Rachel Cupples Live on Shally's Alley

All right, all right, everybody, welcome to Shelly's Alley. It is Friday, June 30th, the last Friday of June, the last Shelly's Alley of June 2023. Welcome, everybody. Today we have a special guest, Rachel Couples. Rachel, did I say that right? Couples? You did.

Rachel Couples.

Couples, just like couples, right?

Yes.

And Rachel is a specialist in recruiting for diversity. She actually is currently the only recruiter at Textio. Rachel actually reports to a friend of mine, Jackie Clayton, who many of you may recognize her name. And she is currently Rachel is currently handling all of the recruitment for Textio, which is, if you don't mind me saying, kind of a cool app. Definitely one of those like everyone must have type of apps, right? I think.

Yeah, our software is, I mean, I am biased, that is for sure, but—

No problem there.

Anytime you're removing bias from language or, you know, it's a very cool thing.

Yeah, so what it does for those of you that don't know, is it analyzes the language in your job posting or in your emails and communication, and it identifies if there's any bias, whether it be gender or otherwise. And it will help— it'll make suggestions on how to rewrite it. What it doesn't do is it doesn't write it for you because it still wants the voice of the recruiter and the company brand and everything. But it does tell you if it's— if it missing something or has too much of something so that you can make it either more neutral, or if you intend to have a bias on purpose, which can also sometimes make sense, it helps you with that. But Rachel comes to us with lots of experience in the staffing industry, been a branch manager at some staffing firms, was a director at a corporate staffing function, and is now kind of in the, in the full-on, full-desk recruiter and does some sourcing as well. And of course, when you're the one-man shop or one-woman shop, also the reporting and everything else. So we wanted to talk a little bit about today, what keeps Rachel up and things that, that, that she's obsessed with are candidate experience, inclusion, and diversity, right? So those are some of the things that that Rachel is passionate about. If you have any questions, put them in the chat. I am—

can I add something, Shelley? I appreciate you, you know, talking about Textio, but we launched Textio Lift towards the end of last year, which is using the same— it's using that same AI removing bias from language, but it's also— it's for performance feedback. Helping employers and HR teams not only provide unbiased feedback, but really, you know, provide actionable, unbiased feedback. So—

Oh, that's pretty cool. On when you're writing your reviews or recommendations. That's pretty cool. Yeah.

It is.

That's excellent. So, Rachel, you're concerned about the candidate experience. And it's concerned as in like something that you're, you think a lot about, you care a lot about. Can you share with us what's been happening lately with the candidate experience? Like, what are you seeing right now is kind of the, the shift or the trend that you're that you're experiencing with the candidate experience right now?

Absolutely. And I, being a recruiter, you know, and talking to job seekers all day long, whether they're candidates, prospects, you know, just job seekers in general, I want to, you know, acknowledge I have a very, you know, recruiters have a very unique seat, right? Because we, we, we get a real-time look into the job market and what's happening to job seekers. What I'm seeing currently, especially around tech, whether it's for corporate roles or tech roles, is a lot of what we saw in 2020 in other industries, minus the fear of not understanding what a global pandemic is. Now we, you know, we have some time, you know, under our belt as far as understanding, you know, the impacts, you know, of something like, like COVID-19. But The tech industry wasn't, you know, as we know, it wasn't as impacted like other industries were in 2020. So I'm seeing a lot of and hearing a lot of, of fear from job seekers. There's, there's more job seekers out there around tech than, you know, seems like there are job openings. And there's a lot of competition. There's also concerns around salary and what salaries are now in the tech, you know, in the tech industry compared to what a lot of the larger organizations had the opportunity to do in 2020 was, you know, hire anybody they wanted and they were paying more, not just for recruitment, sourcers, and HR, but really across many different, you know, fields of work.

And let's, let's dive into that particular point a little bit because I think that is really tied to the candidate experience. There's chatter amongst TA leaders and recruiting leaders that some of the companies that had more funding or were wealthier that could afford to do this instituted a retention strategy of paying people above market. In order to keep them from leaving during COVID for various reasons. And it's— they essentially are— the claim is that they overpaid to get— to keep people, and that, that is now kind of circling back and hurting those very same people that they retained, because now when they've been laid off, their, their cost of living, their lifestyle, their expectations have escalated to that higher level of pay, but normal, regular, you know, everybody else can't afford to pay the same. So is that, is that legit in your experience? And how is that affecting the candidate experience?

