December 20, 2023 • 31 mins
In this episode of the Hire Calling Podcast, learn how to scale your hiring efforts without sacrificing the human touch. Ricky and Pete dive into the fast-paced world of high-volume recruiting, whether it's building the perfect call center team or ramping up for the season.
They discuss setting clear objectives, leveraging milestones, and balancing efficiency with a candidate experience that feels personal rather than automated. Pete and Ricky share how forward-thinking workforce managers use historical data to predict and adapt to their needs in real-time, ensuring you're always well-prepared. They also discuss the controversial yet effective practice of overhiring, its relevance across various industries, and why it could be the secret ingredient for your organization's success.
Lastly, they explore the wonders of AI in recruitment while emphasizing the pivotal stages where the human touch remains indispensable. If you're ready to fine-tune your recruitment process to be both lightning-fast and irresistibly appealing, this conversation is your ideal starting point.
High-Volume Recruiting Strategies:
- Create a Clear Hiring Plan: Develop a comprehensive hiring plan that outlines the roles, skills, and number of hires needed.
- Utilize Recruitment Marketing: Invest in recruitment marketing to build a strong employer brand. Use social media, job boards, and targeted advertising to reach a wider audience.
- Leverage Employee Referrals: Encourage current employees to refer suitable candidates. Employee referral programs can be highly effective in high-volume hiring.
- Implement an Applicant Tracking System: An ATS streamlines the application process, helps manage candidate pipelines, and organizes applicant data for easy access.
- Pre-screening and Filtering: Use pre-screening questions or assessments to filter out unqualified candidates early in the process, saving time and resources.
- Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO): Consider partnering with RPO providers who specialize in high-volume hiring to handle certain aspects of the recruitment process.
- Continuous Talent Pools: Build and maintain a database of potential candidates for future openings, reducing the need to start from scratch each time you have a vacancy.
- Use AI and Automation: Implement artificial intelligence and automation tools for tasks like resume screening, scheduling interviews, and sending follow-up emails.
- Use Temporary Staffing Agencies: Partner with staffing agencies to provide contract workers during peak hiring periods.
- Analytics and Metrics: Use data to track the effectiveness of your high-volume recruitment efforts. Adjust your strategies based on performance metrics.
Additional Resources:
- Mass Recruitment: The Complete Guide
- How to Accelerate Your Recruitment Process
- AI Recruiting Techniques
🧠 WANT TO LEARN MORE? Be sure to subscribe and check out 4 Corner Resources at https://www.4cornerresources.com/
👋 FOLLOW PETE NEWSOME ONLINE:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petenewsome/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@PeteNewsome
👋 FOLLOW RICKY BAEZ ONLINE:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/efrainrickybaez/
Blog Articles: https://www.baezco.com/baezco-blog
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pete Newsome (00:00):
You're listening to the Hire Calling podcast,
where today we are talking aboutthe secrets of high volume
recruiting.
Ricky, how are you today?
Ricky Baez (00:08):
I am doing great Pete.
This is a secret about highvolume recruiting.
There's a secret out there.
Pete Newsome (00:12):
Well, it's not going to be after we're finished
talking about it today, butmaybe for some that is Right.
We don't think it's thatmysterious, but that's because
we've been through it a lot.
You and I individually, havehad a lot of experience with
high volume recruiting and myperspective on it we're going to
find out what yours is as wetalk through the show today is
(00:33):
that it's very different fromwhen you're recruiting one
position to fill one position ata time.
Ricky Baez (00:38):
Absolutely Well, pete.
From my perspective, thestrategy is radically different.
The goal is the same.
You want to hire a specifictalent that your organization
needs, that they're willing topay for.
That's what recruiting is.
But for me high volumerecruiting I have to go back to
my days when I was recruitingfor a call center.
And then we have marketing datathat says we need X amount of
(00:59):
people and X amount of seats inthis timeframe and we can't just
say I'm going to go out andhire one call center agent.
We have to hire 300 by the endof the quarter, right.
And that's not one-on-oneinterviews, that's a whole
entire business.
That's an entire rationale thatyou have to put together in
(01:21):
order to do that effectively.
Pete Newsome (01:23):
And that's the key point.
In order to do it effectively,you have to have the right
strategy, and for years I'vesaid there's almost two types of
recruiting.
Now, this is a broad, generalstatement, but the approach and
effort you put forth whenrecruiting for one position at a
time is vastly different thanthe approach you take when
you're recruiting for a class of10 or 20 or, to your point, to
(01:47):
hire 300 people in a quarter.
It's a very different approachand to me, it all starts with
the end in mind.
That is something I'm a bigbeliever in that if you have
that goal and let's just usethat one for argument's sake I
have to hire 300 people in athree-month period.
Now, that's a lot.
Under any circumstance, youwant to start with that goal and
(02:08):
then work backwards todetermine what your plan should
be and what your strategy needsto be in order to be effective
and hit your goal.
Have you recruited that way, oris that a bit of a different
angle for you?
I?
Ricky Baez (02:18):
don't know.
We have actually I think wetalked about this last time when
we were talking about pipelinehow to build that pipeline.
And this is to me, this is whatI was talking about last time,
because in order for me to knowhow many applicants we yield one
hire, you do have to workbackwards and you do have to put
together some milestones andsome I don't want to say
(02:40):
obstacles, but some indicatorsto say, if I had 500 applicants
and I'm pulling this out of theair if I had 500 applicants,
that tells me I'm going to get Idon't know 200 hires out of
that and early on, if I putthose indicators in place, I'm
able to see early on if I needto make a left or a right to
make sure I'm going to hit mygoal by the end of the quarter.
Pete Newsome (03:02):
Well, it makes sense to probably put this on
the table early in theconversation.
When you're recruiting for thatkind of volume, you're not
hiring 300 CEOs, you're nothiring 300 people who have a
very unique skill set.
That would be a very difficultthing to do.
I'm sure it happens on occasion, but generally speaking, we're
talking about a broad candidatepool when we're discussing
(03:25):
volume-based hiring, and withthat comes A higher dropout rate
than what you'd experience ifyou were working with one
candidate at a time.
Among the reasons are thesimple fact that the individual
recruiter cannot spend as muchtime with an individual
candidate, and so you have to docertain things to accommodate
(03:48):
the scale involved, and thatmeans, again, not investing the
depth of effort into eachindividual candidate.
Ricky Baez (04:00):
And that's the one thing when you're comparing just
high-volume recruiting to justregular recruiting.
From my perspective, the partthat I have to focus on more is
the personalization of theprocess.
The bigger the scale, thesmaller the personal service
you're able to give as arecruiter.
We've talked about this on theshow, where we've talked about—
(04:21):
that's a hard way to phrase it.
Yeah, we want to be able tocreate the most personal
experience possible, whetherthey get the job or not, and
it's harder to do at volume.
But then again, you know whoyou're looking for, you know the
profile that you're looking for.
You just got to build the rightmachine to make it happen for
you.
Pete Newsome (04:38):
Well, and this is a bit of a crude comment, but it
becomes a numbers game becauseof that Unfortunately, yeah.
You know that if you can'tinvest as much time upfront in
any individual candidate, you'regoing to have higher fall-off.
You're going to have backgroundissues, you're going to have
drug test issues.
Potentially You're going tohave candidates who just weren't
(04:59):
fully bought into the openingbecause odds are you didn't have
as much time upfront to investin that part of the conversation
.
