The Sourcing Beast, Bob Collins, on Shally's Alley

All right, everybody, happy Veterans Day! Here is in celebration and honoring all of those who served. And, uh, today as a very special guest— by the way, today is Friday, November 11th— and as a very special guest with me, I have the Sourcing Beast, Mr. Bob Collins. Bob is probably one of the most unassuming, unpretentious, chill, laid-back sourcers that crushes it on the face of the planet. This guy delivers consistently and he's pure genius but doesn't pretend to be anything else. He's just kind of salt of the earth, you know, a guy's guy. Uh, Bob and I have known each other for— I don't even know how long we've known each other, Bob.

Good gracious, since the beginning of my sourcing days, like when I first started back with MRI. So man, it's been for 15 years, really?

2006, '16, 15 years. Yeah.

Wow.

And Bob is here in Atlanta as well. As well as, like, in case you didn't know, I'm in Atlanta. And we have worked together side by side, you know, gone into the fray, so to speak, on multiple projects, including some pretty funky ones. Like, for example, one time we helped build the team that created the Pokémon app. That, you know, like the game, the virtual reality game. And let's see, what's another one that was kind of pretty much out there? The truck drivers. Yeah. And the people that were doing the cable TV stuff, the like set-top box, which was basically door-to-door sales.

Yeah, that was, that was with Nielsen and we basically saved them because that's how they got all their data and they couldn't find a way. They tried to use other groups and they couldn't adjust and we were able to figure out ways for each different market.

Yeah, every market was a little different. Yeah, crushed it. So absolutely just, you know, hardworking guy and really knows his stuff. So thank you for joining us today, Bob. Appreciate you coming on.

Excited to be here.

So I don't mind sharing, sharing the news. But, you know, we've worked on a couple of projects together and we're working on a project together again.

We are.

Yeah. Bob just joined the team here at LTK. By the way, I'm still hiring. I have one more position open. So if anybody is interested, you know where to find me. I've got one more job slot open, looking for somebody based in the US that is really a pure sourcer, someone that's going to do just the lead generation side of things. Not the recruiting side. So, um, you know, where to find me. Well, with that, Bob, I want to talk a little bit about some of the conversations that we've had over the years where we, where we sort of see things coming and, and like the writing's on the wall, but for some reason it appears that other people just don't quite get it. Um, and like this recently, this whole layoff, um, at, at Meta and and Twitter and all that with all the recruiters that have been essentially told to go pound dirt. You and I were talking about this some time ago and they overhired and now they're surprised, right? So like we saw this coming a year and a half ago. Why don't other people see it?

I think it's the glamour of going to those big companies, you know, with the big names sometimes, even though you should be able to see the writing on the wall. I tried to save a couple of people. I was like, this is just not going to be a good move. They're hiring way too many people and you're not quite there yet to be there on the scale of that company full-time. So just be real cautious. But they didn't listen. I think it's just the glamour of it all, just working for Meta or working for Twitter or any of the other larger brands that were a year ago doing all this hiring. But if you logically look at it, there's only going to be so much hiring done, right? And then all this high salary. The worst part is like for you and I, when we get in these situations and they bring us on board to fix things like with, with Pokémon, is with Niantic. Yeah, we work ourselves out of jobs. They need us for these big tasks and then we complete them and then they're like, why are we paying these guys so much?

Right after we finish the job. Yeah. Isn't that the case? That's, that's so true. But I mean, like, so what I'm concerned about for our, for our fellow, you know, sourcers is that they bring these people in and it's a short, it's a short term. Then they're literally, they're back out on the street and their hourly rates have increased because they were paid a lot more in this job. But that doesn't really kind of match the market, right? Like, so they're back out there after 3 months they don't really have any really hard data to show because in 3 months they don't have a whole, you know, cycle of results and metrics. And so they're like, oh, well, I'm looking for X an hour and it's way over market, but they can't demonstrate their value because they didn't have any wins in their previous job because it was too short. So it puts them in a really awkward position so that they have to kind of like take another step back to go, take another step forward. But I've seen that, you know, this has happened before. This isn't just Meta and Twitter. This has happened before, time and time again. What would be your— as a veteran contract recruiter, what would be your advice to someone that's considering joining a company on a contract for, you know, 6 months or a year, and they're being thrown all this kind of, you know, this money, and it's, it's, it's the big marquee company. What would be your advice to try to sniff it out to make sure you don't end up getting caught in one of these?

The thing, you know, goes back, back to MRI days again when I first started with a, with a guy that I was working with there when it was the same scenario. The market was just flush and we all thought, man, it's going to be like this forever. And he goes, it will not be like this forever. We laughed at it, but he said always have something backed up. Don't just be specialized in one discipline. Specialize in one. You always need to be specialized because that's what makes you valuable. But have a backup. Be able to do something else. Don't be a one-trick pony. That's my biggest advice. Don't be a one-trick pony. So that you can— and always study and read the market. I mean, if you see, you know, when things started going into, you know, data engineering, you know, go that way. When it starts going into growth, you go that way. But you don't want to be the last one on the market doing that. You need to, you know, see the trends.

So have another— have a backup plan, have another iron in the fire, and go ahead and take the risk, but don't like depend on it. Don't think, oh, I'm gonna— I made it, I'm at this company X and it's a great company, great pay, I can just sit back and relax. What you're saying is don't.

No, never relax. Always have a backup plan.

Just have a backup plan. Yeah. That's a good idea.

