Tips for Recruiting Top Candidates and Keeping Employees Around with Stafflink Solutions' Tim Collins

Master cyclist and longtime PEO member, Tim Collins, joins Leon Goren on the Snippets podcast to talk about the world of recruiting - now in the period of looking beyond the pandemic. Tim is the CEO and founder of Stafflink is a boutique IT staffing company in Toronto, Canada, which helps companies hire mobile web developers, project managers, data analysts and IT staff.
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Episode Transcript

Leon Goren (00:00):
Special thanks to Cleveland Clinic for helping us

(00:02):
bring you today's PEOleadership's Snippet podcast.
Welcome to our snippets podcast.
I'm Leon Goren, CEO andpresident of PEO leadership,
North America's premierpeer-to-peer network and
leadership advisory firm. Today,we welcome Tim Collins,
President, founder of staffingsolutions and longtime member

(00:22):
PEO leadership. Tim foundedstaff link solutions almost 20
years ago, and has built it intoone of the great it recruiting
firms in the country. He's anincredible athlete, and was an
amazing runner before weintroduced him to cycling, many
years back in the town of BlueMountains at a race called the
cinterion race. Now, I wanteverybody to think about this.

(00:44):
Because I'll never forget themoment Tim shows up to the race
to that time. And this is maybeeight, nine years ago, with his
mountain bike and ready to gofor his first 25 kilometer race.
Now I have to say today, myadvice to you, you certainly
don't want to be racing up anymountain with him. Because the
only site you'll see and onlyfor a short period of time will

(01:05):
be the back of his shirt. Tim,it's great to have you with us
today.

Tim Collins (01:11):
Thanks, Leon.

Leon Goren (01:13):
I don't know what gets you an incredible athlete.
I

Tim Collins (01:16):
you put us to shame on you taught me everything I
know about cycling. So yeah.

Leon Goren (01:23):
Alright, let's talk about people in recruiting. And
I'm going to take us back tomarch 2020. Pre pandemic. And
hindsight today, back then ifyou and I were talking, and we
just pandemics coming. Bigsurprise for you today where
we're sitting compared to whatyou thought we'd be sitting.

Tim Collins (01:44):
Yeah, last March, I mean, everything just all hiring
froze for months. I didn't knowif we would be a company. A year
later, we had to double down ontraining for all of our people.
We built up our database, westarted to pipeline candidates
and, you know, improve ourprocesses for when things came

(02:07):
back. We were hopeful. And sureenough, they came back. And in
our industry, we're veryfortunate because people can
work from home and we'regrateful. And it's led us to be
able to triple in size over thelast 12 months. Yeah, it really,
it. It's really exploded. And soyou know, for our audience, we

(02:31):
think about are out thererecruiting everyone typically
has some IT department withintheir organization. What's the
landscape look like today interms of trying to find the
right talent? Yeah, it's it'svery competitive. We're seeing
people with four to five offers,there was a study done recently,

(02:52):
and the US were a Java, Javadevelopers have between five and
seven offers to choose from whenthey're getting jobs. So we're
having to coach our clients ontheir processes and hiring.
Because if your process was towait a month to hire from the
resumes to hire, you're going tolose the candidates. So we're

(03:15):
coaching people, you know, five,five to 10 business days at the
most. And even at that you'vegot to be competitive. And then
you've also got to think howyou're going to retain those
people once you get them onboard. Because it's so
competitive, and retaining them.
So it's moving very quickly.

(03:35):
But on the positive side, ifyou're an employer and you're
trying to do hiring, you've gota much wider scope, because if
they can work remotely, you canget top developers from places
like Saskatchewan, Prince EdwardIsland, all across Canada. And
we've we've had those successeswhere we've been able to place
people from places that wouldn'tnormally because because they

(03:57):
can work remotely.