And I am someone who stronglybelieves that bad news early is
good news.
I say it often when we'rerecording and even more when
we're not Because I want to ruleout candidates as quickly as
possible.
(05:19):
So when we're talking about highvolume recruiting, you don't
have the opportunity to do thatas well as if you're recruiting
for an individual role.
So you end up having a lot offall-out along the way, and
that's why there's a need forvolume.
So if you mentioned 500 to endup with 300 hires, I think
(05:41):
that's about right.
Ricky Baez (05:42):
You know you can make a case, I'll just pull it
out of the air.
Pete Newsome (05:45):
But you have to know how attractive your job is,
how big the candidate pool isright, what the market
conditions are.
You have to take all of thosethings into consideration.
Work backwards from thetimeframe you need those people
to be in place, right Hired inplace.
You know if there is a drug inthe background.
You need time to go throughthat and then start figuring out
(06:06):
how many candidates you need.
I mean to me that's always thefirst step in a high volume
recruiting process is put yourstrategy in place by working
from the end and going backwards.
Ricky Baez (06:15):
And from an HR point of view, if I was to take a
step back again, the higher, thebigger the scale, the better
your training needs to be.
Right?
If I hire one person, just oneperson, obviously you're not
going to dedicate an entiretraining department for one
person, right?
You put a one-on-one with whothey're going to work with a
senior person in theorganization.
That way you know they havesomeone to go to through their
(06:38):
onboarding process, whichnormally takes about 90 days,
right?
But if you have a class of 50people, that, starting on Monday
, your training has to be topnotch.
It really does, folks.
And here's why I say thatthere's a lot of money invested
in putting together a reallygood marketing campaign, a
really good recruiting strategy,and it would be a shame to lose
(06:59):
maybe 15% of those folks thatyou work so hard to bring on
just because training is not onpoint, right.
So, I know this is not atraining conversation, but I
don't want people to forget thatit's an aspect right, because
there's a lot of other movingparts.
Look, if you go fishing and youcatch a little tiny fish, you
don't need that many resourcesafter the effective process.
(07:19):
And if you catch a whale,you're going to need a big boat,
you're going to need a big crew.
Pete Newsome (07:23):
How about if you pull in 300 fish at once, right?
Oh well, so you need a plan todeal with that, and that's what
we're talking about.
And that's one of the biggestchallenges when you're comparing
individual recruiting tovolume-based recruiting, right,
right, right, if you, for thosewho've been through it, you've
learned these lessons quickly.
The reason why I call themsecrets at the beginning,
(07:44):
because this podcast is reallyfor people who haven't yet done
it but will need to at somepoint.
And so, with that in mind,ricky, let's talk a little bit
about the industries andpositions that where this
typically comes up.
You mentioned call center.
That's at the top of my listtoo.
It's all.
It's very regular thatoccurrence for call center
representatives to be hired in aclass where you can train them
(08:07):
at once, and even the callcenters themselves know that
they're going to have somedegree of fall off at people who
aren't going to make it throughtraining.
So I would say I'd take it evenone step further than what
we've already talked about andsay that if they're hiring 300,
how many did you?
Well, I'll ask, right, how manydid you expect to end up with
at the end of the project or atthe end of that need?
Ricky Baez (08:30):
So we we have such an amazing system, pete, and I
really do miss the system.
We had a workforce manager whowas awesome and she was able to
to let us know look, our goal.
Let's just pull out.
You know it's January 15th.
A class starts on that day.
We're going to over hire by 5%because historically, in January
(08:50):
15th, we have 5%, maybe 6% offall off.
Right, we did what the airlineindustry does, and you know,
with the formula that they usedto oversell tickets.
Right, they oversell ticketswith the understanding there's
going to be some fall off.
Man, pete, let me tell you thethe it was spot on.
So we definitely over hiredwith the understanding we were
(09:12):
going to have a 20% drop off,just because that's how it was
every single January.
Pete Newsome (09:16):
And that's low, that's a good number.
If only 5%.
A lot of call centers havesignificantly higher numbers
than that.
So call center positions,customer service, those are big.
Some sales rolls.
Well, we'll hire for volume atcertain times.
What other positions orindustries?
Ricky Baez (09:33):
Well, I mean so, yeah, call centers, more
specific timeshare industries,it's even HR, right HR and
benefits.
We would hire for a largevolume of people, because what
happens at the end of the veryyear in the human resources
industry?
We have open enrollment, so wegot to get ready for that in
early summer.
We got to start hiring people,so we got those.
(09:55):
Actually, here's a good one thefirefighters.
Firefighters sometimes theyhave big classes that they have
to start, so that's high, high,violent recruiting.
I don't know now that I saidthat, I don't know if that's
part of this conversation,because you do need people with
Specific set of skills andcertifications to be a
firefighter.
Pete Newsome (10:14):
Right, well, and that that's okay.
Right there, you can have highvolume recruiting based on Very
broad requirements generic, ifyou will, or specific
requirements.
One of the areas that I wasgoing to mention so I'll do it
now is it we've had this hadsome high volume experience in
the IT space.
You don't typically think ofthat by default, but in terms of
(10:38):
field technicians, via peoplewho are doing a project, you may
need 10, 20, 30 people andwants to cover a lot of ground
quickly, and Believe me when Isay in that space, saying you
need the specific background andexperience as well.
So it's definitely notone-size-fits-all when it comes
to the type of positions, buteach one has to be considered
(11:02):
differently and, as I mentionedearlier, the candidate pool gets
a whole lot smaller as therequirements become more intense
.
Ricky Baez (11:10):
It does and and and.
That's why, as a Mrs Leader,you have to decide what you want
to do right.
If you get your requirements areally small niche of
Requirements it's gonna takelonger to hire, but the people
you do hire are gonna stickaround longer.
But again, and volumerecruiting to Volume recruiting
(11:30):
sense that you have to be okaywith some fall out and you have
to be okay with a specificPercentage of fall, and that's
why it's important to have ameeting at the beginning of the
process and have multiplemeetings as the process goes on.
I asked, the process goes on.
You do have to have multiplemeetings to make sure you're on
the right track.
Pete Newsome (11:48):
Now I remember.
I remember, like it wasyesterday, the first time I was
asked to fill a class of 30 andI almost rejected the
opportunity to do it becausebecause it was so different than
everything that at the time I'dcome to believe in recruiting,
which is, if you have oneopening, we want to fill it with
one candidate.
(12:09):
That's how I view our value toour clients is to allow them to
hire With the fewest number ofcandidates and interviews
possible, and ideally that's one, and so that's how I initially
Approached high volumerecruiting.
Now, the good news of that isit allowed us to separate
ourselves from the competitionBecause our quality was so much
(12:29):
better.
The bad news is we realized tofind 30 individuals who are all
going to show up for theirinterview, accept the job, pass
a drug and background, show upon the first day Is it almost an
impossible task.
So we then had to adjust alittle bit and realize okay,
(12:50):
maybe we can't do a one-to-onematch in this scenario, maybe we
need to do one to one and ahalf, and that's served us
really well.
So you do have to take adifferent approach, even even
when it goes against your, yournature.
Ricky Baez (13:03):
I mean it does you know and and and again back back
when it's so all, all, all, all, all.
See all of the experiences thatI've that I'm talking about
what's with Sears?
Here's some improvement.
But we had to fill that callcenter year after year after
year.
