March 14, 2024 • 48 mins
Are you struggling to find and hire exceptional IT professionals?
Sioux Logan is our special guest on this episode of the Hire Calling Podcast! She is the visionary founder and president of RedStream Technology, an IT staffing firm located in New York City. Immediately, you will be whisked into Sioux's world, revealing the raw, unfiltered experiences of launching a tech staffing firm from the ground up.
Pete and Sioux begin by discussing the job market's post-pandemic seismic shifts, which have left many professionals uncertain, but they share their optimism for the future. They analyze the effects of tech giant layoffs and the constriction of venture capital on the fragile ecosystem of startups. It's a candid discourse on the importance of innovation in hiring practices during adjustment periods, packed with actionable insights for both companies and candidates.
But success in recruitment isn't just about embracing change—it's also about mastering the fundamentals. Sioux imparts her wisdom to new recruiters, emphasizing the indispensable role of personal interaction in a digitalized world. This episode peels back the curtain on the strategies that distinguish exceptional recruiters from the rest, from tapping into the goldmine of internal databases to the quick yet profound decision-making akin to Malcolm Gladwell's 'Blink.'
Tune in and arm yourself with the knowledge to navigate the modern recruitment landscape with confidence and finesse!
Additional Resources:
- RedStream Technology
- Tech Terms You Need to Know as an IT Recruiter
- The Challenges of IT Recruiting and How to Overcome Them
- The Best Interview Questions to Ask IT Candidates
🧠 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 SIOUX LOGAN ONLINE:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sioux-logan/
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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.
I'm Pete Newsome, and my guesttoday is Sioux Logan, founder
and president of RedStreamTechnology.
Sioux, how are you today?
I'm fine, hi Pete, it is sonice to have you.
We've been friends andcolleagues for what?
Four, five years now, andfinally, here we are getting a
chance to talk on camera abouttechnical recruiting today.
Sioux Logan (00:22):
This is so fun.
I love it.
Pete Newsome (00:24):
Well, thanks for doing it.
So RedStream, your company, isheadquartered in Manhattan.
Why don't you just if you wouldjust take a minute to introduce
your background and tell us alittle bit about RedStream?
Sioux Logan (00:34):
Yeah, so I started the company in 2007.
I had been, I started my careeras a technical recruiter and
then I moved into accountmanagement and did business all
over the New York City state,dry state area, New Jersey,
Connecticut.
My client base consisted offinancial services companies.
(00:54):
It consists of big managementconsulting, a lot of smattering
of other other flavors genres,and in 2007, I just thought I
needed a change and I needed totry it on my own.
So I left my job.
I sat down in a second bedroomof my freezing cold apartment in
(01:15):
February, practically wearinggloves, and I sat in front of a
blank screen and said, okay,it's time to mind my non-compete
and dredge up new business.
So it took about.
I had to write out anon-compete and I had to cold
call and I had to do all thereally good old behavior that.
You know what that's like.
Calling people was prior to thedays of LinkedIn, so you had to
(01:40):
try and get phone numbers forpeople and call people and make
people to meet with you.
But after about a year I hadhired a first employee and we
started opening new business andclients were good to me and
introduced me to their teams.
And here we are, 17 years later.
Pete Newsome (01:57):
That's wonderful.
Congratulations on that.
I know what a big step that is.
I'm curious, though what was?
Was there a catalyst for youdeciding to to take the plunge
initially, or was it somethingyou thought about doing for a
long time?
Sioux Logan (02:10):
No, I actually always said I would never own my
own business.
My dad owned a dairydistribution business when I was
growing up and he worked and hewas up really early in the
morning, came home late, heworked weekends, and so I said,
oh, I would actually never,never, never, own a business.
And when I was, a lot of stuffhas changed.
You with my client base.
(02:31):
It was the end of 2006.
And I needed to recreate aclient base that the company I
was working for, industry, hadchanged and we were going to
lose one of our big clientspotentially.
And I got up every day and Iwent to work and I said I really
need to recreate myself, Ireally need to make some cold
(02:51):
calls, I need to find newbusiness.
And I couldn't do it, pete.
I just I love the people Iworked with.
I worked with some of thegreatest people I've ever worked
with in my career, but Icouldn't make myself do it.
And one day it just seemed clearto me that the only thing that
I could get excited about was todo it all over again.
And you know how terrifyingthat is to start a company.
(03:12):
You have no back office, youdon't have no recruiting team,
you can't take your clients withyou because you have a non
compete.
When I did decide to do it, itwas the most freeing, exciting
thing I'd ever decided to do inmy entire career.
I mean, it really was.
(03:32):
Then I have a funny story foryou the when I decided to leave
my company, I came in the next.
I decided on a weekend, that Icame in the next Monday and I
hit seeing.
You remember the movie Borat.
Pete Newsome (03:45):
Of course.
Sioux Logan (03:46):
I had been to the movies and the people knew that
I was a crazy workaholic and Iwas really serious and all that
stuff and telling my coworkersthat.
I had been to see the movieBorat and they're like, huh,
that's really interesting.
And later in the day, when Iannounced that I was leaving,
they were like now I get why youwent to the movies to see Borat
, that's so not you.
You did something fun andanyway so that was it.
Pete Newsome (04:08):
You're great.
You can blame or thank Borat.
Sioux Logan (04:11):
Borat's responsible for me doing this.
Pete Newsome (04:14):
I'm sure you've had this thought, like I have
over the years, that some of thebiggest things you could do in
life having a child, gettingmarried, your profession,
starting a job there's noroadmap for it and the world
doesn't really encourage you togo out on your own.
It's kind of just a secretthing that you have to figure
out on your own by taking thestep.
(04:35):
It's like jumping out of theplane and then figuring out how
to work a parachute Right.
Sioux Logan (04:38):
Yeah, that is true.
Well, I would tell you also,Peter, there were a lot of
people.
I had a couple of months fromthe time I left my job and I
started actually started thecompany.
I was keeping a little bitprivate about what I was going
to do and when I told people, Icannot tell you how many people
tried to scare me.
Pete Newsome (04:55):
You don't want to do this.
Sioux Logan (04:57):
You don't want to worry about the back office
finance.
You don't want to worry aboutrunning payroll.
You don't want to do this.
There's a lot of people who notonly is there not a roadmap,
there's also a lot of people whoare really scared of what you
and I do.
Pete Newsome (05:09):
Yes, and that's okay, I understand.
I'm not going to convince themotherwise, right?
Because you and I both havelearned that it's scarier the
thought of taking the step isscarier than actually taking it.
At least it was for me.
Sioux Logan (05:23):
And.
Pete Newsome (05:23):
I think that's pretty common and I also had
those warnings as well.
A lot of fun right Fear,uncertainty and doubt, Because,
again, the world doesn't reallyencourage you anyone to do that
right.
It's not the safe choice, andyou also find out who your
friends are, don't you?
Oh yeah, you do yeah that's aninteresting comment.
Sioux Logan (05:45):
You do find out who your friends are.
I can't tell you how manypeople, when I was starting the
business, actually took me outto lunch.
You know old contacts, notclients, not violating my
non-compete but you know peoplethat I knew who I said I started
my company.
I can't tell you how manypeople were super kind and
(06:06):
actually said oh, you juststarted a business, Let me take
you out to lunch.
And then there are a lot ofpeople who disappear, Same, Same
.
Pete Newsome (06:13):
Yes, and I never could have predicted who would
have done what in that situation, and it was.
It was so eyeopening and someof the people who I never would
have expected any help from wentout of their way to lend
assistance, and others who Iwould have thought would be
given didn't, didn't really stepup, and so it's a fascinating
(06:35):
thing that you almost have to gothrough that experience to know
what it feels like.
You can't really describe it,but here you are, here I am, we
did it.
Sioux Logan (06:45):
And we're born up.
Now we're not lonely.
We have friends in thisbusiness because we've been at
it long enough.
Pete Newsome (06:51):
Yeah, it's funny that you would mention that word
, because lonely was, was agreat is a great way to describe
it, because one of the thingsthat I missed that was hardest
for me about going on my own wasnot having a manager, not
having anyone to turn to and askfor advice or help, not having
a peer.
Even that, that, that was avery lonely feeling and that
(07:11):
lasted for years for me.
Sioux Logan (07:13):
Yeah, same for years.
And now I think that's one ofthe things I constantly, my own
way, fight against is who are mypeers?
What is my network?
That's how you and I becamefriends, part of professional
networking group.
Who is it that you trust togive you advice?
Where do you find that?
Because you can't go to amanager.
The buck stops with you and Iare doing.
(07:34):
That's right.
Pete Newsome (07:36):
That's right it does, and that's well.
That's a good thing.
I like being an employee too,into some degree.
It'd be nice to have days wherethe buck stops with someone
else, but we're not going tosolve that one today.
We're going to solve some ofthe mystery, which I think is a
lot more tangible, of how torecruit, improve your technical
(07:57):
recruiting, and that's why Iasked you really to come on
today, although I think weshould probably do an episode
about going out on your own tostart a staffing company that,
if you'll come back, that wouldbe, worth happening.
Yeah, we could probably grab acouple of our other friends too
who have similar stories.
But the the market is evolvingrapidly and I'm hoping that we
can share advice and andguidance for those who are
(08:20):
struggling with, and want toimprove at, technical recruiting
.
But what do you think the stateof the market is right now?
How would you describe it?
It's, it's a moving target ofsorts.
Sioux Logan (08:28):
The market's really weird.
I'm glad you asked me thatquestion because I was just
talking to my recruiting teamabout that this morning.
You think back to four yearsago, right at this time, 2020,
when Pandemic was just coming on, we didn't know what was going
to happen, and so I would say,for March on of 2020, it was
(08:51):
gangbusters.
Everybody needed technologypeople, everybody needed
recruiters, everybody.
As soon as we settled into whatthe Business model, the
pandemic was going to be,technology recruiting was
gangbusters.
It was gangbusters all of 2021,all 2020-2010.
Then it started to slow Rightand and I've seen this before I
(09:14):
was through 01, the dot-comcrash.
I was through 0809, which youand I were talking about earlier
, where the financial servicesblew up mortgage, world Mortgage
back securities flew up.
This is, in a lot of ways, nodifferent.
It's not fun.
Particularly, I can look backto 01 or 0809 and I can say,
okay, that wasn't so fun, but I,we came out of it.
(09:37):
We're in that same mode rightnow.
It's difficult.
We have been.
We slowed.
September of 2022, all of 23,was pretty slow for us.
The In 2023, there were stillwe still really, really hard to
find candidates.
(09:57):
That is just started to shiftnow, in the last couple of
months, it's getting a littlebit easier.
We have a time period P wheremy gold standard is you, hiring
manager, give me a jobrequirement.
I'm gonna present you at threevery precise, very targeted
Candidates.
No one's perfect, but as closeto perfect as we're gonna get
(10:17):
we're gonna get.
I'm gonna send you three.