Leon Goren (04:00):
So it's it's actually I coming out of
diversity and inclusion sessiontoday with Kim Scott. And we
didn't really talk about in herbook, she talks about hiring
right. And you're talking aboutcompressing the hiring process
today because it's socompetitive. She talks about
expand, not expanding it buthaving multiple people do the

(04:20):
interviews. Right. So we'recovering that. Are you seeing
that in your environment? Yeah,for sure. We see. And I think
that's good because you get muchmore I'm sure she talked about
objectivity right and havingbecause different people are
going to be influenced eventhough subconscious

Tim Collins (04:37):
bias that you get, you know, if I interview a
cyclist, you know, I might bemore inclined to like that
person, even though they mightnot be as qualified as somebody
else. Or I might talk to them alittle bit differently. So we
are seeing that and you'll get amore diverse workforce by doing
that, and the great thing aboutyou know, remote work is you do

(04:58):
have access to it.
it. a much broader group ofpeople, and your company will be
more she talked about this, yourcompany will be more successful
if you can create a more diversegroup of people, you have
diverse thoughts, and you'llhave diverse attitudes towards
new products, and it reallyhelps your organization in the

(05:19):
long run.

Leon Goren (05:21):
The other thing that, you know, concerns me is
every touch about inflation. Butin your world today, in the
technology side, the wages areyou seeing that escalate? Like,
I don't know, what would be thedifference today, if I was
hiring an individual compared toa year ago is a jump 10% 15%

(05:41):
person's getting seven offers,oh my god, how am I going to
compete?

Tim Collins (05:45):
Yeah, and, and it is a bit crazy. And, and then if
you're a startup, sometimesthey'll overpay from, say, a
fortune 500 company, becausethey feel like they need to, or
they have that money. Butthere's always the unique skill
set that's over, that's going tobe overpaid. So that whether
it's a supply and demand typething, right? So there's the

(06:06):
newest things around machinelearning and artificial
intelligence, right. So peoplethat have those kinds of skills
right now are really in demand.
People that have, you know,certain technologies that are,
you know, the audience might notwant me to list all the
different technologies, butthere's certain things that over
the years are always going togive people that 10% to your
point. But you know, there tocompete right now, sometimes

(06:31):
it's not always all salary, youhave to have bonuses to compete
in technology, because mosttechnology professionals are
getting a 10 to 15% bonus on anannual basis. And you know, it's
it's subjective to you know, howthe company does and how they
do. But that's what we're seeingnow, companies that don't have

(06:51):
that, it's really tough tocompete, if you don't have
health benefits, you can'tcompete, they need to have the
three weeks vacation. So youhave to look as an employer,
what are some of the things Ican do that are outside the
salary as well, that are goingto end? What are the types of
projects that I can offer tothese people, you need to be
able to show them the roadmap ofwhat they're going to be

(07:14):
involved in, you know, it's likerecruiting a star athlete
almost, you know, these peoplereally have a pick of where they
want to go.

Leon Goren (07:22):
So on that note, and we talked about it, and it's,
it's coming to light now, right?
Working at home versus workingin the office. In the tech
worlds, I think you got Shopifysaying, We don't need to be in
the office, people can work fromhome, Google recently announced.
So the CEO said, No, everybodywill be coming back to the
office. And I think more than 12days away, you need written

(07:45):
permission to actually do this.
Is it a benefit? When you'rerecruiting today? What are you
hearing? What do people want?

Tim Collins (07:54):
I think Google can do what they want, and they're
gonna get people, but noteverybody's Google, right. So
what we're hearing is candidatesare saying and these
anecdotally, but you know, overhundreds of people that we've
interviewed in the last month, Iwould say about 80 90% of them
are saying, I want the option towork from home. And so when

(08:15):
you're saying to people, ifyou're saying if you're an
employer, and you're saying topeople, you need to come into
the office three days a week,five days a week, you're going
to shrink your talent pool thatyou're trying to get. And we've
actually had a number of peopleturn down offers where employers
have said, you need to come tothe office for three days a

(08:36):
week, even, not even five days.
So I think what you have to lookat as an employer and I, when
I'm going through this myself,you know, we've all gotten
leases, we've got spaces, and wethink, well, we need to use
those spaces. But think abouthow you need to use them
strategically. Do you need tohave everybody there five days a
week? Can you do it in? Youknow, Justin times type

(08:58):
situation once a week? You know,I think a lot of the banks and
the big financial institutionsare looking at it going, Okay,
we're gonna rotate peoplethrough and give people the
option. There are some peoplethat want to be in the office,
right? If you had depending onyour family circumstance at
home, or where you're living,you know, they want to go into
the office, but there's they'redefinitely a small small

(09:20):
minority those folks.