And what made these worse, pete?
We were in a, in a, in themiddle of a file, my radius,
with five other call centersthat recruited for the same
(13:25):
thing.
Right, so we were competing.
So it was.
It was really difficult, itreally was difficult.
So what are some of the thingsthat you have to watch out for?
You know, well, it's as aleader, as a business leader, as
a recruiter.
You have to be okay withfalloff right.
Again, the bigger the number,the bigger the amount of falloff
, and you have to be okay withthat.
(13:45):
What you have to do is manageit.
How to manage that falloffright.
You have to have a really goodworkforce management person in
place that's able to tell youthat you give them the
historical data for unemploymentrates.
You give it to that person.
They're able to give you, basedon historical data, what
percentage that is.
And if you go over thatpercentage, what are you going
(14:07):
to do about it?
What's going to happen?
Chances are, if you have ahigh-volunt recruiting
environment, you've got multipletraining classes starting
consecutively, right.
So if somebody falls up herebecause their grandma died for
the ninth time this year, allright, pull them in the next
class.
And I say that because normallythe number one reason people
give us if they can't startsomebody died right, and I'm
(14:30):
sorry, just my grandma died.
I'm like isn't this shit?
Didn't that happen last yeartoo, brian?
All right, come on, start thisclass.
Pete Newsome (14:39):
Yeah, I mean, that is something that's not
uncommon to hear.
Ricky Baez (14:42):
Right, and it's always the grandma who happens.
Pete Newsome (14:44):
This is poor grandmother's out there.
I know, but I think that there'sa couple of things you have to
overcome.
One is you have to be organized.
It all starts with organization, and so we've talked about the
need to have a plan in place.
Well then you have to track italong the way and make sure that
you're keeping up with thecandidates, the schedule, the
(15:05):
internal people involved in theinterview process.
You need to have a system forall of this and then metrics,
which is what you were justtalking about.
You have to make sure that youare paying attention and then
adjust accordingly.
Or do we expect one number andwe're getting another?
Why Investigate that?
(15:25):
Discuss it, don't sit on thatinformation.
So that's a big piece of it.
And the next one that I'll sayis getting internal buy-in, and
that becomes a challenge.
At least as a third-partyrecruiter, I found that to be a
challenge at times when there'speople who need to be involved
in the interview process andthey don't realize, if they
(15:46):
haven't been through it before,the level of effort and
involvement of hiring that manypeople, and so they have to be
available to the interviewprocess, and so that internal
communication and buy-in is acritical component.
Ricky Baez (16:00):
So that is a really good point, pete, because I've
been in a lot of situationswhere at the beginning of the
process, because we're lookingto make money right we are a
for-profit organization At thebeginning of the process we have
all the buying in the world,from the middle managers to the
executive leadership, but whenit comes time to interview,
nobody's around right.
So this is why that buy-indoesn't have to be only at the
(16:21):
beginning.
The buy-in has to be at thebeginning, in the middle, at the
end and even three months afterthe person starts.
Right that leader needs to beinvolved, right.
So the buy-in cannot be just intheory.
It's got to be an applicationas well.
Pete Newsome (16:35):
Yeah, it can't be in words only right.
You have to actually put forththe commitment, so we have the
buy-in we have the plan, we haveour schedule.
Let's talk about the interviewprocess itself.
Ricky Baez (16:48):
Okay.
Pete Newsome (16:49):
Because there are some differences that I'm sure
we agree on.
Having been through it, I can'timagine anyone who's been
through this would thinkdifferently.
But it makes sense to scheduleyour interviews and blocks in
groups, Because it's verydifficult to do one interview
today at 9 am and then anotherone at 11 and then another one
(17:12):
at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
If you're hiring a volume andso you want these interviews
back-to-back as much as possible, maybe a little break in
between to share notes to makesure you're documenting the
conversations, because that'simportant you can get lost.
If you're interviewing 30people in a two-day period, it's
really hard to remember onefrom the other.
It's just human nature.
(17:32):
Our memories aren't that good,so you need to have time to
document after each interview.
But that's one of my criticalsuccess factors.
Ricky is interviewing in groups.
Ricky Baez (17:43):
Here's what I used to do, pete, because the whole
theory versus application thingfor buying was a thing, right?
So I was good friends with theVP of operations.
So I would tell her I'm likehey, do me a favor, on Tuesdays
and Thursdays, don't put yourteams on meetings, do not, right
, because I'm going to have theminterview.
More importantly, on Tuesdaysand Thursdays, if your direct
(18:06):
report sends you a meetingrequest, decline it, decline it.
And in the reply she'd say askyourself these three questions
Is this meeting more importantthan recruiting?
Yes or no?
That's it.
And then the next one is thismore important than recruiting?
Is this?
At the end of the day,recruiting is important, and
want to know why?
(18:27):
Because we knew that we lost$1,000 for every empty seat per
hour.
Folks, get yourself somenumbers that can display that
you can speak to in case youdon't hit your goals.
The lacking numbers to drop inproductivity, to drop in revenue
it's an insane motivator to getpeople in your corner, and that
(18:49):
is how you get everybodytogether.
Now, 10 years ago, I would haveneeded a team of five to make
this happen.
Today, there's AI you can useto help you, right?
Because what we used to do backthen and I don't know about you
, pete.
You tell me we used to come upIf we ask them.
We had to put together knockoutquestions at first, right.
(19:11):
And if we ask them, are you apeople person, like I know?
We don't want to we ain'ttalking to you.
We're not.
I don't care if you have adegree from Harvard.
If you tell me you're not apeople person, this is not the
job for you.
So you have to put together aprofile on the person or the
employee you want as a successstory in your organization and
(19:32):
ask questions that has to dowith that success.
And if they say no to any of it, don't put them through the
process.
Don't waste your time.
Don't waste your time.
Just come up with a criteriaand ask these questions.
That way you can knock peopleout of the process early on, and
now you have AI that can dothat for you.
Pete Newsome (19:50):
So are you suggesting automating that
initial exchange to ask thecandidates to almost self-select
whether they're a good fit forthe role, or you're suggesting
you do that with a person, orpotentially both, or either.
Ricky Baez (20:05):
I will like at a high volume process, high volume
, I would just have AI do it.
I would have AI because I wouldneed my human folks to, you
know, handle other things rightthat need human attention.
As AI as possible, as automatedas possible at the beginning.
That way you have human eyestowards the end of the process,
(20:26):
when you're dealing with thereal people who are going to
stick around with you.
Pete Newsome (20:30):
Well, I'll tell you what I suggest in the
scenario and I really like, andthis is created by the one click
apply process, the easy apply,if you will that now exists.
Your candidates just blindlyapply to jobs and you know they
treat it like a numbers game.
The more jobs they apply to,the greater their odds of
(20:51):
getting an interview request Nowas recruiters.
Well, I have a recruiter I knowwould say that just junks up
the system and it's notsomething we would support.
I understand the candidatesmotivation for doing it.
There's an opportunity on mostjob boards to put some questions
in.
You know, only apply to thisjob if you have this specific
(21:12):
experience.
Only apply this job if you're apeople person.
To use your example, are youwilling to sit on the phone, you
know, for eight hours a day?
These are questions that anyonewho's considering a call center
job since that's the examplewe're using should consider, and
they won't want that job ifthey don't.