It's our market. It's our world. The rewards are great when they're great. And then there's, there's, there's, there's times when it's just not going to be that way. And, you know, and you also have to be adaptable to situations. You're not always going to be able to be on top, you know. So, yeah, you know, that ride the wave, be smart about it, take advantage, you know, when you can and, you know, when your strengths are there, that's wonderful. And hopefully you can always be in that situation.

I think I used to ride the wave, man, but then I, but then I realized I could fly over the waves and just never even worry about the waves anymore.

That's right.

I'm totally joking. I really am. But so it, that's true because there are waves. And I mean, you got into this industry like around 2006. There was actually a really big, um, I don't know, recession, whatever it's called, a dip in the market before that. And then even before that again. So I've actually gone through in my career at least 5 really big dips or crushes in the market. And the worst one for me, at least from what I can remember in 25 years of doing this, the absolute worst one isn't this one. It was the one where, like, after the Twin Towers got hit and the market just sort of— like, just, I don't even know how to say it— collapsed overnight. It just collapsed everywhere, right? Usually there's somebody hiring even when everybody else is not. Like, there's, there's usually an industry or a sector that is hiring, but in this one time, it was just nobody. It just went all the way. They hit the, hit the bottom, and then they started hiring for certain things. And there was a massive— I don't know if you remember this— a massive hiring project where they were bringing on recruiters to do the TSA work. So they were basically recruiting TSA people when TSA first essentially was like mandated or created or whatever. They had to fill the jobs for all of these people that would be now working the, the airport security So essentially a whole new category of, of a job— I mean, a whole new job function was invented practically overnight and mandated in all airports in the United States. So there were, um, there was a high need for recruiters. There are a bunch of recruiters that ended up jumping into that bandwagon, uh, and, and doing that kind of recruiting. Sadly, those recruiters didn't really get any— they didn't really have any transferable skills when they left that because those projects were just massive. Like, it was more interviewing than it was recruiting. It was just mass. I mean, people would line up to, to be interviewed. And it was a completely different kind of recruiting. But that was the hiring. That was it. Like, if you weren't in that project, if you weren't doing that kind of work, you were basically like unemployed, or found other jobs. Lots of people went into other areas like real estate and stuff like that.

We lost a lot of people during that time for sure.

We sure did. And then that happened, something like that similarly happened again with the dot-com bubble and everything. So, you know, sometimes you can see it, sometimes you can't. But if your friends— if Bob is telling you probably shouldn't take that job, or you probably should, you know, look at something else, you should listen to us veterans that have been around. We're not trying to prevent you from getting ahead. We're not trying to make, you know, like, we're not trying to get you to lose money. We just are looking out for your best interest because we've seen it so many times where it just Thanks. You know, so anyway.

Yeah. And another thing that occurred during that situation, it made some of the people that were more full desk recruiters more valuable. And going through, then the real, real like agency full desk recruiters that have done it from start to beginning have to shuffle multiple, having to compete with other recruiters, you know, dealing with the different hiring managers and then their boss. And your client and then other recruiters even in your own company, that makes you strong. And, you know, it made those people more valuable once the market just totally crashed. So only the ones that— I mean, that's the other thing I recommend is just keeping your skills honed and not just be a one-trick pony as far as you don't want to just be an interviewer. You want to be a, you know, have that mix. Even if you're sourcing, make sure you're recruiting. And go into that so that you can do it all, be able to do it all.

That's interesting. So what you're kind of saying is, hey, you know, maybe try, try your stint at working in a staffing firm and just have, you know, various, various types of recruiting in your background.

Yeah, I think anyone that wants to go into sourcing and recruiting at a young age should definitely go agency first. And so it just makes you well-rounded. Talent acquisition professional.

That's good advice. Yeah, I definitely— when I'm interviewing and hiring, let's talk about that a little bit. When I'm interviewing and hiring sourcers, I actually do look at that. I'm not saying that I won't talk to you if you didn't come from an agency, but if I see an agency, a staffing firm, or commission-based, or any of that kind of work in your background, it gives your resume a couple of extra points, you know. Do you feel that way as well when you're, when you're hiring? And I know you put together a huge team not that long ago.

Yeah.

How many? It was like 20 or something people.

Yeah, I had 28, 28 people with Upstart.

What were you looking for when you were bringing those people on?

So it was a mix because we needed some young people because our budgets weren't as good.

So you needed some, yeah, trainable entry-level people.

And in that case, what we really did well with was athletes, actually. Coming out of college, they were tremendous because they were go-getters. You know, they went and did it. And actually, I went with some older veterans that I knew and older recruiters that had been around because I needed someone that would— especially we had a lot of people that were applying. I knew that those could be processed well. So I made sure I knew those guys would be able to handle that effortlessly. So I went with a big combination of different people depending on the needs that I needed, to be honest with you. But for a good sourcer, I do want them to have that agency background so they know how to hunt and they know how to reach out and engage with people to entice them about the opportunity and the company that they're with, because that's a big part of what sourcing is today, the outreach.

What else were you looking for besides that kind of background? And were you testing for some core, I don't know, competencies? Like, for example, for me, I'm always looking for people that have curiosity and resilience, or you could call it grit, whatever, perseverance, you know, grit, perseverance, resilience, those are all very similar terms in my opinion. So what else? So you, Let me just wrap that up. So that's curiosity, right?

Yeah.

Resilience, grit, whatever you want to call it, were some of the big ones. What were you looking for? You look for—

and again, in a sourcer, I'm going to be looking for someone that has that curiosity and also has that drive and the curiosity, not just curiosity, but enjoys it. It's fun. They like the hunt. Okay. If they like the hunt—

problem solvers.