Yeah, that's, that's a great question. I, this is something that I think about a lot as well. One thing that I, one of the many reasons I came to Textio had to do with how we look internally. At pay equity. And, you know, before it was in, you know, a law in specific states, we had that transparency sharing ranges and then target ranges, if there were target ranges on our, you know, live on our job posts. I'm, I'm, you're absolutely right. I agree with you. But I can see it from both sides. I see it from, you know, the employer side, the organization side, but I also can see from the job seeker side, there's, there's a lot of differences in the world and the job market today compared to 2020 and 2021 when that was happening. As far as, you know, support and resources for job seekers and the unemployed, as well as inflation and what is just going on in the, you know, overall markets, you know, in the United States.

So, okay, so that's an interesting point. Uh, sorry to jump in, but I know that, um, and for those of you that are listening, I'm not being rude.

No, not at all.

Rachel is neurodiverse, and one of the things that she asked me about prior to the show is that she said if, you know, she, if she tends to kind of, um, go, um, too far into a direction, that I should jump in. And I told her I would be happy to facilitate. So please understand, everyone who's listening, I'm not being rude to Rachel. Rachel Just specifically asked me to jump in. So, I like what you just said. And I want to kind of pull the thread on that one a little bit, which is around the inflation. So, the argument that we just discussed was companies that overpaid as a retention strategy. And now, those people who are looking for work are worried because they're worried that their expectations are too high. For other companies. But what you just said is that inflation is sort of catching up. So in other words, maybe they were overpaid at the time, but because inflation, that is not that big a difference. So maybe they are still a little overpaid, but because inflation— yeah, and sort of, you know, so maybe that's the adjustment.

I, I don't know why it bothers me to say overpaid, because I think for a lot of years, many especially specific, you know, types of work and industries have been notorious for underpaying folks. But there definitely was a strategy of, you know, let's, let's pay to keep people. Um, I also, I also want to mention that this inflation doesn't only impact job seekers, it's also impacting these business, you know, a business, an organization. So it's, it's twofold, like You know, if I'm a job seeker, I want to know that I am not going to end up on the street and that I can feed myself and my family just as a bare minimum. And, you know, as an employer, you're trying to keep the lights on, keep people employed, make sure they have the best benefits hopefully as possible. And, you know, all of the tools that you need and they need. And it, it's— this is why this keeps me up at night. You know, Canada Experience and this part of it specifically does keep me up at night because It's not to look at it, you know, negatively, but it's kind of like, how, how do we win? You know? And so I really believe that how we start to win is through pay transparency. You know, making sure employers need to just keep it real. And, you know, regardless of whether it's law in your county, state, or city, like, start posting those full ranges.

I understand what you're saying. And I, I have always been an advocate of candidate experience from way before it was cool. And I'm only saying that because my job has been sourcing for more than, you know, 25 years, closer to 27 years. And as a sourcer, I live on candidates that we are inviting to apply, which is very— so for me, candidate experience wasn't a nice-to-have. It was an absolute must-have. Because if we invite— if I asked you to the dance, gender-neutral, if I invited you to the dance or invited you to the party, and then you get there and it's a crap experience, It's twice as insulting if you find my company and you apply and you have a crap experience. It's like, okay, this happens a lot. HR black hole. And, you know, so many candidates have bad experiences that it's kind of— it's improving, but it's almost kind of like standard. But if I specifically invited you and then invited you to have a bad experience, it's like, okay, wow, really? You know, it makes it worse, right?

That's like worst nightmare. You know, I One of my— a fear that I have, or, you know, sort of like that first day of school thing and no one's going to like you, or you're wearing— you show up to a dance and you're wearing the same outfit as someone else. But like my fear around recruitment and sourcing is that, say, we provide the best candidate experience, you know, we make the offer and they start and then they come back 30, 60, you know, 120 days and say, Rachel, this, this is not what you what you said it was.

Oh, you're now talking about the onboarding. It's the onboarding. So you have—

I'm talking about the whole experience.

The attraction, the, like, the candidate experience, attract, the onboarding is like after, there's another, the employee experience. But let me— I want to return to the pay transparency.

Yeah, please.