Sure, we're.
In the last few years I waslucky if I could show two and I
was really happy when I had one,and that is starting to ease a
little bit.
We're coming back to the pointwhere we're able to show three
candidates, some of who will dothe hybrid model, whatever those
intangibles that we've beenlooking at for years with
(10:39):
recruiting, where all thosethings stick.
But it's it's a rough marketright now.
Pete Newsome (10:45):
It's a, it's, yeah , it's a market that's hard to
pinpoint exactly what'shappening with it and I think
from Industry to industry itvaries greatly.
Skill set, skill set it variesgreatly market to market.
Geographically it's, it'sreally all over the board.
I I thought Pre-covid we wouldalways be in a candidate's
(11:05):
market and then, and then thingsshifted quickly.
Now I just I wouldn't even knowhow to describe it, but what?
One of the things it's that Ithink we're seeing a lot and
maybe you are too is it?
Candidates aren't?
Well they're.
They're hesitant to change jobsbecause they've seen so many
people jump and then lose theirjob because of a layoff, or
Grass wasn't as green as Ithought.
(11:26):
There were a lot of hugesalaries being thrown out post
COVID.
As we know, that reallyaffected the recruiting industry
in particular, and now Peopleare afraid of.
They don't, and that's thesentiment that I latch on to the
most the general Populationdoesn't trust what's going on in
the market right now.
Sioux Logan (11:43):
Yeah, and they shouldn't, because it's very
strange.
I just I'm trying to Trying tofeed you what it feels like from
the candidate perspective.
You know we, when the market ishot and Chugging along like it
was 2020-21-22, you really hadno idea what candidates were
gonna do.
They had six options.
(12:03):
They had four offers on thetable already, right.
At the same time, it's startingto shift again.
I don't think anybody Feels likethere's nothing out there.
I also feel, pete, like there'sa shift in you.
Look at all the people who workfor big tech companies your
metas, your Google's.
They really staffed up over thelast few years and they snapped
(12:28):
up a lot of good, expensivetalent and now those people are
flooding on the market.
But then, where the jobs are,and also you had your people
going into VC backed startupsthere's a lot of interesting
work going on out there.
That money is dried up so thatpopulation pulls, also feeding
out into the, into the candidatepool.
(12:50):
Well, a lot of those peopledon't necessarily want to go
work for, let's say, a met lifeor a JP Morgan.
They want maybe a tech companyor and I feel like we're in this
place where you go to LinkedInand you do scroll and you see
the green circles and you see somany people saying I've been,
I've sent out a hundred andfifty Applications, I've had no
(13:11):
interviews.
There is a lot of that.
But there's also this shiftwhere I think companies are
starting to realize Okay, I needto be a little more open to who
I'm hiring.
I used to say that, like hires,like financial services
companies hire finance peopleout of financial services.
Insurance companies hire peopleout of a chair.
(13:32):
They like that because theylike the domain knowledge right,
so they love that.
We're coming into a marketwhere I feel like, if we're
going to make that that levelingof Candidate to job opening, we
have to be more open-minded.
Our clients have to be a littlebit more open-minded.
Okay, that guy's out of Google.
(13:52):
He might do extremely well a JPMorgan.
He might be a great fit fromthe past.
I didn't want to look at thatguy because he's only a tech
company guy.
So I think we're coming to thenext six months, in my opinion,
are going to be a I I don't knowa reckoning of Candidates into
what jobs are out there and Idon't think that's a bad thing.
Pete Newsome (14:14):
No, it's, it's not .
It's not.
I don't think it's bad either.
I think it's uncertain and andhard to plan, and that's that's
where I think you know,individuals are struggling,
companies are struggling, bothCompanies like ours who are
doing the staffing, but also ourclients are trying to read the
tea leaves, whether it's whatthey can expect from interest
(14:35):
rates and expect the electionand all that's surrounding that.
I mean this is, you know,global war is going on.
I mean there are so many thingsto Wonder and worry about right
now.
Unfortunately, that means youknow, indecision a lot, and
that's what.
That's what that's bad for us,right?
We don't want that.
(14:55):
We want you confidence in themarket, so it seems to be
trending right.
Some of the numbers are good.
I look at the employment dataconstantly, but right now it
seems to be getting a little bitbetter, albeit slowly.
Unemployment still large.
Inflation is still a bigproblem.
That's not, I don't think, isgoing to go away anytime soon.
(15:17):
So I think our clients aregoing to everyone's going to
need to start increasingsalaries more.
Are you seeing that up in NewYork yet?
Are you seeing prices orsalaries rates going up yet?
Sioux Logan (15:29):
No, I'm not.
I you know and I can give youhistorical.
I have my own historicalanecdotal evidence in my brain.
So it was a terrible year inNew York that lasted into two.
It started in 08,.
09 was terrible.
2010 was bad.
By midway through 2011, we hada massive job swap in New York
(15:51):
city and all the people infinancial services who had not
been bonus for a couple of yearsbecause the market was terrible
.
People lost jobs, whatever.
There was a massive job swap.
People moved all overindustries, but that, if you
think about it, that's two yearsout from the bottom of the
market.
We're not there yet and ifhistory tells us anything, we're
(16:13):
not there yet.
So I think 2024 is not going tonecessarily be a great year for
us.
Pete Newsome (16:21):
Well, you were at the same conference.
I was back in November, wherewe heard a well-known economist
speaking about the year and saidthat it's.
His prediction was that thingsweren't going to pick back up
until the very end of the year,and I think the conference was
in November.
He said about a year from now.
So we're still.
Sioux Logan (16:39):
We still have a long road ahead and yeah, yeah,
but I want to ask in this can wego back to the salary thing for
a second?
So are you feeling likesalaries dipped in the last year
and so you're waiting for it tocome back?
Pete Newsome (16:53):
I think there's a normalization that's going on
right now and that's a strugglebecause every company is looking
considers that to be somethingdifferent for their situation.
So post COVID, we saw a lot ofunnatural hiring big salaries,
limitless flexibility on workingconditions, work wherever you
want.
We're happy to have anyone thatwe can.
(17:14):
We saw it in the recruitingspace.
We saw it in technical jobsalike.
It almost, they almost mirroredeach other.
Because there was so much pentup demand, companies were doing
whatever they had to do, and nowwe've seen the pendulum swing
back, which happens, and so noweveryone's treating it
differently.
(17:34):
Who's making employees workfrom home come back to the
office and who's not?
Who's paying a higher salariesand who's not?
And so, as you know, of course,supply and demand ultimately
will drive everything, andthat's what I think is
normalizing right now.
I think, yeah, the return tooffice policy.
(17:56):
I don't know, but there's gonnabe.
The companies that are moreflexible are going to have a
bigger candidate pool.
The companies that pay more aregoing to have a bigger
candidate pool.
They just have to acknowledgeit.
That's what we haven't caughtup to yet.
Sioux Logan (18:09):
And I think normalization is the exact word,
that's the correct word forthis.
I don't see that.
So I think that the candidatepool is now just starting to
realize that they can't makeendless demands, like I think
that in the last couple ofmonths has just happened and
they're not expecting the moonon salaries anymore, and I don't
(18:30):
feel like my clients havedropped their salaries and rates
.
I definitely don't see that.
I see that they're hangingtight where they were, but they
have more candidates availableto them and candidates are a
little bit more reasonable.
They're like oh yeah, I'll workfor that.
Pete Newsome (18:47):
And that's hard, though, to go backwards.
We don't expect to do that inour professional career.
I had a great conversation witha very experienced recruiter a
couple of days ago and she hadgone to jump for just a giant
salary at one of the techcompanies.
And she came back and now isreal, I have to go back to
normal.
Like her feet are back on theground, but that's hard, I mean,
(19:11):
and the number she was tellingme almost hard to believe.
I mean, I believe them becausewe saw it happening, but almost
100% increase from what she hadbeen making pre COVID, and now
it's coming back to normal.
So that's the hard part,because when you start making a
lot more money, you don't wannago backwards.
Sioux Logan (19:31):
None of us.
Yeah, that's a stark reality.
I'll paint a picture here.
I'll differentiate, that is forsure.
What's going on in recruitingIn technology land.
It's not quite as harsh fortechnical candidates, for
recruiters very painful rightnow.
We lost a recruiter, pete, inJuly of last year and if it had
(19:53):
been the year before and Iposted a job on LinkedIn, I
would have had two applications,neither of which would have
been right.
We had 1200 applications in 48hours and we work remote.
My team is mainly remote, so wegot 1200, it was posted as
remote.
We got 1200 applications in 48hours for a remote recruiting
job.
Pete Newsome (20:13):
That's how much has changed.
Let's talk about that for aminute.
If you can.
How you recruit today, howanyone recruits today, needs to
shift for that reason.
What's your take on the I callit the one click apply disaster
that's happened out there.
Where it's so easy to it,doesn't matter how thorough or
(20:33):
detailed your job description is, how many requirements you put
on, people are going to applyright and there's career coaches
out there saying apply, apply,apply.
I get it.
I understand why, but it'smaking a bad source.
What's your take on all of that?
Is there a way to solve it?
Sioux Logan (20:51):
Your recruiters is second brain.
So what happens as recruitersif you go in?
You come in in the morning andthere's 600 resumes that came in
overnight.
You're going to blink through,do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do
and you're going to get yourfirst 20, you're going to
discard 100, 200 out of thefirst 300, but you're only going
(21:13):
to make it partway throughthose problems.
So it's problematic becauseresume number 422 could be the
perfect one out there and you'renot going to see it because you
know, and we can take this downwith the line of artificial
intelligence and we do we useall these tools that highlight
keywords to us and all thatstuff.
(21:34):
But it is very problematic.
The volume because of the oneclick application, the volume we
get is enormously problematicand that could lead me down a
whole conversation to talk aboutfake resumes and all that also
nonsense that we have to plowthrough when you're looking
through resumes and comparingagainst LinkedIn profiles and
(21:56):
all that stuff.
It's the volume is verydifficult and it's very
fatiguing to recruiter.
Pete Newsome (22:02):
It almost so I never.
We didn't used to run ads yearsago.
This is old school me comingout, where the only way you
could run ads was to do it inthe newspaper.
They're fast in I don't know ifyou ever see weekly that's what
we started using back you knowcontract employment weekly where
you had to have your hat in byThursday at noon or whatever it
(22:23):
was and that it would come outon Monday in the mail and it was
literally a magazine kind oflooking book of just jobs that
were available right In thetechnical space at that time
this was called the engineeringworld back then and I learned to
recruit by being proactive andbecause I didn't know where the
(22:45):
next resume was going to comefrom, and I think that made me a
better recruiter than I wouldbe today, by having a what seems
like a limitless supply ofcandidates but but like you hit
my favorite subject, Pete Newsom.
Oh really.
Sioux Logan (23:00):
You hit my favorite subject.
I'm serious, it's.
You just touched on my favoritesubject.
So I started out as a technicalrecruiter in 1997.
