Liz Whitehead Live on Shally's Alley

Hey everybody, happy Friday! You are live on Shelly's Alley, October 10th. Finally the fall season and it's getting chilly. I may even need to turn my heat on at some point this week, maybe. Last year we didn't have anything cool at all until after Halloween, which was a bummer. But this year it's definitely getting cooler sooner, and man, I couldn't be happier. This is my, my kind of weather. I love fall weather. I love fall weather more than any other weather because in spring, I— spring, everything is really pretty, but I am assaulted by the allergies in Atlanta, and there's nothing you can do about it. We're famous for having like a yellow blanket of pollen on everything. And in the fall, I'm not allergic to whatever the pollen is. So how about where you are in your neck of the woods up in DC? You're in DC or in Maryland or where— what part of the country?

Hey, um, I'm in Northern Virginia. I'm in Fairfax County. And you, you speaking about that blanket of yellow, that's exactly what happens to us.

No way, really? Your car—

oh, your car is— you have a blanket of yellow dust all over your car. Yeah, it's into everything here in Northern Virginia. And, um, I don't know what it is about getting older, Shelly, but the older, older I've gotten, the allergies have gotten worse.

I know, they don't get better. You think that you can— you like, your body be like, yo, I've seen this before. Yeah, but no, instead it's like, hey, you're being assaulted by this. So, well, folks, for everybody that is joining us, I would like you to meet my friend Liz. And I am going to introduce Liz as the one that got away. Let me tell you what I mean by that. Before you get, you know, before your husband gets jealous or anything like that. So, I was trying to build, I wasn't just trying, I actually did build my dream team at a company. And Liz applied for the last role that we had open on my team. And I was really excited. And I did everything I could to try to get her but I couldn't snag her. So she's the one that got away, and she left for something else. Better, better job, I'm sure. I hope anyway. But ever since then, I'm like, I want to hire this person because I just wanted to work with you, like totally. So I never had a chance to work directly with Liz, but I did interview her. And do you remember— I don't know if you want to share this. If you don't want to share this, go ahead. But do you remember Um, what I told you during the interview?

I don't remember what you told me, but I definitely remember our conversation in terms of we had a very lengthy conversation.

We did. Yep.

And, and I so wanted to work with you, and maybe someday I still will.

I hope so.

Which I would love the opportunity because you're one of the many leaders in our industry that I've followed, and I feel like, um have really taught me what I know to this day. Oh, so it's true. Very true.

Well, thank you. I was just super excited. Do you remember a little bit about the conversation that we had?

Well, we talked about like the company, the company we were working for. Yeah, it was an RPO. Um, we were talking about technology, probably about most likely technology. Because at the time I was like, I'm so obsessed with, you know, technology. Um, but I was probably just really getting into it back then, right? I was really excited to tell you about it, right?

You had just started learning. The first time I tried to hire you for a different job, um, you weren't quite ready for that job yet because it was very early. You had just started, like, you had just found sourcing was your sort of direction. And then the second time I called you, it was a lot more— yeah, it was, it wasn't— the company used to be an RPO, and I started my own product line in there, and it was basically a solutions consulting firm for sourcing. And we were doing some really advanced stuff with automation, which, lo and behold, um, back in the day was like Power Automate and things that were a little bit more, uh, or headier, more technical, you needed to know a little bit of scripting and stuff like that. But, um, I gave you some, you know, some tips and advice on that. I spoke to every candidate that expressed interest and completed the application because the application wasn't easy. And, um, I remember, you know, setting up the meeting with you specifically and was like, man, this would be, you know, so awesome if you could. You know, you're like, I'm not sure. And I said, well, I know you don't know all this stuff, but we're building it, so we don't either. Like, you know, so So you're going to learn it. So I guess you went out and you did that on your own. Yeah. And built all this stuff on your own. And so when you signed up for the show, I mean, I invited you, I know that. I kept begging you to come on the show, but when you finally agreed, you made a comment on the form, my intake form, about what you wanted to talk about. And it caught my attention because again, when you applied for the job, it was the same kind of I got the same sense then that I got now, and that's one of the things that I think is really engaging about you. You're just— you're always— you're joy, like, you're joy everywhere you go. And when you filled out the form, you said you wanted to talk about the power of just getting to know people. And, um, what's the other thing you said? The power of getting to know people and being forever curious. So the being forever curious is like that to me. I— that's me. I have— have you ever done CliftonStrengthsFinder or any of those things? No, like the, you know, DiSC and stuff like that? Well, there's one called—

oh yeah, DiSC. Yeah, yeah, of course I know DiSC.

There's one called CliftonStrengthsFinder, which I think is now owned by Gallup or whatever, and it goes and tells you what your strengths are. And so the idea is A lot of these tools say, here's your strengths and weaknesses. Here's your gaps. Go fix these things. But CliftonStrengths says, here's your strengths. Play to these strengths. Well, my number 1 strength on the top of that stack, where it says all 5 of these are equal— of course, they have to say that. All 5 of these are equal, but the number 1 is the one that you exceed the most. And for me, it was Input, which is— so, we have this same like thirst for curious. Like we just have this input need, right? And that you put that in the intake again, it's like the third time I, you know, I'm getting this from you. I want to dive into that. Tell me about this thirst for knowledge, or is it just, or is it just curious? Where does this come from? Who's lit your fire for that?