I am actually responsible for creating this at my current organization. And we have a system that publishes jobs that has built-in pay transparency rules that makes it technically, as in from a technology point of view, much more easy. It's, it's a system that enables us to be able to do it, but we still have a problem. In other words, we can do this technically, right? But we haven't been able to do it because there's an issue with there not being consistent messaging around pay transparency. So let me explain what I'm saying. I understand the benefit of pay transparency. I don't like the fact that employers are, in some states, being required to share the pay rate and then also not allowed to ask a candidate for what they're making, despite the fact that we would still find that out anyway, and despite the fact that— so it's essentially a one-way street. Like, they want employers to share the range, but they don't want candidates to share their pay. So it seems a little one-sided. However, here's the problem, and I get that we're trying to fix that, but here's the real— here's the real problem. The bottom of this is if I post the compensation range for a position, that is going to sometimes create, um, dissent amongst employees that have not been recently hired who have a different pay range. Because when someone sees a range, and this is myself included, if, if the job posted says $80,000 to $90,000 I only read $90,000. I don't read $80,000. If the job posting says $60,000 to $90,000, I only read $90,000. If the job posting says $0 to $90,000, all I'm reading is $90,000. And that's the top of the range. Now, I may feel that I deserve the top of the range, but that doesn't mean that I am qualified for that. That doesn't necessarily mean that I am the best candidate. So when someone applies for that, they're expecting $90,000, not understanding that it's a range. And when someone works at that company and they see posted $80,000 to $90,000 and they're making $80,000. Now they're going, well, I should be getting paid $90,000. Well, maybe, but you're in the range of $80,000 to $90,000. Are really the, the $90,000 range?

I'd love to speak on this.

So speak on that, and then I have another one.

Yeah. Um, so first of all, I want to acknowledge that I know it's, it's tough for, uh, you know, employers to level set But really, at the end of the day, if the reason an employer is not posting their ranges is because their current staff is not being paid equitably, like that, you know, needs to be addressed. The—

not what I said. The range is $80,000 to $90,000.

Right.

And I am getting paid $80,000. I am. It is equitable. But human instinct is I should get the 90.

Following you. One second. I promise I'll get to the 90. One of the very first things that I discuss with job seekers. So we do post our entire ranges and oftentimes we have target ranges with, you know, you may have a range from, say, $50,000 to $100,000 as an example. You know, that's a huge range.

That was my other.

And you're absolutely right. I'm going to be Every, everyone hopefully has the confidence within their, you know, their skills and, you know, goes for that top number. So hopefully organizations are posting their target ranges as well, regardless of how they decide to post. Here's where it really is. It's on— I believe it's, it's, it's the responsibility of the recruiter in that first call or, or the sourcer in their outreach, you know, whether they have a conversation. Or it's in an email, however they're, you know, getting to folks in your first call as a sourcer or recruiter. We are responsible to start this conversation. We should not put this— the onus on job seekers or candidates like it's our responsibility. So if we— if I was talking to, you know, if you're a candidate for one of my roles right now, I'm going to set expectations. We hire in 9 US states. My first, you know, The question is just confirming that they reside in a state I can hire in. And my very next question actually starts with a statement. I don't want to assume that they read the range or the full range or the target range. I tell them what was posted. I tell them the target range. And then I ask them if that target range is acceptable and explain that that's the true floor and ceiling. Say the target range is of that $50,000 to $100,000 is $65,000 to $75,000 a year for somebody to start. I let them know that I, you know, This is the full range. But the truth, you know, I can't bring in anybody less than $65,000 and there's no negotiating past $75,000. I don't want to waste your time. I value your time and your experience. I saw your resume, but is that an acceptable, you know, range for you to start?

And that's, I think, a very good way to do it because if it isn't, that's, hey, great, thanks for being honest. And I've had that conversation. So I understand that. It's the posting that is misleading. And, um, so I get that the responsibility is on that first caller, which is how we're handling it. And right now we can't post it, and I'll tell you why. We'd like to, but, um, there's a problem with the politicians and lawmakers that have decided that these are the rules. They have said that we must post, but they have never defined what an appropriate range is. So, well, thinking about devil's advocate, we could say that this job pays from $0 to $10 million and we've posted the range.

And I've seen that.

I mean, that's malicious compliance.

No, I literally see that on LinkedIn all day long. And I'd love to address that.

Helpful.

Yeah. And something you said earlier when we're talking about— and I want to just preface, I am not a compensation analyst.

Neither am I. We're sourcers, but we're the first call. We're the first call. We have that call.

But I also get to work with and know some very talented folks, you know, within HR and people and specifically around compensation and, you know, analyzation. But at the end of the day, we shouldn't be hiring when we're looking at salary and we're looking at, okay, what is the range? It, it doesn't matter what someone made before. If I made $100,000 a year as an entry-level recruiter with 6 months experience, that doesn't— at one company, that doesn't mean at another company that that's what I'm going to get paid. Because it's, it's all about this, the, the role and responsibilities and the work itself. Because you can have someone— I hate saying overqualified because that, I believe, falls into this trap that has a lot to do with like, I've been overqualified. Things like that.