If they're not a people person,they don't want to be on the
phone all day, but they're stillapplying for it, for the job,
(21:34):
making it difficult for everyone.
We know that.
So what I like to do is takethat quick apply application and
, in return, send qualifyingquestions that the individual
then has to answer separately ata different point.
Send it to their email.
If they're genuinely interestedin the job, only ask them.
You know, only take 20, 30seconds to do it.
(21:55):
Make the questions very simpleand easy to understand.
I'm not at all about givinghard tasks to candidates and
applicants far from it.
What I am a fan of is havingpeople take just another couple
of seconds to consider whetherit's a job they're interested in
and then move forward.
So in a perfect world, I wouldhave an automated reply to the
(22:17):
one click applications.
Ask the candidate just confirma couple of things for us and
then we move on to scheduling aninterview.
Ricky Baez (22:24):
There you go and as time progresses, there's going
to be more apps and there'sgoing to be more technology.
And Pete, I'm not going to lie,I'm afraid of it.
I love AI, I love where this isgoing, I love how it helps
recruiting.
But at what point?
Because right now I shared withyou before that I had a
conversation who I thought was arecruiter and it was a damn bot
(22:46):
.
I'm like well, this thing has apersonality.
It laughed at my joke, but itwas easy.
Pete Newsome (22:51):
Someone has to.
I guess that, ricky, that's howyou knew it was a bot.
Probably right you?
Ricky Baez (22:59):
know what.
That's a good point.
It laughed at my joke.
I already know your line.
I already know you're a robot.
Pete Newsome (23:07):
But you're right.
I mean, ai is here to stay.
We know that it's not goingaway.
We talk about it all the time,so take advantage of it.
Use the tools and technologiesthat are available to create
efficiencies, but don't do it atthe risk of human interaction.
Because that's the next phaseof the interview process.
Do the screening as best youcan to rule out candidates who
(23:28):
are clearly not a good fit, andthen let your people, your
actual recruiters, make thosedetermination, make the next
determination of does thisperson have the right soft
skills?
Are we hiring someone who wantsthis job as much as we want
them in it?
And that, to me, is theimportant part of a high volume
(23:48):
interview is to say look, we mayhire you for this job, you may
be qualified for it, but if it'snot a job you want and it's not
a good fit, nobody wins.
So let's try to get to thatpart of the discussion as
quickly as possible in theinterview process and let that
candidate have anotheropportunity to select out.
For a lack of a better way toput it.
Ricky Baez (24:09):
So here's what I'm hearing, pete.
I'm hearing that again, thelarger the recruiting initiative
, the more strategic you have tobe in it, which obviously
that's an obvious one.
That's a theory.
How do we apply it?
How do we make sure that thebusiness leaders out there are
actually doing that?
Because the first thing that Itell everybody, all my clients,
(24:32):
to do when they decide to dosomething like this again and I
said it earlier is to attach anumber to it.
Attach a number to it If youare needing a high-volume
recruiting initiative, either Aa lot of people left you, which
that's not necessarily the caseor, b your organization has a
huge sales initiative thatthey're getting ready for.
(24:54):
If that's the case, you have tofigure out how missing those
marks is going to affect thatinitiative, especially getting
everybody else's buy-in.
Because, yes, you're brought inas the HR person, your
leadership is brought in as theHR person, who may not be 100%
sold as middle management, whois going to be doing the
interviews, because this is whatthey see.
(25:16):
I got a busy day and now I'mgoing to interview 15 people
today and if they go in withthat attitude, you're probably
going to get two people out ofthat interview, so you got to
get them in and apply.
Pete Newsome (25:27):
That's true, and it's hard to do if you are just
doing it as a one-time thing.
A lot of volume-based hiringhappens seasonally, so companies
have an opportunity to improveand learn each year as they go
on, and that's really how youcan create a system that's
highly effective and efficient.
(25:47):
If you're just doing it onceand you may never do it again,
you really don't have anythingto take away from that or plan.
In those cases, and in almostevery case, I'm a big proponent
I know this may surprise you,but I'm a big proponent of using
a third-party staffing firm whospecializes in high-volume
recruiting, who has theexpertise.
(26:08):
Just think about the drain thatit is on an internal
organization's resources.
As a company, you don't want tohave to hire to accommodate that
.
It may only last a couple ofweeks.
If it's not going to be indefinite volume-based hiring,
you should absolutely leverage athird-party staffing company
for that.
This is what we do and I wouldargue we're the best.
(26:31):
We're even as good as we are athiring one person at a time.
We're even more valuable forvolume-based hiring because we
have the resources already inplace.
We have the systems already inplace and believe me when I say
we're motivated to provide theright quality in the fastest
amount of time possible, and sothat, to me, is what high-volume
(26:51):
recruiting is really about ishow can I do it efficiently and
at high quality.
Where I can combine those twothings, that's where everyone
wins.
Ricky Baez (27:01):
So it's look, if you're working for an
organization and now this landedon your show and you want
something, just bring in theexpert.
Now, bring that expert in.
But, pete, you know what else Idid, which was awesome.
So I share with you that wewere in a five-mile radius with
five other call centers.
So what I decided to do?
(27:21):
I made friends with the otherrecruiting managers and we went
to lunch once a month and ittook us three months to do this,
but we actually did it.
The person that's two milesaway, the recruiting manager
that's two miles away.
Chances are they don't need thesame people you do, and vice
versa.
But if you share your jobdescription and you share what
you're looking for and the otherperson does that, and you come
(27:44):
through an accord.
You're like, look, if you'resaying no to somebody, but they
meet this criteria and they'renot a serial killer or a drug
dealer, send them our way, sendthem our way and we did the same
thing.
Now, apparently, that stoppedafter I left, but it worked.
Right, but that takes work.
You're right where you'resaying look, if you just want to
(28:05):
take a step back and you knowwhat, let the expert handle and
get a third-party staffingagency, let them come in, let
them do.
It's like you getting anelectrician right, you can watch
all the do-it-yourself stuff onYouTube, right, but you don't
want to die.
Not that this is going to killyou, but the point I'm saying is
sometimes it's way better tojust let the people who do this
(28:27):
on a daily basis do it for you,and then you'll have your team
free to do the things at thesame time.
Pete Newsome (28:32):
Absolutely, it's a great way to put it.
And so let's end with that,because I think we've shared the
necessary tips.
For someone who hasn'texperienced this before, let's
recap them real quickly.
So here are my main takeawaysfor high volume recruiting, and
I guess they're not secretsanymore.
But to be effective at highvolume recruiting, first start
(28:53):
with the strategic plan.
Start with the end in mind.
Work backwards from the numberthat you need to be in the seat
on day one and then decide howmany candidates and applicants
you need through the process.
Make sure you have the internalbuy-in.
That's huge.
That's huge Commitment of time,commitment of effort.
Without it, the whole thing isgoing to collapse very quickly.
(29:17):
Take advantage of technology.
There's a lot of tools andresources in your applicant
tracking system.
The data matters here, soleverage it, use it for
efficiency and then use it tolearn from after the fact and
measure your success as you go.
Find out what works, do more ofthat, find out what doesn't and
consider how to eliminate thosesteps in the process.
And the last thing I'll say isuse a third party, use an expert
(29:41):
, if you don't have thatin-house expertise.
Most companies don't.
When it comes to high volumeseasonal hiring or one-off
hiring.
Leverage an organization whojust has blinders on and
recruits all day, every day.
