Sarah Goldberg! Live on Shally's Alley

All right, what is up everybody? Happy Friday, September 20th. You are now live on Shelly's Alley, and with me today we have the spectacular, the unimitable, uh, one of my biggest crushes in the sourcing industry, Sarah Goldberg. I've known Sarah for, well, let's just say, um, a good solid decade. Or so and have been tracking her, her progress, her career. Very impressive. She's spoken at a number of events, has some real creative ideas. Currently, she is running sourcing for a, uh, let's just say an influential media outlet that you might have heard of called the New York Times. What's that?

The tech sourcing.

Technology sourcing. That's right. Thank you. Right. We're not here to talk about the New York Times. We're here to talk about Sarah and her contributions to the industry. And I have some very specific questions. The topic for our chat today is— these two things may not necessarily go great together, but we're going to talk about them— metrics and morale. The two, the M&Ms, metrics and morale.

Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, it's great to have you. Your unique perspective and your contributions to the industry and the fact that you've been not just leading but also building, you know, talent acquisition sourcing teams for a while now. You know, we're really looking forward to that insight. Sarah lives in— she's from Chicago and lives in Chicago, Windy City, right? Did I get that right?

Yeah.

At least you're still there.

Or yeah, I've been here for 15 years, so it feels like I'm from here. Originally, I'm from Pennsylvania.

But you went to school there?

Yeah, I went to school in Chicago and stuck around.

Stuck around? Yep. Yeah, they didn't tell you you could leave?

No, they didn't. I just— 15 winters, you'd think I would have gotten the memo though.

Uh, yeah, well, you just can't live without that deep dish.

Yeah, deep dish, food, culture, it's— and seasons. Like, truly, someone was asking me the other day, you know, Sarah, what's your favorite season? And I'm like, the part where they change.

Right. Yeah. Whichever one is in transition right now. Yeah.

So I'm very excited for fall.

Well, yeah. Yeah. I can't wait for that here in Atlanta. It was a very hot, muggy, uh, summer this year. I don't know if it was hotter or muggier than other years, but it certainly felt like it. So I can't wait to get that. And my son's like, I can't wait to be cold again. Like, yeah, I know. I know what you feel, buddy. I know what you feel.

First week where it was like 60-something degrees outside and it was just like, ah yes, sweater weather is finally—

yeah, I can finally wear something other than a t-shirt and shorts.

Yes.

So, well, bring me up to speed. So you've been, you've been building, um, a sourcing practice, a sourcing team. Um, what's, what's changed since, you know, let's just say the pandemic, like in the last couple years? What's What's been the driving motivation, the driving principle for sourcing leadership in the last 2 years?

Yeah, I feel like we've had just like huge swings even since the pandemic, right? Like we haven't— I feel like it's hard to say, you know, ah, yes, here's the like thing that makes sense. You know, everything is in a straight line. This is the arc. And so there have been times when it was like, There have been times where it feels like it's been a huge struggle. And I've been managing a team, but also continuing to do outreach, continuing to keep my hand in it. And I feel like 2021, 2022, beginning half of 2022 was just so much, okay, what can we do? Let's be creative. How do we possibly get people to respond back? Right? Sometimes you can say, oh my goodness, of course. Of course my cat has decided that she needs to be a part of this conversation. Let me try to get her away.

Um, that's quite all right. We, uh, we are a pet-friendly post, uh, pet-friendly, uh, podcast. Yeah.

Um, and truly she just needs to be the center of attention. But yeah, so sorry, as I was saying, it feels like there are moments where, you know, the heart— you— the hardest part of the job has sort of changed, right? Like, how do you attract people? How do you get people to respond to you? Was like this huge, huge challenge for a while. Um, and then it sort of flips on its head. We were like, okay, hang on, how do we make sure we're reaching out to exactly the right people? Because there's so many people in the market right now, um, in tech and in, um, other parts. Like, certainly it's been a challenging, um, challenging time to be a recruiter just since, you know, 2023. Um, so I feel like it's really been peaks and valleys, and I think the way that we sort of tried to address, address it is really focusing on a conversion rates. So, you know, there have been times in my life, agency moments, where you're reaching out to 200 people a day and hoping that you get, um, and you're just like, okay, how do we do that? And now it's a little bit like, okay, we're not going to reach out to 200 people today, but we're going to really focus on like sending messages people are going to respond to, reaching out to people who are going to be interested in, in our specific positions, um, and, you know, people that we're going to be interested in speaking with. Whereas for a lot of the time for, you know, the tech side of the world, it was just like, okay, you know, do they have a big push? Great. Let's just like everything that they do, make sure they know that we're an option.

So you feel like it's gotten more about quality focus?

Yeah.

Quality of engagement, improving the engagement. Okay.

Yeah. Engagement and like your reputation and making sure that people know, hey, yeah, I'm reaching out and like I'm a real person. I think That like, especially since the advent of, not advent of ChatGPT, but I feel like since it's become so accessible, and you wanna just spend your time saying, hey guys, you know, we're, we're a real human. If you spend your time with us, you're, you're not going to be talking just at, at a screen ad nauseam. Mm-hmm.