I get that. I understand.

You could have a ton of experience. You know, I was a director of talent acquisition.

You know, you still wanted this job.

And I'm, I'm an individual contributor here. And it's, it's, it's what I want.

Right?

No, this is like a dream. This is— I tell candidates all day long, this is my dream job.

And it's nobody's business whether you took a pay cut to get the job or not.

Absolutely not. And, you know, at the end of the day, from the business side, it's, it's not level setting to the person you're hiring, which a lot of that has happened. You know, you get really excited and you're like, oh, I love this person. And we saw that a lot in 2020. And like you said, they're paying to retain or paying to gain talent rather than taking a look at, you know, what the actual role is and what is truly equitable. You know, across the organization and for a role like that. At TxDOT, you know, we look at— I say we, but, you know, our talented, you know, leaders in HR and DE&TA are looking at salaries and making sure they're equitable and, you know, with, within, you know, tracking with the market, you know, at least pricing—

That's another— that's not our job. That's another job. But yeah.

Right. But if that job isn't done— so I just want to acknowledge what you're saying. Like, I don't— it's, it's on everybody, you know, it's on that first call.

It's on, you know, and it needs to have a good compensation team from the top. Yeah, absolutely. So the reason I'm bringing up these points is because these are some of the problems that we have to try to solve as an organization. It's not like I can just— me, Shelly, I can just hit the button on the, on the ATS and say, Hey, great, we're doing pay transparency because if I don't have those comp— if I don't have the proper comp ranges, as you just said, then it's just going to be a nightmare because we're going to cause internal equity problems. We're going to cause candidate misexpectations because the ranges will be off. They're going to be like, what? I'm not going to— that's too low for the market. You know, there's all kinds of problems.

Well, and especially when you have to align is what I'm saying. When, you know, organizations are using, you know, a product like Textio to write either their, you know, outreach email, reaching out to prospects, or to write their job posts. It almost undermines, you know, if recruiters do not know, at least whether you're posting it or not, whether it's law or not, if recruiters don't have an understanding of what the full range is and then what the target range is within that, and some sense of leveling based on experience, It's, it's, it's a no-win situation for recruiters. And so that's why I want to acknowledge, like, I live in the special world that is Textio as an employee here. And, you know, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging from all, you know, aspects are top of mind. You know, we're not only—

and you're saying pay transparency addresses some of the gaps between the pay gap.

Right. And I'm saying that, like, I realize, like, at Tech— in— it's coming from a place of privilege working for a place like Textio that already— we already have our stuff together.

You know, you already have good comp. And yes, which is— that's what we're saying, is that you kind of need to have your stuff together in order to comply. So that's— that's the— the laws are there in some states, and they're going to be in more and more states. Everybody knows that. So we sort of have to catch up now, those organizations that don't have it together and don't have the bands quite yet. And I'm going to throw one more monkey wrench in, and this is the last one, I promise. I love this topic, which is regional changes. So if I have— again, I'll go to my $80,000 to $90,000— if my pay range is $80,000 to $90,000 and my job is in Atlanta, That's fine. But this, partly because of COVID is becoming a problem. More and more organizations are switching to a remote-first culture where they're allowing people to work from anywhere in the country, which is really good for a lot of people that otherwise wouldn't have these opportunities, including neurodiverse and people with disabilities and other kinds of candidates that would not have been available before. So it's good for everyone that we have remote work, but the cost of living in Atlanta and the cost of living in LA are different. So $80,000 to $90,000 would be adequate for that band in Atlanta. And if I posted at $80,000 to $90,000, people in LA are going to say, oh heck no, that's— I make twice as much. And they, and they should. So now if I post it in Atlanta and it's a remote job and someone in LA sees it because it's a remote job, right? And think about the opposite. I posted in LA and it's $160,000. Someone in Atlanta sees it and it's a remote job. They're thinking, oh, I could be making $160,000. Sorry, no, it's in your region. It's adjusted. So now think about how am I going to post that job? I have to post a band for every state. That's not going to work. Even better, in some states, different counties have different regulations.

Oh my gosh.

And different cost of living. And in different counties, different cities, right? Like in Atlanta, the cost of living is one thing. And in North Atlanta, it's 8. So now we have this really complex system that's requiring us to post a range locally when we have a wide open remote job. How do we solve that?

So first, I want to say I don't have the be-all end-all answer. I think this is a conversation that needs to happen more often. But I will have you—

this.

Yeah. You know, and it needs to continue to happen after, you know, after today, but—

Oh no, we're solving this now and that's it. Conversations.

I like to get stuff done, Shelley.