That'll save you a lot of timeand effort as well.
Ricky Baez (29:57):
Anything else After a bonus one in there.
Folks, the bigger the event,the bigger the organization, the
more strategic you have to be.
And here's the most importantpart Communicate, communicate,
communicate, communicate witheverybody involved what to
expect and trying to figure outwhat can possibly go wrong at
each stage in the process, andcommunicate that as well.
(30:18):
People respond better to thingsthat go wrong if they're
respected rather than it notbeing expected.
So if you're able tocommunicate what can possibly
happen, you're going to have areally well-oiled machine, to
the point that the people whoget hired on because remember,
when they get hired on, youreally should ask them how was
the process to get theirperspective, and you want them
(30:40):
to tell you either I love it orI hate it, and you use that
information to just make thewhole process better.
I just I love it.
Pete Newsome (30:46):
You elongated that sorry, no, but it's necessary
and important, so I'm glad youadded it.
Thank you, as always.
Thanks for listening today.
Secrets of high volumerecruiting.
I think we covered the basesright.
Ricky Baez (31:00):
I think it was beat the death.
Yes, sir.
Pete Newsome (31:02):
And we beat the horse.
Ricky Baez (31:03):
All right, have to do it.
Pete Newsome (31:04):
Awesome, ricky thanks, as always.
Everyone.
Have a great rest of your day.
Ricky Baez (31:07):
Have a good one, all right.
You're listening to the Hire Calling podcast,
where today we are talking aboutthe secrets of high volume
recruiting.
Ricky, how are you today?
Ricky Baez (00:08):
I am doing great Pete.
This is a secret about highvolume recruiting.
There's a secret out there.
Pete Newsome (00:12):
Well, it's not going to be after we're finished
talking about it today, butmaybe for some that is Right.
We don't think it's thatmysterious, but that's because
we've been through it a lot.
You and I individually, havehad a lot of experience with
high volume recruiting and myperspective on it we're going to
find out what yours is as wetalk through the show today is
(00:33):
that it's very different fromwhen you're recruiting one
position to fill one position ata time.
Ricky Baez (00:38):
Absolutely Well, pete.
From my perspective, thestrategy is radically different.
The goal is the same.
You want to hire a specifictalent that your organization
needs, that they're willing topay for.
That's what recruiting is.
But for me high volumerecruiting I have to go back to
my days when I was recruitingfor a call center.
And then we have marketing datathat says we need X amount of
(00:59):
people and X amount of seats inthis timeframe and we can't just
say I'm going to go out andhire one call center agent.
We have to hire 300 by the endof the quarter, right.
And that's not one-on-oneinterviews, that's a whole
entire business.
That's an entire rationale thatyou have to put together in
(01:21):
order to do that effectively.
Pete Newsome (01:23):
And that's the key point.
In order to do it effectively,you have to have the right
strategy, and for years I'vesaid there's almost two types of
recruiting.
Now, this is a broad, generalstatement, but the approach and
effort you put forth whenrecruiting for one position at a
time is vastly different thanthe approach you take when
you're recruiting for a class of10 or 20 or, to your point, to
(01:47):
hire 300 people in a quarter.
It's a very different approachand to me, it all starts with
the end in mind.
That is something I'm a bigbeliever in that if you have
that goal and let's just usethat one for argument's sake I
have to hire 300 people in athree-month period.
Now, that's a lot.
Under any circumstance, youwant to start with that goal and
(02:08):
then work backwards todetermine what your plan should
be and what your strategy needsto be in order to be effective
and hit your goal.
Have you recruited that way, oris that a bit of a different
angle for you?
I?
Ricky Baez (02:18):
don't know.
We have actually I think wetalked about this last time when
we were talking about pipelinehow to build that pipeline.
And this is to me, this is whatI was talking about last time,
because in order for me to knowhow many applicants we yield one
hire, you do have to workbackwards and you do have to put
together some milestones andsome I don't want to say
(02:40):
obstacles, but some indicatorsto say, if I had 500 applicants
and I'm pulling this out of theair if I had 500 applicants,
that tells me I'm going to get Idon't know 200 hires out of
that and early on, if I putthose indicators in place, I'm
able to see early on if I needto make a left or a right to
make sure I'm going to hit mygoal by the end of the quarter.
Pete Newsome (03:02):
Well, it makes sense to probably put this on
the table early in theconversation.
When you're recruiting for thatkind of volume, you're not
hiring 300 CEOs, you're nothiring 300 people who have a
very unique skill set.
That would be a very difficultthing to do.
I'm sure it happens on occasion, but generally speaking, we're
talking about a broad candidatepool when we're discussing
(03:25):
volume-based hiring, and withthat comes A higher dropout rate
than what you'd experience ifyou were working with one
candidate at a time.
Among the reasons are thesimple fact that the individual
recruiter cannot spend as muchtime with an individual
candidate, and so you have to docertain things to accommodate
(03:48):
the scale involved, and thatmeans, again, not investing the
depth of effort into eachindividual candidate.
Ricky Baez (04:00):
And that's the one thing when you're comparing just
high-volume recruiting to justregular recruiting.
From my perspective, the partthat I have to focus on more is
the personalization of theprocess.
The bigger the scale, thesmaller the personal service
you're able to give as arecruiter.
We've talked about this on theshow, where we've talked about—
(04:21):
that's a hard way to phrase it.
Yeah, we want to be able tocreate the most personal
experience possible, whetherthey get the job or not, and
it's harder to do at volume.
But then again, you know whoyou're looking for, you know the
profile that you're looking for.
You just got to build the rightmachine to make it happen for
you.
Pete Newsome (04:38):
Well, and this is a bit of a crude comment, but it
becomes a numbers game becauseof that Unfortunately, yeah.
You know that if you can'tinvest as much time upfront in
any individual candidate, you'regoing to have higher fall-off.
You're going to have backgroundissues, you're going to have
drug test issues.
Potentially You're going tohave candidates who just weren't
(04:59):
fully bought into the openingbecause odds are you didn't have
as much time upfront to investin that part of the conversation
.
And I am someone who stronglybelieves that bad news early is
good news.
I say it often when we'rerecording and even more when
we're not Because I want to ruleout candidates as quickly as
possible.
(05:19):
So when we're talking about highvolume recruiting, you don't
have the opportunity to do thatas well as if you're recruiting
for an individual role.
So you end up having a lot offall-out along the way, and
that's why there's a need forvolume.
So if you mentioned 500 to endup with 300 hires, I think
(05:41):
that's about right.
Ricky Baez (05:42):
You know you can make a case, I'll just pull it
out of the air.
Pete Newsome (05:45):
But you have to know how attractive your job is,
how big the candidate pool isright, what the market
conditions are.
You have to take all of thosethings into consideration.
Work backwards from thetimeframe you need those people
to be in place, right Hired inplace.
You know if there is a drug inthe background.
You need time to go throughthat and then start figuring out
(06:06):
how many candidates you need.
I mean to me that's always thefirst step in a high volume
recruiting process is put yourstrategy in place by working
from the end and going backwards.
Ricky Baez (06:15):
And from an HR point of view, if I was to take a
step back again, the higher, thebigger the scale, the better
your training needs to be.
Right?
If I hire one person, just oneperson, obviously you're not
going to dedicate an entiretraining department for one
person, right?
You put a one-on-one with whothey're going to work with a
senior person in theorganization.
