October 27, 2023 • 19 mins
What does it mean to be an entrepreneur? Being the founder of a startup can be a daunting task, and to break down these challenges we have Adam Couch, Vice President of Global Sales at Oleeo and Tawfiq Abu-Khajil, Co-Founder of Eqo. The discussion draws attention to the trends at HR Tech, focusing on AI and people analytics. Oleeo's contribution to high volume recruitment and financial services is highlighted, along with Eqo's effort to transform the frontline workforce into a potent hiring unit.
The conversation gets heated by digging into challenges faced by startups and the essence of maintaining a positive and resilient attitude. We also discuss the value and impact of employee referrals, the importance of having an easy referral experience, and the crucial nature of persistence for any startup entrepreneur.
This is a special mini series recorded with Oleeo at HR Tech 2023 with hosts Ryan Leary, Brian Fink, and Shally Steckerl.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian Fink (00:07):
Hey everybody, welcome back to RecruitingDaily
Sourcing School.
We are live and in charge of HRTech here in Las Vegas.
We are in the Talent AcquisitionContent Lounge.
We are powered by Oleeo, DataDriven Automation Recruitment,
and I am joined by my esteemedcolleague, the godfather of
sourcing, Shally Steckerl.
(00:28):
Yeah, he's over there.
That applause is for me.
You hear the applause?
People are excited about that.
Uh, we've got two guests on themic that are rocking the
microphone with us.
We've got Adam from the team atOleeo.
Adam, say hello to the goodpeople.
Hey, hey, hey.
All right, that's a hey, hey,hey to the good people.
And we are joined by Tafik, whoI met about a year ago at
another event at TalentAcquisition Week.
(00:51):
He is here with his new startup,which is aiming to solve a
critical problem in the talentacquisition and retention
marketplace with Echo.
Tafik, what's going on?
What's up, what's up?
All right, all right.
Let's do it.
To get this party started, uh,quickly, right, um, I want to
know, what are you guys seeingon the floor?
(01:12):
What's the vibe today?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (01:14):
Yeah, I think biggest vibe today is a lot more
folks on the floor, both from anemployer standpoint and then
from a buyer standpoint,practitioners.
So really that's giving, uh, youknow we chatted about this a
second ago, giving a really goodindication of hopefully where
the market's going, uh, upwards,more folks, more interest in
(01:35):
technology and solutions.
The big word, AI, all around,um, but yeah, a lot of folks
compared to last year for sure.
Activity, buzz.
Adam Couch (01:45):
Yeah, I'm like you, I always call this the biggest
recruiting event for the, forthe vendors, right?
You come here and you changejerseys and you show up the next
year with a different team logoon.
Yeah.
But this year there's actuallyfolks that are looking to buy,
um, more practitioners as yousaid, that I've seen.
Um, and then I think last yearwas all about, it's AI again
this year, AI was big last year,but you go around, it's a lot of
(02:05):
people analytics now.
Look at the booth that Vizierhas right when you walk in,
right?
It's probably the biggest boothhere.
And so I see people analytics asa kind of one of the hot topics
this year.
Brian Fink (02:15):
Alright, so as we're talking about analytics and
we're talking about data, thatkind of gives a good segue for
both of you to kind of tell, togive like a 15 second snapshot
of who you are and what you guysdo.
Who wants to go first and tellus a little bit about what their
use case is?
Adam Couch (02:28):
Yeah, so at Oleeo, we help organizations source,
recruit, and hire, applicanttracking, CRM, and events
management solution, and reallyour focus is on high volume
recruitment and then financialservices industry.
So organizations like Amazon useus globally for their physical
stores or somebody like Bank ofAmerica for their early careers.
So if you have a problem withvolume, call Oleeo.
(02:50):
Awesome.
Brian Fink (02:51):
Alright, now, this is the startup pitch.
This is the man, the myth, thelegend coming at it.
He is challenging over here,Adam, who has, they have 30
years in the space.
Tawfiq, what do you got?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (03:02):
Yeah, Adam's absolutely awesome, learning
from him every day.
Um, so I'm Tawfiq, and cofounder of Echo.
And what we do is we helporganizations with a frontline
workforce transform word ofmouth into their biggest hiring
superpower.
Right, typically organizationsstruggle with two things when it
comes to referrals on thefrontline.
(03:22):
One is employee adoption andengagement.
A very, very small percentage ofthe workforce even knows about
the referral program.
And that's usually the biggestworkforce with challenges and
struggle to hire for.
Nurses, warehouse associates,truck drivers.
And the second thing we'resolving is, you'll be surprised,
a lot of large organizations, 30people organizations, still
(03:45):
track referrals on aspreadsheet, taking a lot of
hours and admin time wasted, anddouble payments and missed
payments for these types ofemployees.