Problem solvers.

Exactly.

You need somebody that wants to go in there and and dive in and want to talk to that hiring manager and know what he wants so that he gives them exactly what he's looking for to get that extra step so that it makes you unique. So it's like a win when you get that person on board, right? So it almost comes back to sales in a certain extent. I know a lot of us don't like to say that we're salespeople, but we are. And part of that is knowing how to satisfy your customer, which is your hiring manager and your client. So for me, that's a big part of it, just them wanting to not only be curious, but to be excited about engaging and hunting and finding that puzzle piece that matches. That's what I like.

Yeah.

Having the basic skill sets to be able to listen and go through all the steps and and be able to go that extra effort to do the engagement. Because a lot of times you've got, you know, I don't want someone that's just going to go and send an in-mail on LinkedIn and be done and then be like one and done.

Right.

And you can get away with that at companies very large because they see the name and they'll respond. But, you know, normally they're not.

That's true. But that's not always true, right? No, it's not.

It's not right.

Yeah.

And that's my point.

I mean, if it's like a marquee blue chip company, that's fine. But then there's also, you know, let's just say a company that shall go nameless that has a really bad reputation in the market. Yeah. And candidates are routinely responding to sourcers and recruiters— to the sourcers doing the outreach, they're responding with, hell no, no thanks, I've heard about your reputation. And to the recruiters, when they're in the process of interviewing, they're saying, Sure, I'll work for you, but you're going to have to pay me a lot more in order to put up with what I perceive to be this really bad environment. And so it's not always, you know, being a blue chip company is not always to your advantage. Sometimes being unknown could be an advantage when you're like, I don't know, I don't want to say ground floor because that's sometimes associated with like bad word. But like, you know, it's a company about to be established and they've got a really cool product or solution. And you've worked at a few of those. And so that's a different kind of challenge that's there. Nobody knows about them. But it's a really good idea. And so it catches on quickly.

So that's why you want that sorcerer that's going to be engaged and know how to, you know, sell that, basically, and pitch that and be enthusiastic, enthusiastic enough in it themselves, where their energy comes off on that candidate when they're speaking with them.

Yeah, we had a comment from an anonymous Facebook user. They're only anonymous because I'm not on Facebook right now. Okay. I can actually go over there, but they have to like connect their accounts anyway. So, um, they're not trying to be anonymous is what I'm saying. But they're, they're talking about a, uh, what they call a recruitment full stack. Now for those folks out there that don't know what that means, it's kind of a— full stack is a terminology that's used in technical, um, in the technical world. Essentially full stack means all throughout the entire workflow or lifecycle or process, right? So in engineering Full stack is someone that works with the server sides, you know, the, the, the back, the back end that nobody sees, but also works in the middle where things get connected and also works in the front where the customer actually sees like the UI. And so that's what full stack means is across the entire spectrum. In recruiting, full stack means that you have the experience with developing business, getting new customers. So you've knocked on doors virtually. You've also done the sourcing to get in to knock on doors for candidates, and then you've also done the recruiting. So full stack in that sense is essentially the full spectrum of— is sometimes referred to as full desk.

Full desk. That's what we always called it.

Yeah, sometimes. And now the anonymous person is being identified.

Great.

Uh, yeah, so, um, man, Keith. I haven't seen Keith in a long time. Keith, how's it going, man? You want to be on the show next time? Drop me a note. You've been— that's another guy that's been around for a long time. Keith and I used to work together at Google back in like, I want to say 2003, a long time ago. Yeah, yeah. So we got curiosity, we got the problem solving, the perseverance, the grit, whatever you want to call that. We've got a little bit of a variety, and, you know, make sure you've worked some, some full desk if possible. And you may not enjoy all of it. Look, if you're a sourcer and you've been a sourcer after being a recruiter, you, you landed on sourcing because there's something about it that you like that you didn't necessarily enjoy as much about being a recruiter. Personally, I can tell you On my end, there's two things that really just drive me crazy about being a full desk recruiter or a full-stack recruiter. And the reason that I really specialized early on is because I never really enjoyed the reneging part of negotiations. And I don't think that that's And I don't think that's professional. And I think a lot of people don't think that that's professional, but good recruiters that enjoy doing that or don't mind doing that and can work through that have a different skill set. And it just was never me. So in other words, let's say I'm talking to a candidate and we, you know, I'm thorough. We talk about compensation, we talk about the full, you know, benefits, salary, everything. And we agree, okay, this job is going to pay X amount of dollars. There's gonna be this much down, you know, signing bonus, there's gonna be this much equity, and if we offered you all of this, you would be able, you know, you would accept the job. I mean, I pre-close them, right? Something that I'm sure you got taught that at MRI. So you sort of do like the pre-close, like, okay, Mr. or Mrs., if we get you X amount plus this plus this plus this, you would sign, right? Yes, great. Then they do the interview, and then they get the offer and they go, well, I actually, I want this much more. It's like, we already, we already talked about this. You already agreed to this. So okay, fine, I'll go back and get, see if I can get you a little bit more. But you're now going, you are now going back on your word. You're reneging on your word. So I'll go back and get a little bit more and then bring it. And then the candidate says, well, I also want, and then I also want, and it's like 4 or 5 times, 6 times, 7 times. Forget that, man. Uh-uh. That to me, I don't have the patience for that. That's me. Now there are other people who do well with that, who can work through that. But for me, if you told me that you would do the job for $1 an hour and then I make you the offer and you go, well, I changed my mind, I want $2 an hour, and then I make you the offer, I get to the extra dollar an hour, which by the way, it wasn't easy for me to get because I had to go and figure it out. Then you say, well, not only do I want $2 an hour, I also want to guarantee that I'm going to get $0.10 commission. Okay, that's the third time you've come back to the table. I, to me, that was like, so that's my number one. I don't, you know what, I don't like it. It just, it makes it just, I don't know, I can't stand it for whatever reason. And then the other side of that is the same thing, similar thing, but with hiring managers where you send them the candidate that they said that they wanted, they interview them, and then for whatever reason they back out and they hire somebody else that doesn't even look at all like the rec.