We had a DOS blue screen andsomeone had typed in there COBOL
, cics, all these technicalterms.
We had the ugliest monitor andall this no good gooey, any of
that stuff, and we would sitthere and we would dial and we
(23:23):
had no idea.
We couldn't see a resume.
There were no pretty pictures,there was no anything about
people, it was simply the mostflat.
And it made me a greatrecruiter because you didn't
know and you know what you gotcreative and I it was.
I started recruiting rightbefore Y2K and for those who are
young or watching this, itdoesn't mean a fashion line, it
(23:44):
doesn't mean a type of clothing,it was actually digits in the
mainframe computer.
I asked my 14 year old the otherday if she knew what Y2K was
and that follow up boys versionof Billie Joel's song.
Pete Newsome (23:56):
We didn't know Right, yeah, she's like, do you?
Sioux Logan (23:58):
know Y2K.
She's like a clothing.
I know I was like good answer,that's true, but anyway, but we,
we had a very good habitsbecause we had to.
There was a piece of recruiting.
That's faith.
And and it's the faith to gointo a database and call age,
age or aging resumes Right.
That's one of the things thatmakes it incredibly good
(24:21):
recruiter.
I don't care what year it is,whether it's 1997 or 2024.
Great recruiting habits are notjust waiting to see what comes
in off a job post.
But I had a meeting with myrecruiters this morning and I
said we have three main tools bywhich we technical recruit.
We do our recruiting.
One is our database, which is17 years worth of proprietary
(24:43):
data.
It is resumes that we havescreened.
We don't have tools that justpunt all kinds of resumes from
job boards into our database.
Ours is a hundred thousandpeople curated over 17 years and
, yeah, some of the emails willbe old, some of the phone
numbers will be old, but that'sa.
Your predecessors here atRedstream did that homework for
(25:05):
you and it's proprietary andit's a great place.
But they particularly like tosee LinkedIn and oh, and you
know what I say too, with Peteyou can go to LinkedIn and you
can look when nobody by law hasto have, let's say, jira or
whatever Salesforce on theirLinkedIn profile, but our
(25:27):
recruiters today they want tosee those right on it or they're
not calling them and they'velost that element of faith where
you have to have just some, youknow, just to spend your due to
.
Maybe faith's not the rightword, but you have to suspend
your disbelief.
You have to just go into aphone call not really knowing.
You can't see every last detailof the person's experience.
(25:50):
We didn't have that years agoand it made us be curious.
It made us make phone callsthat we might not have made
otherwise and you find reallygood talent that way.
So you know, our tools are ourdatabases, they are LinkedIn for
sure.
When you go and you we all haveLinkedIn recruiter licenses and
then we have the job post tools.
You post a job on LinkedIn, youpost it on deed.
(26:12):
You get some good stuff thatcomes in off of it but you got a
lot of junk too.
Pete Newsome (26:17):
But I think yeah.
For the first 10 years FourCorner was in business, I don't
think we posted jobs other thanpipeline positions that we just
had often, you know, openingsfor Because I didn't post jobs,
because I didn't have time tofill them that way, right.
(26:37):
It sounds convenient on thesurface.
You post a job, applicants cometo you.
How wonderful is that?
Right Uber Eats right to yourdoorstep.
If I, you know, I've used UberEats enough to know that it's
wrong a lot.
My 18 year old, my high schoolsenior, ordered something on
Saturday night and they left itin our mailbox.
Then he did it for 20 minuteslater and we kind of laughed
(26:58):
about it because they said theyleft it in a safe space, right,
like, I guess?
Like safe.
Sioux Logan (27:02):
That's safe.
Pete Newsome (27:03):
Yeah safe.
Sioux Logan (27:04):
The neighbors aren't taking it right.
Pete Newsome (27:05):
That's safe.
Safe for bugs?
Not at all.
But Henry the dog.
Right, that's right, that'sright.
But if you go to the store, yousee what you want on the shelf,
you grab it.
You're going to get it accurate100% of the time, and so I
never thought that posting ads.
We used to make fun ofcompanies that would post ads.
(27:26):
I would be like they post ads,why would you want to use them?
That's not how we recruit.
We recruit proactively, and oneof the way you learn to recruit
the way I learned to recruit isbecause you didn't know where
that next resume was coming from, so you had to value that
resume to a different degree.
So I'd say, okay, here's SueLogan's resume, and it only
appears that Sue has 50% of thequalifications.
(27:48):
But I'm not going to assume shedoesn't have the other 50%.
I'm going to talk to Sue andask, because, even if you don't,
you're the kind of person whoknows people who do, and if
you're not the right fit forthis job.
I've invested time in you, wherenow I'll know what is the right
fit for you and I'll know whento call you.
Next To me, that's 101.
Sioux Logan (28:10):
Yeah, it is.
Pete Newsome (28:11):
I don't think that happens very often these days.
Sioux Logan (28:14):
Well you're again.
This is my favorite subjectbecause I just did an analysis
last week of where all ourplacements from 2023 came from
and I can see by years in thebusiness how my recruiters stack
out with that, how where theirplacements come from, and my
longest running recruitersreferrals because they use the
(28:37):
database.
They send out a bunch of emailsto people that we know that
we've interacted with in thepast.
Some of those people come backto us and are viable candidates
and sometimes they pass them onto their friends and you get
referrals, you get word of mouth, and then my most junior
recruiters it's a lot of it iswaiting to see what comes in off
the post, or waiting for stuffin off a job post, or simply
(29:03):
LinkedIn searching where theycan see everything that they
think they can see.
Not foolproof.
Pete Newsome (29:08):
Do you think that?
Because I would say the same,but what you just described is
very similar to my experience inthe team at Four Corner.
I don't know that.
Why do you think the teamdoesn't trust the database?
Your internal database is muchbecause, for exactly what you
described a few minutes ago, thenotes are in there from the
past.
That's why we use an applicanttracking system.
(29:30):
If you're a third partyrecruiter, it's not like a
corporate entity uses an ATSright when.
That's more about funneling andscheduling and checking boxes
for legal purposes all of thethings that the corporate, the
talent acquisition team, has toworry about.
For us, it's more about historyand notes and being able to go
back to that hot list of skillsets so we don't have to start
(29:53):
from scratch every time.
You said it perfectly you wantcandidates who you already know.
That's the benefit of thedatabase If you use it correctly
.
Even though Pete may not knowthe candidate directly, sue
knows the candidate.
I know them by association.
That's the benefit.
Sioux Logan (30:13):
I had a conversation.
We're recruiting for a scrummaster right now for one of our
media clients.
I told our recruiting team lastweek in our applicant tracking
system we have a lot of scrummasters from about four years
ago.
We, four or five years ago, wedid a lot of work for one of our
clients, one of my bestrecruiters.
If you go and you look at scrummasters under his name, he's no
(30:35):
longer working for us but youlook for his candidates who are
scrum masters, you're going tofind stellar people because you
have an incredible eye for it.
This is our proprietaryknowledge.
I think it's very simple.
I think people today love theirsocial media and they love
nothing more than to be able toflip through.
(30:56):
It says they're open to work innot necessarily the green
circle, but in their LinkedInprofile.
If it says they're open to workand it changed two weeks ago to
open to work and they can seetheir picture and they can see
where they've been working andthey don't like to have that
suspending your disbelief andgoing, okay, this resume is
three years old, I can't seewhat they've been doing.
(31:16):
They want to see what they'vebeen doing recently.
Good recruiting is not that.
Good recruiting is having somefaith that those candidates that
we've engaged with in the pastare worthwhile.
But it's really difficult toget newer recruiters to see that
because they love to just go toLinkedIn and see.
Pete Newsome (31:35):
You said it earlier, being curious is
necessary.
This is an interestingconversation.
It's a little bit differentdirection than I think we
thought we'd go today, but it'sso necessary because to make
third-party recruiters better,to make staffing recruiters
better, they really need tounderstand that what seems quick
(31:59):
on the surface withapplications right, a thousand
applicants great, I shoulddefinitely find someone in there
.
That's like trying to find theneedle in a haystack, versus
taking a more targeted approachand talking to the people who
know that's what's lost as muchas anything else, where, if I
have a text relationship withyou that may be efficient but
(32:20):
it's not going to be deep, inorder to ask you for a referral
or in order to expect you togive me a referral, I can ask at
any time, right.
In order to expect you to giveme one, I have to invest some
time in you first.
I believe that and I think youprobably do too that I'm going
to get to know you and then, ifwe conclude collectively that
(32:40):
you're not a good fit for thejob, of course I'm going to ask
you for a referral, right?
Why wouldn't I?
I'd be crazy not to.
Sioux Logan (32:46):
It's not a transactional business and I
also you touched on a reallyinteresting thing about texting.
One of the other old schoolbehaviors is the phone call, and
I'm adamant with my recruiters.
You can never discuss moneywith candidates on a text
because it's not a discussion.
You can't understand whatthey're really striving for if
(33:08):
you don't have that conversation.
You can't shoot them a text andsay where are you at with other
jobs you're interviewing for?
Are you close on any offers andinterviews?
They're going to just say no,you need to have conversations.
We're very very good at what wedo, and we're good at what we do
because we have conversationswith people.
It's the only way.
(33:28):
It's the most old school, butman do I love the phone, pete.
Pete Newsome (33:32):
I love the phone.
It's so effective.
I mean, one of the things thatI miss about working in the
office was being able to hearjust half the conversation with
new recruiters and you can justtell once you hone your radar
for this.
You can tell how a conversationis going just by where the
(33:54):
pauses are, the tone, theinflection, the answer to a
question is there a pause ordoes it come openly and directly
Right?
You have to hone it, it's not anatural instinct.
Some people pick it up betterthan others.
This is something I honed overyears and years and thousands
(34:14):
and thousands of conversationswhere I'm sure, like me, you
could hear 30 seconds of a calland know whether a candidate is
interested, is going to bail, iswhatever.
You know.
All you need right.
Sioux Logan (34:29):
I do.
Pete Newsome (34:30):
How can you keep I do?
Is there any way to do that nowthat we're virtual?
Sioux Logan (34:36):
Well, one of the nice things about choosing to go
on camera with people too, isyou can really see the reaction.
That's also a nice thing, butif you're just communicating via
email and text with yourcandidates, it's not enough.
It's not going to get you whatyou need.
Pete Newsome (34:51):
And I'm glad you said that, because that's
something I'm going to bookmark,because that's important,
that's a quote, right, that'swhat we need.
So what advice, then, would yougive to your new recruiter
today?
Let's talk about that a littlebit, because we're sharing some
of these things and I want tomake this our episode, now that
(35:11):
we're going to focus on whereHello Б only new recruiter, if
you're starting out, what arethe core things that a young
recruiter, someone new to thespace, really needs to know that
can help them be better thantheir peers right now?
Sioux Logan (35:27):
I have such a laundry list.
Let me think first.