So we're saying, we're comingout with a solution.
That makes it very simple forthe frontline employee to refer
someone, hence increasingadoption and engagement, and at
the same time, eliminating anymanual referral tracking for the
admin side.
(04:06):
Alright, so...
So you're deputizing yourfrontline workers to being like
many recruiters.
Absolutely.
And they are.
They're really awesome.
They know a lot of folks aroundthem that can work the same job
they can.
But they don't know a referralprogram exists at their company,
and this is where we step in.
Brian Fink (04:19):
Alright, so when I hear frontline workers, I
immediately go to COVID, and Iimmediately think of people who
were essential workers, likenurses.
Use case?
Not a use case?
Am I completely off base?
What's going on?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (04:30):
That is the biggest use case.
Frontline includes nurses,anyone in healthcare that's not
sitting behind a desk, alliedhealth, technologists, etc.
Delivery.
Delivery.
Uh, retail is a big one.
Hospitality is a huge one.
So it's really within the areathat Oleeo as well operates in.
Brian Fink (04:47):
Alright, so you talk about hospitality.
I know that there was a jobsreport that came out last week
on the, on October the 6th.
In that report, they cited thatthere were 335, 000 jobs that
were created.
Of those 335, 000 jobs, most ofthem were in frontline work.
How many of those people do youthink should have been referrals
(05:08):
as opposed to a cold sourcehire?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (05:10):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think a healthy recruitingorganization on the frontline
should be doing at least 40 to45 percent of their hires coming
through referrals.
The problem is today when wespeak to these organizations,
most of them are doing referralsaround the 8 to 15 percent mark.
You're like, why?
It's because our employees don'tknow about it, or they can't get
(05:32):
in, they can't log in, theydon't want to do it, and then
you'll be surprised.
So to answer your question, it's45 percent at least should come
through referrals.
Adam Couch (05:40):
And hey, Tafik, are you guys relating this back to
retention and quality of hire aswell?
Because as we all know,referrals are the best source.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (05:47):
Yeah.
Absolutely, that's where we leadwith, we say, hey look, your
goal as director or VP of TA isto attract talent efficiently,
reduce turnover, and reduce yourtime to hire.
If you, if you just look at yourdata alone, right, referrals
give you those three.
So only if an organization looksat their own data, they say, oh
referrals actually stay longer,they are faster to hire, and
(06:10):
they're just awesome hires.
Okay, why don't you double downon those, and that's what we're
leading with for sure, Adam.
Adam Couch (06:16):
Cool, man, I think it's awesome.
I met you two years ago.
You were at the startup boothsomewhere else.
Yeah.
And now you've learned a lot,and you've come full circle now
doing it yourself, man.
Keep rocking, brother.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (06:26):
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Brian Fink (06:29):
Hold on.
Am I there?
I'm live.
Okay.
All right.
I'm still talking to a littlemusic.
I know.
I was like, I was like, yeah, Iknow.
I'm like, don't stop believing.
All right.
So, so we've got, we've got thatuse case, uh, particularly for
frontline workers, but youmentioned the retention or Adam,
you mentioned the retentionvariable and the goodness and
the.
Quality of hire.
How are we measuring quality ofhire so that we can say a
(06:51):
referral is more, is a betterquality hire than a cold sourced
or a regular, or a cold sourcedapplicant?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (06:58):
Yeah, great question.
I think the biggest number thatcompanies are measuring this
with today is, uh, retention.
So, for them, again, it could becausation or correlation, so we
still don't know, but for themis if an employer, if an
employee stays longer, they're abetter quality of hire.
You do have more sophisticatedorganizations who actually look
at performance reviews.
(07:19):
And they have a rating for everyemployee and say, okay, let's
see our referrals.
Are they actually performingbetter compared to non
referrals?
And they're also reading thattoo.
Shally Steckerl (07:27):
Yeah, I mean, cause just longevity alone is
not really...
Yep.
You could be hiding.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (07:31):
Yeah, absolutely.
And that never happens inorganizations.
Shally Steckerl (07:34):
No, no, nobody ever hides in, yeah, large
organizations.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (07:37):
Yeah.
Ever.
Yeah, they're downstairs andthey want to know where their
stapler is,
Shally Steckerl (07:40):
right?
But, but, but, but, somebodymove my stapler.
Brian Fink (07:43):
Somebody move, yeah, yeah, mhm.
Alright, so, uh...
The other thing is, I know thatthere are a lot of people who
are going to listen to thispodcast that are recruiters who
are thinking that they have thatentrepreneurial spark to go
forth and to start their owncompany, whether it's their own
agency or it's HR tech.
As an entrepreneur, how do youstay motivated every day?