I probably have my parents to owe that to. And I don't know if it's necessarily a positive thing, uh, because the way I, the way I grew up, it's just they were always questioning everything I did. Why do you want to do that? Well, you know, the Asian parents. So it wasn't always a positive.

Sounds Socratic.

Yeah. But so what happened was, as I got older, I applied that to everything— education, relationships. Um, I just remember in college, you know, I was never like the nerd or the know-it-all. For sure, I was never the know-it-all.

No, but the curiosity is— your curiosity is your superpower.

But the one that got me was I always— I wanted to know more because I needed clarification. If something didn't make sense to me, you bet you I would raise my hand. And it was like that all throughout college. All— every job I've had, I, I even got reprimanded for it one time because—

for being curious? No.

Yeah, well, a couple of jobs ago, I'm not gonna say which job, um, they didn't like my communication style of being forever like, okay, I understand we're doing things this way, but why? What? Can you explain to me why? Like, let's— I, I understand, but let's, let's talk this through. And And it was seen as, uh, not very positive. It was a smaller company, and I think just—

I know where that comes from. And I, and for what it's worth, the way around that is— so it comes from the— I have the same thing, and I— this is the feedback that I was getting. And so I, you know, um, I hired an executive coach and, and I worked on it. Um, so the way I've, I've managed that is instead of 'Can you tell me why we're doing it this way?' Which to you sounds like, 'I really would like to know why it's done this way so that I can understand it.' But to them it sounds like, 'Man, y'all are stupid. Why are you doing it this way?' Which is not at all what we mean. So instead of that, you say, 'Can you walk me through how we got to doing it this way? Were there any other, you know, options that were tried? What other options were tried? And again, I'm just trying to understand.' As opposed to like, you know, Why are we doing it this way? Because that sounds like we shouldn't be doing it this way. Anyway, so you got reprimanded for that. I get it. That happened to me too. Not exactly a reprimand, but more like feedback from my 360.

Yeah, you mean it's hard not to take it personally. You're like, I— right, in your head, I didn't mean that. You're not trying to. But you know what, I've had some really great leadership in the years since who have told me to embrace it. Embrace it. That's who you are. And move. So someone told me that.

Reframe the question, basically.

Right. And someone's opinion is not the opinion. So where I am now—

I'm just kidding.

Well, now I'm at home. But the company I'm at now, Warner Brothers— I have to shout out my manager. Is amazing, and she supports that frame of thought, just like forever curious. And she knows how curious I am. I'm always asking questions. And in my head, when it comes to our jobs, I think people who are in the sourcing field, we all have a quality of wanting to know more and never being satisfied. I'm never satisfied.

I always feel like They can't do it.

There's always something, right? There's always, there's always something else. Like, you know, I can't— this job's really hard. I understand it's hard, but there's someone out there. Like, I take, I embrace that challenge and there's always a different way. And I think that's where my curiosity comes into play is how can I think outside the box? I just naturally think there's something. What else can I do? And that's just what drives me internally.

A big differentiator between a sourcer and a recruiter is the recruiter is a, you know, systems thinker. They've got things that have to be— there's, you know, gates that have to be passed. There's, you know, if you're going to interview people, you need to interview them all, you know, in the same manner so that it's fair. But with sourcing, we're not a systems thinker. We're more, like you said, we get— there's— we got to find a way around it because the regular way didn't work. So we're the, you know, we're the alternative by definition. I think that comes with a big degree of curiosity.

Yes, exactly. And I call it, I call it myself as following the breadcrumbs because you meet somebody, you know, who might know someone else or might be connected to an organization or, you know, that can just kind of spider and bring you to what you need. It might be a little bit slower to start, but it's so worth it once you, once you get started, once you plant that kind of seed and it starts growing. It's definitely paid it forward. I'll tell you one thing when it comes to the curiosity is that's basically how I got my job now. Where I'm at, at Warner Brothers. So not maybe not so much a curiosity, but like that spidering effect and relationships. I think I probably shared with you in the past, you know, strengthening those relationships are really part of our jobs, right? And years and years ago, before the pandemic, I got involved. That's when I got involved in SourceCon, and I met you at HRTX. And all these leaders are in our industry now who I learned of back then. I've been following throughout the years. And one of them, Batman, as everyone knows him, I connected with him and his Discord page. So I followed his Discord channel for years and I was on there for education, teach myself, and just to network. And that's really like one of the things that opened me up to a lot of other leaders because I could— you could follow them and see conversations and discussions. And quite honestly, I think that's the best way to learn is just by following what are the people talking about, what tools are being used. Anyways, someone posted a job in there and I reached out to them because we had the mutual connection and started interviewing and That's basically how I got my job at WBD right now because she was a recruiter, like a manager here. And it's just because we had the mutual connections and it's just the power of relationships. It's just, it's beyond powerful to say the least. And I think people underestimate that and they underutilize that. But really, I think it's gotten me to everywhere where I've been how I've gotten to where I am now.