Number one is you need tolisten to more experienced
recruiters on the phone becauseyou need to learn how they ask
questions with nuance.
Like in New York, we can't asksalaries, we can't ask what
you're currently making.
By law we can't ask that.
It's like that in a lot ofplaces in the country.
(35:49):
So we're working on a role rightnow where we want to ascertain
if people are working on a basesalary plus bonus, and so I
might, with my years ofexperience, say to you I'm going
to ask you a couple ofquestions about compensation.
Let me state here that I'm notasking you what you're currently
making.
I'm going to ask you what isyour target base salary and are
(36:16):
you bonus eligible?
That's language.
That's number one, legal.
Number two correct.
Number three non-intimidatingit's what's your target base
salary?
And in your next role this roleis not bonus eligible Is the
role you're in now, is itcurrently bonus eligible?
So we need to understand how wework with somebody to construct
(36:38):
with their new employer acompensation package that works.
But you don't know how to askthose questions if you don't
know anything about compensation.
So that's number one spendingtime with more experienced
recruiters to learn languageabout around that.
Or when you're talking aboutconsulting I am looking for $80
(37:00):
an hour.
The candidate says I'm lookingfor $80 an hour and you say, ok,
are you at all flexible on that?
My first boss in the industrytaught me to say are you
flexible?
If I get a job that's onlygoing to pay $70 an hour, should
I call you for that?
And now you start to understandwhere they are in their
continuum of what's important oncompensation.
Well, I might.
If it's close to home, maybeI'll work for $70 an hour.
(37:22):
Then you start elicitinginformation from them.
So number one for me would besitting with people with more
experience.
Number two learn to use yourapplicant tracking system.
Going back to the conversationwe had a little while ago, your
applicant tracking system hasnotes on candidates that might
have been in there for 10 years.
Flip back and look at them.
What happened with it?
(37:43):
You saw?
You can see.
Our app, ats, has what jobsthey were submitted to in the
past.
Zip down, have a look.
Ok, we've worked with them fivedifferent times in the last six
years.
That might be a good candidateto re-look at.
So that's number two.
Number three in technologylearn what a fake resume looks
(38:03):
like.
Big one, learn what it lookslike.
Go into LinkedIn, pull up, seewhat your their profile was
created.
Was it in 2023?
Probably not, and they have 16years of experience.
Probably not for real.
Should probably pass on thatperson.
Have a secret methodology.
Talk to you about if you havetime.
Pete Newsome (38:25):
OK, won't be secret if you share it.
Sioux Logan (38:27):
It's not going to be secret, but I'm going to put
this out into recruiter land.
Pete Newsome (38:31):
OK.
Sioux Logan (38:32):
You know, malcolm Gladwell, the writer.
Pete Newsome (38:35):
Yeah, so every read his book, because he has
books behind him, right behindyou in the shelves.
Sioux Logan (38:39):
Did you ever read Blink?
Pete Newsome (38:40):
I did yes.
Sioux Logan (38:41):
So Blink came out Pete the year that I started
Redstream and Blink was a verypivotal book for me and I teach
my recruiters to Blink atresumes.
You know we go back to earliertalking about looking through
1,100 resumes.
Recruiters' brains get fatiguedvery quickly because they want
(39:04):
to look at them and they want toparticularly newer recruiters
they need to read all thecontent.
Pete Newsome (39:10):
Right, their brains are going.
Sioux Logan (39:12):
I don't understand any of that.
I'm not technical.
I must read every line of it.
I don't read resumes when I'mprocessing them, so Gladwell's
concept of Blink is the best.
Decision makers are people whohone their ability to look at
something and extractinformation.
That's really important, andwhat I teach my recruiters to do
(39:34):
is I Blink at it, I look attheir job and so, OK, let me
preface it.
I'm looking for a technicalwriter with a solid amount of
experience I don't like to talkyears of experience, but a solid
amount of experience who theypreferably have worked on AI
projects and they interface withdevelopers, product owners,
technical people.
(39:54):
That's what I'm going intolooking at these resumes for,
You're going to look at the jobtitle, the company name and the
dates the job title, the companyname and the dates.
Job title, company name, dates,boom.
Maybe their education isrelevant to whatever.
But if you do that Blink,you're quick to see OK, oh wait,
(40:15):
that person's actually onlybeen a technical writer for six
months, but all the jobs beforewere teaching pre-K, right, I
mean.
And then how the questionbecomes how did you get to be a
technical writer and is thatperson going to have, with six
months of experience, going tohave enough experience to work
for your client.
(40:36):
The answer is no, but aninexperienced recruiter is going
to go oh wow, but this personactually has AI.
They have AI, they were a techwriter with AI, so they're right
, whereas they're not seeing thewhole picture.
They're not seeing it.
So it's a technique that Iteach my recruiters you can
ingest and process a lot moreinformation in a lot shorter
(41:00):
time than you think you can.
A lot of very usefulinformation if you hone that
Blink skill.
Pete Newsome (41:06):
I love it.
That's great, and you knowwhat's so great about it, sue,
and I'm going to use this, ifyou don't mind, or for job
seekers as well, because I thinkthat is who needs to know that.
That is how a good recruiterlooks at a resume.
I've never explained it thatway.
You have that's such a greatway to look at it.
But the premise is the same.
I talk about reading headlines.
(41:26):
You're in a checkout line atthe grocery store and you see
People Magazine or whatever themagazines are today.
I'm probably dating myself.
I don't even know if peoplestill publish as a brand.
Sioux Logan (41:37):
I think it does.
Pete Newsome (41:37):
They put the big headlines because they want to
grab your attention.
So the message I always givethe candidates is make it easy
for the recruiter to know whoyou are and what you do, and if
you create a resume with that inmind, all the other garbage
that you see is reallyirrelevant, because that is how
a good recruiter looks at aresume and as much as anything
(41:59):
else.
That's all the time you have tolook at a resume.
You can't you don't readsomeone's paragraph of what they
you know their life story ortheir education, you may?
I mean once you're out of schoolfor some short period of time,
right?
Who cares?
There's no cares, right?
But you look at the highlightsand that's what you just
described.
I love it.
Sioux Logan (42:19):
But that is such good advice.
I advise candidates the verysame thing.
When I'm working withcandidates who are and I get
referred a lot of people andI'll go through their resume and
I said to somebody veryrecently I'm bogged down, I
can't read it, I can't processit.
We need to reformat your resumebecause it's so text heavy that
I don't know what you do.
And if I don't know what you do,boom you know one of the
(42:42):
smartest people I know but boom,it goes in the delete file
because I can't process it.
And we get a lot of heat for webeing people in our profession.
We get a lot of heat for notbeing courteous and respectful
and not all these things.
The volume of information weprocess in a single week is very
(43:03):
high and, like you said before,if you post a job, you get
thousands of resumes and youcan't do justice to it all and
so and that's what people don'trealize.
Pete Newsome (43:14):
And this sounds harsh.
This is going to sound harsh.
We're not paid for that right.
We're paid on behalf of clientson, nearly in every case, on a
contingency basis, meaning we'reworking for free until we
deliver the candidate they'regoing to hire.
One candidate, which means andthis is the harsh part every
(43:36):
moment we spend on every othercandidate is a waste of time.
Now we think bigger, we thinkfarther ahead than that.
But it's not our job.
We don't find jobs for people.
We find people for jobs, and Ithink people who aren't familiar
with our industry anyonelistening to this, hopefully is
that that's how we operate.
But I think a lot of candidatesdon't realize that.
(44:00):
They think well, the recruiteris there to help me only to the
degree that it helps himself.
And does that sound kind ofcrude and crass?
Yeah, maybe, but it is areality of the industry that
we're in.
Or you can hire a career coach,and I don't.
That's not necessary for manypeople, but it is an option to
pay someone to give youattention.
(44:20):
That's not the job of a thirdparty recruiter.
Like our staffing recruiter,we're working on our clients'
behalf.
Sioux Logan (44:27):
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't think it's harshbecause I come from the same
side of the business as you.
If I looked at everything thatcame through and spoke to every
single person, I wouldn't have abusiness.
Pete Newsome (44:38):
Yeah, if one of your recruiters tried to go
through a thousand resumes forone job, you would A you'd lose
a job right to your competitoror your client would get tired
of waiting.
Very quickly you would fail andthat's a.
It's frustrating because I knowhow the job seekers perceive it
(44:59):
, because we spend a lot of timethinking about them too, but
it's not ours to fix right.
We don't have the ability tofix that.
Sioux Logan (45:07):
No, and I'll tell you from a timing perspective
that that was an interestingcomment from you we are done.
If we don't come up withcandidates within two days for a
consulting job, we're shot outfor it.
We're really.
I mean, it's fast moving.
They're off and running withpeople from our competitors.
We've got about two days.
And then if it's an FTE role,direct hire role that you're
(45:30):
trying to fill, you're done inseven days probably.
Yes, seven, and that's probablyfive business days of calendar
week.
But five business days If youdon't have candidates in five
business days, it's not going tohappen.
Pete Newsome (45:43):
Yeah, Right, those numbers are perfect.
I'd use the same ones.
And isn't it interesting howyou and I have talked about
quite a few things in the past45 minutes that we've never
talked about before, despite,because most of the time we're
together, we're talking togetherin a group setting and it's
more high level.
But it's interesting how youstarted recruiting in New York.
(46:04):
I started in Florida.
Different kind of businesses,different times.
We weren't that far apartyear-wise I started in 93.
So you were just a few yearslater.
But it's scary almost howsimilar our thinking is as far
as right and true things thatwork, because that's what works.
And I suspect if we went downthe line and talked about things
(46:26):
like references and referrals,we would have very similar
perspective and probablyfrustration that it's not easy
to get buy-in from our teams,even though, which is not really
what we're talking about rightnow.
But I know these things wouldbe tried and true, but it's hard
to convince someone who is usedto instant gratification, right
(46:49):
.
Sioux Logan (46:49):
Yes, yes.
Pete Newsome (46:51):
You have to invest the time in the individual, and
I guess what we're reallyseeing is the right individuals.
Yes, the hard to find they areindeed Okay.
Well, I want to do this.
I promised that we wouldn't beon that long and we're already
at almost 50 minutes and we'renot even in connection with all
the things we're going to talkabout.
(47:12):
Would you be willing to comeback and continue this talk?
Sioux Logan (47:15):
I'd love to.
This is so much fun.
Pete Newsome (47:17):
This is Well.
It's crazy how fast the timecan go, isn't it?
Sioux Logan (47:21):
Yes, I didn't realize we were talking that
long.
Pete Newsome (47:23):
I am.
I try to keep an eye on it.
So I don't If I say we're onlygoing to keep you for this long.
I want to try to adhere to it,but this has been great.
And so if you've listened tothis long and you're a new
recruiter or you're someone whohasn't really listened to what
we'll just call some old, youknow school tried and true ways
(47:44):
of doing things, I hope you'vetaken notes and we'll put it in
our show notes and we'll put thetranscript out there, because I
know how hard it has been forsomeone to go out on their own
which Sioux did in the mostcompetitive market in the world.