What are you noticing candidates are asking for that's different than before? Like, I know reputation is huge. I know reputation is, I, I'd say has a longer tail now than ever.

Mm-hmm.

Where, you know, people have a long memory, they remember if it, you know, seeing that really bad Zoom video of the CEO making a terrible announcement or whatever. But besides that reputation, is there anything else that you've noticed at the front end of the process where employees are like, yeah, I'm not even gonna talk to you guys unless you have X?

Yeah, I mean, we've, I've certainly in my life seen some really wild things where you're like, whoa, you're sending this and like, we haven't even said hi yet. I, I think that it is— well, one, I think there's a lot to be said for people who just won't even respond, right? Like, there's this huge, huge group of people who won't— they're like, they have it in their brains and they're like, hey, this is what I want, this is what I'm not— this is what I don't want. And so they're not even going to respond to your audience. Um, okay, so I think there is like a lot there. I do think people are looking— and again, this, this changes, and, you know, with— and this is, you know, me as an armchair, like armchair economist reading various news sources. I think, you know, hopefully the economy might be turning around with the, you know, 5% or 5% Fed— with the Fed— with the Fed announcement this week. But, you know, I think that people are kind of looking for stability. They're looking for those signals of like, hey, what's— what's this going through? I mean, that's huge. People are also always going to be looking for, you know, the basics, right?

Right, right. But the table stakes are different now, right? Like, I think since— I feel like since the whole, like, return to office mandate and whether or not you're— you know, some people are adamant about, I'm not going to work at a company that requires me to come on site, and some people are just, you know, dead set on looking for that kind of job. But I feel like all of it leads to candidates have a higher expectation of having their needs met. And speaking for myself, I feel like there, there, there was a burst bubble burst in the culture. I don't know if you felt this, where we used to feel like we were loyal to our employers, and then a lot of things have happened in the last couple of years that have made it very clear that our employers are not loyal to us. So I think people are a lot more concerned with what they're gonna get. They want to make sure that their needs are being met, that they're— so they're— I get— I want to say they're pickier. And I'm not saying it's like necessarily I want more money, but they're a lot more cautious about going into a job where they feel like they're— all of their needs are, you know, at least being adequately satisfied. Where before, there seemed to be a little bit more— the employer had more of an upper hand because there was still the illusion of, hey, Google's going to take care of me. You know, Facebook's gonna take care of me and that now everybody's like, yeah, that didn't happen. So I guess I gotta take care of myself, you know?

Yeah. I think there's, there might be a little bit of that. I mean, I think the probably what's just most crucial is that people know every, every interview process is competitive, right? And they're looking at, you know, obviously we're looking at candidates, but I think they're looking at us a lot. And they're, they're, yeah, right. And asking a lot.

Yeah.

They're, they're asking a lot of questions, you know, what's, what's the culture like? What's. What's here and making the decisions that make sense for them. And it's interesting. I think it's probably making sure that everyone knows, you know, hey, this is really what's going on. So interviewing and saying, hey, this is what I offer, but also interviewing, like being interviewed almost as the employer side. Hey, these are— this is what we give. This is what we give.

More transparency, more authenticity.

And making sure that we're on the same page of just saying, hey, we're authentic, this is what we've got, making sure no one's ever being misled. I think those are always going to be really, really important.

So managing expectations.

Yeah, managing expectations is a really good word for it. Saying, hey, this is what we've got. And sometimes that isn't going to be— Might not be a match. But yeah, and it might not be— the eye-popping numbers from big tech. Um, right.

So talking about metrics, where I get questions a lot, I get asked a lot about how do you measure recruiting, how do you measure sourcing, what's the difference between recruiting and sourcing, um, do we measure, you know, number of hires, should we not measure number of hires, stuff like that. Do you have like, uh, and if this is proprietary or confidential or whatever, obviously not, but do you have like a go-to set of of things that you, metrics that you look at that inform your decision-making more than others?

I mean, I can talk about just like the metrics that I hold myself to, right?

There's a lot of metrics. There's a lot you can measure a lot of things.

But yeah, there's so much data out there.

And that's getting easier, isn't it? It's getting easier to gather the data. Some tools are more transparent about like they have reporting built in. but not all of those measures are determining factors.

