. So the best way to solve this efficiency problem is quite literally to blow up the ATS. It should not exist.

But this is—

but it's required.

Back to my earlier point about looking at the recruitment process and being like, what makes sense and what doesn't make sense? Like you, like what you've just shared makes complete sense. And I'm sure there are loads of people watching this nodding, going, you're so right, you're so right. But then what are they going to do next month? They're going to go and pay for that bill for that ATS, right?

You have to have, you have to have an ATS for the applicant flow log. You have to have an ATS for the EEOC and the OFCCP.

And the crazy thing is, if the ATS as it stands today isn't doing the job it needs to do, is anyone else sitting out there going, someone needs to step up and build something that actually does what it needs to do?

And the problem is many, many, many, many, many, many, many years ago, there was an ATS that had— don't laugh— but it had optical character recognition and could scan, because back then people still faxed resumes or even mailed them. Okay, or, or you, or you, uh, we're bringing back, uh, paper resumes from a career fair. So this, you know, this is a long time ago. This system, the very first of its kind, had the ability to scan documents and use optical character recognition, and as a result, it was really good at categorizing information. Ultimately, this led to a system where you could go in and you can put a keyword in and add some simple math Boolean, right? And get exactly what you want. ATSs sort of went in that direction for a little while, and because it was not used by most people, they then eliminated. So what we have now are ATSs that essentially do not support field search syntax or Boolean. And there were— there, they used— you could— there was a time when you could go into the ATS and search for the name of the company in the email field specifically.

Okay.

Or the name of a job title in the job title field, or the name of a city in the address field. Now none of them have that. Most of them don't. So it's gone backwards.

The thing— and I think this is the problem—

you can imagine how efficient that would be to be able to search that way.

I know, right? Like, oh my gosh, be able to search something? Heaven forbid. Like, why on earth would we ever do that in recruitment, right?

Delete it. Yep.

This is the thing that gets me, and this is the struggle I always have within the recruitment space. And this is me coming in kind of with a different background and kind of seeing things very differently and not being corrupted by the standard is when technology tries to push a boundary like that ATS kind of equivalent was trying to do, allowing you to search through, etc. Because people are kind of used to this standard operating of rubbish. They just go, oh, like, it's doing something different. And it takes them a while in society for a wave of change to come through recruitment, no matter how much it makes sense, right? It takes a wave of people to go, this is now how you search in this stuff. This is why you should search in it. And it's part of the mission I'm kind of going through and the conversations I'm having with people being like, why are you using a filter in this platform? Like, look at where it's broken. Come on, kids. And especially in the world we're moving to where there's more and more applicants online and the technology and the number of candidates that are just sitting there, they can't be categorized by filters.

Oh, but Gabby, now we have artificial intelligence and recruiters and sourcers are gonna be obsolete because you can push a button on your AI system that matches the requisition with the candidate and you get the perfect candidate. That is gonna solve every problem. That has ever existed in recruiting.

Well, do you know what's going to happen? And this is one thing I'm actually proud of about AI.

I've heard that, I've heard that same thing at least 7 different times over the last 26 years with every system that's ever been invented. And it's always not been the truth.

But do you know what's nice about it?

I would like for it to be true.

The part of AI, the people that it kills are the people just weren't very good at the job in the first instance. The people who are exceptional at what they do, who are true recruiters, who are like, I know how to hunt. I don't just post a job and wait for magic to happen. I know how to hunt. I know how to engage. I know how to deal with my candidates. I know how to deal with my clients. I need to know how to deal with my hiring managers. Those people will survive and they will conquer and explode. And AI in its various elements will be a supporting factor.

It won't eradicate them. Yeah, just like email. Email is a supporting factor, but email doesn't recruit. Yeah, texting is a supporting factor.

If you don't fulfill a job, your inability to do a job efficiently and effectively is what your demise will be. And we have had for many, many years—

whatever technology—

I think recruitment should be a regulated process, right? I do. I think there's so many sharks out there.

It is regulated here.

Wow. In the UK, we need to adopt that process. We need to because—

oh, please don't. No, it's terrible. Why?

It's terrible. Why is it terrible? Why is it, from a candidate and a company perspective, why is it a terrible position?