That way you know they havesomeone to go to through their
(06:38):
onboarding process, whichnormally takes about 90 days,
right?
But if you have a class of 50people, that, starting on Monday
, your training has to be topnotch.
It really does, folks.
And here's why I say thatthere's a lot of money invested
in putting together a reallygood marketing campaign, a
really good recruiting strategy,and it would be a shame to lose
(06:59):
maybe 15% of those folks thatyou work so hard to bring on
just because training is not onpoint, right.
So, I know this is not atraining conversation, but I
don't want people to forget thatit's an aspect right, because
there's a lot of other movingparts.
Look, if you go fishing and youcatch a little tiny fish, you
don't need that many resourcesafter the effective process.
(07:19):
And if you catch a whale,you're going to need a big boat,
you're going to need a big crew.
Pete Newsome (07:23):
How about if you pull in 300 fish at once, right?
Oh well, so you need a plan todeal with that, and that's what
we're talking about.
And that's one of the biggestchallenges when you're comparing
individual recruiting tovolume-based recruiting, right,
right, right, if you, for thosewho've been through it, you've
learned these lessons quickly.
The reason why I call themsecrets at the beginning,
(07:44):
because this podcast is reallyfor people who haven't yet done
it but will need to at somepoint.
And so, with that in mind,ricky, let's talk a little bit
about the industries andpositions that where this
typically comes up.
You mentioned call center.
That's at the top of my listtoo.
It's all.
It's very regular thatoccurrence for call center
representatives to be hired in aclass where you can train them
(08:07):
at once, and even the callcenters themselves know that
they're going to have somedegree of fall off at people who
aren't going to make it throughtraining.
So I would say I'd take it evenone step further than what
we've already talked about andsay that if they're hiring 300,
how many did you?
Well, I'll ask, right, how manydid you expect to end up with
at the end of the project or atthe end of that need?
Ricky Baez (08:30):
So we we have such an amazing system, pete, and I
really do miss the system.
We had a workforce manager whowas awesome and she was able to
to let us know look, our goal.
Let's just pull out.
You know it's January 15th.
A class starts on that day.
We're going to over hire by 5%because historically, in January
(08:50):
15th, we have 5%, maybe 6% offall off.
Right, we did what the airlineindustry does, and you know,
with the formula that they usedto oversell tickets.
Right, they oversell ticketswith the understanding there's
going to be some fall off.
Man, pete, let me tell you thethe it was spot on.
So we definitely over hiredwith the understanding we were
(09:12):
going to have a 20% drop off,just because that's how it was
every single January.
Pete Newsome (09:16):
And that's low, that's a good number.
If only 5%.
A lot of call centers havesignificantly higher numbers
than that.
So call center positions,customer service, those are big.
Some sales rolls.
Well, we'll hire for volume atcertain times.
What other positions orindustries?
Ricky Baez (09:33):
Well, I mean so, yeah, call centers, more
specific timeshare industries,it's even HR, right HR and
benefits.
We would hire for a largevolume of people, because what
happens at the end of the veryyear in the human resources
industry?
We have open enrollment, so wegot to get ready for that in
early summer.
We got to start hiring people,so we got those.
(09:55):
Actually, here's a good one thefirefighters.
Firefighters sometimes theyhave big classes that they have
to start, so that's high, high,violent recruiting.
I don't know now that I saidthat, I don't know if that's
part of this conversation,because you do need people with
Specific set of skills andcertifications to be a
firefighter.
Pete Newsome (10:14):
Right, well, and that that's okay.
Right there, you can have highvolume recruiting based on Very
broad requirements generic, ifyou will, or specific
requirements.
One of the areas that I wasgoing to mention so I'll do it
now is it we've had this hadsome high volume experience in
the IT space.
You don't typically think ofthat by default, but in terms of
(10:38):
field technicians, via peoplewho are doing a project, you may
need 10, 20, 30 people andwants to cover a lot of ground
quickly, and Believe me when Isay in that space, saying you
need the specific background andexperience as well.
So it's definitely notone-size-fits-all when it comes
to the type of positions, buteach one has to be considered
(11:02):
differently and, as I mentionedearlier, the candidate pool gets
a whole lot smaller as therequirements become more intense
.
Ricky Baez (11:10):
It does and and and.
That's why, as a Mrs Leader,you have to decide what you want
to do right.
If you get your requirements areally small niche of
Requirements it's gonna takelonger to hire, but the people
you do hire are gonna stickaround longer.
But again, and volumerecruiting to Volume recruiting
(11:30):
sense that you have to be okaywith some fall out and you have
to be okay with a specificPercentage of fall, and that's
why it's important to have ameeting at the beginning of the
process and have multiplemeetings as the process goes on.
I asked, the process goes on.
You do have to have multiplemeetings to make sure you're on
the right track.
Pete Newsome (11:48):
Now I remember.
I remember, like it wasyesterday, the first time I was
asked to fill a class of 30 andI almost rejected the
opportunity to do it becausebecause it was so different than
everything that at the time I'dcome to believe in recruiting,
which is, if you have oneopening, we want to fill it with
one candidate.
(12:09):
That's how I view our value toour clients is to allow them to
hire With the fewest number ofcandidates and interviews
possible, and ideally that's one, and so that's how I initially
Approached high volumerecruiting.
Now, the good news of that isit allowed us to separate
ourselves from the competitionBecause our quality was so much
(12:29):
better.
The bad news is we realized tofind 30 individuals who are all
going to show up for theirinterview, accept the job, pass
a drug and background, show upon the first day Is it almost an
impossible task.
So we then had to adjust alittle bit and realize okay,
(12:50):
maybe we can't do a one-to-onematch in this scenario, maybe we
need to do one to one and ahalf, and that's served us
really well.
So you do have to take adifferent approach, even even
when it goes against your, yournature.
Ricky Baez (13:03):
I mean it does you know and and and again back back
when it's so all, all, all, all, all.
See all of the experiences thatI've that I'm talking about
what's with Sears?
Here's some improvement.
But we had to fill that callcenter year after year after
year.
And what made these worse, pete?
We were in a, in a, in themiddle of a file, my radius,
with five other call centersthat recruited for the same
(13:25):
thing.
Right, so we were competing.
So it was.
It was really difficult, itreally was difficult.
So what are some of the thingsthat you have to watch out for?
You know, well, it's as aleader, as a business leader, as
a recruiter.
You have to be okay withfalloff right.
Again, the bigger the number,the bigger the amount of falloff
, and you have to be okay withthat.
(13:45):
What you have to do is manageit.
How to manage that falloffright.
You have to have a really goodworkforce management person in
place that's able to tell youthat you give them the
historical data for unemploymentrates.
You give it to that person.
They're able to give you, basedon historical data, what
percentage that is.
And if you go over thatpercentage, what are you going
(14:07):
to do about it?
What's going to happen?
Chances are, if you have ahigh-volunt recruiting
environment, you've got multipletraining classes starting
consecutively, right.
So if somebody falls up herebecause their grandma died for
the ninth time this year, allright, pull them in the next
class.
And I say that because normallythe number one reason people
give us if they can't startsomebody died right, and I'm
(14:30):
sorry, just my grandma died.
I'm like isn't this shit?
Didn't that happen last yeartoo, brian?
All right, come on, start thisclass.
Pete Newsome (14:39):
Yeah, I mean, that is something that's not
uncommon to hear.