(08:05):
Because you hear the word know alot, just like recruiters hear
the word know a lot.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (08:11):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think, you know, going fromzero to one, and I'm sure Adam
knows this being at differentstartups as well, going from
zero to one is one of thebiggest and hardest challenge
time of a startup.
You're really looking for yourfirst five to ten customers that
are going to believe in you asan individual and as a team and
say, okay, I'm going to trustthis person to work with him and
give them a shot.
(08:31):
Um, motivation's good, but Idon't think it gets you to where
you want to go.
I really think it's just beingdisciplined and controlling what
you could control.
And really trying to not thinkof things that you can't
control.
So actually, my co founders andI did this list.
I said, hey, here's what we cancontrol during the week.
We can control how many emailswe send.
(08:52):
We can control how many coldcalls we make.
We can control what energy webring to the demos.
We can control qualified,disqualifying folks.
We can control building a greatproduct, doing great customer
service.
Here's what we can't control.
We can't control people ignoringus.
We can't control budget cuts.
We can't control people beingrude on the call.
And every time we have asituation where something
happens, I look at this list andsay, is this something I can
control?
(09:12):
I can't control.
If I can't, I just leave it.
Okay, on to the next one.
Uh, but it's really hard and Ialways say just one domino at a
time is what we're focusing on.
One domino at a time.
Brian Fink (09:21):
Is that the same advice that you would give to
recruiters who are...
You know, cold calling can, or,okay, cold calling, I actually
mean picking up the phone andgetting on the phone.
Is that the same type of advicethat you'd give them?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (09:31):
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I mean, if I cold call Adamtoday and Adam gives me like,
no, you know, stop calling me,closes the phone in my face, I
call you next, right?
If I bring that energy fromAdam's call to yours, and I have
this like, you know, downenergy, like, hey, Brian, how's
it going?
You're not going to feel it, butyou're not going to know that I
had a bad conversation withAdam, so why miss the
opportunity with you?
(09:52):
Just because I had a bad callpreviously, so, that's the
biggest advice I give torecruiters.
Or really anyone, just, youknow, keep going, play the long
term game.
And you know, Brian, you're bestat this, building your brand in
this space.
Brian Fink (10:02):
Well, I was going to say, I'm sitting across the
table from somebody who inspiredme to kind of take the brand to
the next level.
So, uh, Shally, you got anythoughts on that?
Shally Steckerl (10:11):
Well, my secret to that has always been that
when you run into something likethat, when you run into a
negative call, is um, Makeanother call, but not a call
that has any expectations.
So, I usually refer to my, youknow, the easiest way to do it
is refer to your LinkedIn inbox,and find somebody that's sent
(10:32):
you a connection request, andjust reach out to that person
and be like, Hey, I got yourconnection request, you know,
let's, let's chat.
What do you do?
Here's what I do.
There's no, there's no negativeoutcome from that, right?
So at least it gets you back onthe, you know, And if you're, if
you're ending on a positivenote, because you don't have any
expectation that you're gonnaclose the deal, and there's no
(10:54):
possibility that they're gonnareject you, so at least you can
kinda, you know, get back up onthe bike.
Yeah, I wanna say just sort oferase the negativity, take a
step back from the keyboard,take a break, and come back, but
yeah, definitely don't pick upthe phone and.
Make that next call with thatnegative attitude, that just,
that's not gonna work.
You gotta reset somehow, butthat's my secret weapon, is just
(11:18):
call someone with noexpectation.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (11:19):
Yeah, I agree.
I heard this the other day, islike, when you call someone,
call to disqualify them, not toqualify them.
And ever since I heard that, itjust stuck in my head.
So if you're calling someone,you want to disqualify them,
like, Hey, how's it going?
You have 20 seconds in my eye,call.
Nope, cool, disqualify.
Or yes, awesome, you know.
Just quick question, do you havean employee referral program
today?
(11:40):
Um, no, they're disqualified.
Awesome, have a great day.
And like, you want to justdisqualify them and get to the
qualified one.
Adam Couch (11:46):
My wife tried to disqualify me 25 years ago.
She called, but it didn't work.
How many times?
Yeah,
Brian Fink (11:53):
not
Adam Couch (11:53):
enough, not enough.
She's still trying.
Yeah, yeah.
So, Tafiq, hey, tell us whereyou are in the life cycle of the
business.
Kind of where, are you inversion 1, are you in beta?
Kind of where are you guys at?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (12:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
So, we've been, you know,working on this for about 10
months now, we've been full timefor about 7 months today.
Um, over the past 7 months,we've chosen 6 to 7 enterprises
that they helped us build andshape the product.
So even from like literallyprototypes to sketches to just
going up and beyond.
(12:23):
And very soon here, we've justrecently launched our V1.