Because the rate, well, depends on, let me, let me, depends on the regulations, right? But the, but the regulatory oversight, uh, again, another thing that a lot of recruiters, even experienced recruiters, but especially recruiters with, you know, that are just coming into the, into the market in the United States, are completely unaware of is that here in the United States we have 7 different governing bodies that regulate recruiting. And most recruiters are only aware of one, maybe two. They're familiar with the EEOC. Yep, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is the only one that is actually empowered to levy criminal charges that could actually land you in prison, right? So that's a real regulatory body. And then there's another pseudo-regulatory body which can only levy fines, and that is the OFCCP. Yeah, but those are the only two most people know. What they don't realize is that there are Sarbanes-Oxley oversights, that there are privacy law oversights that are— that, that have regulatory oversight. There are 7 different government bodies that have the ability to affect your recruiting, shut down your recruiting.

I mean, that's mad. I mean, when I'm talking about regulation and monitoring people, I'm not talking— yeah, what are you talking about?

That's That's what I want to make a job for the sake of it.

That's 7 bodies. Let's just amalgamate them and have a rulebook. This is what you can, can't do. Merry Christmas. Conform or please exit stage right. Right. That's what we're talking about here. But that is, that is excessive and would explain why when we did recruitment in the US, like 80% of our turnover came from US clients at one point in time when we had the agency. It was massive.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Explain that. That's interesting.

So when we ran our recruitment agency, we were UK-based, had US clients.

Okay.

And within a year, probably sub-year, 80% of our revenue came from US.

Wow.

So like, we were really like, at the end of the day, like, we walked in and went, we know how to hunt the best of the best. Let's go play. Because that's what we're good at, right? We're good at finding people and Fingers crossed people think we've got the personality to hold up a conversation with most human beings. But what was interesting is when we went to insure our business, our insurance went absolutely schizophrenic.

Because you went to the US? Oh, interesting.

Because of how much revenue. So it wasn't the fact we were just in the US. It was the fact that the majority of our revenue was coming from the US.

At the market, yeah, okay.

And therefore, there was only one insurance company in the UK that would insure us. And our insurance went triple. And even after we kind of closed and paused the agency while we focused on developing our technology, because we were like, you can't do both. Like, we just have to hunker down, especially building tech. That is a fully involved experience, should we say. Even after that, we paused the business 3 years ago. And because of US regulations and all this kind of great stuff and that oversight, We've had to keep paying insurance for the last 3 years to cover our bum.

Oh, from—

I see what you're saying.

Even though you no longer do, but I see what you're saying. Yeah.

So a lot of people don't realize that. They're like, I'm just going to get up today. I'm going to go wander over to the US. Well, you can.

Note to self.

Fill your boots, but let's apply some thought and process. But again, this is people thinking they can go everywhere. But back to the point of this regulation, I do think the fact there's 7 bodies in the US that have various influences over— Yeah.

We have the Department of Labor, the Department of Labor, which has to do with the EEOC as well. We have the Department of Justice. We have the department or the Office of Personnel Management. But then there's also the family and personal and medical leave. So there's basically medical oversight because of medical privacy and so on. Disabilities is a thing that, you know, there's medical and there's also Civil Rights Act. And so it's Oversight or regulatory can be a protector, but it can also be crippling. Yep.

Oh yeah. And I mean, to be fair, let's be honest, for my days in banking, like within the last kind of 3 years of my career, the regulations went like that.

Oh yeah, with like terror.

Orange has got to become your new color, right? It's like it was so dangerous and the risk of being put in prison for moving slightly wrong for many people is like, this is not worth it. I'll see you later. It gets too much.

Right.

But then on the flip side of it, you've got so many recruiters out there who are rogue and they're doing weird and funky and wonderful things in their own little bubble. And there has— I kind of feel for a lot of companies that lean into some of those agencies where you're looking at them being like, you like want to scream at them and go, please let them go. Like they're not looking after you. They're doing weird things. They're very ruthless. Like I heard a recruiter—

You're taking chances. I see what you mean.