So I, yeah, so I'll say, I'll speak for myself, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. And there is, oh my goodness. Charles Duhigg wrote this book. I think it's like Smarter, Faster, Better, or it's some level of like those three kinds of adjectives. Don't quote me on like the exact word for it. But Charles Duhigg is the author. And I read it close to the beginning of my career. It was just hugely influential for me. Okay. You know, it's about not just, okay, do you track your message? Do you track your numbers? But really focusing on like tracking your own numbers, right? So like being the person who say like being instead of saying, hey, I'm going to enter all of this into some kind of program and the program is going to tell me, you know, hey, hit it, didn't hit it, whatever. It's saying like, okay, what can you specifically do and control and being the person who's actually like doing that. Yeah. Doing that work. And then because you're so close to it, you can immediately say, okay, I said I was going to do this, it didn't work out. Or as the person who's going in and saying, okay, yep, I hit this this week, didn't hit this that week. You're like, oh, you're so much closer to it than if it's just like a number that you're seeing on a dashboard that you're not really processing. And he had a bunch of case studies. It's a really good book. I'm really— yes, smarter, faster, better. I was, I was close. I think I've had stronger in there somewhere, but anyway, if you just Google that, you get it. Yeah. Thank you so much. But so like I keep it close to what I can control and like what I'm always looking for is making sure that we're not wasting anyone's time. Right. So I'm looking at, you know, how, how are people going in the process? But really, you know, are the hiring managers liking the candidates that I'm sending them and making sure that I'm spending time in a way that makes sense and that I'm really just engaged and focusing on that. When I was in agency, it would be the submission acceptance rate.

Yeah, take rate. Yeah, take rate, acceptance rate.

Yep. And it's just like that number, that's where I really want to be on the roles that I'm on. And I play around with, okay, in order to make sure we're spending the right amount of time. And like also just not— I will say this is the biggest thing that I noticed going from an agency model to an internal model is like, it's not about numbers. Like I do not want to overwhelm my partners with like, here's a million things that you now need to work with. It's really about, are you spending the time that makes sense to spend? Are you— Am I setting you up for success? Am I making sure that, you know, you are, you know, all the time that you're spending interviewing is time that you're not spending doing like the core parts of your job. Doing your job.

Right.

And so really making sure, hey, you know, we're gonna handpick the folks that we're speaking with and you've got quality going. And so really just like sometimes, you know, you reach out to people and you're like, hey, you know, these are, these are the two people you're going to talk to for this role and it'll be good. Usually slightly more than 2, but, you know, being really working backwards from like that experience of the, what the hiring manager has, what other like talent acquisition partners have, and making sure like that's really good. And then, you know, going backwards on, okay, how many people do I need to reach out to make that, reach out to, to make that happen? How many people do I need to screen to make that happen?

So then you measure that. And make sure that you're— So how do you handle, for example, the variance between different kinds of roles? Because one of the things that I— one of the challenges that I run into is unless I can turn it into a percentage, and take rate is a great example. You know, percentage take rate can be very universal because if you, for hiring manager A, need to submit 10 people and for hiring manager B only need to submit 3, you can still use the percentage as a calibration, right? If they're accepting 7 out of 10 or 2 out of 3, that's somewhat similar. Yeah. But how do you handle some of the other like metrics down the pipe that are related to, you know, engagement, conversion, successive interviews, things like that when they vary so widely by maybe industry or function. And it could be even within the same organization. Yeah.

Oh yeah. I mean, we have, just talk about seniority, right? Like the, there, there are some roles where I have nearly 100% response rate and there are some where it's a lot lower. And so it really does depend on what the opportunity you're presenting is.

So do you vary your metrics based on that?

Yeah, I mean, I really, I keep the core ones at the end of the process and those are the most important of the take rate. And so I will, I mean, I have a set, here's if I'm supporting a role, here's how many people I want to be speaking to a week on that role. Like that doesn't change. And so it really is, you know, what do I need to do to get to that number? And if I know, hey, for this role, you know, almost everyone that I reach out to is going to get back to me, then I'm gonna reach out to fewer people.

Right. Because you know, ultimately you need X amount, so you're gonna titrate your outreach to make that amount. Yeah.

So like in, in that way it does, it does vary. And then I guess I will say I'm lucky I'm coming up on, 4 years at the NYT and 4 years at the same company, honestly, in a month, which is just truly wild. But as you sort of see all of that coming together, you can say after 4 years and 4 years being the person who's like just constantly, hey, you know what, what does my response rate look like for this group, that group, the other group? And, you know, especially as we, as I've grown to support other groups, other functions. 4 years of that kind of experience, I don't really need to spend that much time doing the math of, oh, this is what I actually need to do because it's just so intuitive at this point.

You've already learned it.

Yeah.

So you and I are a lot alike in that we both had our origins in metrics by self-edification, right? So we both looked at metrics as how do I improve? And how do I do better? In my case, that preceded even some of the legal compliance issues. So when some of the compliance stuff started coming out, I was like, hey, my metric system happens to actually already be compliant haphazardly because I wanted to learn from it. But it also turns out to be a compliant way to measure. So you and I both have that same origin. What's changed in recent times though, as far as like, is there more emphasis on qualitative versus quantitative metrics? And is there more emphasis on team versus individual metrics?

I mean, I really want to do this as myself. Like I do happen to manage a team, but I don't want to speak for that in this moment.

Sure. Yeah.