The curiosity and, and just kind of the relationship building. Yeah, even though exactly, you know, some people, I mean, in the sourcing field might believe that you only do the front end of the process and you're not really kind of connecting with people necessarily. And that's, that, that's the part of our job that is research. Um, but it's like, you know, you can say the same thing in recruiting. In recruiting, you can treat it very transactional apply for a job and just move the application through. Or you can treat recruiting with compassion and genuine networking. The same thing with sourcing. So, I don't think that it's necessarily in the nature of sourcing. That's more in the nature of you. But you put that curiosity together with that connection and it builds— I think what you're saying and I'm hearing is that it builds long-term rewards. It builds like a, like a, like a staying power, um, that goes with you even if you end up going to another industry. Like, you're recruiting maybe for entertainment now, but if you ever go into another field, you still have that, that network, even though they may not be in the same industry, you know. So, yeah, um, I wanted to ask you about the, you know, with automation And because we started talking about automation when I first— first two times that I tried to hire you, um, and, um, so I just wanted to kind of, kind of check in with you. It's been 4 or 5 years, I think, since we first— I think we met a long, long, longer ago. We met longer than that ago, but it's been 4 or 5 years since we spoke about, you know, work. Um, so how do you personally keep the sourcing human, you know, connecting like you're saying, that the connection the curiosity and the connection with the automation, um, because I think today it matters a lot more than before. How do you maintain that perspective, that balance?

Yeah, well, you have to put in perspective, you know, put yourself— make it more human, because these people that you are sourcing for, they're like you and I. They're our family members, they're everybody that we— in our, in our lives. You know, so it's like we have all these technologies to help us find those people, but in my head I just think about, well, what if that was me? How— I don't want that person to— I don't, I don't want to come off as, um, come off in a certain way, you know. I keep it human by just making them feel— making them feel like they can trust me, making them feel like you're— they're talking to a real person who's understanding what they want in a job, or even the hiring manager, what their pain points are. It's just, it's humanizing everything just conversationally.

Yes, we can transparent about like the, you know, like, I'll give you, I'll connect the dots with the reason I'm asking. You know, I've been doing automation longer than probably most, if not almost everybody, probably in recruiting, because I've been doing it since it was like, green screens. And I've always been transparent about the automation. For example, I used to use mail merge, right, back before CRMs had sequencing, you know. I used to use spreadsheets and Outlook and mail merge, uh, email merge. So what sometimes people would, would ask, hey, you know, is this a form letter or this, you know, because back then there wasn't a lot of personalization options. It was just Excel, you know, you didn't have all that. And I would be like, I would reply back right away and I would be honest, but yes, I use a template, but I customize my messages. So, you know, rest assured it's me sending it and I'm receiving it and I'm replying right away. But I do use a template because otherwise, it would take too long for me to basically repeat a lot of the same, you know, stuff back and forth. And I'll even be transparent when I reply back and I'll say, even when I'm replying to you, I have templates. Like if you ask me a question about, this or that, I would have, you know, quick parts in my, in my Outlook and stuff like that. Like, I use technology, but it doesn't take away from the fact that it's really me saying that, and it's not automated to the point where I'm not there.

Yeah, so I, I get you're saying now. So we use, we use Hireezy, um, which I've grown to just— I love Hireezy and their drip campaigns. Um, So I do, I do the drip campaigns and I'll, you know, every, I'll message a number of people, but what I do, I make sure that every person that I, that I've created a project, everybody in that per— that, that project has something common, something common that I can speak to in the messaging. So even if you're mass messaging for some of these, there's a connection. Yeah. There's that, there's still that connection no matter what. And then you mentioned whenever someone responds to that campaign that I've done, I have, you know, Magical. So I use Magical and I create these templated phrases. So whenever I need to respond to someone's question, I don't have to type it out. I just do the little phrase and then boom, like right there.

Yeah.

But it's my words. It's, yeah, but it's your words. It's still my words. Like, it's how I would react to someone, but it saves me time and energy from having to type that out and write the response. You know, it's just, it's there.

Are you transparent about that or just when they ask?

If they ask, totally. I've had people ask me like, oh, when I, because I always ask them, oh, what prompted you to respond to me? And they say, oh, I, you know, you really, you really spoke to me or your email resonated with me. And I usually thank them and say, yeah, you know, thank you. And then they ask me any questions about it. I'll say, you know, we do use part of my job as there are tools available to us to message people. And so I kind of keep it vague, but I do tell them, you know, we have tools available to us within our jobs that allow us to message a number of people. I'm always transparent. I don't, I don't see the point. In hiding things. I've always been that way. Um, obviously, as long as it's to a degree, yeah, you know, could be situational, of course. Um, but yeah, I don't see, I don't see why hide things nowadays. Everybody, everybody knows, you know, there's— right, everyone's using ChatGPT, everyone's using technology. If you're not, I'm sorry, you need to be, you need to catch up with us. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, there are ways to humanize automation. I think it's just a matter of how you use it. It can be scary for those who aren't familiar or aren't using it. You can easily, you know, be too scared and have negative thoughts about it. But I think once you're in it, you realize, oh, it's not, you know, I can tailor this.