I'm in Orlando, florida.
You are in literally the mostcompetitive market in the world,
in Manhattan, and succeeded fora long time.
(48:06):
So you're listening to someonewho really knows their stuff and
I've witnessed that firsthandfor a number of years.
So this has been absolute gold.
Thank you so much for your timetoday.
Sioux Logan (48:16):
You're welcome.
This was great, Pete.
I'll talk to you soon.
Pete Newsome (48:19):
All right, thanks for listening everyone.
We'll be back soon.
I'm going to make Sioux comeback, so we'll see you again.
Sioux Logan (48:26):
Thanks, Pete.
You're listening to the Hire Calling podcast.
I'm Pete Newsome, and my guesttoday is Sioux Logan, founder
and president of RedStreamTechnology.
Sioux, how are you today?
I'm fine, hi Pete, it is sonice to have you.
We've been friends andcolleagues for what?
Four, five years now, andfinally, here we are getting a
chance to talk on camera abouttechnical recruiting today.
Sioux Logan (00:22):
This is so fun.
I love it.
Pete Newsome (00:24):
Well, thanks for doing it.
So RedStream, your company, isheadquartered in Manhattan.
Why don't you just if you wouldjust take a minute to introduce
your background and tell us alittle bit about RedStream?
Sioux Logan (00:34):
Yeah, so I started the company in 2007.
I had been, I started my careeras a technical recruiter and
then I moved into accountmanagement and did business all
over the New York City state,dry state area, New Jersey,
Connecticut.
My client base consisted offinancial services companies.
(00:54):
It consists of big managementconsulting, a lot of smattering
of other other flavors genres,and in 2007, I just thought I
needed a change and I needed totry it on my own.
So I left my job.
I sat down in a second bedroomof my freezing cold apartment in
(01:15):
February, practically wearinggloves, and I sat in front of a
blank screen and said, okay,it's time to mind my non-compete
and dredge up new business.
So it took about.
I had to write out anon-compete and I had to cold
call and I had to do all thereally good old behavior that.
You know what that's like.
Calling people was prior to thedays of LinkedIn, so you had to
(01:40):
try and get phone numbers forpeople and call people and make
people to meet with you.
But after about a year I hadhired a first employee and we
started opening new business andclients were good to me and
introduced me to their teams.
And here we are, 17 years later.
Pete Newsome (01:57):
That's wonderful.
Congratulations on that.
I know what a big step that is.
I'm curious, though what was?
Was there a catalyst for youdeciding to to take the plunge
initially, or was it somethingyou thought about doing for a
long time?
Sioux Logan (02:10):
No, I actually always said I would never own my
own business.
My dad owned a dairydistribution business when I was
growing up and he worked and hewas up really early in the
morning, came home late, heworked weekends, and so I said,
oh, I would actually never,never, never, own a business.
And when I was, a lot of stuffhas changed.
You with my client base.
(02:31):
It was the end of 2006.
And I needed to recreate aclient base that the company I
was working for, industry, hadchanged and we were going to
lose one of our big clientspotentially.
And I got up every day and Iwent to work and I said I really
need to recreate myself, Ireally need to make some cold
(02:51):
calls, I need to find newbusiness.
And I couldn't do it, pete.
I just I love the people Iworked with.
I worked with some of thegreatest people I've ever worked
with in my career, but Icouldn't make myself do it.
And one day it just seemed clearto me that the only thing that
I could get excited about was todo it all over again.
And you know how terrifyingthat is to start a company.
(03:12):
You have no back office, youdon't have no recruiting team,
you can't take your clients withyou because you have a non
compete.
When I did decide to do it, itwas the most freeing, exciting
thing I'd ever decided to do inmy entire career.
I mean, it really was.
(03:32):
Then I have a funny story foryou the when I decided to leave
my company, I came in the next.
I decided on a weekend, that Icame in the next Monday and I
hit seeing.
You remember the movie Borat.
Pete Newsome (03:45):
Of course.
Sioux Logan (03:46):
I had been to the movies and the people knew that
I was a crazy workaholic and Iwas really serious and all that
stuff and telling my coworkersthat.
I had been to see the movieBorat and they're like, huh,
that's really interesting.
And later in the day, when Iannounced that I was leaving,
they were like now I get why youwent to the movies to see Borat
, that's so not you.
You did something fun andanyway so that was it.
Pete Newsome (04:08):
You're great.
You can blame or thank Borat.
Sioux Logan (04:11):
Borat's responsible for me doing this.
Pete Newsome (04:14):
I'm sure you've had this thought, like I have
over the years, that some of thebiggest things you could do in
life having a child, gettingmarried, your profession,
starting a job there's noroadmap for it and the world
doesn't really encourage you togo out on your own.
It's kind of just a secretthing that you have to figure
out on your own by taking thestep.
(04:35):
It's like jumping out of theplane and then figuring out how
to work a parachute Right.
Sioux Logan (04:38):
Yeah, that is true.
Well, I would tell you also,Peter, there were a lot of
people.
I had a couple of months fromthe time I left my job and I
started actually started thecompany.
I was keeping a little bitprivate about what I was going
to do and when I told people, Icannot tell you how many people
tried to scare me.
Pete Newsome (04:55):
You don't want to do this.
Sioux Logan (04:57):
You don't want to worry about the back office
finance.
You don't want to worry aboutrunning payroll.
You don't want to do this.
There's a lot of people who notonly is there not a roadmap,
there's also a lot of people whoare really scared of what you
and I do.
Pete Newsome (05:09):
Yes, and that's okay, I understand.
I'm not going to convince themotherwise, right?
Because you and I both havelearned that it's scarier the
thought of taking the step isscarier than actually taking it.
At least it was for me.
Sioux Logan (05:23):
And.
Pete Newsome (05:23):
I think that's pretty common and I also had
those warnings as well.
A lot of fun right Fear,uncertainty and doubt, Because,
again, the world doesn't reallyencourage you anyone to do that
right.
It's not the safe choice, andyou also find out who your
friends are, don't you?
Oh yeah, you do yeah that's aninteresting comment.
Sioux Logan (05:45):
You do find out who your friends are.
I can't tell you how manypeople, when I was starting the
business, actually took me outto lunch.
You know old contacts, notclients, not violating my
non-compete but you know peoplethat I knew who I said I started
my company.
I can't tell you how manypeople were super kind and
(06:06):
actually said oh, you juststarted a business, Let me take
you out to lunch.
And then there are a lot ofpeople who disappear, Same, Same
.
Pete Newsome (06:13):
Yes, and I never could have predicted who would
have done what in that situation, and it was.
It was so eyeopening and someof the people who I never would
have expected any help from wentout of their way to lend
assistance, and others who Iwould have thought would be
given didn't, didn't really stepup, and so it's a fascinating
(06:35):
thing that you almost have to gothrough that experience to know
what it feels like.
You can't really describe it,but here you are, here I am, we
did it.
Sioux Logan (06:45):
And we're born up.
Now we're not lonely.
We have friends in thisbusiness because we've been at
it long enough.
Pete Newsome (06:51):
Yeah, it's funny that you would mention that word
, because lonely was, was agreat is a great way to describe
it, because one of the thingsthat I missed that was hardest
for me about going on my own wasnot having a manager, not
having anyone to turn to and askfor advice or help, not having
a peer.
Even that, that, that was avery lonely feeling and that
(07:11):
lasted for years for me.
Sioux Logan (07:13):
Yeah, same for years.
And now I think that's one ofthe things I constantly, my own
way, fight against is who are mypeers?
What is my network?
That's how you and I becamefriends, part of professional
networking group.
Who is it that you trust togive you advice?
Where do you find that?
Because you can't go to amanager.
The buck stops with you and Iare doing.
(07:34):
That's right.
Pete Newsome (07:36):
That's right it does, and that's well.
That's a good thing.
I like being an employee too,into some degree.
It'd be nice to have days wherethe buck stops with someone
else, but we're not going tosolve that one today.
We're going to solve some ofthe mystery, which I think is a
lot more tangible, of how torecruit, improve your technical
(07:57):
recruiting, and that's why Iasked you really to come on
today, although I think weshould probably do an episode
about going out on your own tostart a staffing company that,
if you'll come back, that wouldbe, worth happening.
Yeah, we could probably grab acouple of our other friends too
who have similar stories.
But the the market is evolvingrapidly and I'm hoping that we
can share advice and andguidance for those who are
(08:20):
struggling with, and want toimprove at, technical recruiting
.
But what do you think the stateof the market is right now?
How would you describe it?
It's, it's a moving target ofsorts.
Sioux Logan (08:28):
The market's really weird.
I'm glad you asked me thatquestion because I was just
talking to my recruiting teamabout that this morning.
You think back to four yearsago, right at this time, 2020,
when Pandemic was just coming on, we didn't know what was going
to happen, and so I would say,for March on of 2020, it was
(08:51):
gangbusters.
Everybody needed technologypeople, everybody needed
recruiters, everybody.
As soon as we settled into whatthe Business model, the
pandemic was going to be,technology recruiting was
gangbusters.
It was gangbusters all of 2021,all 2020-2010.
Then it started to slow Rightand and I've seen this before I
(09:14):
was through 01, the dot-comcrash.
I was through 0809, which youand I were talking about earlier
, where the financial servicesblew up mortgage, world Mortgage
back securities flew up.
This is, in a lot of ways, nodifferent.
It's not fun.
Particularly, I can look backto 01 or 0809 and I can say,
okay, that wasn't so fun, but I,we came out of it.
(09:37):
We're in that same mode rightnow.
It's difficult.
We have been.
We slowed.
September of 2022, all of 23,was pretty slow for us.
The In 2023, there were stillwe still really, really hard to
find candidates.
(09:57):
That is just started to shiftnow, in the last couple of
months, it's getting a littlebit easier.
We have a time period P wheremy gold standard is you, hiring
manager, give me a jobrequirement.
I'm gonna present you at threevery precise, very targeted
Candidates.
No one's perfect, but as closeto perfect as we're gonna get
(10:17):
we're gonna get.
I'm gonna send you three.
Sure, we're.
In the last few years I waslucky if I could show two and I
was really happy when I had one,and that is starting to ease a
little bit.
We're coming back to the pointwhere we're able to show three
candidates, some of who will dothe hybrid model, whatever those
intangibles that we've beenlooking at for years with
(10:39):
recruiting, where all thosethings stick.
But it's it's a rough marketright now.
Pete Newsome (10:45):
It's a, it's, yeah , it's a market that's hard to
pinpoint exactly what'shappening with it and I think
from Industry to industry itvaries greatly.
Skill set, skill set it variesgreatly market to market.
Geographically it's, it'sreally all over the board.
I I thought Pre-covid we wouldalways be in a candidate's
(11:05):
market and then, and then thingsshifted quickly.
