163: {Sassy Solo} How to Hire Top Talent

In today's episode, I pop off about best practices when it comes to recruiting. I  share my extensive experience in headhunting, discussing the challenges and strategies involved in finding top talent. I reflect on my journey from a novice recruiter during the recession to successfully placing high-level executives. We talk about the importance of emotional intelligence, candidate energy, and professionalism in the recruitment process, while also critiquing popular recruiting platforms.

takeaways

• I transitioned from fundraising to headhunting during the recession.
• The recruitment industry is worth 200 billion dollars due to its challenges.
• Traditional platforms like Indeed are often ineffective for finding quality candidates.
• Paying attention to a candidate's energy can indicate their suitability.
• Professionalism and soft skills are crucial in the hiring process.
• The follow-up process must be handled delicately to avoid appearing desperate.
• TOP TALENT has HIGH EQ
• Temporary staffing solutions can be beneficial during economic downturns.
• Crafting intentional messages to candidates increases response rates.
• Recruiting is about understanding both the candidate and the employer's needs.

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Transcript

Caroline Pennington (00:00.778)
All right. I had a couple of requests from you guys about solo shorty topics that you want me to pop off about. And I'm going to get really sassy about this one because I feel like very passionate about this topic because I used to be a head hunter and I was very good at it. And I felt like I cracked the code of exactly how to find top talent. And one of you actually requested that I come on here and talk about how to find the best talent in the workforce. Okay. So.

For those of you listening, I used to be a headhunter. I did that for 15 years. I started doing it 2010 and literally the economy was in full on recession mode. So I took a job. I went into the recruiter's office. I had no clue what recruiter was, headhunter, staffing. I had literally no clue. And I previously was doing fundraising. And so I went from asking for people's money to employment. Okay.

So I went into the recruiting staffing agency's office and they said, why don't you come work for us? So I said, okay, great. I had no clue what I was doing. I had no clue about any of it. And I thought it'd be great because I could actually help people get jobs and help business owners solve their staffing and recruiting issues by helping them find top talent. So great in concept, right? But actually really, really hard to do, which is why the industry is a 200

Billion with the B dollar industry because it's such a problem recruiting and hiring it that is So it's 2010. I'm getting on the phone calling on these business owners HR managers direct managers and wanting to talk about their hiring and recruiting needs and Friendly reminder, but the economy in the United States was in full-on recession mode in 2010 So when I would call these business owners HR managers, they would literally hang up the phone on me

cuss me out, anything you could imagine as far as like a negative or terrible phone call, I literally had. So I was seriously considering my life choices and thinking, oh my gosh, what the hell am I doing? But after 30 days, I was able to start working with these business owners. A lot of them had just laid their staff off. And so a lot of the conversations were around, we just had to lay our team off. We're really lean right now. So.

Caroline Pennington (02:20.62)
It's one thing I did was I worked with these business owners on helping find temporary staffing solutions. And that was a good option at the time because that time the employers didn't have to actually commit to hiring somebody as a W2 employee. They could just hire a temp. So in 2010, I started as a recruiter. I was placing entry level professionals, file clerks, receptionists, you name it. Fast forward 15 years later, and I'm recruiting at the absolute highest level. I'm recruiting CEOs, CFOs.

CMOs for publicly traded companies, for privately held companies, and all types of industries all across the United States. And I was operating and recruiting at the absolute highest level. These were the high income earners, the high six, seven, eight figure income earners. Those are the people I was finding for these jobs, okay? And let's talk about recruiting platforms because I do feel really passionate about this because I really dislike some of them and I really like some of them.

So when I first started recruiting career builder monster, we're good places to find candidates fast forward now. No, no good candidates on those platforms. A lot of people use indeed.com for hiring. I literally cannot stand indeed whatsoever because you post a job on there. Then you get flooded with candidates that are unqualified. It eats up your ad budget. It's just a huge money pit. So for me and where I was finding these really high level, high functioning

professionals for these big jobs I was working was LinkedIn. And that's where they were hanging out. And I crafted perfectly the exact message of what to say to them, how to say it, so that I would make sure to get a response rate. And they would tell me all the time, they would say, I get messages from recruiters all the time, but I wanted to respond to yours. I never spammed anybody. I was very intentional about how I spoke to these candidates I was trying to recruit. And here are some things that made me...

really good at my headhunting job. I always paid attention to the energy of the candidate. Okay. I don't care if I was placing somebody that was making $10 an hour or if I was placing someone that was making a million dollars a year. I always paid attention to their energy and how they interacted with me. So what I was looking for was interest, high response rate, sense of urgency.

Caroline Pennington (04:44.654)
All of those things matter to me and professionalism that all mattered. Enthusiasm mattered. So I would always pay attention to the candidate's energy and I get it. We have bad days. We're not gonna be full on energy. know, jackrabbit all the time. But if you're in the position of hiring right now or if you are looking for a job, pay attention to the other person's energy because it matters. I would know within...

Under 30 seconds, whether or not the candidate was a match or not. got that good at it. Also pay attention to everything, their correspondence with you, how they communicate everything. And then also pay attention to how they treat. Let's say when they walk into your office, did they treat your receptionist kindly or did they treat them like a jerk that matters as far as their behaviorals, behavioral skills.

soft skills, all the things. So pay attention to the energy piece. That was one thing that really helped me with my success and my recruiting job is I paid attention to that part. One other thing I want to mention about that too, is professionalism matters. Manners matter. All of those things matter in the recruiting process. And so pay attention to all of that too. Also, the art of the followup is key. You want to make sure if you're recruiting somebody that they

Do follow up with you. Now there is a fine line between following up professionally and falling out of being a stalker. You do not want to hire the person who is desperate trying to get a job and stalking you. Okay. I don't care how desperate you are for the hire. Desperate hires are always the worst. That's a big hard N-O for me. Okay. So the follow-up pays attention to the energy, paid attention to the professionalism. One question I always get asked when I was recruiting at that really high level is.

What makes them different? And my answer was the same for every single one of them that I placed. And it was pay attention to their EQ. That emotional intelligence piece goes a long, long way, especially if you are recruiting someone for your team who is going to be in a hiring or authoritative position. You want to make sure that their soft skills match with you as a leader, match with the culture of your team.

Caroline Pennington (07:07.498)
will be a great example to the team they will be leading those all those things matter. Okay. So I hope this was helpful. If you're in a season of recruiting and hiring and you have any questions, feel free to send me a DM. I'll be happy to answer them for you until next time.