You can.

And because I can tailor it, that's how you humanize it.

And it's easier than ever to tailor, honestly.

Oh, totally.

Nowadays.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So yeah, that's what I was thinking. Um, now you've been— you've built some sourcing strategies, um, in, uh, you know, AI, in the AI space, in public health, uh, created— I think at Warner Brothers now you're working sort of on the, um, a lot of technical right now. Technology. And yeah, how do you, um tailor your relationship building across different industries? Is it— is there— is your rela— is what we're talking about the same any— any industry, or are you— are there specific things that you tailor when you switch from, um, yeah, tech? Yeah, what it was— tell me about that.

Yeah, totally. So I've supported the tech folks and I've supported design creatives. They're very different groups of people. Creatives, you talk to differently. Technical people, they respond better to data analytics, like facts, whereas it's very much more subjective when you're supporting, you know, the creative realm. So I change that, I alter it. So with, with the technical ones, you know, it's pulling, it's pulling market data, talent mapping to really get them to know, to see the facts. And where the people, where the talent is in the market, how they're going to attract them, using tools that will help you figure out the best time of year to hire even. So just using numbers and data to support that resonates with the technical side of the folks that I'm, that I'm supporting. Whereas like right now I'm working, I have multiple creative roles, but it's more subjective and it's more of I gain the— I build the relationship by getting them to understand. I get their vision, I get what their goals are, I get, um, their excitement. Like, I tune in. And, and I think what the— and I'll speak to this because I think it helps across the board for any sourcer— is you match the level or you match the personality of the person you're speaking to. So the hiring team you kind of match their energy. You know, it gets them to—

even as a source, you're getting to know that.

Yeah, you get them to feel comfortable with you and open up. And same thing with the technical side. Whatever industry you're sourcing for, I think a key thing is just understanding how to match, match them on a personal level to make them feel like you not only hear them but you understand them. And that kind of, um, I don't know how you— there's a word for it. I can't, I can't, I can't get it. But like matching their energy and it goes a long way. And I think that's how I've been able to really relate to such different groups of individuals that I support here and anywhere, any job I've been at. Yeah.

That's interesting. So you do you interview more than just the hiring manager then? You know, like, do you also talk to the panel and you know what I'm saying?

No, I don't talk to the panel at this point.

To kind of get to know what we're talking about.

In the past, I have talked to the teams, like gotten to know the actual teams. Like when I was in person, my last in-person job, I was able to just, you know, walk upstairs or walk to wherever the team that I support, say hi. It's a little different when you're working remotely. It's, it's hard to kind of do that. And then especially when you're working for such a large company where people are just spread out all over the country, it makes it tougher. But I will say because of things like Slack, Teams, Zoom, like all the options that we have to communicate does make it easier. But not here, but past jobs I have where I've been able to just like talk to not just the hiring manager, but the people to get an idea of. No, I'd say I've done this here. If it's, if it's a role that's brand new, let's say, or a skill set that I'm not familiar with, one strategy is getting to know someone who's actually doing that job on the team.

Okay.

You know, yeah, you know, like I have when I was, when I started in the beginning of the year, I started supporting this, this one, our tech division. And I did reach out to people, various people on the teams, just kind of not really shadow, but to get an idea, a sense of life.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that really helps when you talk to candidates. It gets them to realize, oh, like, I get it.

No, them to trust you.

Right.

People are so—

people are so skeptical now. You have to really be able to hit on that.

You know, yeah. Yeah.

I mean, why would a candidate get— why would they speak to you if you don't understand?

You don't know the company, the team?

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So it's a situational thing. Some things, you know, it's not necessary. Some roles, it's not necessary. Or in some skills, it is. It depends on where you're strong, what you're—

I think, yeah, it matters, especially— well, it matters when you're recruiting at a certain level. I think there, if there's a lot of the same kind of roles, and the managers are, there's a lot of them, you know, their supervisors or something like that, might be a little bit different. But when the team is very dependent on the culture of the leader and such, I think that makes a lot of sense. Because they will ask, I mean, even, even during the first 30 minutes of the conversation, they'll ask questions about the boss or, you know, or the team or—

hands down.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now you, you mentored, you mentored sourcers, you've mentored, you've led teams. Are you teaching others to be curious? And is that possible? If so, how are you teaching them to be curious rather than just task list? You know?