Or they want to wait.

Oh yeah, right, exactly. Or they're like, this is the perfect candidate. We found, you know, we found Little Red Riding Hood. They're not too hot, they're not too cold, they're not too big, they're not too small, they're just right. But I want to see what else is out there. Like, come on, come on, really? I mean, there's something about me, Bob, there's something about me that can't tell when that happens. I can't tell what the reason is. I'm missing some sort of social cue. Or something where I don't know, it just, it just boils my blood. And so for that reason, I was like, you know what, I don't want to do this anymore. And so if you're that person and you went into sourcing for that reason, great. But I think you should already have had some experience with that, with the candidates that back out and the hiring managers that back out, just so you understand what the whole process is like.

Yeah, so you know what your recruiter's going through, right? It's always good know the steps that they're going through.

I know what they're going through and I do not envy their job.

Yeah, I had it. I had a new hiring manager that I was working with at a, in return or CNN, and he had just come on board and I told him my process. I'm like, because, you know, I've had other hiring managers that I work with all the time and they knew how my flow worked. And I was like, look, I'm not going to bring you— I'm not the guy that's going to bring you 1,000 candidates. I'm going to bring you maybe 4 or 5, but they're going to be soft. They're all going to be a hit. And then I happen to hit a home run on the very first guy. This is the guy you're going to hire. This is the one. He fits everything you want. He's got the right personality. Boom. And so I bring him in there and I think I'm done. No, this guy wanted me to talk to everyone that had applied in the database, and there was over 26 people. I was like, there's no way I can— I don't have time in this work environment to screen 26 people when you, you've got these people that you've admitted that are all good candidates. So anyway, we, we went through this whole, um, we didn't do that many, but we ended up doing— he, he met with about 16 people. And guess what happened at the end of the day? They hired the one that you picked out, the very first one at the very beginning.

Yeah.

And we could have done that in 6 people, you know?

Right, exactly. But that's exactly right. You don't want to hire the first one because then you got the halo effect, right? But you definitely want to give it a good, give it a good go and evaluate some people. You just don't need to evaluate that many, right?

Because it's not a good candidate experience too at the end of the day.

And absolutely not. There's no reason to talk to 26 people just to talk to 26 people. I've actually heard of this. I've heard of hiring managers that said, let's go ahead and, um, I'm not going to tell you where this happened, but let's go ahead and interview these people because, because my, my direct report needs some experience interviewing. Oh no, you get what I'm saying?

Yeah, that's, that's awful.

I mean, like, seriously? Okay, so let's go ahead and bring in a candidate and give them hope that they're going to get a job when in fact you're just using them for practice.

Let's experiment with live people.

Yeah, right, exactly. Let's experiment. Yeah, no, hard pass on that one. Not happening, man. I'll tell you, one of my, one of my funniest stories in just— maybe you can share one of yours as well. But in, in this whole, like, you know, going back and forth was one time when I had a candidate that was basically, like you said, a perfect match, right? Totally a perfect match. But the hiring manager wanted to wait and see what else was out there. And I was like, no, this is— it's a long time ago, it was Motorola. And there's a little bit of background to the story, which is Motorola at the time had these very strong relationships, agreements, some of them in writing, some of them simply just high-level, you know, handshake agreements to not recruit from customers. And, um, you know, so imagine who's a— back then, who was a customer of Motorola? Basically anybody that had anything that had anything to do with RF communications, radio frequencies, etc. And the position that we needed to hire for was a position working in that. So essentially, that pretty much meant that like 90% of the companies were off limits because they were customers. So I happened to find, um, an exception to the rule because it was a company that was based in Canada, and the American The, the United States, uh, subsidiary was the handshake agreement, but the Canadian parent company was not. So it was okay, right? So like, it was like, wow. And there were maybe 2 or 3 people that fit this bill. Very, very, very rare skill set, made so much more so because of all the companies I couldn't touch. So we finally have somebody, and The hiring manager wants to wait and see what else is out there. And I was just scratching my head going, but honestly, I can tell you that there really isn't anything else out there. I mean, we, there's a lot out there, but we can't do anything because we have agreements with these companies. So, you know, this is, this is kind of it, right? These are the, so then they're like, okay, fine. All right, fine. So then they do the interview. They really liked the person. They want to make them an offer and they make them an offer. $20,000 below what the person was currently making.

Currently making?