Yeah. Like there was a recruiter many, many years ago who worked in an agency and they presented a couple of clients or candidates rather to this client. This client was like, I want to interview two. Interviewed two of them and wanted to offer the job to like, was like, I'm going to offer you this job. The one is, one was going to have a higher salary than the other. So what this recruiter did, because obviously they're driven by commission.

Okay. Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, come on.

No, they didn't get the job and only told the person who got the higher salary they got it so that they could earn commission. And you know how I found out this story is because they were wearing a bright, shiny new Rolex. They were like, that bought me this. And I looked at them, was like, you are kidding me. And she was like, that's quite normal in our business. And I'm like, oh, it's not.

That's not normal.

No, it's not. But the thing is, little things like this are so unethical. And so inappropriate.

I see what you're saying. Yeah, that is a completely diff— that is a complete— so that is essentially what happened in the day, you know, over here we used to have, um, I don't know what the other, the other countries did with this, but in the United States we used to have that essentially telemarketing or, um, you know, phone solicitation for business. And there, there was a very big company that made a ton of money by calling people at home and, uh, telling them that they were raising money for the fire department or the police department or the Fraternal Order of Police or the, you know, whatever. And people would donate thinking that they were giving to that organization. And this company could get— they could get away with it because every year they wrote a small check for, I don't know, $100,000 to these organizations And then they would say, you know, so if you dig into the fine print, they would say, yeah, we're raising money for them, but we only give them 1% of our profit. I mean, it was like a total scam.

But the thing is, there's so much of that that happened.

That was— that was— now it is illegal. I mean, that is illegal. But I see what you mean.

As it should be.

Yeah, but it wasn't.

I mean, it's crazy that it wasn't. But this— it's those kind of things that happen behind the scenes in some of the darkest corners of recruitment. And don't get me wrong, there are plenty of agencies I know. Yeah, they've come and run me. I'd be like, go work with these guys. I was standing there.

Exception you're talking about is— yeah, that's great.

But the problem is, because it happens behind closed doors, you have no idea how many other businesses are operating in this model and therefore actually doing a disservice to both the company and to the candidate. And it just, for those moments, I'm just like, we need to get our stuff together. We'll say stuff because we're live, wrap our hands around it and basically suffocate the toxicity and the poor performance. And these kinds of situations need to be suffocated and removed from the industry because that's what drives a lot of the agency to candidate and client dynamic where they just don't like each other, don't want to communicate each other because they feel like they can't trust each other. But they can't trust because you got a few rotten apples, right?

And so this is why you got into the industry. All of this came out of why did you get into the industry, by the way?

I know, right? And this, but this is the funny thing.

That's how you got into the industry.

It's amazing. One question. I have got so much passion from what I see, what I hear people doing. And I'm just like, it doesn't have to be this way. We can, we have a choice to be better. And it's actually looking at recruiters and going, don't be beaten. 'Cause there are a lot of recruiters out there just being like, oh, I just recruit and I kind of do this and I get treated badly and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, we all have a choice every morning to go, this doesn't work, let's make it better. And we have to come together and force that topic and talk about it openly.

Well, you know, I was gonna, so the other question I was gonna ask is what keeps you captivated, but I don't think I need to ask that 'cause it's pretty obvious now.

All of the above.

But, Right. So that's why you got into it and you're still into it. But what I do want to ask you is, thinking back to, narrow your focus to the last 3 years after the search firm, because I'm most curious about that. So in, after you've shuttered your, your practice of recruiting and you went into the practice of advising, consulting, and building a technology, what has been What is the single most unexpected benefit of being in the sourcing industry? Something you never thought you would actually get out of this and you're like, wow, I can't believe, you know, this is a, this is a benefit of being in this industry, but I would have never expected it.

That's a really good question. Do you know what's weird?

No, well, I know a lot of things are weird.

Yeah, a lot of things are weird. One of the things I never ever thought I would get out of being in this industry was being surrounded by a group of people who really get it. Like, do you ever walk around thinking I've dropped off the edge of a planet and no one understands me?

Me?

Yeah.

Yeah, 26 years ago I started feeling like that, and I still do.

Oh no, you need to come to some sourcing events with me.