Yeah, I hope so. I hope I am. My teammates that I work with now, I'm always knowledge sharing. I think knowledge sharing is just the key to everything. And getting them to want to know more. So anytime I see an article, anytime I see a webinar or any kind of learning, I share that all the time with my team. Yeah, maybe a little bit too much. They're probably like, oh, here's another one from Liz. But like, I think my goal is not to just shove it down their throat, but just to open up their minds and kind of say like, oh, this is what's going on in the industry. And sometimes During our team calls, we'll have conversations, and then that's when I speak up and start talking about these things and trying to spark ideas in them. I think it's just the energy and hearing from them. Like, let's say, oh, there's a bug. Let's say someone's having an issue with a position. All it takes is a suggestion, something that they haven't tried before, and then they're like, oh, And then I might suggest— I'm trying to think of, of, you know, okay, for example, um, let's say someone's really struggling on finding, um, they're finding the same people over and over and over. Well, have you thought to maybe try a different browser? Um, do a different type of Boolean? So they're like, oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know changing browsers or, you know, um, changing how I Yeah, how changing the wording or I didn't know what X-ray, what's X-ray? So that just leads to questions and then I foster that and then they kind of like, oh, tell me more. There's always something, there's always something. And I hope they're getting that and I think they are. I've had conversations with people and then not just people on my team, but peers, people I know in the industry. You know, I had a friend who was prior military, and so she went military versus the college route. And so she did college after the military, and then she was curious to learn about what I did in recruiting, and it opened up her mind, like, just kind of filling in, like, what I do. And then she just kept wanting to know, okay, tell me more, tell me more. And then now she's— fast forward, it's been like 5 years since now she's been in it. And now we can have actual conversations, and she actually teaches me things as well. Um, so it's not just about getting people to be curious, but also teaching. They get used to hearing you. Yeah, getting to be curious through myself, like them educating me too. Um, so it's a two-way street also.

Absolutely. Yeah, so it's like almost like Teaching makes other people— you teaching makes them curious.

I would say— I don't know if it's teaching, but like more, more recommendations maybe, because I don't, I don't want to preach. Like, I don't—

no, no, no, I see.

I've always been sensitive to like, you know, because you're not telling, talking down. I'm not telling. Yeah, yeah, I'm not sharing.

I guess I should say you sharing is— because you're sharing makes them curious. And if, say, you weren't sharing, it may be a little bit more difficult for them to learn to be curious because they feel like maybe they shouldn't be asking or whatever. And there could be something there. Yeah. So I totally—

I always think of the Reading Rainbow. Remember Reading Rainbow? The more you know—

I remember I didn't grow up in this country, so I had a little bit of— Yeah. ESL, as they say.

Oh yes, yes.

Um, it's, uh, I do miss on some of the cultural references, especially from childhood stuff. Um, but tell me, so, um, French fries.

Yes. Yeah, you know, I get people asking me that a lot, and, um, I don't remember. I, years ago I took— I don't know if it was a course or what was it, but it was on like self-branding. Okay.

Uh, yep.

And, and I was thinking to myself, what is something that I love? What's something that I can do to stand out? And one day I was like, oh, I was looking through emojis. I was like, oh, a french fry emoji. Oh, that's cool. I love— because I'm obsessed with french fries.

And okay, so there's that.

All right, now, yeah, yeah, I'm obsessed with french fries. I, I actually am. I weakness for McDonald's. So I do, I do love my McDonald's and their French fries.

French fries. Okay.

And so I'm going to cheat now. So I think originally I might have put in my bio at one point something about French fries. And then over the years, I've— it's evolved and I keep changing it up on how it's phrased and how I include that somehow in there.

Um, I think it was great. Sorcerers are like french fries— timeless classics, best seasoned with innovation.

Yes, yes, because it really is. I mean, every— um, yeah, I mean, every fry is different, so every person is different, you know? Like, everybody's different that you talk to, um, and that's— and that's just like french fries, but But no, it's just something I'm obsessed with them. I can be— my stomach could be so full and I could be like disgusted with myself, but if there's fries, like, I'm more of a savory person than sweet.

So yeah, me too, for sure.

I'll eat more salty and savory things like till I pass out.

I remember that about you. That's true. Um, but you know what though, what I was thinking, and I thought this is what made me think about French fries from our past conversations is, um, it's kind of like the, the, the, the humble fry, right? The potato that fed the world during famine. And, um, so it's, it's kind of a very modest food. It's not fancy, it's not expensive, but you can do a lot with it, you know. So it's, it's a very util— it's like, I, I see the connection to sourcing because you can do a lot with french fries. You can make just regular crispy, you know, McDonald's fries. You can make garlic fries, you can make aioli, you can make truffle fries, you can make poutine in, in Canada, you know, the gravy cheese. There's so much you can do with it, and it's all about how you prepare it and season it. But at the center of it, it's still a stick of potato.

A stick, yeah, yeah.

And so there's just so much you can do with it, and It also reminds me that everything that is modern, everything that is built upon has at its center a French fry, right? Like you look at these modern technologies, whether it's SeekOut or Hireezy or whether it's JuiceBox or ProvenBase or, you know, it doesn't matter what the technology is. All of it started with a French fry. It's still a french fry. Nobody's come out with another food that is better than that at doing the thing that it does. It's not like, you know, um, asparaguses make better french fries, or—

yeah, sweet potatoes, zucchini fries, maybe good, but it's variation.

It's not—

yeah, you know, yeah, it all—

at the center of it, it all came from let's julienne some potatoes and flash fry them, and everything else is layered on top of that. Even if it's really good— you could sell 30-cent french fries, or you can sell $3,000 french fries. Still french fries.

Mm-hmm. Inside, the base is still there.

Yeah, base is there.