Leon Goren (09:24):
Wow, that's, that's, that's actually really
interesting. It's a big fear foreveryone, right? We just don't
know, what's going to berequired when we come back to
the office. And when people comeback, add the recruiting element
here, and it's even moredifficult. What about I mean,
with all this going on retentionmust be a huge issue, too. And

(09:44):
hanging on to people, even inyour environment. I mean, you
talked a little bit about theculture staff link. What are you
doing to keep your peoplebecause I'm sure they're in high
demand as well.

Tim Collins (09:54):
Right. It's it's you know, the turnover in in
staffing is people are generallyless Less than a year, they stay
with a staffing company. So youhave to do and you've invest a
lot. By the time you getsomebody up and running, it's,
you know, six months. So whatwe've done a few things over the
years to build that culture. AndI think over the last 15 years,

(10:15):
there's three things that sortof stand out that we've done
that really helped us. And Istole one of these from you,
Leon, but the off site meetings,you know, I went with PEO to an
off site meeting, and I saw thebonds that were formed there,
and the relationships that youdevelop outside of the actual
workplace. So when you come backto the workplace, you have those

(10:38):
friendships and relationships.
And it's the same thing with ourcompany. You know, we did things
like The Amazing Race, and weput people on teams, and they
were in canoes and paddle paddleboats, and they had to go around
Fern resort or Blue MountainResort, or wherever it was

Leon Goren (10:55):
actually, on your LinkedIn page, Tim, I see the
picture that looks like an offsite retreat, you got your team
up there,

Tim Collins (11:01):
that segues on segways. That's right, that
segues Blue Mountain. So it's a,we did these things, and many of
the people had never done them.
Some of them were afraid to dothat. But then they do them
together. And they solveproblems together outside of the
office, and you have meetings.
And the thing I learned as well,from PEO is that if the one

(11:25):
person's talking the whole time,it's not effective. So when I do
these retreats, we get everybodyto talk about their area of
expertise. And so it empowersthat group so that our off site
is the one thing that we do. Thesecond thing is we go to the CPA
ski day, which I think you mayhave attended with us, it's a

(11:48):
fundraiser for people that can'tski that have a disability. And
it gives them that opportunity.
But we take our team thereovernight. And it's an annual
thing we've done for a decade,and people really bond there.
And then the last thing we do isprofit. Sure. And so that's not
the only last thing, but thosethree things combined together.
I was thinking about it theother day, we haven't had

(12:10):
anybody leave in five years fromour company. Fantastic. And we
give Apple Watches after fiveyears.

Unknown (12:22):
Wow.

Tim Collins (12:25):
I love it.

Leon Goren (12:26):
I love it. Tim, I want to thank you so much for
sharing some of these insights.
I mean, they're just great. AndI know a lot of members and
those in the community listeningwill find some real gold nuggets
here especially that we're allfaced with retaining hiring and
thinking about this whether it'ssimply in the IT industry or
elsewhere. So I reallyappreciate you doing this with

(12:49):
us today. Thank you Thanks Leonreally appreciate it. If you're
interested in any of our livewebcasts the way forward live
and and or any other snippetsplease take a moment and visit
us at p OE dash leadership commyou'll find on our site various
previous recorded webcasts,which include guests such as
Professor Janice Stein,Harvard's, Rosabeth Kanter,

(13:10):
Michael Beer, Rob Chestnut, Dr.
Greg Wells, Jason Selk,Mitchell, golf, and many more.
We cover such topics such asMental Health Leadership, the
world reset, reset and a host ofother others. Thank you for
joining us today and we lookforward to seeing you again
shortly.