Ricky Baez (14:42):
Right, and it's always the grandma who happens.
Pete Newsome (14:44):
This is poor grandmother's out there.
I know, but I think that there'sa couple of things you have to
overcome.
One is you have to be organized.
It all starts with organization, and so we've talked about the
need to have a plan in place.
Well then you have to track italong the way and make sure that
you're keeping up with thecandidates, the schedule, the
(15:05):
internal people involved in theinterview process.
You need to have a system forall of this and then metrics,
which is what you were justtalking about.
You have to make sure that youare paying attention and then
adjust accordingly.
Or do we expect one number andwe're getting another?
Why Investigate that?
(15:25):
Discuss it, don't sit on thatinformation.
So that's a big piece of it.
And the next one that I'll sayis getting internal buy-in, and
that becomes a challenge.
At least as a third-partyrecruiter, I found that to be a
challenge at times when there'speople who need to be involved
in the interview process andthey don't realize, if they
(15:46):
haven't been through it before,the level of effort and
involvement of hiring that manypeople, and so they have to be
available to the interviewprocess, and so that internal
communication and buy-in is acritical component.
Ricky Baez (16:00):
So that is a really good point, pete, because I've
been in a lot of situationswhere at the beginning of the
process, because we're lookingto make money right we are a
for-profit organization At thebeginning of the process we have
all the buying in the world,from the middle managers to the
executive leadership, but whenit comes time to interview,
nobody's around right.
So this is why that buy-indoesn't have to be only at the
(16:21):
beginning.
The buy-in has to be at thebeginning, in the middle, at the
end and even three months afterthe person starts.
Right that leader needs to beinvolved, right.
So the buy-in cannot be just intheory.
It's got to be an applicationas well.
Pete Newsome (16:35):
Yeah, it can't be in words only right.
You have to actually put forththe commitment, so we have the
buy-in we have the plan, we haveour schedule.
Let's talk about the interviewprocess itself.
Ricky Baez (16:48):
Okay.
Pete Newsome (16:49):
Because there are some differences that I'm sure
we agree on.
Having been through it, I can'timagine anyone who's been
through this would thinkdifferently.
But it makes sense to scheduleyour interviews and blocks in
groups, Because it's verydifficult to do one interview
today at 9 am and then anotherone at 11 and then another one
(17:12):
at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
If you're hiring a volume andso you want these interviews
back-to-back as much as possible, maybe a little break in
between to share notes to makesure you're documenting the
conversations, because that'simportant you can get lost.
If you're interviewing 30people in a two-day period, it's
really hard to remember onefrom the other.
It's just human nature.
(17:32):
Our memories aren't that good,so you need to have time to
document after each interview.
But that's one of my criticalsuccess factors.
Ricky is interviewing in groups.
Ricky Baez (17:43):
Here's what I used to do, pete, because the whole
theory versus application thingfor buying was a thing, right?
So I was good friends with theVP of operations.
So I would tell her I'm likehey, do me a favor, on Tuesdays
and Thursdays, don't put yourteams on meetings, do not, right
, because I'm going to have theminterview.
More importantly, on Tuesdaysand Thursdays, if your direct
(18:06):
report sends you a meetingrequest, decline it, decline it.
And in the reply she'd say askyourself these three questions
Is this meeting more importantthan recruiting?
Yes or no?
That's it.
And then the next one is thismore important than recruiting?
Is this?
At the end of the day,recruiting is important, and
want to know why?
(18:27):
Because we knew that we lost$1,000 for every empty seat per
hour.
Folks, get yourself somenumbers that can display that
you can speak to in case youdon't hit your goals.
The lacking numbers to drop inproductivity, to drop in revenue
it's an insane motivator to getpeople in your corner, and that
(18:49):
is how you get everybodytogether.
Now, 10 years ago, I would haveneeded a team of five to make
this happen.
Today, there's AI you can useto help you, right?
Because what we used to do backthen and I don't know about you
, pete.
You tell me we used to come upIf we ask them.
We had to put together knockoutquestions at first, right.
(19:11):
And if we ask them, are you apeople person, like I know?
We don't want to we ain'ttalking to you.
We're not.
I don't care if you have adegree from Harvard.
If you tell me you're not apeople person, this is not the
job for you.
So you have to put together aprofile on the person or the
employee you want as a successstory in your organization and
(19:32):
ask questions that has to dowith that success.
And if they say no to any of it, don't put them through the
process.
Don't waste your time.
Don't waste your time.
Just come up with a criteriaand ask these questions.
That way you can knock peopleout of the process early on, and
now you have AI that can dothat for you.
Pete Newsome (19:50):
So are you suggesting automating that
initial exchange to ask thecandidates to almost self-select
whether they're a good fit forthe role, or you're suggesting
you do that with a person, orpotentially both, or either.
Ricky Baez (20:05):
I will like at a high volume process, high volume
, I would just have AI do it.
I would have AI because I wouldneed my human folks to, you
know, handle other things rightthat need human attention.
As AI as possible, as automatedas possible at the beginning.
That way you have human eyestowards the end of the process,
(20:26):
when you're dealing with thereal people who are going to
stick around with you.
Pete Newsome (20:30):
Well, I'll tell you what I suggest in the
scenario and I really like, andthis is created by the one click
apply process, the easy apply,if you will that now exists.
Your candidates just blindlyapply to jobs and you know they
treat it like a numbers game.
The more jobs they apply to,the greater their odds of
(20:51):
getting an interview request Nowas recruiters.
Well, I have a recruiter I knowwould say that just junks up
the system and it's notsomething we would support.
I understand the candidatesmotivation for doing it.
There's an opportunity on mostjob boards to put some questions
in.
You know, only apply to thisjob if you have this specific
(21:12):
experience.
Only apply this job if you're apeople person.
To use your example, are youwilling to sit on the phone, you
know, for eight hours a day?
These are questions that anyonewho's considering a call center
job since that's the examplewe're using should consider, and
they won't want that job ifthey don't.
If they're not a people person,they don't want to be on the
phone all day, but they're stillapplying for it, for the job,
(21:34):
making it difficult for everyone.
We know that.
So what I like to do is takethat quick apply application and
, in return, send qualifyingquestions that the individual
then has to answer separately ata different point.
Send it to their email.
If they're genuinely interestedin the job, only ask them.
You know, only take 20, 30seconds to do it.
(21:55):
Make the questions very simpleand easy to understand.
I'm not at all about givinghard tasks to candidates and
applicants far from it.
What I am a fan of is havingpeople take just another couple
of seconds to consider whetherit's a job they're interested in
and then move forward.
So in a perfect world, I wouldhave an automated reply to the
(22:17):
one click applications.
Ask the candidate just confirma couple of things for us and
then we move on to scheduling aninterview.
Ricky Baez (22:24):
There you go and as time progresses, there's going
to be more apps and there'sgoing to be more technology.
And Pete, I'm not going to lie,I'm afraid of it.
I love AI, I love where this isgoing, I love how it helps
recruiting.
But at what point?
Because right now I shared withyou before that I had a
conversation who I thought was arecruiter and it was a damn bot
(22:46):
.
I'm like well, this thing has apersonality.
It laughed at my joke, but itwas easy.
Pete Newsome (22:51):
Someone has to.
I guess that, ricky, that's howyou knew it was a bot.
Probably right you?
Ricky Baez (22:59):
know what.
That's a good point.