You know, I never thought of it that way. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I, I never thought of that that way. To me, it was just like, hmm, I love french fries. I'm gonna, I'm gonna you know, just let people know who I am. I, I'm a sorcerer who likes french fries. That's just, it's me. Every— I will say what you see is what you get. There's not, there's no hidden layers. Yeah, there's no hidden layers. You know, I just put out there, um, people— good way for people to get to know me. It's a good, um, I feel like it's a good icebreaker because people ask me like, what's up with the french fries? And, um, or I'll meet people at an event and they're like, oh, you're the french fry, you have the french fries on your, your profile. Like, yeah, that is me. So it's definitely become a— what's it called? Something people recognize me by.

I could see you at a conference handing out French fries.

I totally would. You know what? At my wedding, we had French fries handed out as a late night— like, after every— when everything was settling down, we had— we fed people milkshakes and French fries.

Oh, my God. Well, I wasn't invited.

That was way before I even met you. Well, actually, I might have met you, but I don't know.

We met a long time ago. But yeah, so getting into kind of overtime here, bonus question. Yeah, if, um, if sourcing were a reality TV show, what role would you play? Do you even watch reality TV or not really?

You know, the closest thing I watch are probably like the cooking ones.

Okay, to be honest, we're a cooking show. Yeah, what role would you play?

I would probably be one of the judges. Yeah, to be honest. Yeah, I would probably be one of the judges because I get to taste everything. Okay, everything. Yeah, and actually, we were— I was talking with friends.

This couldn't be more— for you literally walked right into my— you set me up. I can't believe I switched on you and you set me up anyway. So you're gonna be one of the judges, right? Yeah. So now the follow-up to that is, which tool or tactic would definitely get voted off by you? Like, if you saw the competitor doing that or using that sourcing tool, you'd be like, out.

So it's two— I think it's twofold. And I know I mentioned this about mass messaging.

Yep.

So mass messaging could do— could, could be great. Like, you can message a number of people as long as you're being smart about it. But how many times have we gotten messages? You've gotten it, I guarantee everybody have gotten these spam messages that make zero sense.

Yeah, like, hi, instantly, Shelly Steckel, talent advisor. Uh, XYZ.

Clearly, yeah, right through. That would be out of here in a heartbeat, right? If someone served that up in the reality, I'd be like, you're out of here, nice try. Like, you're a fraud. Like, get through better. Just wasting— yeah, do better. Exactly. So it's twofold, you know, you can be smart about it, but I know we've all received that and we've all made mistakes.

I mean, I've accidentally done that.

Of course, we could have a whole session on mistakes made from, um, you know, just mistakes we've all made but learned from.

Hopefully I try to learn for the most part. Um, it might have taken me twice to learn a lesson or two or four.

Yeah, we're human, we're all human, right?

But ultimately I learned the lesson, even if it pains me me, and I might kick and scream, but I will definitely apply it, which is what has, I think, consistently made me, um, you know, it's, it's consistently let me to refine and improve my processes. I always do two things when I'm working on a whatever it is, sequence, experiment, a test, you know. I do— when I, when I usually I run a pilot first, like I'll do small scale, you You know, I'm not going to go into something and go, let's do 1,000 candidates. So, but I usually do two things. I'll iterate. So, I'll like always A/B. I'm gonna do this way and then this way. So, whenever I do a pilot or try something new, I try two ways and then pick one from there. And then the other thing that I'll— and I keep notes on this, like I record it so that I can go back and learn what were the results and stuff like that. That's how the mission control came about. I was using Mission Control on a project and somebody else was like, what's that? And I showed them. And then it just kind of like from there just became, you know, everybody wanted to use it. It's nowadays a little out of date because it's a Google Sheet, but back then it's all that we had, right? And so I track it, A/B testing and tracking. And then the second thing that I always do is I go back and I evaluate like a postmortem. On it, right? So if I did an A/B test and I just, you know, kind of gut-checked it and didn't do anything else with it, then I didn't really learn. Sometimes I'll do an A/B test and I'm 100% certain it's going to be A. Like, I did this with, um, there was a project that I was doing for SparkStart, and they wanted to test video in outbound. So outbound video, not— we know that video on landing pages converts We know that when jobs have video, they are much better at converting more accurately. Fewer people apply, but more qualified. We've known that for a while. They have evidence for it, but they didn't know— they wanted me to find out if this also worked when we were reaching people out to people. So we're sending them a link and they're going there, and I totally expected a certain thing to happen, and that was my hypothesis. And then I tested it, and then I went back and did the postmortem long after the results were complete. And I was shocked to find the opposite of what I had expected. What I thought would happen when sending out emails with links to landing pages that had video versus the exact same landing page without video, like literally half of the emails had video, half of them did not. Same everything, same segment, everything. I thought the ones with video would convert more. In other words, out of the percentage of people that landed, more would apply. Wouldn't that be your instinct or not?

I, I think it depends on the audience. Who was the audience that you were reaching out to?

So this particular audience was, uh, technical people, mobile developers in Toronto.

That's tough. And then how, how quick, how, how long was the video? Was it a short video?

The video was a 30-second video of the hiring manager introducing what their team does a day on the job. Like, hey, I'm Shelly. This is what my team does. Yeah, love to have you apply. Literally.

I think, I think it depends on the audience. Depends on certain, you know, look at the A/B though.