So, and I don't want to speak too much about the company. I will say like all of the stuff that I do for metrics is trying to anonymize it as much as possible. Right. So it is.

You know, so, yeah. So more focus on quality or more focus on quantity or—

Yeah, I think always quality.

Quality.

I think like quantity is a, is a piece of it where obviously, you know, you're, if you're looking at, if you don't have the numbers there, you can't really get meaningful qualitative metrics, right? If you don't have anything to measure. But a lot of it is, and this is the part where, you know, probably the HR tech vendors of the world listening in on this call are gonna like be so sad. A lot of my stuff is still literally like not even a spreadsheet. It is a piece of paper that I keep next to my desk, um, which is wild, right? Like it's 2024. Who even does stuff like this? But, um, I still use spreadsheets.

I think it's the, you know, for, I think for peace of mind and knowing that I, it feels like it, some people might say it's a little bit duplicative, but, um, I've ran into enough technology where things got lost and overlooked to, to know better, you know. So I always like to trust but verify.

Yes, and it's, it's literally, it's just like tally marks on—

tally marks. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, just like, hey, this is, this is what I need. I got my notebook, I got my laptop.

That's all I—

that's all I ever need. Um, but yeah, I mean, quality matters, right? Like, you're never— if you're sending a lot of, like, If like looking at it as, you know, hey, here's two pieces of it. And really this is from agency days, 200 people spending time reaching out to 200 people a day. No one is happy. 'Cause I will say, even with whatever tools you have, it is very, very difficult to send like good messages to 200 people in one day. The people who get them are mad. The people who— you're mad 'cause you're sending all that time. Maybe the HR tech vendors who are, processing all of that automation are pretty happy. Um, but then you get people and you're like, oh, these aren't even like— would they get back to you? And you're like, oh wait, why did I reach out to you in the first place, right? Um, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Um, everyone's just got stuff, so there is a little bit of nuance to be found there. But at the end of the day, you want to make sure that like everyone— when I reach out to someone, I always still sit down and as I'm crafting my message and I use templates, but I do every single person, I customize it, personally customize it. And I always just like, show your work. Hey, I'm reaching out to you because this is the thing that I think you will get from this, right? Obviously we're going to get an amazing person who's a good fit for our roles. But, you know, here's what's in it for you. I'm not going to reach out to you and say, oh, you know, this is actually what you, what you would have been great for 3 years ago. Like, this is what I think. This is the opportunity that I think that you you would get out of this, um, and not just because I'm the company that I'm at, right? It's like, here's the job, here's the, the way it will fit into the progression of your career, um, and like that, even with whatever automation tool you, you have, like, that's still something that I don't think you're gonna like automate away, um, and it also means that it takes time, right? Um, where you can't say, oh yeah, and, and I'm going to figure out the value add for every single person I message and still do that for hundreds of people at a time. So it is a little bit, a little bit of a give and take, but at the end of the day, you get hiring partners who are excited to work with you. Right.

It sounds like quality over quantity, but you have to have the quantity sufficient enough to be able to get the quality. But like if you were to hire in a hierarchy, it would be like you wanna go for the quality. First, but you, you have to lead up to that. And the numbers may vary. It might be 100 outreach, uh, for one job and only 20 for another, but, but that still needs to be there. You can't have one without the other. What about on the individual versus team? Are, um, are companies in general, people do, you know, people that you talk to in general, are they more concerned with what is sourcing producing or what is sour producing?

Oh, I think that whenever everyone's always looking at their functions as functions, right? Um, you're, um, I, I think that there's, there's no question. It's always that. And it's, it's also usually sometimes not even, you know, what is sourcing producing? What is recruiting producing? Um, where, you know, I'm sitting here and I know the difference between sourcing and recruiting. Um, but you always wanna make sure that you're showing up well as, as a function.

So what's a good team metric?

I mean, I think, and I'll say this is me speaking as me, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is, I think it really is, you know, how are our stakeholders responding to us?

Okay.

I think that's always what we're looking for. And I don't wanna put the outcome. Yeah. Yeah. And I wouldn't wanna put a number there and I certainly can't share anything of what we're doing at the— No, no.

But you, what you're saying is that the, you know, as a function, recruiting, sourcing, or both of them together. What's important, and I've always maintained that, is the outcome. And the outcome may be different. So, I think where the key lies is in identifying your organization's strategic objectives and then measuring the outcomes that are most aligned with those. So, if the company's strategic objective is, for example, increase sales, then connect to outcomes that are related to making that possible, right? If it's increased territory or increased, you know, new technologies or whatever. So find what that objective is and then speak to the outcome for that as a team. And then, you know, the rest of it kind of falls into place. So how does all of this— how do we impact morale with metrics? How do we use metrics to— yeah, especially nowadays with a lot of the your sort of turmoil, I guess, that's happening.