Uh, we are fully enterprise, sosecurity, SOC 2, all that,
getting it out of the way, ofcourse.
But we're launching with these 67 enterprise customers and
helping them really transformtheir employee referral program.
That's awesome.
Yep.
Brian Fink (12:39):
About transforming the employee referral program, I
want to go back to something yousaid at the very beginning about
spreadsheets, right?
Yeah.
Why are, why are enterprisecompanies so archaic when it
comes to adopting technologythat is compliant?
I mean, like...
What's going on there?
I don't know.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (13:00):
I don't know.
I mean, I just got surprised.
Like, when we came out and said,look, we want to help you
transform your employeereferrals including employee
adoption.
We didn't know there was thisother problem as well that we're
solving.
It's like, oh, you're alsohelping the admins track it and
automate it.
How do you do it today onspreadsheets?
What?
Your 40, 000 personorganizations that you have.
(13:21):
And they share their screen.
They show me that spreadsheet.
And I look at the spreadsheetand I'm like,
Shally Steckerl (13:25):
what?
Like, Brian, there's stillcompanies that don't have ATSs.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (13:29):
Yeah,
Brian Fink (13:29):
right.
Ladies and gentlemen, the wordATS, if that was on your bingo
card and you were listening...
Three dollars?
Three dollars, you can scratchoff ATS.
That's spelled
Shally Steckerl (13:39):
A T
Brian Fink (13:41):
S.
You can bet your ATS on it.
That's right.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (13:45):
Right, uh, but, you know, to answer your
question, I think it's just...
Everyone, like...
Everyone's now focusing on thenext big thing.
Like, three years ago, it wasblockchain.
So why are they not solving thecurrent problem that's in front
of them?
Exactly.
And like, they're justforgetting the basic stuff.
Like, get a great ATS, likeOleeo.
Get a great employee referralsolution, shameless plug in,
like Echo.
Get the basics out of the way,and then think AI and all that
(14:07):
stuff.
You still have to cover thebasics first.
Shally Steckerl (14:09):
Sure.
Bright, shiny object syndrome.
I got a question for you,though.
Um, Is there any magic number towhat an employee referral
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (14:17):
should be worth?
You mean there's like a bonusamount to be paid?
Yeah, that's what I mean.
Uh, there's
Shally Steckerl (14:24):
no...
Is it 500 bucks?
Is it 727 bucks?
Is it...
You'll
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (14:27):
be surprised, there's hospitals paying up to
5, does it
Shally Steckerl (14:31):
matter?
What I'm asking is, if thehospital pays 5, 000 or 5, 500
or 500, does it really
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (14:38):
impact?
So I say it's a balance betweentwo.
Uh, if you want the amount to below, you need the experience to
be easy.
Okay.
If you want, if the experienceis not easy, you want the amount
to be high.
Okay.
If I'm gonna spend five to tenminutes referring someone, that
may, that better be worth it.
It better be like, you know, 750bucks or a thousand bucks I'm
getting.
Okay.
I'm not gonna spend 20 minutesfor 50 bucks.
(15:00):
So what's low then?
I'd say that, you know, in thehourly...
Shally Steckerl (15:04):
What's okay low?
Like what's low that's stillokay?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (15:06):
250, 250 to 300 is a...
Shally Steckerl (15:10):
So if you're gonna do it, you gotta put 250
bucks on the table.
Brian Fink (15:12):
Now wait a minute, wait a minute.
Plaza Bach in Work Rules saysthat they did studies at Google
Uhhuh that the amount doesn'tmatter.
Shally Steckerl (15:20):
That's where I'm going with this, but that
was a while back.
That's why I'm asking somebodythat knows now.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, because that was some timeago.
Yeah.
And yeah.
And that was Google.
It was Google.
And when I was at Cisco andother companies like that, I was
at Google myself.
Yeah.
Um, I've noticed that there'svery little impact in the
amount.
Yeah.
In fact, what I did notice isthat when the amount gets really
(15:40):
high, you end up getting people.
Who stopped doing their job.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (15:45):
And they turn into full time sourcers.
And turn into recruiters.
Shally Steckerl (15:49):
But, so you know, you know now what's going
on.
So, put 150, 250 on the table,minimum.
And then what's high, what'shigh that's like, the number
where you really, if you get anyhigher than that, it's not going
to impact.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (16:00):
I'd say 5, 000.
5, 000 is surely the number.
Shally Steckerl (16:03):
So if you offer 10, 000, it's not going
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (16:05):
to get you any...
Yeah, it's probably not gonnagive you that huge of an impact.
Um, and that's also some of thedata that we're excited to dig
into with our, for those six,seven beta early clients that
we're working with is havingthem test that out.
Hey, do this amount versus thisamount.
Are you getting difference?