Yeah, it was a $20,000 pay cut from us because we're that awesome. And I was just like, what? There are maybe 3 people available for this job, and this is definitely the best of the 3 match, you know, matching the rec and, and all that. And you just, I mean, it's not even a lateral move at this point. It's actually a step down. So why would they? And it's not all about the money, honestly, because I did talk to the candidate about it. And they were like, bummed. You can hear in their voice, they were bummed about it. They're like, that's really not what I was expecting. And they were actually asking me to give them a reason to consider it. And I did, you know, the, the benefits, they were the same. The type of work, it was the same. I mean, they're— everything that I had at my disposal to offer was really equivalent or a very slight improvement. So, job for job, it was just really a pay cut. I mean, there wasn't— it wasn't like they were going to learn anything new or work on anything. It was just a pay cut. And I try as I might, couldn't get the hiring managers and the hiring committee to even consider moving up on that. So the position never got filled. I mean, it just— it's something like that happens and you're just like, oh, so discouraging. And, and yeah, Keith says sometimes the original candidate will be gone by the time they get back to them. So in this case, that wasn't the case. They, they were not an active candidate. They were willing to, you know, kind of stay the course. And they weren't looking. So they just basically said no, and the position just continued, you know, continued to be open. They never went back to the candidate to offer them anymore. It was like, that's it. And I don't understand that. That's, that's, that's the stuff that makes me not want to be on that side of the fence, you know. What's the, what's the worst story that you have like that without naming any names?

Okay, my worst one, it was bad. So I had this candidate that it was a, it was a, um, He was a medical device rep with a fairly large company going to a fairly large company, and they were very picky. Um, and the process was grueling because the, the hiring manager was hard to get anybody through because he just had certain criteria that he wanted. And I was able to get this guy, found him in Denver, and he was He was, uh, I mean, he's a really good guy. He's a little quirky, to be honest with you, but, you know, sales numbers were through the roof, and he and the hiring manager just hit it off phenomenally. Um, they had, uh, the— so they— everything was, was done, everything was in writing, um, but the paperwork wasn't quite signed yet, and he decided that since they were going to be in Denver that he would invite him. They were having a conference there, so he invited him. And there was a German, um, VP that had come in, and that German VP decided that he did not like this candidate.

Okay, so they had—

they not stayed, but we did the background check. We had done literally everything. And here's what's even worse. There was a, there was a snowstorm that came up that went from all the way to Texas up to Denver. It was one of the largest amounts of snow Denver had ever gotten.

Wow.

The hiring manager was stuck and he had a, he had a birthday party to get to, his child's birthday party, and he wasn't going to be able to make it. The candidate was going to Dallas anyway, and so the candidate drove him to go see his sister. The candidate drove the hiring manager down to there. They were buddies, you know, they had made plans.

Oh my God. And then because he'd already had the— I mean, it was like a done deal.

Yeah, yeah.

And they were— and they were getting along, right?

Right, right. And, and, and then that VP called him like the, the, that night, I believe, or the next day, and told him, no, I'm not gonna— this guy can't represent my company.

Did he go pick up the hiring manager and bring him back? No, just kidding.

And the guy lost his job.

Oh man.

So it was like the worst scenario that you could possibly imagine, and I've never felt so bad in my life, even though it had nothing to do with it. And I stayed in touch with him for a while, and it took him a while to get another rehires. So that, that was the worst one.

Wow, that is pretty— that is pretty out there. I mean, some crazy things happen out there, but like, see, that's, that's part of the— that's part of the charm for the job for some people. Just for me, it's just not You know, um, I think Srinivas had, had a funny recommendation about, you know, the hiring manager saying, let's, let's wait and see what else comes out there. He's like, well, ask the hiring manager to wait and see what else comes, comes up and see what they say. In other words, yeah, let's— Mr. Hiring— Mr. and Mrs. Hiring Manager, let's just hold off on, um, you know, on making an offer on this one and wait and see if we can get anybody else. See if the hiring manager likes it when you— when the tables are turned. I love that. That would be a hiring manager that's ready to make the offer. Let's make an offer on this one. Well, hold on a second. Let's just wait and see what else is not going to work. Oh, man. Oh, here's another story. Medical device rep candidate, picky employer, hit it off with the hiring manager. Candidate was visiting Denver for a conference, but met the German VP who didn't like the candidate.

And that's a recap of my story.

Yeah, yeah, that's it, that's it. Yeah, the German, right, the German VP, man. I mean, just, there probably are some legal ramifications there at some point too.

I don't know, I would think so because like, yeah, that, that's when you, you know, when you start doing those background checks, that, that can be iffy, right?