Yeah. And the reason that these are kind of here in my head is that I like having, you know, hey, here's the thing that I can control, right? And like a metric is a thing that I can control, right? I can always control how many people I'm reaching out to, how well I'm doing. Like all of the ways that I have it for myself is, you know, here are looking at conversion rates. I know that I can control those because I know that I can reach out to good people. And then setting that and saying, hey, you know what, there is, there is chaos. There is— I lost some, some like, like basically the entire elder generation of my family in like one fell swoop of this. Um, and my, my like, you know, my grandparents and aunts and like that whole, whole generation this, uh, last month. Um, and there's just like, there's, there's chaos, right? And so being able to say, hey, you know, there's, there's chaos that is happening here But here is the way that this is working for me is I am able to still do this thing, right? I am still able to set these things and they're attainable goals and I can meet them. And like that piece of it gives me peace of mind, you know?

Um, so the metric, so I guess what I'm hearing is it's important to have measurable goals that are attainable.

Yeah.

So that you can track your progress towards those goals for your own motivation. If you have these unattainable goals, that's just gonna further demoralize you because you're not able to get to that target, whatever that target is. So set targets that you can reach, set targets that are a stretch but that you can reach so you can have something to, I guess, get a reality like, okay, things may be tough, but at least I'm— Yeah.

And to be proud of. And I think that it is possible to say, hey, this is what I will stand by and this is what I'm proud of. And I think that really just having that stability and having that, hey, you know, there's a lot going on, but this is what I've got. That's really meaningful for me. And that's a way of keeping things looking good.

So acceptance rate, take rate is definitely a big one. Do you have a particular goal in mind for like, you know, not enough or too much? So is it like, for me, I, I always target about 75%, and I'll tell you the theory behind that. 75 to 80%, I figure if, if I'm sending 10 people and there's 2 that they don't, they don't like, I subscribe to the full plate methodology. If they have enough candidates, then they're going to feel good about rejecting a couple. And if they don't have enough candidates, they're going to accept everybody that I send them, which 100% is probably not good. But Much less than 70% means that I'm sending them some few too many that they don't like.

So I think it depends a lot. It's my goal is that we can get to a point. I'm always happiest, whether it's a source candidate or not, when I get a hiring manager who comes to me at the end and says, oh my goodness, I feel so confident that I've made the right choice. Like they know. I have found the exact right person that I need to find. And so I wanna make sure that our hiring teams feel like they've spoken to who they need to speak to and enough people to feel really confident. So, you know, that 75%, 80% metric, like that sounds great to me. It sometimes I do think, you know, I do think sometimes actually you don't wanna have like 100% of a metric 'cause you do want people to say, to be confident in saying, oh, you know what? This actually is not a fit. There are people that you, we spoke to and it turns out they weren't a match. But I also think it depends like where exactly the, where exactly you're looking at, like the level of that person in the organization sometimes.

Because sometimes you start with like measuring what it is now and then see how you can get to improve it. But to not demoralize yourself by thinking that you gotta get to 100%, cuz I think that's also demoralizing.

Yeah.

You're probably never, you might get there, but that's a very high standard and you may, and it's not really that beneficial.

Yeah. I do wanna like, 50% is kind of the floor. If I'm sending people and more than half of them are getting rejected, I'm just like, oh gosh, what do I need to do to like, to pivot? Right. I get that. Where you're just like, yeah. And that is usually like, sometimes it is, oh, you're sending these people and the, hiring manager doesn't realize that like they're looking for something that they haven't voiced over. Yeah. I mean, obviously like you wanna make sure you're compliant, you're always sending the people who meet the qualifications for the role, but you're like, okay, is there, is there something else going on?

But they're looking for something they're not seeing.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and sometimes that like, those are very helpful conversations when you're like, oh, hey, you know, this is, this is what's going on.

And it takes a while to have that. It could be like, yeah, hey, you know, normally I'm, I'm, you know, more like 70, 80%. Or 60, 70%, but I'm, I'm below that with this, with this role. So can we take a look at what you're not getting or what you're getting too much of? Um, okay. So what's another really good measure that you can use that can help us, um, help us motivate and keep— and help us keep, keep on track aside from take rate? What's another place where you can— that you can control?

Here's where Here's where it feels like I grew up for the Glen Cathy school of thought, like his calculator still, I'm not sure if it's still online, but where he just had the whole, you know, your conversion rate every single stage, right? Yeah. That I still, it's really like it's all about that. It's like, how am I doing? And obviously you want things like offers. We do. I will say when we look at like what does success look like, it really is, you know, did the role close and did the role close in a timely fashion? Like, and that is, I will say, like, did the role close? Not did the role close with a sourced candidate, but just did we feel like we had a good group of candidates and so we could make that decision comfortably? That and we do track, you know, how many candidates are you submitting who are getting to that offer stage.