And just, right, showing themthat on their dashboard as an
admin for sure.
Shally Steckerl (16:24):
And what about the, um, tax implication with
employees that are not fulltime?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (16:29):
Yeah, good question.
So, sometimes it gets trickythere, but typically bonuses.
are paid as wages.
They're just added to thepaycheck and they're taxed
accordingly.
Adam Couch (16:40):
So over the last, I don't know, half a day today, we
heard a lot about the candidateexperience.
And you just touched on thereferral experience.
It's got to be easy.
So what, how are you guyslooking at the referral
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (16:50):
experience itself?
Yeah, absolutely.
So today, uh, with ECHO, 6730.
And be able to refer someone in15 seconds from there.
Our tech technology recognizeswho they are from their phone
number as an employee, knows whothey are, thanks them for
engaging, asks them just a fewquestions, gives them a unique
(17:11):
referral link that they canshare with anyone who they want
to refer.
Huh.
Right.
Shally Steckerl (17:15):
That's easy.
Yep.
15 seconds.
Why don't we have
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (17:18):
that for recruiting?
Brian Fink (17:20):
Uh, because we over engineer a lot of things and put
them on spreadsheets.
Yeah.
Shally Steckerl (17:26):
Right.
Spreadsheets.
Yeah, Google Docs.
Yeah.
All right.
Brian Fink (17:33):
That are not shared.
That are not shared.
Not shareable Google Docs.
Yeah, so, um, to kind of wrapthis up and to bring this home,
we've talked a lot aboutcandidate experience, referral
driven experience, we've eventalked about the entrepreneurial
experience and the journey thatyou've gone through.
Is there anything, I mean, nowthat we've got a lot of things
on the table, is there anythingthat you wish that we had asked
(17:54):
you about?
That we didn't ask you about,whether it's about the product
or about your personal journey.
What is it?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (18:00):
well, good question.
I'd say, you know, I'd say like,what are the, you know, today
you have all these founders andentrepreneurs.
It's a shiny word on LinkedIn,only sharing the good stuff.
You rarely find someone sharinglike the hard stuff.
Brian Fink (18:13):
Yeah, but you guys build in public.
Like, your co founder was onLinkedIn showing how she was
making these shirts that youguys are wearing.
Yeah.
Okay, sorry, I interrupted youranswer.
Go for it.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (18:21):
Yeah, so I would say to your question is
like, what are the things thatsuck as a founder or early stage
employee at a startup?
Right, no one ever asks thatquestion.
People generally just go, sharetheir, oh, we've raised 30
million, we've raised 20million, oh, you know, we've
partnered with X, we'vepartnered with Y.
Here are all the good stuff,which I think is good.
But then you give this falseimage to a lot of folks, and
(18:42):
it's hard.
Like, it's really hard, and youjust gotta keep going.
And the harder it gets, thatmeans you're doing some right
stuff, you're doing the correctstuff.
Brian Fink (18:49):
Alright, and I think that you've delved into it a
little bit, like, what thejourney is, what the struggle is
to build in public, to go fromzero to one.
I'm Brian Fink, he's ShallyStackwell, we are powered by
Oleeo today on the floor at out,this is great.
hR Tech.
HR Tech, we are the ContentLounge, we are sponsored by
Oleeo.
Good luck, brother.
Adam, appreciate it.
Y'all have a great day
Hey everybody, welcome back to RecruitingDaily
Sourcing School.
We are live and in charge of HRTech here in Las Vegas.
We are in the Talent AcquisitionContent Lounge.
We are powered by Oleeo, DataDriven Automation Recruitment,
and I am joined by my esteemedcolleague, the godfather of
sourcing, Shally Steckerl.
(00:28):
Yeah, he's over there.
That applause is for me.
You hear the applause?
People are excited about that.
Uh, we've got two guests on themic that are rocking the
microphone with us.
We've got Adam from the team atOleeo.
Adam, say hello to the goodpeople.
Hey, hey, hey.
All right, that's a hey, hey,hey to the good people.
And we are joined by Tafik, whoI met about a year ago at
another event at TalentAcquisition Week.
(00:51):
He is here with his new startup,which is aiming to solve a
critical problem in the talentacquisition and retention
marketplace with Echo.
Tafik, what's going on?
What's up, what's up?
All right, all right.
Let's do it.
To get this party started, uh,quickly, right, um, I want to
know, what are you guys seeingon the floor?
(01:12):
What's the vibe today?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (01:14):
Yeah, I think biggest vibe today is a lot more
folks on the floor, both from anemployer standpoint and then
from a buyer standpoint,practitioners.
So really that's giving, uh, youknow we chatted about this a
second ago, giving a really goodindication of hopefully where
the market's going, uh, upwards,more folks, more interest in
(01:35):
technology and solutions.