Now I just I wouldn't even knowhow to describe it, but what?
One of the things it's that Ithink we're seeing a lot and
maybe you are too is it?
Candidates aren't?
Well they're.
They're hesitant to change jobsbecause they've seen so many
people jump and then lose theirjob because of a layoff, or
Grass wasn't as green as Ithought.
(11:26):
There were a lot of hugesalaries being thrown out post
COVID.
As we know, that reallyaffected the recruiting industry
in particular, and now Peopleare afraid of.
They don't, and that's thesentiment that I latch on to the
most the general Populationdoesn't trust what's going on in
the market right now.
Sioux Logan (11:43):
Yeah, and they shouldn't, because it's very
strange.
I just I'm trying to Trying tofeed you what it feels like from
the candidate perspective.
You know we, when the market ishot and Chugging along like it
was 2020-21-22, you really hadno idea what candidates were
gonna do.
They had six options.
(12:03):
They had four offers on thetable already, right.
At the same time, it's startingto shift again.
I don't think anybody Feels likethere's nothing out there.
I also feel, pete, like there'sa shift in you.
Look at all the people who workfor big tech companies your
metas, your Google's.
They really staffed up over thelast few years and they snapped
(12:28):
up a lot of good, expensivetalent and now those people are
flooding on the market.
But then, where the jobs are,and also you had your people
going into VC backed startupsthere's a lot of interesting
work going on out there.
That money is dried up so thatpopulation pulls, also feeding
out into the, into the candidatepool.
(12:50):
Well, a lot of those peopledon't necessarily want to go
work for, let's say, a met lifeor a JP Morgan.
They want maybe a tech companyor and I feel like we're in this
place where you go to LinkedInand you do scroll and you see
the green circles and you see somany people saying I've been,
I've sent out a hundred andfifty Applications, I've had no
(13:11):
interviews.
There is a lot of that.
But there's also this shiftwhere I think companies are
starting to realize Okay, I needto be a little more open to who
I'm hiring.
I used to say that, like hires,like financial services
companies hire finance peopleout of financial services.
Insurance companies hire peopleout of a chair.
(13:32):
They like that because theylike the domain knowledge right,
so they love that.
We're coming into a marketwhere I feel like, if we're
going to make that that levelingof Candidate to job opening, we
have to be more open-minded.
Our clients have to be a littlebit more open-minded.
Okay, that guy's out of Google.
(13:52):
He might do extremely well a JPMorgan.
He might be a great fit fromthe past.
I didn't want to look at thatguy because he's only a tech
company guy.
So I think we're coming to thenext six months, in my opinion,
are going to be a I I don't knowa reckoning of Candidates into
what jobs are out there and Idon't think that's a bad thing.
Pete Newsome (14:14):
No, it's, it's not .
It's not.
I don't think it's bad either.
I think it's uncertain and andhard to plan, and that's that's
where I think you know,individuals are struggling,
companies are struggling, bothCompanies like ours who are
doing the staffing, but also ourclients are trying to read the
tea leaves, whether it's whatthey can expect from interest
(14:35):
rates and expect the electionand all that's surrounding that.
I mean this is, you know,global war is going on.
I mean there are so many thingsto Wonder and worry about right
now.
Unfortunately, that means youknow, indecision a lot, and
that's what.
That's what that's bad for us,right?
We don't want that.
(14:55):
We want you confidence in themarket, so it seems to be
trending right.
Some of the numbers are good.
I look at the employment dataconstantly, but right now it
seems to be getting a little bitbetter, albeit slowly.
Unemployment still large.
Inflation is still a bigproblem.
That's not, I don't think, isgoing to go away anytime soon.
(15:17):
So I think our clients aregoing to everyone's going to
need to start increasingsalaries more.
Are you seeing that up in NewYork yet?
Are you seeing prices orsalaries rates going up yet?
Sioux Logan (15:29):
No, I'm not.
I you know and I can give youhistorical.
I have my own historicalanecdotal evidence in my brain.
So it was a terrible year inNew York that lasted into two.
It started in 08,.
09 was terrible.
2010 was bad.
By midway through 2011, we hada massive job swap in New York
(15:51):
city and all the people infinancial services who had not
been bonus for a couple of yearsbecause the market was terrible
.
People lost jobs, whatever.
There was a massive job swap.
People moved all overindustries, but that, if you
think about it, that's two yearsout from the bottom of the
market.
We're not there yet and ifhistory tells us anything, we're
(16:13):
not there yet.
So I think 2024 is not going tonecessarily be a great year for
us.
Pete Newsome (16:21):
Well, you were at the same conference.
I was back in November, wherewe heard a well-known economist
speaking about the year and saidthat it's.
His prediction was that thingsweren't going to pick back up
until the very end of the year,and I think the conference was
in November.
He said about a year from now.
So we're still.
Sioux Logan (16:39):
We still have a long road ahead and yeah, yeah,
but I want to ask in this can wego back to the salary thing for
a second?
So are you feeling likesalaries dipped in the last year
and so you're waiting for it tocome back?
Pete Newsome (16:53):
I think there's a normalization that's going on
right now and that's a strugglebecause every company is looking
considers that to be somethingdifferent for their situation.
So post COVID, we saw a lot ofunnatural hiring big salaries,
limitless flexibility on workingconditions, work wherever you
want.
We're happy to have anyone thatwe can.
(17:14):
We saw it in the recruitingspace.
We saw it in technical jobsalike.
It almost, they almost mirroredeach other.
Because there was so much pentup demand, companies were doing
whatever they had to do, and nowwe've seen the pendulum swing
back, which happens, and so noweveryone's treating it
differently.
(17:34):
Who's making employees workfrom home come back to the
office and who's not?
Who's paying a higher salariesand who's not?
And so, as you know, of course,supply and demand ultimately
will drive everything, andthat's what I think is
normalizing right now.
I think, yeah, the return tooffice policy.
(17:56):
I don't know, but there's gonnabe.
The companies that are moreflexible are going to have a
bigger candidate pool.
The companies that pay more aregoing to have a bigger
candidate pool.
They just have to acknowledgeit.
That's what we haven't caughtup to yet.
Sioux Logan (18:09):
And I think normalization is the exact word,
that's the correct word forthis.
I don't see that.
So I think that the candidatepool is now just starting to
realize that they can't makeendless demands, like I think
that in the last couple ofmonths has just happened and
they're not expecting the moonon salaries anymore, and I don't
(18:30):
feel like my clients havedropped their salaries and rates
.
I definitely don't see that.
I see that they're hangingtight where they were, but they
have more candidates availableto them and candidates are a
little bit more reasonable.
They're like oh yeah, I'll workfor that.
Pete Newsome (18:47):
And that's hard, though, to go backwards.
We don't expect to do that inour professional career.
I had a great conversation witha very experienced recruiter a
couple of days ago and she hadgone to jump for just a giant
salary at one of the techcompanies.
And she came back and now isreal, I have to go back to
normal.
Like her feet are back on theground, but that's hard, I mean,
(19:11):
and the number she was tellingme almost hard to believe.
I mean, I believe them becausewe saw it happening, but almost
100% increase from what she hadbeen making pre COVID, and now
it's coming back to normal.
So that's the hard part,because when you start making a
lot more money, you don't wannago backwards.
Sioux Logan (19:31):
None of us.
Yeah, that's a stark reality.
I'll paint a picture here.
I'll differentiate, that is forsure.
What's going on in recruitingIn technology land.
It's not quite as harsh fortechnical candidates, for
recruiters very painful rightnow.
We lost a recruiter, pete, inJuly of last year and if it had
(19:53):
been the year before and Iposted a job on LinkedIn, I
would have had two applications,neither of which would have
been right.
We had 1200 applications in 48hours and we work remote.
My team is mainly remote, so wegot 1200, it was posted as
remote.
We got 1200 applications in 48hours for a remote recruiting
job.
Pete Newsome (20:13):
That's how much has changed.
Let's talk about that for aminute.
If you can.
How you recruit today, howanyone recruits today, needs to
shift for that reason.
What's your take on the I callit the one click apply disaster
that's happened out there.
Where it's so easy to it,doesn't matter how thorough or
(20:33):
detailed your job description is, how many requirements you put
on, people are going to applyright and there's career coaches
out there saying apply, apply,apply.
I get it.
I understand why, but it'smaking a bad source.
What's your take on all of that?
Is there a way to solve it?
Sioux Logan (20:51):
Your recruiters is second brain.
So what happens as recruitersif you go in?
You come in in the morning andthere's 600 resumes that came in
overnight.
You're going to blink through,do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do
and you're going to get yourfirst 20, you're going to
discard 100, 200 out of thefirst 300, but you're only going
(21:13):
to make it partway throughthose problems.
So it's problematic becauseresume number 422 could be the
perfect one out there and you'renot going to see it because you
know, and we can take this downwith the line of artificial
intelligence and we do we useall these tools that highlight
keywords to us and all thatstuff.
(21:34):
But it is very problematic.
The volume because of the oneclick application, the volume we
get is enormously problematicand that could lead me down a
whole conversation to talk aboutfake resumes and all that also
nonsense that we have to plowthrough when you're looking
through resumes and comparingagainst LinkedIn profiles and
(21:56):
all that stuff.
It's the volume is verydifficult and it's very
fatiguing to recruiter.
Pete Newsome (22:02):
It almost so I never.
We didn't used to run ads yearsago.
This is old school me comingout, where the only way you
could run ads was to do it inthe newspaper.
They're fast in I don't know ifyou ever see weekly that's what
we started using back you knowcontract employment weekly where
you had to have your hat in byThursday at noon or whatever it
(22:23):
was and that it would come outon Monday in the mail and it was
literally a magazine kind oflooking book of just jobs that
were available right In thetechnical space at that time
this was called the engineeringworld back then and I learned to
recruit by being proactive andbecause I didn't know where the
(22:45):
next resume was going to comefrom, and I think that made me a
better recruiter than I wouldbe today, by having a what seems
like a limitless supply ofcandidates but but like you hit
my favorite subject, Pete Newsom.
Oh really.
Sioux Logan (23:00):
You hit my favorite subject.
I'm serious, it's.
You just touched on my favoritesubject.
So I started out as a technicalrecruiter in 1997.
We had a DOS blue screen andsomeone had typed in there COBOL
, cics, all these technicalterms.
We had the ugliest monitor andall this no good gooey, any of
that stuff, and we would sitthere and we would dial and we
(23:23):
had no idea.
We couldn't see a resume.
There were no pretty pictures,there was no anything about
people, it was simply the mostflat.
And it made me a greatrecruiter because you didn't
know and you know what you gotcreative and I it was.
I started recruiting rightbefore Y2K and for those who are
young or watching this, itdoesn't mean a fashion line, it
(23:44):
doesn't mean a type of clothing,it was actually digits in the
mainframe computer.
I asked my 14 year old the otherday if she knew what Y2K was
and that follow up boys versionof Billie Joel's song.