But really, you know what, so you come back to that again, and I think I want to really emphasize here that I've always maintained that decision support is our number one value add. In fact, I would say in talent acquisition generally, not just in sourcing, but in all of talent acquisition, I think decision support is where we add the most value because many times the candidate that we presented as a sourcer was not the candidate that got hired. But because we were able to present that second or that third choice, and they were given the— the hiring manager was given the opportunity to evaluate multiple candidates, they were then able to make the best decision. And so it's kind of like back to the story of you have a hiring manager that only has one candidate. Well, that's not a very— that's kind of a tough decision to make. You can't really compare. But if sourcing then produced two more, and they were good, and they got interviewed, and ultimately the original one got hired, well, The reason they got hired is because we now had a comparison point. So we contributed to that leader's ability to make a decision, which in and of itself is a value. This is why I've always said that sourcing should not be tied to number of hires, because we frequently do contribute candidates that don't get hired for this job. They will get hired for another job where you didn't source them for that job, but they applied later on. And that happens so much.

You always want to make sure you're giving someone a really solid experience because you truly, you never know.

You want that.

It's wild when you look through it and you're like, okay, here are the people, you know, oh, we reached out, we reached out to this candidate a couple of years ago and the timing wasn't right, or they received another offer like just in time, or we just decided to go in a different direction at the time because But you make the note and you say, hey, you know, this is the kind of role this person might succeed in or might be more successful, or this is like the timing. And then you reach back out and you're like, hey, this is— even if it's not you, if it's someone else on your team, if they remember, oh, I had this really great experience, I already did a lot of that, you know, vetting the culture bit that's so important that people are always going to do. They've already spent their time doing that. And then you reach back out and you say, hey, this is what we've got. And it just turns into a really, really quick process. And it's not, it's when you look at it in one way, you're like, oh, it actually took 2.5 years to make this hire.

It's so great.

But this job was open for 4 weeks. And that turns into a huge win. But it's all stuff that you're truly, it's an overused metaphor maybe, but still a really, really good one. You're planting the seed and harvesting significantly later.

Sometimes anecdotally, what is the longest that you've ever had a candidate that you sourced come back and get hired? Like the longest period of time?

Oh man.

Yeah.

I mean, we, I think it's on the space of years.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah. Yeah. There have been a, and like now that I've been at the same company for almost 4 years, like there are some that, you know, I reached out to, you met with first month at the job and now I'm looking at them and I'm like, And, and also like the thing that happens is especially as the team has grown, there are people that I might have reached out to when I just started that someone else on the team is working with now. And you just see the new hire announcement and you're like, wait a second, why do I know that name?

Right, right, right. Yeah. That's the long tail that sourcing has. Yeah.

Um, but yeah, so I mean, I, I do think like 3 and a half years at this point, um, which is just—

that makes sense. That, that I can track in my, in my recollection that I can track from a single employer. Would be about 660 days. It was a candidate that I worked with when I've been, you know, like in my first 6 months of where I was, this company Fiserv. I was there for 5 years and I worked with them originally about a role that was almost, almost, it was almost a good fit, but they, they didn't have the seniority for that particular role because it was higher level. And later on that same team, The position that I filled originally, which was kind of the team lead, they then had a position under them. And I, and then this candidate came back into the mix and they got hired for literally the same team. I don't want to say the same role because they got hired by the person that, you know, yeah, I filled the other job with.

Same skill sets, same, like, this is what you need.

Yeah. And they were, and you know, they were basically, they had. Not been looking. So when I, when I circle back to them, like, hey, you know, we had a conversation, um, not, not quite a couple years ago, and you were interested. The same team has another opportunity. Would you be interested? So this was somebody that was just in my network now for a couple years, and they were like, sure, I'd like to take a look at it. And they got the job. That's with the same employer. But I know that there's been times when, long after I've left the employer, somebody would get the job because they've contacted me on LinkedIn and be like, hey, I just got the job at Company X, and you're no longer there.

Oh my God, I love that though.

It's like, congratulations. Yeah, you know, because they looked me up when, when they finally, you know, got the job. So, well, let's talk a little bit about, um, motivation. Besides, besides achievable metrics, what else do you do that you can share, or what else can you recommend to those of us out here that are, you know, it's some, some, sometimes there's some difficult times in our job How else do you find motivation?

Yeah, I mean, I will say the thing that I love about sourcing is, you know, you do, and like, this is, I will say this is sourcing and not necessarily full cycle recruiting, is reaching out to someone and saying, hey, this is the kind of position that I think you would be good at. And they don't even realize, oh, this is the kind of thing that my employer would hire for. And so I do have my like mental list of here's everyone that I did personally reach out to who did take the job. And then sort of seeing every so often I do go and just like, you know, check them out on LinkedIn. Hey, where are they now? And seeing, you know, oh yeah, people are getting promoted, people are hiring other people for their team that, you know, the number of full circle moments where truly my favorite thing in the world in my career is hiring someone and then turning around and helping them hire. Where you reach out to someone and then they come back as a hiring manager and you're like, ah, yes. Okay. Normally I need to sit and explain what sourcing is because it's still, even though we've had it for years now, still people are like, wait, what do you do exactly? But then, you know, you get the person that you reached out to and they completely know.