The big word, AI, all around,um, but yeah, a lot of folks
compared to last year for sure.
Activity, buzz.
Adam Couch (01:45):
Yeah, I'm like you, I always call this the biggest
recruiting event for the, forthe vendors, right?
You come here and you changejerseys and you show up the next
year with a different team logoon.
Yeah.
But this year there's actuallyfolks that are looking to buy,
um, more practitioners as yousaid, that I've seen.
Um, and then I think last yearwas all about, it's AI again
this year, AI was big last year,but you go around, it's a lot of
(02:05):
people analytics now.
Look at the booth that Vizierhas right when you walk in,
right?
It's probably the biggest boothhere.
And so I see people analytics asa kind of one of the hot topics
this year.
Brian Fink (02:15):
Alright, so as we're talking about analytics and
we're talking about data, thatkind of gives a good segue for
both of you to kind of tell, togive like a 15 second snapshot
of who you are and what you guysdo.
Who wants to go first and tellus a little bit about what their
use case is?
Adam Couch (02:28):
Yeah, so at Oleeo, we help organizations source,
recruit, and hire, applicanttracking, CRM, and events
management solution, and reallyour focus is on high volume
recruitment and then financialservices industry.
So organizations like Amazon useus globally for their physical
stores or somebody like Bank ofAmerica for their early careers.
So if you have a problem withvolume, call Oleeo.
(02:50):
Awesome.
Brian Fink (02:51):
Alright, now, this is the startup pitch.
This is the man, the myth, thelegend coming at it.
He is challenging over here,Adam, who has, they have 30
years in the space.
Tawfiq, what do you got?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (03:02):
Yeah, Adam's absolutely awesome, learning
from him every day.
Um, so I'm Tawfiq, and cofounder of Echo.
And what we do is we helporganizations with a frontline
workforce transform word ofmouth into their biggest hiring
superpower.
Right, typically organizationsstruggle with two things when it
comes to referrals on thefrontline.
(03:22):
One is employee adoption andengagement.
A very, very small percentage ofthe workforce even knows about
the referral program.
And that's usually the biggestworkforce with challenges and
struggle to hire for.
Nurses, warehouse associates,truck drivers.
And the second thing we'resolving is, you'll be surprised,
a lot of large organizations, 30people organizations, still
(03:45):
track referrals on aspreadsheet, taking a lot of
hours and admin time wasted, anddouble payments and missed
payments for these types ofemployees.
So we're saying, we're comingout with a solution.
That makes it very simple forthe frontline employee to refer
someone, hence increasingadoption and engagement, and at
the same time, eliminating anymanual referral tracking for the
admin side.
(04:06):
Alright, so...
So you're deputizing yourfrontline workers to being like
many recruiters.
Absolutely.
And they are.
They're really awesome.
They know a lot of folks aroundthem that can work the same job
they can.
But they don't know a referralprogram exists at their company,
and this is where we step in.
Brian Fink (04:19):
Alright, so when I hear frontline workers, I
immediately go to COVID, and Iimmediately think of people who
were essential workers, likenurses.
Use case?
Not a use case?
Am I completely off base?
What's going on?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (04:30):
That is the biggest use case.
Frontline includes nurses,anyone in healthcare that's not
sitting behind a desk, alliedhealth, technologists, etc.
Delivery.
Delivery.
Uh, retail is a big one.
Hospitality is a huge one.
So it's really within the areathat Oleeo as well operates in.
Brian Fink (04:47):
Alright, so you talk about hospitality.
I know that there was a jobsreport that came out last week
on the, on October the 6th.
In that report, they cited thatthere were 335, 000 jobs that
were created.
Of those 335, 000 jobs, most ofthem were in frontline work.
How many of those people do youthink should have been referrals
(05:08):
as opposed to a cold sourcehire?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (05:10):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think a healthy recruitingorganization on the frontline
should be doing at least 40 to45 percent of their hires coming
through referrals.
The problem is today when wespeak to these organizations,
most of them are doing referralsaround the 8 to 15 percent mark.
You're like, why?
It's because our employees don'tknow about it, or they can't get
(05:32):
in, they can't log in, theydon't want to do it, and then
you'll be surprised.
So to answer your question, it's45 percent at least should come
through referrals.
Adam Couch (05:40):
And hey, Tafik, are you guys relating this back to
retention and quality of hire aswell?
Because as we all know,referrals are the best source.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (05:47):
Yeah.
Absolutely, that's where we leadwith, we say, hey look, your
goal as director or VP of TA isto attract talent efficiently,
reduce turnover, and reduce yourtime to hire.
If you, if you just look at yourdata alone, right, referrals
give you those three.
So only if an organization looksat their own data, they say, oh
referrals actually stay longer,they are faster to hire, and
(06:10):
they're just awesome hires.