Right. Yeah, so those are the things that just, you know, really kind of turned me away from that part of, um, of the, of the industry. And so now for, for me, when I encounter really good candidates, um, I, I hate to, I hate to say it, but I basically, I don't really close things because I don't know what's going to happen. So what, what I say, my, my new thing is I will be I am your best advocate in the camp, you know, inside the company. So in other words, I'm telling the candidate or the prospect or whatever, you know, the next step is interview, interview, whatever, you know, whatever the next step is. But all throughout that, I am going to be, I am on your side. I am your best advocate throughout this process. And that's my role is to be your best advocate. I can't promise, I'm not making any promises. Like I'm not gonna, you know, because I just don't have that, I'm too far away from being able to make those decisions. And even as a recruiter, I was never able to make those decisions either. You know, we seem to forget that sometimes, that the recruiter is not the one making the decision. The hiring manager is making the decision. The recruiter may have a big influence. You know, best-case scenario for, for me was when I had an entire organization, 748 hiring managers, all of them, after working really hard at this, after a year, I had all of them trained to where they knew that if they opened a rec, they were going to get 4 candidates. That would— I called it the Shelly way. And when they would open a rec with me, I would be like, you, you understand that you are agreeing to the Shelly way, right? If you don't know what that is, ask any other hiring manager in the building. I'm gonna get you 4 candidates and you're gonna have a hard time choosing which one to hire. That is the value that I bring. That is my value proposition. I'm going to get you 4 people, you pick, right? Like, that's it. Don't ask for, let me see all the resumes or whatever. Took a while to get there, and that was the best case scenario. And that was my career record—138 hires in one year with an average salary over $120,000 each. That's impressive. That was a lot of hires, but it took getting all the hiring managers to accept that the value that I brought was that I was going to do the first and second filters. First filter, reviewing the resumes, then bringing in— and I would, I would actually interview them with a, with an interview guide that was standardized. And that was part of the reason that this was successful. If there were more recruiters, it wouldn't have been as successful because we all had to have the same standardized guide. And that's the trick right there. So every interview was done situation, task, action, result. It was all documented. It was all fully transparent. So when I presented those 4 candidates, the hiring manager knew that the interview process had been done consistently and all 4 candidates had been asked the same types of questions in the same situation. So it was an even start, and then they could choose from that, interview the 4. And I would almost always tell them that they need to interview the 4. Sometimes they'd be like, well, I only want to interview this one. No, let's, let's go ahead and bring all 4 in "Look, you know, these are my finalists. I myself can't pick the best one. I can tell you that on paper this one looks better, but let's just go ahead and bring them in." And then that worked. But it took a long time and a lot of effort getting them to, I don't know, maybe accept or recognize that that's the value. Otherwise, I had all kinds of hiring managers when I started that said, "Let me have all the resumes." I had one in particular that said, print all the resumes and bring them to my office. Yeah, no. And I'm like, okay. So I did it. Wow. I did it. And I mean, in retrospect, I probably shouldn't have wasted that much paper, but it was part of building that reputation. So I did it. I print— it was like 700 pages or some ridiculous— I mean, it was a couple of reams of paper. I had to bring it in a box. And I went into the hiring manager's office on our scheduled meeting and I put the box on his desk and I said, okay, you wanted printed copies of all the resumes. Here are all the resumes. And on the top there, the very top thing that you see is a sheet called an applicant flow log. This is a governmental requirement. That means that for every resume that you pick up and touch, you have to write into that flow the name of the person and the reason why they're not moving forward. So as you accept this box from me, you're taking responsibility for the applicant flow log. Any resume that you pick up, you have to write their name in this applicant flow log and pick from one of these— I can't remember however many, 7 or 8 reasons that were the accepted standard reasons. And the hiring manager looked up at me and said, Aren't you supposed to do that? And you're like, yes, sir. And that's the point when I said, that's right, that, that is exactly, you know, that's not all I do, but that is exactly my job is I go through these resumes, and I do the applicant flow log, and then what's left, I interview, and then I write my notes, and then I present the top 4. And then you get to pick from those 4. And if for some reason I don't get it right, I'll go back into the well and get you some 4 more. But like, that's the process. And, you know, and then he was like, why don't we do that instead? And gives me back the box. Now that was, you know, the way to make a point. Yeah, but yeah, but I had to, right? And so after that, I didn't have to do the printing. I would just refer back to that. And, you know, and eventually it got to the point where— but even in a, even in a scenario like that where everything was buttoned down tight, there were still exceptions, you know. Um, my favorite one— maybe you have a story for this too— but my favorite exception was when I had my 4 candidates and I was ready to bring them to the hiring manager, and they were an executive. Let's just say they were in the C-suite, okay? C-level executive. The, the hiring manager was. So this person's C-level executive's executive assistant walks into my office with a resume in a manila folder and says, "We would like to bring this person in to interview." And I said, "But we already have the 4." And then she said, "We would like to bring this in as a 5th candidate." Okay, my process was 4. So I basically said, "Here are the 4. Which one do I knock out?" Because we always do 4. Like, that's, you know, let's try to stay, let's try to stay to the process. And they said, "No, no, no, no, no. Let's just do 5, and because we want to see your 4, but we also want to see this other person." OK. All right. I made the exception. It is C-suite. I mean, you know, they are executives and officers of the company. So I'm not gonna— I'm recommending my process, but I'm not going to force it at this point. I don't really think I have a choice. So I Brought the, you know, 5 resumes in. And as I'm looking through that 5th resume, um, the resume does not look very qualified. I mean, like, I'm saying compared to the other 4, it, it met the minimum requirements, but it just wasn't on a scale. You know, if I had 10 people that were qualified, the top 4 were 1, 2, 3, and 4. This would have been like 10. It just wasn't even close. So I started scratching my head and I'm like, okay. So I called my boss, who happens to also be my boss now, by the way. And I said, what do you think I should do? And she said, well, let's go ahead and bring them in and interview all 5, but keep a close eye on it and find out what happens. If, if the other 4 interviews are very short and they don't seem to be very thorough interviews, and then they interview this person and they give them a very long interview and it's very thorough, there's some sort of, you know, there's something going on we didn't know about. So I'm like, okay, all right. Sure enough, exactly what happened. They sort of filtered the fourth people through, like, here's your drink, here's your coffee, great, nice to meet you, next. Here's a drink, here's a coffee. And then the last one, they're like, hey, how's it going? And they spend like an hour and a half with a candidate. And now I'm going, geez, uh, this just definitely— this just does not sound right, doesn't look right, doesn't look feel right. So okay, fine. Then they're like, I want to make an offer to this person, the fifth one. And that's when I was like, hold on a second, the other four people are much more qualified. What's with this one? Well, their background, their blah blah blah. They give me all these justifications. Let's go ahead and proceed with background checks. So we did the background check and we found out during the background check that their degree that they had written when they fill out the application— they have to sign an application that says, I have a college degree, I have a Bachelor of Science or Bachelor, whatever, I have a bachelor's degree, and check the box and sign. Okay, background check came back incomplete. The bachelor's degree had not been granted Right? So they did not— so they had checked the box but did not have a degree. So I call the candidate up and say, hey, you maybe did this by mistake, but you actually signed a form that says that you have a college degree. However, we just heard back from the university that says that they haven't granted the college degree. And the candidate says, well, I, I kind of have a college degree. And I was like, that, that's not a— there's no kind of. Do you or don't you? Well, almost. Okay, there's no almost. It's either you, you graduated or you didn't. Like, where's your diploma? You know, where's your— it's— the job requires a diploma. Where's your diploma? Well, see, what happened was, um, there was this one course that I, that I couldn't take to graduate, and, and I just have to take that one course, and once I take that course, then I'll have a degree. Okay, interesting. So now I'm in the situation where this person has essentially lied in their application, right? And the position was in the legal department. Wow, right? So I'm starting to think, okay, this is very strange. Uh, what we— at this point, we, we have to withdraw your application because you simply, you know, if we, if we don't withdraw your application, then we are allowing someone without a degree to apply for the job, and everybody else that has been rejected because they didn't have a degree would have been unfairly rejected. Like, we, we can't— it's at this point, we would have to repost the rec without a college degree requirement, have the start over, reapply, everything. So unfortunately, we, you know, we have to withdraw you from consideration because you are not qualified. And this is the best part, Bob. Wait for it. Oh man, please don't tell my mom.