Look at the A/B test. Would you assume that if I sent 100 people the link with a video and 100 people the link without the video, same job, would you assume or would you expect what I expected, which is— yeah, more, more of the 100 would click and convert with video than without?

I would think yes, curiosity would cause someone to want to see what that was about, so you would think there'd be more clicks. Was it— eat the— quite the question that I would ask you is How easy was it to see that video? Was it just one click and open? You didn't have to like—

nope.

Okay. Okay. One link.

Yeah.

So that is interesting.

They would click and apply for the job.

Yeah.

Or they would click and apply for the job with the video there. I mean, literally it's the exact same thing. So I thought more people would apply because seeing the video would appeal.

Yeah.

And I was wrong. No, fewer people applied. For the one on the video? Fewer. So it wasn't 100, it was, it was more like 700 or something.

That is interesting.

But yes, that was what I was like, yeah, the video is going to work, right? Of course it works on landing page. But let's say out of the 100, 70 people applied without the video and 20 people applied with the video. It was significant. It wasn't just a slight difference. So after I did the postmortem, then I went back and I repeated the experiment again to prove it. And now I didn't try it with a different demographic. Um, the second time I did it was the same role, but I went gender-specific. So I was specifically targeting female engineers, and it was a female engineer manager in the video versus before that I wasn't— there was no gender specificity. Um, and I— this was now I was comparing for gender because we had a you know, a gap that we wanted. It was not— it wasn't a bad gap, but we had 3 people leave the team that were females at the same time for very completely different reasons, which then was like, oops. Like, not because they were female, but yeah, yeah, yeah, in that way, right? So like 3 out of 7, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, um, but anyways, and the same pattern happened. So What I learned after the postmortem, which completely turned my world upside down, was that fewer people applied because those were the people that really wanted the job. And on the other end, where more people applied, we had a lot of prescreens that failed, and we had a lot of prescreens that no-showed. So in other words, let's say out of the 100 people without a video, let's say 50 of them applied, 10 of them scheduled appointments and didn't show up. Like that's a significant, you know, number. I'm not giving you exact numbers, but weighted against the 20 that applied instead of 50 for the video, all of them showed up and almost all of them passed the screen. So way fewer applicants but way higher quality, which ended up saving a lot of time because it saved the sourcer's time on screening, it saved the recruiter's time on the whole workflow— fewer people in the workflow— and the hiring managers interviewed on average one person fewer per hire. So instead of 5 interviews per hire, 4 interviews per hire, which saved, you know, so it was like a win but for completely different reasons.

Yeah, and I think that's the beauty of A/B testing and doing something like that. I've done that and then going back and thinking about it and going, why? Yeah, right? Yeah. And the why— it's like, I've done that with, um, using humor in my messaging. Now you have to be very careful in the demographic and who you're using humor, but it works. But some of these creatives, they're just so Um, they're, you know, you can do that with, with that demographic. Um, I could never do that with, uh, with a security engineer. I could never do that.

Actually, I did.

I did.

I got a funny one. I got a funny one for you. You know what the football is?

Like the sport football?

No, the football among security engineers. This may not be a— this may not be a commonly used term, but it was familiar enough to me. So a lot of times in teams where there's a lot of remote workers, and, you know, especially for the security team, they usually have a person that during some sort of company function or event has the football, which is a backpack with a toolkit in it that allows them to rapidly deploy in a security breach incident. With access to the things that nobody normally has access to. So it's a hyper-secure connection to the backend. And it's— and so it's kind of like the security, you know, it's there, it's a big red backpack that they carry around so that anybody knows where they are at all times during an event or something like that. Um, so my email message said— it was the subject of that— it was at I'm not quoting exactly right. It's something like, do you love all the attention you get when you have the football? And that was the subject. It was something like, do you like the attention when you have the football or something like that? And people, it was specifically targeted at 24/7 situations, right? People that got the joke replied back and went, oh my God, I hate that. It's so bad. Everybody asks you, what's in the backpack? What's in the backpack? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, we're hiring for this job.

Well, you know what, something like that—

I love a great subject line because the subject line, it was humorous but it wasn't—

yeah, it can weed out the people you don't want. Why waste your time? Start it right at the beginning. Why waste your time on someone who's not going to get it? They might be qualified, but they don't want to have a football. Yeah, but they don't want that job. So something like that, you know, I've done that when it comes to when I'm looking at the portfolio or website of something that someone's done. And I don't remember what the subject line was, but something about Oreos, because someone did this campaign on Oreos. And my subject line was that, and I guarantee I got it, got a response. So I think if you're, if your subject line is speaking to the person you want. And obviously it's hard. We can't— unfortunately, we can't tailor every subject line to every person all the time. But on some of these really niche roles, these really difficult ones, you can. You can take that time and you can really speak to your audience. And then it just weeds out. It's self-weeding, essentially self-weeding. And that's what you did. And then that's what I've done for some of these creative roles. I'm gonna, I'm gonna look that term up though. I'm gonna see, let's maybe I'll do some A/B testing on my own and see if, uh, see if that's something that gets me some of the folks that I need.