Okay, why don't you double downon those, and that's what we're
leading with for sure, Adam.
Adam Couch (06:16):
Cool, man, I think it's awesome.
I met you two years ago.
You were at the startup boothsomewhere else.
Yeah.
And now you've learned a lot,and you've come full circle now
doing it yourself, man.
Keep rocking, brother.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (06:26):
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Brian Fink (06:29):
Hold on.
Am I there?
I'm live.
Okay.
All right.
I'm still talking to a littlemusic.
I know.
I was like, I was like, yeah, Iknow.
I'm like, don't stop believing.
All right.
So, so we've got, we've got thatuse case, uh, particularly for
frontline workers, but youmentioned the retention or Adam,
you mentioned the retentionvariable and the goodness and
the.
Quality of hire.
How are we measuring quality ofhire so that we can say a
(06:51):
referral is more, is a betterquality hire than a cold sourced
or a regular, or a cold sourcedapplicant?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (06:58):
Yeah, great question.
I think the biggest number thatcompanies are measuring this
with today is, uh, retention.
So, for them, again, it could becausation or correlation, so we
still don't know, but for themis if an employer, if an
employee stays longer, they're abetter quality of hire.
You do have more sophisticatedorganizations who actually look
at performance reviews.
(07:19):
And they have a rating for everyemployee and say, okay, let's
see our referrals.
Are they actually performingbetter compared to non
referrals?
And they're also reading thattoo.
Shally Steckerl (07:27):
Yeah, I mean, cause just longevity alone is
not really...
Yep.
You could be hiding.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (07:31):
Yeah, absolutely.
And that never happens inorganizations.
Shally Steckerl (07:34):
No, no, nobody ever hides in, yeah, large
organizations.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (07:37):
Yeah.
Ever.
Yeah, they're downstairs andthey want to know where their
stapler is,
Shally Steckerl (07:40):
right?
But, but, but, but, somebodymove my stapler.
Brian Fink (07:43):
Somebody move, yeah, yeah, mhm.
Alright, so, uh...
The other thing is, I know thatthere are a lot of people who
are going to listen to thispodcast that are recruiters who
are thinking that they have thatentrepreneurial spark to go
forth and to start their owncompany, whether it's their own
agency or it's HR tech.
As an entrepreneur, how do youstay motivated every day?
(08:05):
Because you hear the word know alot, just like recruiters hear
the word know a lot.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (08:11):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think, you know, going fromzero to one, and I'm sure Adam
knows this being at differentstartups as well, going from
zero to one is one of thebiggest and hardest challenge
time of a startup.
You're really looking for yourfirst five to ten customers that
are going to believe in you asan individual and as a team and
say, okay, I'm going to trustthis person to work with him and
give them a shot.
(08:31):
Um, motivation's good, but Idon't think it gets you to where
you want to go.
I really think it's just beingdisciplined and controlling what
you could control.
And really trying to not thinkof things that you can't
control.
So actually, my co founders andI did this list.
I said, hey, here's what we cancontrol during the week.
We can control how many emailswe send.
(08:52):
We can control how many coldcalls we make.
We can control what energy webring to the demos.
We can control qualified,disqualifying folks.
We can control building a greatproduct, doing great customer
service.
Here's what we can't control.
We can't control people ignoringus.
We can't control budget cuts.
We can't control people beingrude on the call.
And every time we have asituation where something
happens, I look at this list andsay, is this something I can
control?
(09:12):
I can't control.
If I can't, I just leave it.
Okay, on to the next one.
Uh, but it's really hard and Ialways say just one domino at a
time is what we're focusing on.
One domino at a time.
Brian Fink (09:21):
Is that the same advice that you would give to
recruiters who are...
You know, cold calling can, or,okay, cold calling, I actually
mean picking up the phone andgetting on the phone.
Is that the same type of advicethat you'd give them?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (09:31):
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I mean, if I cold call Adamtoday and Adam gives me like,
no, you know, stop calling me,closes the phone in my face, I
call you next, right?
If I bring that energy fromAdam's call to yours, and I have
this like, you know, downenergy, like, hey, Brian, how's
it going?
You're not going to feel it, butyou're not going to know that I
had a bad conversation withAdam, so why miss the
opportunity with you?
(09:52):
Just because I had a bad callpreviously, so, that's the
biggest advice I give torecruiters.
Or really anyone, just, youknow, keep going, play the long
term game.
And you know, Brian, you're bestat this, building your brand in
this space.
Brian Fink (10:02):
Well, I was going to say, I'm sitting across the
table from somebody who inspiredme to kind of take the brand to
the next level.
So, uh, Shally, you got anythoughts on that?