Like, yeah, so let me tell you, a lot of, a lot of A lot of my friends, people that know me, my close friends in the industry, they call me the Nikola Tesla of recruiting. They all say, way, way ahead of your time. All this stuff you're talking about will be important in 100 years, but you'll be dead by then.

What?

That's just— yep, I'm telling you.

Oh my gosh.

I'm not making this up. It's the story of my life. So yeah, I very much walk around like I'm basically an alien from another planet at all of those events.

You need to change the events up. And you know what's really funny is when I first started in this journey and being like, this is what I think, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, I absolutely felt like that. I felt like people were looking at me being like, you're absolutely crazy. What the hell are you talking about, Gabby? And what's been interesting over these last 3 years and kind of how I've grown kind of my knowledge, my presence in the industry, people trusting my opinion, coming to me to ask for guidance and advice, is I found myself all of a sudden surrounded by people who want to be better. Who want to excel, like all this kind of stuff. And I've actually found a group of people that I actually love hanging out with because they want to be better, they want to push boundaries, and they're not willing to accept the status quo.

Don't you think you have a very myopic view though? Because you run a business telling people how to do better sourcing, so of course the people that are around you are going to want to—

hey, who cares how it happens? Hey, it means I'm doing a good job.

You know, I really like this because I'm surrounded by people that want to learn. You run a learning business.

Oh yeah, I know, that's fine. I'm cool with that. It means I'm doing my job properly. If they're coming, I'm doing my job properly. But it was— what was really interesting is actually just seeing 3 years ago, the difference between 3 years ago and now in terms of people's mindsets on kind of what they need to be doing with sourcing, how they need to be better, and the fact they can be better. And it's not like this majorly complicated world that only the geekiest of geekiest of geeky people live in. We're starting to see this wave of more people come in.

Thanks.

You're welcome. I mean, we need you guys. We need you guys for the team. But there are people who find that overwhelming, right? I've definitely spoken to people, they're like, I can't do Boolean maths. I'm like—

And/or not. That's it. You're done.

I know, right? I always say to people, I'm like, when was the last time you used the word and? I was like, 2 seconds ago when you got on this call with me.

Hey, Boolean.

Yeah, right. You're doing it. And it's just been fantastic just to see how the industry is starting to shape and mold around recruiters getting the fact they need to step up and that it's fun and it's enjoyable. And that's kind of been my biggest kind of surprise. I thought they'd be harder to convert.

Okay.

But they all want to be better. And I love that. It's that mentality in recruiters. There is this commonality among—

Yeah, you know what? That's true. I think the way that you phrased it I think the way that you phrased it is, that's a true statement. In general, when it comes to not so much in recruiting or in the old, you know, old school recruitment, in the sourcing space and people who want to learn sourcing, who are recruiters, so they're recruiters that want to source, there's definitely a much bigger appetite and interest and curiosity in improving and getting and sharing and, you know, and getting better collectively. In the old ways of recruiting, it was the opposite. It was very much, let's— it's our trade secret, let's hold it. And I think I've had conversations with other guests on the show about this. I think it originated from the back in the agency days, maybe even before your time. The agency mentality was you own the candidate. So this is my candidate. And if you made a placement with that candidate, you got a commission, right? But that isn't really, even in modern agencies, that isn't the case. Now, some agencies still have candidate ownership, but a lot of modern agencies pull their candidates and they get, everybody wins when they make a placement, even if Shelly found the candidate and Gabby was the one that made, you know, so nowadays that's changed. And I think that's where the mentality came from is that sort of, hoarding mentality. It's mine. Yeah, now that isn't the case, so we're a lot more at liberty to, um, help boost each other up.

Yeah, I mean, but what's interesting is I've definitely— like, there was a client I spoke to a couple of months ago, and it was so weird. I was like, right, we're gonna do this, we're gonna level you up. I was like, do you want to bring your colleagues in? And she was like, no, like really firm on it.

And I was like, this is mine, I'm the one that wants to learn.

Do you know why? Because what they do is they have a team of recruiters. And when a job comes in, do you know what they do with it? They throw it right in the middle and you grab, and whoever gets the best candidate first, like you're all like hunting and trying to get there first. So it's like a mass competition. I'm looking at her being like—

Boiler room? It's like a boiler room.