Pete Newsome (23:56):
We didn't know Right, yeah, she's like, do you?
Sioux Logan (23:58):
know Y2K.
She's like a clothing.
I know I was like good answer,that's true, but anyway, but we,
we had a very good habitsbecause we had to.
There was a piece of recruiting.
That's faith.
And and it's the faith to gointo a database and call age,
age or aging resumes Right.
That's one of the things thatmakes it incredibly good
(24:21):
recruiter.
I don't care what year it is,whether it's 1997 or 2024.
Great recruiting habits are notjust waiting to see what comes
in off a job post.
But I had a meeting with myrecruiters this morning and I
said we have three main tools bywhich we technical recruit.
We do our recruiting.
One is our database, which is17 years worth of proprietary
(24:43):
data.
It is resumes that we havescreened.
We don't have tools that justpunt all kinds of resumes from
job boards into our database.
Ours is a hundred thousandpeople curated over 17 years and
, yeah, some of the emails willbe old, some of the phone
numbers will be old, but that'sa.
Your predecessors here atRedstream did that homework for
(25:05):
you and it's proprietary andit's a great place.
But they particularly like tosee LinkedIn and oh, and you
know what I say too, with Peteyou can go to LinkedIn and you
can look when nobody by law hasto have, let's say, jira or
whatever Salesforce on theirLinkedIn profile, but our
(25:27):
recruiters today they want tosee those right on it or they're
not calling them and they'velost that element of faith where
you have to have just some, youknow, just to spend your due to
.
Maybe faith's not the rightword, but you have to suspend
your disbelief.
You have to just go into aphone call not really knowing.
You can't see every last detailof the person's experience.
(25:50):
We didn't have that years agoand it made us be curious.
It made us make phone callsthat we might not have made
otherwise and you find reallygood talent that way.
So you know, our tools are ourdatabases, they are LinkedIn for
sure.
When you go and you we all haveLinkedIn recruiter licenses and
then we have the job post tools.
You post a job on LinkedIn, youpost it on deed.
(26:12):
You get some good stuff thatcomes in off of it but you got a
lot of junk too.
Pete Newsome (26:17):
But I think yeah.
For the first 10 years FourCorner was in business, I don't
think we posted jobs other thanpipeline positions that we just
had often, you know, openingsfor Because I didn't post jobs,
because I didn't have time tofill them that way, right.
(26:37):
It sounds convenient on thesurface.
You post a job, applicants cometo you.
How wonderful is that?
Right Uber Eats right to yourdoorstep.
If I, you know, I've used UberEats enough to know that it's
wrong a lot.
My 18 year old, my high schoolsenior, ordered something on
Saturday night and they left itin our mailbox.
Then he did it for 20 minuteslater and we kind of laughed
(26:58):
about it because they said theyleft it in a safe space, right,
like, I guess?
Like safe.
Sioux Logan (27:02):
That's safe.
Pete Newsome (27:03):
Yeah safe.
Sioux Logan (27:04):
The neighbors aren't taking it right.
Pete Newsome (27:05):
That's safe.
Safe for bugs?
Not at all.
But Henry the dog.
Right, that's right, that'sright.
But if you go to the store, yousee what you want on the shelf,
you grab it.
You're going to get it accurate100% of the time, and so I
never thought that posting ads.
We used to make fun ofcompanies that would post ads.
(27:26):
I would be like they post ads,why would you want to use them?
That's not how we recruit.
We recruit proactively, and oneof the way you learn to recruit
the way I learned to recruit isbecause you didn't know where
that next resume was coming from, so you had to value that
resume to a different degree.
So I'd say, okay, here's SueLogan's resume, and it only
appears that Sue has 50% of thequalifications.
(27:48):
But I'm not going to assume shedoesn't have the other 50%.
I'm going to talk to Sue andask, because, even if you don't,
you're the kind of person whoknows people who do, and if
you're not the right fit forthis job.
I've invested time in you, wherenow I'll know what is the right
fit for you and I'll know whento call you.
Next To me, that's 101.
Sioux Logan (28:10):
Yeah, it is.
Pete Newsome (28:11):
I don't think that happens very often these days.
Sioux Logan (28:14):
Well you're again.
This is my favorite subjectbecause I just did an analysis
last week of where all ourplacements from 2023 came from
and I can see by years in thebusiness how my recruiters stack
out with that, how where theirplacements come from, and my
longest running recruitersreferrals because they use the
(28:37):
database.
They send out a bunch of emailsto people that we know that
we've interacted with in thepast.
Some of those people come backto us and are viable candidates
and sometimes they pass them onto their friends and you get
referrals, you get word of mouth, and then my most junior
recruiters it's a lot of it iswaiting to see what comes in off
the post, or waiting for stuffin off a job post, or simply
(29:03):
LinkedIn searching where theycan see everything that they
think they can see.
Not foolproof.
Pete Newsome (29:08):
Do you think that?
Because I would say the same,but what you just described is
very similar to my experience inthe team at Four Corner.
I don't know that.
Why do you think the teamdoesn't trust the database?
Your internal database is muchbecause, for exactly what you
described a few minutes ago, thenotes are in there from the
past.
That's why we use an applicanttracking system.
(29:30):
If you're a third partyrecruiter, it's not like a
corporate entity uses an ATSright when.
That's more about funneling andscheduling and checking boxes
for legal purposes all of thethings that the corporate, the
talent acquisition team, has toworry about.
For us, it's more about historyand notes and being able to go
back to that hot list of skillsets so we don't have to start
(29:53):
from scratch every time.
You said it perfectly you wantcandidates who you already know.
That's the benefit of thedatabase If you use it correctly
.
Even though Pete may not knowthe candidate directly, sue
knows the candidate.
I know them by association.
That's the benefit.
Sioux Logan (30:13):
I had a conversation.
We're recruiting for a scrummaster right now for one of our
media clients.
I told our recruiting team lastweek in our applicant tracking
system we have a lot of scrummasters from about four years
ago.
We, four or five years ago, wedid a lot of work for one of our
clients, one of my bestrecruiters.
If you go and you look at scrummasters under his name, he's no
(30:35):
longer working for us but youlook for his candidates who are
scrum masters, you're going tofind stellar people because you
have an incredible eye for it.
This is our proprietaryknowledge.
I think it's very simple.
I think people today love theirsocial media and they love
nothing more than to be able toflip through.
(30:56):
It says they're open to work innot necessarily the green
circle, but in their LinkedInprofile.
If it says they're open to workand it changed two weeks ago to
open to work and they can seetheir picture and they can see
where they've been working andthey don't like to have that
suspending your disbelief andgoing, okay, this resume is
three years old, I can't seewhat they've been doing.
(31:16):
They want to see what they'vebeen doing recently.
Good recruiting is not that.
Good recruiting is having somefaith that those candidates that
we've engaged with in the pastare worthwhile.
But it's really difficult toget newer recruiters to see that
because they love to just go toLinkedIn and see.
Pete Newsome (31:35):
You said it earlier, being curious is
necessary.
This is an interestingconversation.
It's a little bit differentdirection than I think we
thought we'd go today, but it'sso necessary because to make
third-party recruiters better,to make staffing recruiters
better, they really need tounderstand that what seems quick
(31:59):
on the surface withapplications right, a thousand
applicants great, I shoulddefinitely find someone in there
.
That's like trying to find theneedle in a haystack, versus
taking a more targeted approachand talking to the people who
know that's what's lost as muchas anything else, where, if I
have a text relationship withyou that may be efficient but
(32:20):
it's not going to be deep, inorder to ask you for a referral
or in order to expect you togive me a referral, I can ask at
any time, right.
In order to expect you to giveme one, I have to invest some
time in you first.
I believe that and I think youprobably do too that I'm going
to get to know you and then, ifwe conclude collectively that
(32:40):
you're not a good fit for thejob, of course I'm going to ask
you for a referral, right?
Why wouldn't I?
I'd be crazy not to.
Sioux Logan (32:46):
It's not a transactional business and I
also you touched on a reallyinteresting thing about texting.
One of the other old schoolbehaviors is the phone call, and
I'm adamant with my recruiters.
You can never discuss moneywith candidates on a text
because it's not a discussion.
You can't understand whatthey're really striving for if
(33:08):
you don't have that conversation.
You can't shoot them a text andsay where are you at with other
jobs you're interviewing for?
Are you close on any offers andinterviews?
They're going to just say no,you need to have conversations.
We're very very good at what wedo, and we're good at what we do
because we have conversationswith people.
It's the only way.
(33:28):
It's the most old school, butman do I love the phone, pete.
Pete Newsome (33:32):
I love the phone.
It's so effective.
I mean, one of the things thatI miss about working in the
office was being able to hearjust half the conversation with
new recruiters and you can justtell once you hone your radar
for this.
You can tell how a conversationis going just by where the
(33:54):
pauses are, the tone, theinflection, the answer to a
question is there a pause ordoes it come openly and directly
Right?
You have to hone it, it's not anatural instinct.
Some people pick it up betterthan others.
This is something I honed overyears and years and thousands
(34:14):
and thousands of conversationswhere I'm sure, like me, you
could hear 30 seconds of a calland know whether a candidate is
interested, is going to bail, iswhatever.
You know.
All you need right.
Sioux Logan (34:29):
I do.
Pete Newsome (34:30):
How can you keep I do?
Is there any way to do that nowthat we're virtual?
Sioux Logan (34:36):
Well, one of the nice things about choosing to go
on camera with people too, isyou can really see the reaction.
That's also a nice thing, butif you're just communicating via
email and text with yourcandidates, it's not enough.
It's not going to get you whatyou need.
Pete Newsome (34:51):
And I'm glad you said that, because that's
something I'm going to bookmark,because that's important,
that's a quote, right, that'swhat we need.
So what advice, then, would yougive to your new recruiter
today?
Let's talk about that a littlebit, because we're sharing some
of these things and I want tomake this our episode, now that
(35:11):
we're going to focus on whereHello Б only new recruiter, if
you're starting out, what arethe core things that a young
recruiter, someone new to thespace, really needs to know that
can help them be better thantheir peers right now?
Sioux Logan (35:27):
I have such a laundry list.
Let me think first.
Number one is you need tolisten to more experienced
recruiters on the phone becauseyou need to learn how they ask
questions with nuance.
Like in New York, we can't asksalaries, we can't ask what
you're currently making.
By law we can't ask that.
It's like that in a lot ofplaces in the country.
(35:49):
So we're working on a role rightnow where we want to ascertain
if people are working on a basesalary plus bonus, and so I
might, with my years ofexperience, say to you I'm going
to ask you a couple ofquestions about compensation.
Let me state here that I'm notasking you what you're currently
making.
I'm going to ask you what isyour target base salary and are
(36:16):
you bonus eligible?
That's language.
That's number one, legal.
Number two correct.
Number three non-intimidatingit's what's your target base
salary?
And in your next role this roleis not bonus eligible Is the
role you're in now, is itcurrently bonus eligible?