Let's do it. We're solving pay transparency right now.

But no, if employee— I mean, it's— there's a lot of ifs. Like if when you're looking at pay, right? And say, say you hire in all 50 states or say you hire in 5 states. There's a decision employers need to make. Do they want to pay regionally and deal with potential inequities of like, there's a whole lot of privilege that, like, as an example, I live in the greater Seattle area, which it's the cost of living here is much different than, say, Atlanta, Dallas, you know, Chicago, you know, wherever you want to look at.

That's fair.

And but also, if I lived in, let's say, Chicago, why wouldn't I deserve that same amount of pay? Because I have— I have the same job seekers.

But like, you don't deserve it. And here's why.

Because experience lines up with someone else. And maybe I was born in an area that maybe is not booming in tech. That maybe I don't have the privilege or resources to even move to. Um, so that's why I think employers, when they're looking at, uh, comp in general, need to look at it, um, from either a mid or higher range. And that's just— this is my opinion.

I understand what you're saying, but it's—

for, for someone like me, gosh, I wouldn't be— I'm not, you know, I'd be able to retire sooner if I move to the country, you know, and I— and I—

but is that then fair for someone who's able— who can't retire until much later because they live in a higher— you see what I'm saying? So let me add one thing to that because it's no win. Well, actually, I don't know, I don't know about the win, I don't know about the fix, but I can tell you that if we're going to solve this problem of, um, first of all, let me back up and explain the problem. The problem is that, um, hiding pay and asking people for compensation creates inequities. So not asking people for their current compensation eliminates some of that, and being transparent about our pay eliminates some, some of that as well. However, if we're going to solve this for the future, And I don't want to solve this problem for today and then have to solve it again for the future.

Absolutely.

We truly are moving towards a global economy, right? So what happens is if someone who is perfectly able to do the job and well qualified in Jakarta and someone is equally qualified in Seattle, the same candidate, only difference is that they are located in one city versus the other, right? If I pay someone in an extremely low cost of living region the same as someone in other— that is creating a huge inequity in that region. So we do have to figure out how to adjust for this because we need to, unless there's some kind of common currency, which is not— we tried that, right? Bitcoin or whatever, it didn't work.

Don't get me started on that.

The euro or whatever, we've tried that several times. We have to adjust for that because otherwise it's going to become— it's a big problem now just within US states and even within a state, different cities. Imagine once we start looking at the entire world and pay transparency there, then we're going to have a big problem. Because I would be very happy making $10,000 in a small country where that's the same as $100,000 here because it buys me the same comfort, luxury, safety, uh, you know, all the things that I want. So it's equivalent. So you have to equivalate the currency.

But it's not. That's, that's the thing. It's not like you and I, um, I mean, I have to— we are both two white adults in America today.

I'm Hispanic.

Oh, Hispanic. I apologize.

Also Jewish.

Myself, I am a white woman regardless of whether I'm not a woman, um, or not. Um, We have to remember that, you know, people of color and underrepresented communities are disproportionately affected by, um, by, by these things.

By—

this goes back, I mean, I could go forever on this.

That's how we define it here in the United States, right?

Yeah, I realize you're talking globally, but here in the U.S., very different. Um, there are opportunities that have not been afforded to people.

Correct. We're trying to solve that now here in the US.

We are.

But if we solve it here and then we have to solve it again globally, we're gonna have, you know—

well, what I'm saying is we'll fix it now and then we have to fix it again. And, you know, uh, a, uh, concentrated effort— and not just effort, but doing the work in DEIB— is, is what we have to do to to pay transparency as a part of it, as well as— you can be transparent all day long, but if you're not paying equitably and, you know, reasonably—

yeah, the whole point is that it's— that was my point, is that it would be equitable. So $10,000 there would be equitably the same as $100,000 here. So let's not get stuck on the number, but on what the number represents. And so that is a different kind of equity. It means the same access. And in that part of the world, they don't have the same definition for diversity. So I'm thinking globally, and I'm thinking very far ahead. Let me show you a question from the audience. And I'm going to put it up here for you to read, because I know you need time to think about that. It says, any recommendations on how to make these— oh, sorry, it says, how to make these improvements along with continuing to partner with recruiters. And while you think about that, I want to explain to the audience where we are and how we got here.

Yeah.