It's such a weird mentality. So there are those kind of dog eat dogs, but I definitely agree with you. We're starting to see that world of we're in this together to get our candidates like get our company, like the clients, we in companies, we support the best talent. Let's all hunker in and push forward in whatever dynamic that does. And I think a large amount of that for agencies is the way their commission structures have been shifted. Right. That drives a lot of decisions people make because it's money, right? It's money. If I give you half of what I was meant to make, 100%, I'm right, right, right, right.

But, you know, in the UK and I think also in other other former British colonies, the, the, the tipping mentality isn't there. So for example, if you are a waiter or waitress in a restaurant in the UK, you're paid an adequate salary and tips are not a required part of your job. But here, that still hasn't taken place. It's still very much— so I think the mentality here still culturally is still very much of everyone, you know, everyone fends for themselves and has their own, um, you know, everybody makes their own tips. So I think there's still a little bit of that that I think is the scrappy American culture of make your own way, you know.

Which I get though, like I remember—

Yeah, that's how we are. I mean, I'm not, I'm not criticizing, I'm just saying that's a big difference.

Yeah, and I think that's what's always really interesting when you look at the cultural differences in dynamics of agencies in-house in different locations, there are so many additional extra kind of things going on around them, right? Kind of like what you're talking about, like tipping, like how they make their money, how they earn it, kind of that all drives a huge cultural difference.

In, in some countries in, in Asia, and, um, in— I don't want to come out as, uh, come across as ignorant and try to name a country, but there are countries in Asia, for example, where the culture is one where if you require the favor of a god, one of your deities, especially for those countries where there's religions that have multiple gods, if you require the favor of a god, you essentially give them a gift. So basically, in those cultures, you bribe your way to get what you want. And that's, that is an accept that, you know, if I want this favor from this god, I essentially bribe them. And then I get this favor. So if you translate that to other industries and, you know, people in the United States go, well, that country is just corrupt. They're so corrupt. That's not corruption. That's just cultural to, you know, greasing the wheel or giving somebody an incentive for doing something is actually their, you know, it came from where they were. So the culture that you were raised in and what's considered acceptable really has a huge impact Massive. And I think that's in other cultures that don't know that, it's hard to operate.

Well, this is true. Like, we sit there and you talk about agencies, right, who are like, I'm gonna go and operate in this business and this business in this country and this country in this country. And you're like, that's all they're thinking about is what's my insurance, how do I set up, do I need a certain number of employees for that location, yada yada yada. But they're not actually stepping back and going, what's the cultural differential that could impact how we interact with other people?

Think about it, Gabby, think about it. Here in America, when you do a good job, we tip you. In Asia, we tip you so you do a good job, and we call that a bribe, but it's the same thing. We're still tipping you. We just tip you before you do it. I mean, that's not a bribe.

Well, there's a group of people in the UK, we will not label them, but people know who I'm referring to if we talk about this, that when you pay them, agnostic of what you pay them, what they'll always do is give you some of that money back. So if they did a piece of work for me and they paid me, as a gesture, they would expect me to give a percentage back.

Okay. So that's another kind of a tip.

Right.

Right.

It's like a reverse tip. It's like, oh, you paid me 100. Actually, take a tenner back. I only want 90. Again, it's that bond and that relationship. And it's an unwritten rule.

And it's the same—

But it happens with every transaction. But I think so many people out there running businesses, especially recruitment or agnostic, like, or anything else, really, you have to think about the cultural dynamic of the candidates you're talking to, the companies you're operating with, what is going on in their world, where actually you can be complementary, or are your cultures so extremely different and you're being ignorant of their dynamics and your dynamics that actually you're just going to come at loggerheads before you even get off the market to actually present candidates and move through that hiring process.

Translation for Americans: loggerheads is like butting heads.

Yeah, same thing. Brits chatting again, like you need like a dictionary.

I gotta translate. I love it, but I gotta translate.

That'll be my next piece of tech, translating.

I studied— my undergraduate was in intercultural and cross-cultural communications, and I've lived in a lot of different continents and countries, so I'm kind of an affian, I guess, or a whatever the word, I'm a geek about translating meaning because very often people who are from that culture don't realize that it doesn't come across. So sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful or interrupt you, but that's where, that's my geeking out.