Uh-oh, which one was mom?

That was my question. I'm like, please don't tell your mom. What? Why would I do that? Why would I tell your mom? I mean, okay, first of all, I would never tell your mom, okay? No matter what, like, period. This is— you're applying for a job with this company. I am acting in agency of this company. I'm a legal representative of this organization. I am not going to go violate your privacy as, as a large, you know, multinational organization. Like, don't worry, I won't tell your mom, right? And then she goes, oh, thank you so much. And I was just like, out of curiosity, Why would you think I would tell your mom? I mean, what made you think to ask that? So she gives me the name of her mom. It's the executive assistant that brought me the resume. Wow. The executive assistant for a very highly leveled C-level legal officer at this company. And I said, well, how come you guys don't have the same name? "Oh, well, I've got my father's name and, you know, not my mother's name." And I'm like, "Okay, well, how come you didn't check the box in the application that says that you have a relative that works at this company?" So now we have two boxes that they, you know, the box that says I have degree was not checked correctly, and the box that says I don't have any relatives that work there was also not checked correctly. So, wow, I was just like, uh, okay. So match that one. Got anything like that?

Hmm. I, I have an interesting— from the beginning of our conversation, where we had said that you'd ask, you know, talking about the way you approach a candidate as their advocate. So I can relate with that for sure. And this kind of goes— someone asked what my special sauce was to sourcing, and this kind of goes into it as well. And it's part of— it's part of that. It's, um, my, my special sauce is having that key relationship with my hiring manager, knowing exactly what he's looking for, being on the same page, so that when I reach out in confidence that I'm representing him when I go out into— or her— and when I'm going out into that market, that they're going to respond. Kind of like you said, if so my agreement and arrangement with them typically is if I'm reaching out on your behalf, you're going to talk to them. And then I can go into confidence when I'm going to these candidates because we know we're on the same page looking for the same people. So having that relationship and being able to be very precise and personal with the candidates is my secret. I mean, that, that, that, that gets people to the table, that gets me candidates. And, you know, my job is to get them in front of the hiring manager and let that hiring manager make that sale. So there's competition between myself and them to get them interested and get them in the process. So that's kind of what I do that works. But on that advocate—

would you say that that's a secret sauce though? Shouldn't we all be that way?

We should be doing, but we all don't. I think a lot of—

we all got to be like Bob.

Yeah, be like Bob. That's right. But, but, you know, doing that advocacy thing and saying, hey, look, I'm about to, you know, release you into the system with some very qualified, great people. But I'm going to be here in the back end. So if you get bogged up, right, everybody's busy, you come back to me. And you promised me this, if at any point you're frustrated with the process, come back to me and see if I can fix it before it's over. So around Christmas time, you know, we were all on break pretty much. Only people really working with some of the recruiters and the coordinators. That were guiding things through. And we were at a rehearsal dinner, and I had this message come across from someone that was a principal-level data engineer at a pretty big tech company that we wanted really bad, that it was very difficult to get her to the table. And I had gotten her there. And we went through the process. And she said, Bob, I'm going to drop out of the process. I don't think the company is ready for me. And, um, I just, you know, you told me to let you know. And so I just called her to find out what was going on. It turned out because it was Christmas break, people were missing things, missing appointments. People hadn't— some of the hiring managers that she was talking to, they hadn't really, you know, done their due diligence to know what the, what the conversation was about. So it looked like we really were haphazard and didn't know what we were doing. I'll grant her that. So, but when she went back to me, I was like, do you remember our initial conversation? I said, you know, the person that I told you, the VP that I told you that you would want to work with, where I felt your personalities are going to get along with, you haven't spoke with him yet. Will you do me one favor before you say no? Go ahead and speak with him. And if you'll do that, then, you know, I, I feel like, you know, you've, you've done your due, your due diligence and, and, and totally, you know, seeing if the opportunity was good for you. And it saved it. We ended up saving her. She was hired. But it was because of that. Had I not done what you said— and, you know, I think we've been doing that forever, you and I— but, you know, given that, that key of, I'm your guy through the process, I'm your boy, so if you need anything, you always come back to me— and her not having that confidence in me, you know, we would have lost um, on that particular wreck, right?