We are at a point where we agree pay transparency is important and necessary, and companies are having to do it because of the law. But it's also the right thing to do. My suggestion isn't that we comply with the law. My suggestion is that we do better than that. My suggestion is that we comply with the universal standards. So rather than solving for how do we post salaries in California for California and obey, obey that law, why not think of a solution that's going to solve it for everyone? So I propose this. I propose that we say this is our band, and if you are in a higher or lower cost of living, this band will adjust according to the equity that this describes. And then we go back to Rachel's very first point, which was explain it on the call. So, hey, this is our band, but if you live in a twice more expensive city, that is going to flex, and so on. So we can still address it, have the pay transparency, and have the clarity using both solutions. Because Rachel's idea of— or suggestion, recommendation— that this should be on the first call is a really good solution for it, because it will dispel all of those misunderstandings and discrepancies. So that's how we arrived here, and we're not talking about anything that is controversial, we are on the same page. It's just that when we think about globally, the solutions are not going to apply if we try to solve by the state. In other words, if we post California law equivalent and then all of a sudden Colorado changes it, uh, think about this. Colorado might require that there is actually a range of X percent, and California doesn't. Now we have to, you know, so let's not just keep chasing the law. Let's just do it right. Is my—

right across the board. And that is—

that's kind of what I'm saying. Yeah.

And I, and I've been speaking, you know, in all transparency for anybody listening in, um, from, from a, you know, the U.S. I currently recruit out of 9, you know, U.S. states, um, and do not recruit internationally. This is a big, a big thing to solve for, whether we're talking about in the United States or globally. And I just like to add, like, if we wait to solve it either in the US or globally, the work's not going to get done. So I mean, the ownership is on, you know, employers one by one to level set internally, get that pay equity, you know, so the, you know, start with getting your pay internally right, then get compensation to put in the work to get the right ranges for those and then start hiring. And I realize this and then be transparent with clarity on that first call. Right. And I realize that that is a lot. I don't, I don't want to dismiss the cost and everything that employers go through with having to level set like that. But to survive in where the market, especially the job market in the world of work, is going, not just survive, to win.

We need to make it. We don't want to just scrape by, right? We need to adapt to be a good employer so people want to work.

Absolutely. But that's then going above and beyond just salary, you know.

That's my point. That's exactly my point. All right, so I have one last question about that, and I know you're probably processing the question from Tricia about the process for source candidates. But I'm going to ask you one other thing, so hopefully it's not too many questions at once. And this one is, I am completely curious— pay transparency and autism spectrum. How does the diverse candidate with the neuro— sorry, I should have said neuro— how does the neurodiverse candidate interpret pay ranges? Are they looking at that the same way as, as everyone else does? I'm going to pick the highest number, or is there a different mechanism?

I'm sorry, I missed the part where—

as a, as a neurodiverse candidate yourself, when you see a job posted with a pay range, how do you interpret it? How do neurodiverse candidates interpret pay transparency?

Well, I can't speak on every neurodiverse— you know, we can't. But I can say this from my perspective. I have to acknowledge that I have a unique experience and have been spending over a decade recruiting and working with ranges and candidates and employers, whether staffing or internal. But at the end of the day, I'm always, you know, it's easier to negotiate down than it, you know, than it is up, you know. So of course, I'm going to look towards the top of the range, but also with the experience I have, and I realize that's a privilege I have, um, I also know where the market falls. I follow it. I, um—

that's a good point. Maybe the candidates educating themselves is a good—

absolutely. I believe that, um, you know, and job seekers— another thing that from one of your first questions you asked is like, what am I seeing going on in the job market with job seekers and the candidates experience job seeking? They— candidates are Regardless of what, you know, the misinformation that is on the internet, unfortunately, lack of information or lack, but they are smarter. They are, you know, they're educating themselves to the best of their ability and they are truly trying to understand, you know, in the best of their ability what is going on, what is fair. It's my experience in the roles that I've been recently recruiting for, let's just say from January to today, that I have not spoken to one job seeker, whether they were a prospect or actually, you know, in play and a candidate and applied for a role that has asked me for or, you know, requested a salary range that was disproportionate to their experience. Now, sometimes that the range is— they're spot on for their experience, but they're applying for a role that, you know, requires less experience and is leveled for that. And so then we have that conversation. But as far as like apples to apples, I'm not seeing job seekers coming in and with a huge disparity other than reasonably, right, advocating for themselves.

That's good. That's good. Yeah, I appreciate that. If anybody in the audience has a perspective on how neurodiverse candidates see the pay transparency. And if they, and they, if they experience it different, that may be a good conversation to have. Maybe invite yourself to the next chat. Next, I would like for you to see if you can address Tricia's question. Do you have any advice for how to change the process to improve on that HR black hole for sourced candidates because it's a different mechanism, right? I mean, both candidates, whether we source them or they come to us, both end up in the ATS, and they're supposed to be ending up in the same process. But the reality is that if we asked someone to come into the process, they're probably expecting and should be expecting more communication than a candidate who never got a response in the first place. So what's your advice on, or how are you solving for that? How would you solve for that?