Keep translating, I love it. I need someone to translate me. Do you want to come with my other calls as well? You can also do it.

Absolutely, yeah, especially as you're calling to the US so much. So normally, Gabby, I would, I would ask a question around a difficult role that you worked But I, I'm much more curious in the last 3 years of your career. So let me flip that question around a little bit, and I'd love to ask you about what is the most odd or unusual, uh, request that you got for sourcing? Like someone came to you and said, I'm having the hardest time finding this, and you were just like, wow, I've never heard of that before. Like, what is the oddest— yeah, you got it.

A lizard groomer.

Yeah, no, okay, uh, explain.

So there was a company that I was talking to.

I'm so glad that this is G-rated.

I know, right? It is. Luckily, I'm sure there's other things I've probably been asked. I'm just kind of blocking to the back.

I'm glad you didn't go that way. I know, right?

I'm being censored. Although it's a Friday night in the UK, no one's had enough alcohol for that story. But this guy was like, okay, so your technology, could you help me find a lizard groomer? And it has— they actually wanted a lecturer.

What does a lizard groomer do? I mean, like, please explain.

Honestly, it was a lecturer who teaches people how to groom a lizard.

How would you— to what end?

So like, if you have a pet lizard, like a bit like having a dog or a cat or a snake or whatever, like they need looking after.

Yeah, a pet groomer. It's a pet groomer that specializes in lizards.

Uh-huh. But they wanted someone who lectured on it. They wanted a lecturer of lizard grooming to go into a college or whatever and teach these students. I was like, I actually thought they were joking. Like, honestly, I was like laughing.

I'm thinking you're joking right now.

Yeah, you're gonna find one. But it was, he was like, how can I write a Boolean string to find people who've done this? And it was hilarious. It was like, I think it's one of the funniest strings I've ever had to write in my life, but it was so cool because I kind of liked how far it had to push me outside my comfort zone of like the normal, like, can you find a software developer? Or it's like, can you find a chef? Or can you find—

Yeah, I just found somebody for you if you, if you still want.

I just put it like, if Gabby's clients listening, I was—

I thought you were making it up, so I went and I found somebody. I have, I have someone who actually teaches lizard grooming.

It's amazing, right?

This is real. This is real. I just found somebody that, as, as she was talking, so Yeah, interesting. So that begs the question, or at least in my mind, there must be a significant volume of people who have lizards as pets.

You would assume so.

That's why— yeah, I didn't know that. So where I, where I grew up was a part— it's another country outside of the United States, but where I grew up, it was a semi-arid environment. So some people would call it subtropical. It's somewhere between subtropical and semi-arid. Point being, it's fairly dry, doesn't rain often, but when it does, it pours. And so a lot of the plants and a lot of the flora and fauna are adept at keeping, retaining water and, you know, things like that. So iguanas in particular are very common. And in my house, in my yard, we— there was an iguana whose territory that was. And, you know, this iguana would No, this was the iguana's territory, and they're pretty territorial. I saw that iguana chasing other iguanas away. And as I was growing up, this iguana got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and it was a mama, and I saw its little baby iguanas. And long story short, seeing how that iguana lived and having essentially been that iguana's associate from a distance I could never in a million years ever imagine petting it, which I think is the definition of a pet.

Oh, don't. People are weird. They've got weird pets. Like, honestly, the things you can have as a pet nowadays—

I respect the decision to have an iguana as a pet, but I was just— this was not a very friendly creature. I, I, I used to imagine that it was a dinosaur.

I mean, they basically— some of the monster ones Uh, dinosaurs.

This thing, I mean, I, I knew it when I was, you know, a youth and claimed its territory. And eventually, by the time I left that house and, you know, went to college and all that, it was a massive reptile, right? Yeah.

Let's be honest, I wouldn't want it as a pet, and I definitely sure as hell wouldn't want to groom that thing.

That's what I just said. Yeah, I don't, I don't think I'm going to be grooming it.

No, it's a very sharp pointy thing, right? No automatic applying on LinkedIn, okay? You got to promise me this.