It laughed at my joke.
I already know your line.
I already know you're a robot.
Pete Newsome (23:07):
But you're right.
I mean, ai is here to stay.
We know that it's not goingaway.
We talk about it all the time,so take advantage of it.
Use the tools and technologiesthat are available to create
efficiencies, but don't do it atthe risk of human interaction.
Because that's the next phaseof the interview process.
Do the screening as best youcan to rule out candidates who
(23:28):
are clearly not a good fit, andthen let your people, your
actual recruiters, make thosedetermination, make the next
determination of does thisperson have the right soft
skills?
Are we hiring someone who wantsthis job as much as we want
them in it?
And that, to me, is theimportant part of a high volume
(23:48):
interview is to say look, we mayhire you for this job, you may
be qualified for it, but if it'snot a job you want and it's not
a good fit, nobody wins.
So let's try to get to thatpart of the discussion as
quickly as possible in theinterview process and let that
candidate have anotheropportunity to select out.
For a lack of a better way toput it.
Ricky Baez (24:09):
So here's what I'm hearing, pete.
I'm hearing that again, thelarger the recruiting initiative
, the more strategic you have tobe in it, which obviously
that's an obvious one.
That's a theory.
How do we apply it?
How do we make sure that thebusiness leaders out there are
actually doing that?
Because the first thing that Itell everybody, all my clients,
(24:32):
to do when they decide to dosomething like this again and I
said it earlier is to attach anumber to it.
Attach a number to it If youare needing a high-volume
recruiting initiative, either Aa lot of people left you, which
that's not necessarily the caseor, b your organization has a
huge sales initiative thatthey're getting ready for.
(24:54):
If that's the case, you have tofigure out how missing those
marks is going to affect thatinitiative, especially getting
everybody else's buy-in.
Because, yes, you're brought inas the HR person, your
leadership is brought in as theHR person, who may not be 100%
sold as middle management, whois going to be doing the
interviews, because this is whatthey see.
(25:16):
I got a busy day and now I'mgoing to interview 15 people
today and if they go in withthat attitude, you're probably
going to get two people out ofthat interview, so you got to
get them in and apply.
Pete Newsome (25:27):
That's true, and it's hard to do if you are just
doing it as a one-time thing.
A lot of volume-based hiringhappens seasonally, so companies
have an opportunity to improveand learn each year as they go
on, and that's really how youcan create a system that's
highly effective and efficient.
(25:47):
If you're just doing it onceand you may never do it again,
you really don't have anythingto take away from that or plan.
In those cases, and in almostevery case, I'm a big proponent
I know this may surprise you,but I'm a big proponent of using
a third-party staffing firm whospecializes in high-volume
recruiting, who has theexpertise.
(26:08):
Just think about the drain thatit is on an internal
organization's resources.
As a company, you don't want tohave to hire to accommodate that
.
It may only last a couple ofweeks.
If it's not going to be indefinite volume-based hiring,
you should absolutely leverage athird-party staffing company
for that.
This is what we do and I wouldargue we're the best.
(26:31):
We're even as good as we are athiring one person at a time.
We're even more valuable forvolume-based hiring because we
have the resources already inplace.
We have the systems already inplace and believe me when I say
we're motivated to provide theright quality in the fastest
amount of time possible, and sothat, to me, is what high-volume
(26:51):
recruiting is really about ishow can I do it efficiently and
at high quality.
Where I can combine those twothings, that's where everyone
wins.
Ricky Baez (27:01):
So it's look, if you're working for an
organization and now this landedon your show and you want
something, just bring in theexpert.
Now, bring that expert in.
But, pete, you know what else Idid, which was awesome.
So I share with you that wewere in a five-mile radius with
five other call centers.
So what I decided to do?
(27:21):
I made friends with the otherrecruiting managers and we went
to lunch once a month and ittook us three months to do this,
but we actually did it.
The person that's two milesaway, the recruiting manager
that's two miles away.
Chances are they don't need thesame people you do, and vice
versa.
But if you share your jobdescription and you share what
you're looking for and the otherperson does that, and you come
(27:44):
through an accord.
You're like, look, if you'resaying no to somebody, but they
meet this criteria and they'renot a serial killer or a drug
dealer, send them our way, sendthem our way and we did the same
thing.
Now, apparently, that stoppedafter I left, but it worked.
Right, but that takes work.
You're right where you'resaying look, if you just want to
(28:05):
take a step back and you knowwhat, let the expert handle and
get a third-party staffingagency, let them come in, let
them do.
It's like you getting anelectrician right, you can watch
all the do-it-yourself stuff onYouTube, right, but you don't
want to die.
Not that this is going to killyou, but the point I'm saying is
sometimes it's way better tojust let the people who do this
(28:27):
on a daily basis do it for you,and then you'll have your team
free to do the things at thesame time.
Pete Newsome (28:32):
Absolutely, it's a great way to put it.
And so let's end with that,because I think we've shared the
necessary tips.
For someone who hasn'texperienced this before, let's
recap them real quickly.
So here are my main takeawaysfor high volume recruiting, and
I guess they're not secretsanymore.
But to be effective at highvolume recruiting, first start
(28:53):
with the strategic plan.
Start with the end in mind.
Work backwards from the numberthat you need to be in the seat
on day one and then decide howmany candidates and applicants
you need through the process.
Make sure you have the internalbuy-in.
That's huge.
That's huge Commitment of time,commitment of effort.
Without it, the whole thing isgoing to collapse very quickly.
(29:17):
Take advantage of technology.
There's a lot of tools andresources in your applicant
tracking system.
The data matters here, soleverage it, use it for
efficiency and then use it tolearn from after the fact and
measure your success as you go.
Find out what works, do more ofthat, find out what doesn't and
consider how to eliminate thosesteps in the process.
And the last thing I'll say isuse a third party, use an expert
(29:41):
, if you don't have thatin-house expertise.
Most companies don't.
When it comes to high volumeseasonal hiring or one-off
hiring.
Leverage an organization whojust has blinders on and
recruits all day, every day.
That'll save you a lot of timeand effort as well.
Ricky Baez (29:57):
Anything else After a bonus one in there.
Folks, the bigger the event,the bigger the organization, the
more strategic you have to be.
And here's the most importantpart Communicate, communicate,
communicate, communicate witheverybody involved what to
expect and trying to figure outwhat can possibly go wrong at
each stage in the process, andcommunicate that as well.
(30:18):
People respond better to thingsthat go wrong if they're
respected rather than it notbeing expected.
So if you're able tocommunicate what can possibly
happen, you're going to have areally well-oiled machine, to
the point that the people whoget hired on because remember,
when they get hired on, youreally should ask them how was
the process to get theirperspective, and you want them
(30:40):
to tell you either I love it orI hate it, and you use that
information to just make thewhole process better.
I just I love it.
Pete Newsome (30:46):
You elongated that sorry, no, but it's necessary
and important, so I'm glad youadded it.
Thank you, as always.
Thanks for listening today.
Secrets of high volumerecruiting.
I think we covered the basesright.
Ricky Baez (31:00):
I think it was beat the death.
Yes, sir.
Pete Newsome (31:02):
And we beat the horse.
Ricky Baez (31:03):
All right, have to do it.
Pete Newsome (31:04):
Awesome, ricky thanks, as always.
Everyone.
Have a great rest of your day.
Ricky Baez (31:07):
Have a good one, all right.
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