Well, black hole, and I mean, it's, it's a, it could mean many things. And I am neurodivergent. And I do focus on specifics, Tricia.

But I want to say, you know, think about it as how do you improve the candidate experience for a sourced candidate when it's a different process than an applicant?

Well, it's not a different process other than I— there's an initial outreach from me reaching out to them. But they, you know, whether I am sourcing or whether someone has, you know, found our career site or, you know, a post on social media somewhere and applied on their own, the process is the same other than how the job seeker found the role. The same conversations are being had about, you know, our organization, the salary range, the role, the hiring team, hiring, you know, manager. It's really not— it's different. Where I will say that I— an area that maybe Tricia is talking about, maybe, is around communication and the folks that you don't hire, Trisha, maybe that are sourced and, and the black hole that they go into potentially. I just want to make sure, you know, we're answering for the right.

I think I'm interpreting this as, so this is my interpretation. And the reason I'm interpreting this is I have, you know, the same question myself. If Candidate A applied on the website, right, and has you know, experience A. Candidate B was asked to be interested, approached by sourcing, and has the same experience as candidate A. Is that correct, or shouldn't— should or shouldn't candidate B, who was sourced, have a different experience because we sourced them?

Not if the experience and, you know, not if, not if they're, if, if, if they both have experience and both can be considered for the role, it should be it. Why would it be different? I don't understand why we would treat candidates differently. We don't compare, you know, we shouldn't compare candidate to candidate. We should be comparing every candidate to the responsibilities.

That's right. But it's not that that I think is the question. It's the— I'm interpreting, Tricia. So Tricia, if— oh, I think she's agreeing with me. OK. So the job was posted for 24 hours. This happened actually to a job that I posted. And within 24 hours, I got 2,000 applicants. I hate to say it, and it pains me to say it, but I did not have the time review all 2,000 resumes. I also did not have the time to call all 2,000 people. And I also did not have the time to provide feedback to all 2,000 people as to why they weren't selected.

Well, no, I'm sorry.

I just—

a recruiter can do that. That's not what I'm— what I—

if I source somebody, I definitely got them feedback on why they were rejected. And that is a different process.

So for me, and this just may be potato, potato, shall we? You know what I mean? For me, when I reach out, say I apply for a role and then a recruiter, you know, sources you, the recruiter reaches out to you and, you know, you haven't applied for the role yet. I'm going to— the recruiter is going to find out in that call whether or not you're going to move forward. And if they're not, they're not going to encourage you to apply. At least that's how I handle it. It's a convers— it's an informational sort of type conversation to learn about the candidate or the potential candidate, the prospect, to see if they're interested, to see if they're interested, and to, to also explain to them about your culture, the organization, you know, everything you have going on in that department, hiring manager, and what your company or what this role can offer the candidate, you know, because they're equally important. If they're not qualified, I'm telling them right then, you know, like, oh gosh, you know, what about the other 2,000 people that applied?

Are you telling them?

I am, but it's in an email if I haven't spoken with them.

Ah, okay. What if it's a referral?

Referrals, um, same process. Referrals, like internal referrals?

No, I mean, uh, well, let me clarify. What if the candidate is not sourced and they didn't apply, but someone at the company knows someone and referred that candidate to apply? Yes.

Then I am going to talk to that candidate and start with an informational interview.

As if they were sourced.

As if they were sourced because they technically are. They're just sourced by another one of my team members.

What if they were presented by a search firm?

You know, that's a Great question. At that point, they're not my sourced candidate or my candidate until you've accepted. I say they are, I guess.

Right now, I got you.

At Textio, we're doing a lot of strategic hiring, not high-volume hiring right now. And I'll say that, you know, I'm not— we're not currently working with agencies. We have in the past, and, you know, I'm sure we will in the future.