I know, unless that's what you you really like.

If it makes them happy.

But yeah, unless you are very as passionate as Gabby is about optimizing processes, if you are passionate about rounding out the sharp pointy things on iguanas, then this would be the job for you.

But yeah, that was the weirdest. And it was a live search as well to prove the tech worked. I always do it with people who come and go, what does your tech do? I'm like, why don't we just do a live hunt? We'll see what it does, see if it helps you. If it doesn't help you, you move on, I move on. If it does, we get married Christmas.

Gaby, at the risk of, at the risk of being extremely offensive here, which I probably will be, and so I apologize in advance, um, that was— you answered my question so beautifully. That was definitely one of the oddest— I, I have examples of odd ones, but yeah, that was one of the oddest I have ever encountered in my life.

Yes.

However, I will tell you, that is the absolute worst way to prove your technology.

No, it's not.

It's wicked. Let me tell you why. Because those really odd searches, it took me all of like less than a second to find somebody. Oh yeah, they're easier to find because of their oddity.

I know, right?

Generally speaking. So if you really want to prove a technology— hold on, let me, let me, let me explain why. I don't want you to be offended, but I want to— let me explain why. The most difficult, uh, people to find are the ones whose skill sets are not distinguished.

Yes, agreed.

And that, that would prove your technology if you could use the technology to find somebody that was a perfect fit for an account manager.

Oh yeah, but this is the thing. So when we do a live search, I completely agree with you too.

Not a lizard grooming account manager, just an account manager.

Oh yeah, we can do all of it, right? Yeah, but what I love—

I think you get me.

Yeah, I know, I completely get you. To you and I, that search is like, there you go, right? It's done. But the thing is, when you step back and you kind of walk outside of the world of like 'Cause the recruiter went to LinkedIn and they typed in lizard groomer and they got zero results.

And they're like, there's nobody out there. Yeah. Right.

There's no filter for this. And you're like, no, sure as hell there isn't. So for you and I, it's obvious, but this is the interesting thing. Like that for us was easy. Like that didn't take me 2 seconds to solve that problem. And I'm not a specialist in that field.

Do you want to know what I did?

What was that? Sorry?

Do you want to know what I did? What? To do that search?

I loved it. Yeah, go on. Show me what you did.

It's probably—

Just typed it in Google.

It's probably really stupid, but literally I went and I did a search for, uh, pictures of lizards being groomed.

Yeah.

And one of the top results was somebody that was teaching how to groom lizards. It was just like, okay, that's amazing. This is—

but the thing is, for you, that's so like second nature.

I did not think it would work. Seriously, I was just like, pictures of lizards getting groomed. Oh look, it's what Gabby's talking about.

It's like, look, I found you a candidate. Let's play. But this is the thing.

I wasn't trying to find you a candidate. I was just like, is this really real? Does it really happen? Do people actually groom lizards? So literally I was like, are there really people that groom lizards? Pictures of lizards being groomed? Yes. And there are people who teach you how to do it.

But this is the thing though, like, right? What's so funny is like that naturally for you was a logical process to go through. But I think so many people, when you look at the hardcore sources in this little huddle, the bubble is quite small. It's not as big as we think it is. And when you look at actually how many people sit outside that, that kind of thought process that you went through isn't normal for them.

It's normal. Weird. That's a very polite way of saying I'm weird. I get it.

Hey, I'm in that party with you, right? You and I are as weird as each other, which I'm absolutely okay with.

Two paws and a pea. 2 pods and a pea.

Hey, at least we've got someone who understands each other, right? That's right, we're not an alien anymore. We can do it together.

So there must be another pod in that pea as well. Who should be our next guest?

Oh, do you know what? I spoke to a really cool woman today, a lady called Sandra Feldman. Have you ever come across the wonder that is Sandra Feldman?

F-E-L-D-M-A-N-N. All right, on it.

She is speaking at the Sourcing Summit with me in October, which is amazing. I'm so excited to be speaking at that. But we kind of started chatting off the back of it, and I had a call with her today, and her energy and her vibe and her passion around all things kind of communicate— communicating with candidates, like how to do that better, how to look at the psychology elements of it. I was blown away by her love and passion for it. She's your girl. You've got to give her a shout.