So we need to understand how wework with somebody to construct
(36:38):
with their new employer acompensation package that works.
But you don't know how to askthose questions if you don't
know anything about compensation.
So that's number one spendingtime with more experienced
recruiters to learn languageabout around that.
Or when you're talking aboutconsulting I am looking for $80
(37:00):
an hour.
The candidate says I'm lookingfor $80 an hour and you say, ok,
are you at all flexible on that?
My first boss in the industrytaught me to say are you
flexible?
If I get a job that's onlygoing to pay $70 an hour, should
I call you for that?
And now you start to understandwhere they are in their
continuum of what's important oncompensation.
Well, I might.
If it's close to home, maybeI'll work for $70 an hour.
(37:22):
Then you start elicitinginformation from them.
So number one for me would besitting with people with more
experience.
Number two learn to use yourapplicant tracking system.
Going back to the conversationwe had a little while ago, your
applicant tracking system hasnotes on candidates that might
have been in there for 10 years.
Flip back and look at them.
What happened with it?
(37:43):
You saw?
You can see.
Our app, ats, has what jobsthey were submitted to in the
past.
Zip down, have a look.
Ok, we've worked with them fivedifferent times in the last six
years.
That might be a good candidateto re-look at.
So that's number two.
Number three in technologylearn what a fake resume looks
(38:03):
like.
Big one, learn what it lookslike.
Go into LinkedIn, pull up, seewhat your their profile was
created.
Was it in 2023?
Probably not, and they have 16years of experience.
Probably not for real.
Should probably pass on thatperson.
Have a secret methodology.
Talk to you about if you havetime.
Pete Newsome (38:25):
OK, won't be secret if you share it.
Sioux Logan (38:27):
It's not going to be secret, but I'm going to put
this out into recruiter land.
Pete Newsome (38:31):
OK.
Sioux Logan (38:32):
You know, malcolm Gladwell, the writer.
Pete Newsome (38:35):
Yeah, so every read his book, because he has
books behind him, right behindyou in the shelves.
Sioux Logan (38:39):
Did you ever read Blink?
Pete Newsome (38:40):
I did yes.
Sioux Logan (38:41):
So Blink came out Pete the year that I started
Redstream and Blink was a verypivotal book for me and I teach
my recruiters to Blink atresumes.
You know we go back to earliertalking about looking through
1,100 resumes.
Recruiters' brains get fatiguedvery quickly because they want
(39:04):
to look at them and they want toparticularly newer recruiters
they need to read all thecontent.
Pete Newsome (39:10):
Right, their brains are going.
Sioux Logan (39:12):
I don't understand any of that.
I'm not technical.
I must read every line of it.
I don't read resumes when I'mprocessing them, so Gladwell's
concept of Blink is the best.
Decision makers are people whohone their ability to look at
something and extractinformation.
That's really important, andwhat I teach my recruiters to do
(39:34):
is I Blink at it, I look attheir job and so, OK, let me
preface it.
I'm looking for a technicalwriter with a solid amount of
experience I don't like to talkyears of experience, but a solid
amount of experience who theypreferably have worked on AI
projects and they interface withdevelopers, product owners,
technical people.
(39:54):
That's what I'm going intolooking at these resumes for,
You're going to look at the jobtitle, the company name and the
dates the job title, the companyname and the dates.
Job title, company name, dates,boom.
Maybe their education isrelevant to whatever.
But if you do that Blink,you're quick to see OK, oh wait,
(40:15):
that person's actually onlybeen a technical writer for six
months, but all the jobs beforewere teaching pre-K, right, I
mean.
And then how the questionbecomes how did you get to be a
technical writer and is thatperson going to have, with six
months of experience, going tohave enough experience to work
for your client.
(40:36):
The answer is no, but aninexperienced recruiter is going
to go oh wow, but this personactually has AI.
They have AI, they were a techwriter with AI, so they're right
, whereas they're not seeing thewhole picture.
They're not seeing it.
So it's a technique that Iteach my recruiters you can
ingest and process a lot moreinformation in a lot shorter
(41:00):
time than you think you can.
A lot of very usefulinformation if you hone that
Blink skill.
Pete Newsome (41:06):
I love it.
That's great, and you knowwhat's so great about it, sue,
and I'm going to use this, ifyou don't mind, or for job
seekers as well, because I thinkthat is who needs to know that.
That is how a good recruiterlooks at a resume.
I've never explained it thatway.
You have that's such a greatway to look at it.
But the premise is the same.
I talk about reading headlines.
(41:26):
You're in a checkout line atthe grocery store and you see
People Magazine or whatever themagazines are today.
I'm probably dating myself.
I don't even know if peoplestill publish as a brand.
Sioux Logan (41:37):
I think it does.
Pete Newsome (41:37):
They put the big headlines because they want to
grab your attention.
So the message I always givethe candidates is make it easy
for the recruiter to know whoyou are and what you do, and if
you create a resume with that inmind, all the other garbage
that you see is reallyirrelevant, because that is how
a good recruiter looks at aresume and as much as anything
(41:59):
else.
That's all the time you have tolook at a resume.
You can't you don't readsomeone's paragraph of what they
you know their life story ortheir education, you may?
I mean once you're out of schoolfor some short period of time,
right?
Who cares?
There's no cares, right?
But you look at the highlightsand that's what you just
described.
I love it.
Sioux Logan (42:19):
But that is such good advice.
I advise candidates the verysame thing.
When I'm working withcandidates who are and I get
referred a lot of people andI'll go through their resume and
I said to somebody veryrecently I'm bogged down, I
can't read it, I can't processit.
We need to reformat your resumebecause it's so text heavy that
I don't know what you do.
And if I don't know what you do,boom you know one of the
(42:42):
smartest people I know but boom,it goes in the delete file
because I can't process it.
And we get a lot of heat for webeing people in our profession.
We get a lot of heat for notbeing courteous and respectful
and not all these things.
The volume of information weprocess in a single week is very
(43:03):
high and, like you said before,if you post a job, you get
thousands of resumes and youcan't do justice to it all and
so and that's what people don'trealize.
Pete Newsome (43:14):
And this sounds harsh.
This is going to sound harsh.
We're not paid for that right.
We're paid on behalf of clientson, nearly in every case, on a
contingency basis, meaning we'reworking for free until we
deliver the candidate they'regoing to hire.
One candidate, which means andthis is the harsh part every
(43:36):
moment we spend on every othercandidate is a waste of time.
Now we think bigger, we thinkfarther ahead than that.
But it's not our job.
We don't find jobs for people.
We find people for jobs, and Ithink people who aren't familiar
with our industry anyonelistening to this, hopefully is
that that's how we operate.
But I think a lot of candidatesdon't realize that.
(44:00):
They think well, the recruiteris there to help me only to the
degree that it helps himself.
And does that sound kind ofcrude and crass?
Yeah, maybe, but it is areality of the industry that
we're in.
Or you can hire a career coach,and I don't.
That's not necessary for manypeople, but it is an option to
pay someone to give youattention.
(44:20):
That's not the job of a thirdparty recruiter.
Like our staffing recruiter,we're working on our clients'
behalf.
Sioux Logan (44:27):
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't think it's harshbecause I come from the same
side of the business as you.
If I looked at everything thatcame through and spoke to every
single person, I wouldn't have abusiness.
Pete Newsome (44:38):
Yeah, if one of your recruiters tried to go
through a thousand resumes forone job, you would A you'd lose
a job right to your competitoror your client would get tired
of waiting.
Very quickly you would fail andthat's a.
It's frustrating because I knowhow the job seekers perceive it
(44:59):
, because we spend a lot of timethinking about them too, but
it's not ours to fix right.
We don't have the ability tofix that.
Sioux Logan (45:07):
No, and I'll tell you from a timing perspective
that that was an interestingcomment from you we are done.
If we don't come up withcandidates within two days for a
consulting job, we're shot outfor it.
We're really.
I mean, it's fast moving.
They're off and running withpeople from our competitors.
We've got about two days.
And then if it's an FTE role,direct hire role that you're
(45:30):
trying to fill, you're done inseven days probably.
Yes, seven, and that's probablyfive business days of calendar
week.
But five business days If youdon't have candidates in five
business days, it's not going tohappen.
Pete Newsome (45:43):
Yeah, Right, those numbers are perfect.
I'd use the same ones.
And isn't it interesting howyou and I have talked about
quite a few things in the past45 minutes that we've never
talked about before, despite,because most of the time we're
together, we're talking togetherin a group setting and it's
more high level.
But it's interesting how youstarted recruiting in New York.
(46:04):
I started in Florida.
Different kind of businesses,different times.
We weren't that far apartyear-wise I started in 93.
So you were just a few yearslater.
But it's scary almost howsimilar our thinking is as far
as right and true things thatwork, because that's what works.
And I suspect if we went downthe line and talked about things
(46:26):
like references and referrals,we would have very similar
perspective and probablyfrustration that it's not easy
to get buy-in from our teams,even though, which is not really
what we're talking about rightnow.
But I know these things wouldbe tried and true, but it's hard
to convince someone who is usedto instant gratification, right
(46:49):
.
Sioux Logan (46:49):
Yes, yes.
Pete Newsome (46:51):
You have to invest the time in the individual, and
I guess what we're reallyseeing is the right individuals.
Yes, the hard to find they areindeed Okay.
Well, I want to do this.
I promised that we wouldn't beon that long and we're already
at almost 50 minutes and we'renot even in connection with all
the things we're going to talkabout.
(47:12):
Would you be willing to comeback and continue this talk?
Sioux Logan (47:15):
I'd love to.
This is so much fun.
Pete Newsome (47:17):
This is Well.
It's crazy how fast the timecan go, isn't it?
Sioux Logan (47:21):
Yes, I didn't realize we were talking that
long.
Pete Newsome (47:23):
I am.
I try to keep an eye on it.
So I don't If I say we're onlygoing to keep you for this long.
I want to try to adhere to it,but this has been great.
And so if you've listened tothis long and you're a new
recruiter or you're someone whohasn't really listened to what
we'll just call some old, youknow school tried and true ways
(47:44):
of doing things, I hope you'vetaken notes and we'll put it in
our show notes and we'll put thetranscript out there, because I
know how hard it has been forsomeone to go out on their own
which Sioux did in the mostcompetitive market in the world.
I'm in Orlando, florida.
You are in literally the mostcompetitive market in the world,
in Manhattan, and succeeded fora long time.
(48:06):
So you're listening to someonewho really knows their stuff and
I've witnessed that firsthandfor a number of years.
So this has been absolute gold.
Thank you so much for your timetoday.
Sioux Logan (48:16):
You're welcome.
This was great, Pete.
I'll talk to you soon.
Pete Newsome (48:19):
All right, thanks for listening everyone.
We'll be back soon.
I'm going to make Sioux comeback, so we'll see you again.
Sioux Logan (48:26):
Thanks, Pete.
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