They know what sourcing is firsthand.

Yeah. Right. So I think making sure that I just have that like list of wins to look back on. And then also obviously, you know, she showed up on my screen earlier, but like having my pets and my family, my fiancé, having those things are like, work is great and huge. And so like, I do find a lot of meaning in it, but also being able to say, okay, you know, and here's the support outside of work. That's just really, really helpful.

So important to have something that centers you outside of work, but also within the job, going back to your old wins and revisiting your your achievements, um, not from a, you know, bragging point of view, but like just be able to have them like memories of successes. Yeah. One of my, I have a story of a placement that I made once. This candidate was from a completely different background, but their experiences in the last project that they worked on for 2 years were like spot on for this job. However, if you looked at the resume, it The hiring manager, if the hiring manager looked at the resume, they would've been like, no, what are you thinking? This is not a good match. And if the candidate looked at the job opportunity, they would've been like, why would I ever apply for this? But because I had spoken with them at length for another opportunity and it didn't work out, I was like, you know, and so I called them up and I said, you know how you used to work on this, you used to work on this project that you were telling me about and for a couple years they ended up relying on you to do the building or the architecture of this system, even though that wasn't your job, but you really enjoyed it. What if that was your job? And they're like, what do you mean? I'm like, well, I have a job that's exactly that. But if you read the job description, you wouldn't apply for it. And I sent them the job description and they started reading through it while they were on the phone with me. They're like, you know, I understand what you're saying. So they want to do this, this, and this. And I'm like, yeah, exactly. That's what they want to do. It's not spelled out in the job description because it's like requirement, requirement, but that's what they're doing. And he said, yeah, well, I did that. And I said, yeah, I know. So then I— he said, I'm interested. And I wanted to— I went to the hiring manager and I said, I've got this candidate that you would never ever consider because the resume is consulting and it's like this whole other, you know, I even interviewed them for this other job, but what they just did for 2 years is like exactly this. And they asked me a couple questions like, did they do this? Yeah, they did this. Well, I'd like to meet him. And I introduced them and he got the job. And when he started the first day, he went and looked for me. It was in the building. He went and looked for me and he's like, I gotta buy you a cup of coffee because this is like the greatest best job I've ever— but it's that feeling. So that sense of having really impacted somebody's life and really having brought a good match to the employer and having that— and it's unexplainable because it wasn't like a job description that I sourced for. It was just industry knowledge and intimate knowledge of the candidate and the hiring manager. Those kinds of things are the feel-good moments that you remember, you know, forever. Many, many, many years later, the CFO that got the job, and they were, you know, um, kind of the, the, what's the word I'm looking for, the, the black sheep or the, like, the odd duckling of the, of the applicant pool. But they were the, but they were the— yeah, there was, there was a time that I hired somebody who used to be a white hat hacker for many, many years and then became a privacy attorney because of her experiences as a white hat hacker. And everything she learned about privacy. It freaked her out so much that she's like, I need to do something about it. And she became, you know, late career, right? Became a privacy attorney. And we're talking about purple hair, non-binary. I mean, the whole, like, as non-traditional as you can imagine for an attorney, you know, the straight-laced kind of attorney. And I presented her to the client for a counsel, you know, privacy counsel. And I told the client, I said, um, guys, this is a— this is kind of a non-traditional candidate. You know, they, they came from the hacking industry. They're, you know, they look different. They're, you know, it's— but she's perfect for this job because she has the passion for privacy that comes from having known the other side.

Yeah, yeah.

She got the job. Oh my God.

Yeah.

And she loved the job. The company loved it. So those moments are— you're just To me, that's, you can't put a number on it. You can't put metrics on it, but the memories and the relationship that, that you have with that candidate for years later, I think that's pretty valuable. So, no, truly.

And it is like, we are a people profession, right? Yeah.

Even if we're sorcerers, we're still people. Yeah.

Oh, absolutely. And just being able to say like, hey, you know, these are these are the ways that you're actually like helping people out, even if it winds up, you know, sometimes you look at people, look at like resumes and you're like, okay, you know what, you're actually not a fit for this position, right? But like, here's the advice that I'm going to give you and here's, here's what you should be like putting yourself out for. And that is, I will say, I love being internal. I love the like relationship you get to build as you like spend a lot of time at one place. But the one thing I miss about being an agency is saying, okay, you know what, you are not a good fit for this client, but this is the client you really want to, and being able to just make that, make that intro seamlessly. I mean, still sometimes you do, you know, call someone up and you're like, hey, I got a person for you. And just make that intro kind of behind the scenes.

But you're right, you're right.

Yeah.

To be a, to be able to advocate for that candidate with multiple clients as opposed to, yeah, when you're, when you're when your interests are aligned with a single employer and that candidate doesn't really have a place there, then you feel like, at least I've felt sometimes where I'm like, well, I really can't help. I wish I could, but I really can't help you. I don't have anything. You're a great candidate. I'd love to help you, but we just don't hire for this.