All right, I love it.

More women corrupting your world. What are you going to do on a Friday?

No, that's not corruption at all. So, um, the, uh, last question I have for you, because we're getting pretty close to the hour here, is I, I often— people will watch the replay of the show over the weekend because it's not always convenient for them to stop working in the middle of a Friday. So I want to, I always want to give them something to really think about. They've gotten a lot to think about here, but I want— is there something you would like to share that would be a thought-provoking idea or question for people to chew on over the weekend?

Do you know what the simplest question is? If you are sourcing candidates, are you truly being as inclusive as you could be on your searches?

Uh, yeah. Yes. Is that the answer? Yes. But you're telling them to think about it for themselves.

For some people, that answer is actually far deeper. So a lot of people won't have— like, for you, for example, you have that conviction in your answer because you know how to source and you, you have this full skill set on how to navigate all these requirements. For a lot of recruiters out there, or people sourcing, whatever you want to call them, they will always have in the back of their mind, they're like, have I done the best search? Have I got the best talent? Have I got the most inclusive talent? Like, they'll have these niggling doubts. And the reason I ask that question is because if you are having that niggling doubt, today is the day to change it.

And if you're having that doubt, I applaud you because you're thinking about the right thing.

Okay.

Yeah. So the question— sorry, I probably should have The question is, if you're sourcing, yep, are you being inclusive? Are you finding everybody, or are you— okay, I love that. I think a good tit for tat there would be if you're posting your job on LinkedIn, are you being inclusive? Because only certain people go to LinkedIn. 100%.

Yeah, 100%. You have to think outside the box. Like, it's not just one dynamic. And I know there's lots of sources out there who are like, have a love affair with X-ray or have a love affair with in-platform sourcing. For me, I have this love affair with knowing all the skills, knowing how to do all of it, and then I know how to push and pull it depending on where the candidates are. And I think all recruiters should have that full armory, as we call it.

Yeah.

They can do the best by their client, their candidates, whoever it may be that they're doing this for.

Yeah.

And you can sit there at night and go to bed and go, I've absolutely owned that. I have given you the best of the best.

I have, yeah. And simply going to LinkedIn isn't it. I gotta tell you, I've been, I've been doing this for a very, very, very long time. And I was early, very early on LinkedIn. In fact, one of the first 100,000 people in there. And I was, yeah, I was actually instrumental in helping them build that. They didn't want to get into recruiting. But anyway, what I'm trying to get to is, long story short, I used to tell people about LinkedIn. As a tool. But, you know, now everybody uses it, and unfortunately, now everybody depends on it. And never have I ever been as convinced that a lot of folks are not on LinkedIn as I was yesterday. So in all my years, I still look, I still experiment, I still ask questions, and I still learn. And what I learned yesterday, because I was challenged by a task that I had to complete on behalf of a business leader at our company, and this challenge, this request was that they wanted to be able to aggregate the background profiles of all of the people at the company that had a particular job title. Now, there are 30 people at this company that have that particular job title, and my first instinct was to go to LinkedIn because it's the easiest place to get a profile. Now, keep in mind, the objective wasn't find the LinkedIn profiles, it was find their background. We want to We wanna, we wanna know where these 30 people came from because when we hired them, we didn't, we didn't, um, retain their, their information. So I want to see the background of these 30 people. So I went to LinkedIn and I tried to find all 30 of these people. I only found 17. I know their names, I know their email addresses. The other ones are not on LinkedIn. They are not on LinkedIn. Now, and I'm not talking about private accounts or whatever, you know, I know how to source. They were just not on there. So that is, that is a huge, uh, yeah, that I, I was shocked. I mean, that means that a little bit less than half, 13 people out of 30, had no LinkedIn Pro. Yeah, even though I knew that mentally, I've never had such proof of like, there's definitely a lot of people that are not on LinkedIn.

But this, but again, like, that's fantastic evidence that they're not there. Plus the evidence and kind of more weighting behind the argument of every recruiter should have a full set of skills.

Bingo. Oh man, that's a perfect way to end the show.