Because she would have— she wouldn't have known where to go. It just kind of backed out.

She would just bolted, right? So that advocate thing is huge.

That's cool. Yeah, that is. Uh, we got something interesting, um, from, from, uh, I'm assuming Sweeney Bus because he seems to be the anonymous user. I can't really read the whole thing, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna read the— because it doesn't show up there. So similar situation was that the old Lotus Notes, Lotus Mail in 1993 insisted we hire a candidate that I sourced for senior technical product manager. He was the least qualified on paper, but the references were off the charts. And, you know, they were— he calls him the best dark horse choice, as in like unexpected, you know, like a candidate that you would never have looked at except for the references. And so he said senior TMP hire went on to be great things. And you know him today as one half of the founding team of, oh my God, A16Z. It's Ben Horowitz from Andreessen Horowitz. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. So there you go. That's what happens with a candidate that you work with and you— the dark horse, again, meaning that, you know, you would never have the— on paper, they may not be the best one, but you talk to them and you advocate for them and, you know, you say that this is a good hire. I gotta agree, some of my best hires ever have come from candidates that themselves wouldn't have applied for the job, right? Like, either they— I, I— one example from Fiserv is somebody had applied for a different job And I had to call them after I had spoken with them and screened them and presented them for this job. They didn't get it. And I had to call them to, to, you know, give them the news because we had a relationship and I want to make sure that they heard it from me and didn't just get like some anonymous, "Sorry, we're not going to move forward with you." But I'm on the phone with them and they're like, "Well, can you give me a little bit of feedback?" And I was honest with the feedback. I said, "Well, they're looking for this, not that." And the candidate said, "Well, that's true. I'm really not that. I'm more this." So I'm like, "Well, hold on a second. Let me— tell me more about that." And they start telling me about this technical stuff that they had done. As a product manager, they had also done some configuration that was a little bit more technical than the product management role that he had applied for required. So it turned out he had this other technical ability. And I said, "You know, that makes me think there's this other position that's a configuration management job. I think it would be really good." And they looked at the job description and they said, "Shelly, I would never have applied for this job. Like, I don't think this is a good fit. But based on what you're telling me about how you're describing this job, I'd like to take a shot at it." Send the resume to the hiring manager with the same caveat, like, "I don't think you'd ever consider this candidate, except when I was talking to them about this other thing that, you know, this came up." He got hired. And on his first day on the job, he comes over to my office and he goes, "Thank you so much. This is like the best job. It's such a really good fit for me, but I never would have found it." The hiring manager, same thing. "I never would have found this candidate." again, dark horse, but because you actually take the time to really talk to the person and understand what their career objectives are, this is what the person really liked to do and wanted to do and knew that they could be successful at, but weren't qualified for because on paper, their last job wasn't Configuration Manager, right? So I love that. That's, to me, that's probably the— if the worst for me is having people renege, hiring managers and candidates, The best for me is having that euphoria of having made a match where it was completely unexpected, like, you know, Ben Horowitz, right? I mean, that's amazing.

That's an amazing story.

Yeah, I love that. That's like, there's no better high than just having made that perfect batch— uh, sorry, match. I said batch, I meant match. So that was Bob Bechtold that did the, um, the, the Ben Horowitz, uh, story. So Good job, Bob. That's right. Another Bob.

Gotta be like Bob, right? Right. Yeah, they, they, that would happen a lot in, especially with dealing with not so much in technology, because you do have certain skill sets, but, you know, dealing with more sales-oriented type positions, that definitely is the case. Knowing that personality, you've got to be able to read personalities and how they match up. And that comes into play too, you know, even when we're talking about hiring, you know, recruiters and sourcers for our teams. It's— you definitely want to have a personality match because it's important as you got to spend a lot of time with everyone and getting things done and understanding the, you know, cultural personality of your, your team that you're hiring for is also important at the end of the day. Absolutely.

Well, so we learned we got to be like Bob— Bobs, the Bobs. And, uh, I really like this here: sources are talent scouts. Um, and with reference to the Moneyball movie, where they're— the whole point of the movie, in case you haven't watched it, not, not to give you any spoilers, but the whole point of the movie is that through some analysis and, and, and a methodology, they were able to identify baseball players that had so much more to offer than what their, you know, statistics showed, or what they're like, you know, you, you see that the, the player throwing a ball, but it doesn't look like they're the best player. However, this analysis showed that this person would grow into being, and so this movie talks about the, um, the team that applied this method and hired a bunch of dark horses and became, you know, the best team because of these people that grew into the position. Even so much so as like they would even let go of people that were highly ranked but just didn't have, you know, were just— were not the potential that they needed. It's pretty cool.

That's a good analogy. It is.

Yeah, I like that Moneyball analogy. Gonna be, um, gonna be my new favorite one, I think, for, for what we do. Moneyball sourcing. That's right. Read an article about that. Speaking of articles, um, Article 1 says that we need to be done by now. It's 2, it's 2 PM, so we've been on the phone for an hour. I gotta let you go. You got other things you got to do.

I know.

Yeah, yeah, we all do. So thank you so much, everybody, for participating today. Lots of good conversation in the chat. I encourage you, if you're watching or listening, on Facebook to go to LinkedIn or LinkedIn to go to Facebook because the comments don't cross-post. But please come back next Friday and have a great weekend, everybody. Take care.

Have a good weekend. Happy Veterans