Yeah, I, it's, it's related to, um, it's related to the backpack that they carry. And yeah, you know, this was something that I was talking to the CISO during the intake call. And, um, I was asking, you know, part of the things that I do during my intake, I ask questions around things that are different, unique about the team. And, you know, it's how can I sell the— what you were talking about before, it's part of that conversation. And, um, he said, well, you know, we, we have a lot of— we do a lot of events, um, because there's like conferences and stuff like that. And sometimes our security team needs to carry around the football. And I'm like, the whatty whatty? I had no idea. Um, and so he's the one that explained it, and so I used it. And, you know, it's the first time I'd ever heard it, but I understood from the CISO that this was not an unusual scenario.

Um, you're coming back to your curiosity, you wanting to know what that was. You followed the breadcrumb and then you used It all ties back, like the curiosity. Every conversation that we have with someone can lead you to something else. Never not think about the conversation and what you can necessarily, maybe not get out of it, but how you can use and further whatever you need or wherever you want to go. It's so small. It's just that one thing, but it's so big on the other hand. It's really targeted. And you can't teach that though, Shelly. You can't teach that. Some people just don't get that. But when you do, it's really amazing.

Well, I don't know. Yeah, I guess I kind of arrived at that, but a lot of A/B testing. Well, we're getting pretty close to running out of time here, and I always ask two questions at the end of the show. Those two questions are, first of all, before, before we go any further, I totally forgot— so much fun that I totally forgot to put your link up there. So folks, you want to connect with Liz, This is— it literally couldn't be any easier on LinkedIn. Liz Connects with two N's. So please, I wish I could put an emoji there. Yeah, you could. What emoji do you want? French fries?

I would be French fries. Totally.

Yeah, you want to do French fries? Okay, let's see if I can make that happen for you. Oh yeah, I can. I sure can. Look at that. Did it reset?

Oh, love it. Yes.

There you go. Awesome. And of course, I would be a fool not to tell people about my AI Browsers Guide. So this is a free toolkit. Download it and learn about AI browsers and all the different things that you can do with them. This is not chatbots. This is AI browsers. There's some serious risks, but there's also some serious rewards. So, um, please click on that. And last one, subscribe to the show. Don't forget to subscribe to the show, because if you don't subscribe, you will miss out on all of the podcasts. Um, okay, so now I can ask you the last two questions. Number one, who should be our next guest?

Hmm, um, I would love to see someone like Greg Hawks. Has he ever been on your show?

Oh, I don't think so.

He would be a good one. He'd be a really good one. Yeah, um, I've learned a lot from him. Um, I actually interviewed with him once too. I was totally, uh, fanning out, like girl, girl fanning out when I was talking to him because everything, like when it comes to scraping and data scraping, I learned all that from him. Um, so he would be a great person, great person to have a conversation about all that with.

Yeah, I know him, but I just haven't, um, I, I may have invited him a while back. I'll definitely hit him up again. I definitely know him. So thanks, that's a good one.

Yeah.

Um, okay, you're off the hook on that one. And then the last question is Folks a lot of times like to listen to this after, you know, after work, and they're not really available on Fridays at 1. So a lot of times people watch and listen to the recording and on the podcast, of course. So I want to give them something to think about, a thought-provoking question. So something— give us something that we should ask ourselves Yes, that is a good question. Um, why?

Maybe something to do with— that is a really good one, Shelly. I'm a little stumped in, in that It would have to be something about the why and, and thought-provoking. That is a good one. What is something that— what's something that resonates with you naturally?

Well, I want to tie it back to how are you a French fry? How are you something that can be seasoned many different ways and used differently and, you know, and almost like adapt to the environment. You can even have sweet french fries. Yeah, have spicy french fries.

Yeah, well, I can easily get overly salty.

Oh yeah, well, I was talking about the audience asking themselves, right? Yeah, I got that, I got that. Um, call me spicy.

Yeah, yeah. Ah, that's a good one. I I might have to— oh, I'm not a very good thinker on my feet type of person.

No, that's okay. I think if we ask people to ask themselves, yeah, how are they like a french fry in that they can, you know, adapt to their environment, if you will.

Yeah, that's pretty darn good. What kind of tools would you want to master? To, you know, there's too many tools out there. But maybe ask yourself, um, okay, what can you simplify? What can you maybe not necessarily automate, but what is your biggest challenge and what tool can help you with that?

What tool can help you with that?

Think of it like, yeah, like where, what's your pain point? Exactly what we do in our intake calls.

You know, something exactly. Even if it doesn't exist, what tool would help you do that?

What would you like? You know, I like it. And, um, because it's— we get inundated, it's hard. But just if you just focus on one and start there, you'll be surprised how far you get.

You got it. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being a guest on the show and taking time off your schedule for that.

Yeah, um, thank you for having me.

We will see you. It might— yeah, say goodbye to everybody.

Bye everyone, thank you for listening.

Thank you. Next up we have Brandon, uh, Jeffs from, uh, you've seen him in, you know, he's got his own podcast and everything. So he'll be coming up next week. Hopefully we'll see you back here. Don't forget to subscribe on Spotify and check out Liz Connects on LinkedIn. Be kind to yourselves, everybody.