Right, right. Okay, yeah, good. So yeah, I think really what the bottom of Tricia's question is, if there's this, you know, lots of candidates that applied for this job and we don't have time to do what we talked about with the source candidate, there is a slightly different process. In other words, you might send them, as Rachel said here, essentially the answer is you might send all of them a notification that the position has been closed and they weren't selected. You could say we've received lots of applications, um, and, you know, we encourage you to apply for other jobs, but this one's been filled. You could say, you know, so at least you're informing them, but it's not the same as having had a conversation with them because they're sourced, because you actually had a conversation with them before they even applied. So it's— it is a slightly different process at the beginning. Now, past that, I think what Rachel's saying is that once you get past that and they're now an applicant in the ATS, then the rest of that should be the same process. I think that's what you—

Absolutely. Because at the end of the day, whether you're, you know, sourcing somebody or meet someone on the street as a hiring manager, employee in a company, or, or an HR recruitment, um, until somebody actually, you know, is an applicant, they're not— you know, you're, you're— you may be being considered, but it's, it's not official. So, and I see— I know we're running out of time here. I see LinkedIn user you know, said save source candidates from applying until it's determined they're moving forward. And I, I definitely—

they're interested in your— in other words, you think they're qualified and they should apply and they agree that they're qualified and they're interested.

But I also want to say a unique perspective just to add to this. I agree. And, and, yes, I am a— yes, I am a, you know, a one-woman recruiting shero show as far as you know, being in the actual recruitment, you know, trenches with candidates. And I am not always able to be everything to everyone. So there are times where I will not be able to speak to someone right off the bat, and I'll encourage them to take a look at the role. I can see on paper they're clearly qualified, like, please apply to save time. But I see where LinkedIn user is definitely coming from, and I really appreciate that. I just, I think hopefully the biggest takeaway from this, at least from coming from me, you know, for anybody listening, is that it's up. We all need to show each other grace, you know, from the employer side. Employers need to show candidates and job seekers and just human people some, you know, grace as well as I'm a recruiter and would love to, you know, I— what keeps me up at night is not being able to support job seekers, whether they're applying for my roles or other, you know, other roles in other companies. I wish I could triple, you know, make 10 of me.

Right. Exactly right. And that's, I think, a very common sentiment amongst recruiters who care about candidate experiences, that we'd love to help everybody, but we are limited by who we're able to, you know, help. I mean, you can't— even the world's richest billionaire can't save the world by giving everybody a billion dollars. It's, you know, there's only so much time, energy, effort, attention, etc. So we do what we can, right?

But we can, and, and it starts with providing an equitable candidate experience, you know. Um, that's what's within my control, right?

Your candidates have that. Yeah. Yeah. You can start there. Perfect. Yes. And then if you, if you can't change the pay transparency at your company, you can start by working towards that, asking for it, you know, doing your homework. And yeah.

And whether you're a recruiter or whether you're in marketing or engineering, like these are conversations you can start having, you know, if, if it's not, not, you know, pay transparency is not important, at least to start getting the conversation going internally.

It is important, but some companies are sort of stuck. Yeah. Rachel, I want to thank you very much for everything that you've brought today to the table. And I know that we're close to wrapping up here, but I do have— I have one question I ask. Hopefully they prepared you for this. If not, I'm sorry to spring it. I have actually two questions. I'm going to start a new thing now.

I'm going to drink a water here.

Two questions that I want to ask you. The first one is, who should I interview next?

Oh goodness. There's so many exceptional people.

Um, one, you can't pick them all.

I would say, uh, Nicole Roberts.

Okay. All right, we'll invite her.

We haven't. All right.

And the second question is, this is what I've always asked at the end of these programs, um, is there something that you would like our audience members to think about? So this isn't a question; it's more of a food for thought, something that you want them to consider, chew on mentally, if you will, over the weekend or as, after they— So what do you want them to think about after this call?

I want them to think about, regardless of where their seat is in an organization, whether they're employed or unemployed, a recruiter or, you know, in another type of role, just think about the human experience and, and think about, you know, in your interactions with one another, I guess I would say just remember we're all human because, you know, and it goes back to showing one another grace because we are all having this human experience and having one traumatic experience after another. For a lot of folks, I think it's felt like in the last, you know, few years or even lifetime depending on your own personal experiences. So just remembering that everyone is human. And I'm going to say, and I encourage job seekers, keep researching, keep asking questions, and hold recruiters and employers accountable. But remember, I hate using this quote, Rome wasn't built in a day. So be a part of helping be part of the change. And I definitely encourage other recruiters, HR folks, sourcers, and hiring managers to also remember that what this market is like currently, you know, it's twice as much for a loaf of bread. Job seekers are really struggling right now. Unemployed folks are really struggling right now, regardless of the region that they live in. So let's just show each other some grace all around.

Yeah, I like that. Yeah, be kind. Definitely, I appreciate that. Well, thank you so much, appreciate your time, and, uh, have a great weekend, everybody. We will see you on the next Jolly's Alley, and I'm gonna echo Rachel, be kind to everyone.

All right, thank you all, bye-bye.