Yeah. I mean, you do. I have a number of people that I have texted and been like, you need to talk to this person. And yeah, you always help your network out like that. But that is, I think, the one big difference. Or you find them and you're like, hey, you're not a fit for this team, but like, I will reach out to you in 3 months when we've got a better fit for this other team open.

Yeah, that's definitely— I've done that. Have you ever placed somebody more than once?

Yeah. Yeah. Where you just find someone you know. It is— I will say it's not because I've reached back out to them, it's because they've reached back out to me. Right. And I will say it's usually people from my previous roles who say, oh, you know, hey, now I'm looking for this.

Yeah. Right. So from the old company to the old employer to the— yeah. I've—

but you always make sure that they reach out to you first. I never would like place someone and then say, oh, hey, I put you in this position.

Yeah. I put you there. I'm going to put you somewhere else. No, but I meant like, you know, because of your relationship and network and stuff like that. Yeah. My record is 5 times.

Oh my gosh.

But keep in mind, this is over like a long, long, long, long period of time. The first time I placed them, I literally, they were a waiter at a restaurant and I met them when they were a waiter. Uh, and they, we just kind of like, we're just bantering back and forth. And I found out that they had an IT degree and, you know, and I'm like, why haven't you, you know, looked into jobs in that? Well, you know, it's kind of hard to find a job when you don't know people, whatever. And I was able to get them hired as a help desk technician. And it was a contract, so it hadn't— it had a, you know, there was an end to it. And after 6 months, they came back and they're like, that was great, now I have experience, you know, is there anything else? And so I actually was able to get them a second job. This was a full-time job, and they were there for a number of years. Um, and then the third time, I actually hired them for a company that I— so like, I hired them, so technically I didn't place them. Um, and then the fourth time, yeah, so that company was sold, and, you know, and the fourth time it was, uh I helped them get a job and I was a reference for them. So I didn't necessarily place them, but I introduced them to somebody. And like you were talking about, so yeah, it's, um, it's amazing, you know, the relationships. You know, people look at my LinkedIn and they're like, there's no way you have 30,000 connections. I'm like, you'd be surprised after 27, 28 years, you know, people I've talked to, candidates I've talked to, people I've trained, clients, company.

It—

all my connections are people that I've contacted and, and had an exchange with. These are not— I didn't just, you know, spam everybody and say, hey, accept my connection. So it's legit. Um, but it is pretty amazing how the internet has allowed us to have a much more extended network, I think.

Yeah.

So wow, what a great conversation. Uh, thank you so much for being on the show.

Oh yeah, thank you so much for having me. This was, this was really fun.

Yeah, well, we're gonna have to have you back another time if you, if you'll have us. There are two questions that I ask every guest that you're not immune to. Everybody is, you know, no matter how much I love them, I'm still going to ask them these two questions. Number one is, who should be our next guest? And you kind of hinted at somebody, so.

Oh yeah. Maybe my boss, Monica Perotti, is also based in Georgia, I think outside of Atlanta. I will, I think, I think she would be great. And then I will say also an ex-coworker, Ryan Agen. I think he was just at RecFest. I missed him. I was unable to go at the last minute, but I think he would be great. Talk about the other side of things. And he is much more into like the Gen AI and all of those next trends, I think would be really cool.

Ryan Eakin?

E-A-K-I-N. I can do an intro.

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. That'd be great. Awesome. Thanks. So those are great introductions. Of course, I'll invite them. Doesn't mean they'll accept, but I'll invite them. And so he was at your former—

Oh, he was at NYT for— we overlapped for a couple of years. And also TikTok, Twitter, Google. Like he's got a lot of experience.

Multiple times. Got it.

Yeah. All right.

And the last question is, I like to leave people with a thought-provoking idea or something. So not a not an idea that you plant on us, but something that you want us to come up with ourselves. Is there a question that you want our audience to ask themselves over the weekend?

Oh man, that is a challenging one. Just, I mean, this might be trite and even just thinking out loud, but Back to maybe this is me, peak millennial, Mr. Feeny, Boy Meets World, you know, do good. What, like, what good can you do? Like, what, what can you do to just make the world a little bit better? And like how, you know, as in our position as recruiters, in our position as people, just what, what can we do to just make the, make the world just a little bit less dark, less grim?

I love it. Yeah. And we all have some sort of talent that we can contribute for sure. So what is. What is your talent that you can put to use in shedding some light on the darkness? I love it. That's awesome. Well, thanks so much. It was awesome to have you on the show. I'll reach out to— well, you'll make the intros and I'll reach out to your folks and say, what's up? For those of you that are coming back next week, we have Eric Nau. If you remember him from the diversity ageism conversation. and I invited him to come back. Not about ageism, we're talking about something different, but if you recall from that episode, he is a repeat offender. And otherwise, well, you know, be kind to yourselves, and what good can you bring to the world?