Shally Steckerl (10:11):
Well, my secret to that has always been that
when you run into something likethat, when you run into a
negative call, is um, Makeanother call, but not a call
that has any expectations.
So, I usually refer to my, youknow, the easiest way to do it
is refer to your LinkedIn inbox,and find somebody that's sent
(10:32):
you a connection request, andjust reach out to that person
and be like, Hey, I got yourconnection request, you know,
let's, let's chat.
What do you do?
Here's what I do.
There's no, there's no negativeoutcome from that, right?
So at least it gets you back onthe, you know, And if you're, if
you're ending on a positivenote, because you don't have any
expectation that you're gonnaclose the deal, and there's no
(10:54):
possibility that they're gonnareject you, so at least you can
kinda, you know, get back up onthe bike.
Yeah, I wanna say just sort oferase the negativity, take a
step back from the keyboard,take a break, and come back, but
yeah, definitely don't pick upthe phone and.
Make that next call with thatnegative attitude, that just,
that's not gonna work.
You gotta reset somehow, butthat's my secret weapon, is just
(11:18):
call someone with noexpectation.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (11:19):
Yeah, I agree.
I heard this the other day, islike, when you call someone,
call to disqualify them, not toqualify them.
And ever since I heard that, itjust stuck in my head.
So if you're calling someone,you want to disqualify them,
like, Hey, how's it going?
You have 20 seconds in my eye,call.
Nope, cool, disqualify.
Or yes, awesome, you know.
Just quick question, do you havean employee referral program
today?
(11:40):
Um, no, they're disqualified.
Awesome, have a great day.
And like, you want to justdisqualify them and get to the
qualified one.
Adam Couch (11:46):
My wife tried to disqualify me 25 years ago.
She called, but it didn't work.
How many times?
Yeah,
Brian Fink (11:53):
not
Adam Couch (11:53):
enough, not enough.
She's still trying.
Yeah, yeah.
So, Tafiq, hey, tell us whereyou are in the life cycle of the
business.
Kind of where, are you inversion 1, are you in beta?
Kind of where are you guys at?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (12:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
So, we've been, you know,working on this for about 10
months now, we've been full timefor about 7 months today.
Um, over the past 7 months,we've chosen 6 to 7 enterprises
that they helped us build andshape the product.
So even from like literallyprototypes to sketches to just
going up and beyond.
(12:23):
And very soon here, we've justrecently launched our V1.
Uh, we are fully enterprise, sosecurity, SOC 2, all that,
getting it out of the way, ofcourse.
But we're launching with these 67 enterprise customers and
helping them really transformtheir employee referral program.
That's awesome.
Yep.
Brian Fink (12:39):
About transforming the employee referral program, I
want to go back to something yousaid at the very beginning about
spreadsheets, right?
Yeah.
Why are, why are enterprisecompanies so archaic when it
comes to adopting technologythat is compliant?
I mean, like...
What's going on there?
I don't know.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (13:00):
I don't know.
I mean, I just got surprised.
Like, when we came out and said,look, we want to help you
transform your employeereferrals including employee
adoption.
We didn't know there was thisother problem as well that we're
solving.
It's like, oh, you're alsohelping the admins track it and
automate it.
How do you do it today onspreadsheets?
What?
Your 40, 000 personorganizations that you have.
(13:21):
And they share their screen.
They show me that spreadsheet.
And I look at the spreadsheetand I'm like,
Shally Steckerl (13:25):
what?
Like, Brian, there's stillcompanies that don't have ATSs.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (13:29):
Yeah,
Brian Fink (13:29):
right.
Ladies and gentlemen, the wordATS, if that was on your bingo
card and you were listening...
Three dollars?
Three dollars, you can scratchoff ATS.
That's spelled
Shally Steckerl (13:39):
A T
Brian Fink (13:41):
S.
You can bet your ATS on it.
That's right.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (13:45):
Right, uh, but, you know, to answer your
question, I think it's just...
Everyone, like...
Everyone's now focusing on thenext big thing.
Like, three years ago, it wasblockchain.
So why are they not solving thecurrent problem that's in front
of them?
Exactly.
And like, they're justforgetting the basic stuff.
Like, get a great ATS, likeOleeo.
Get a great employee referralsolution, shameless plug in,
like Echo.
Get the basics out of the way,and then think AI and all that
(14:07):
stuff.
You still have to cover thebasics first.
Shally Steckerl (14:09):
Sure.
Bright, shiny object syndrome.
I got a question for you,though.
Um, Is there any magic number towhat an employee referral
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (14:17):
should be worth?
You mean there's like a bonusamount to be paid?
Yeah, that's what I mean.
Uh, there's
Shally Steckerl (14:24):
no...
Is it 500 bucks?
Is it 727 bucks?
Is it...
You'll
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (14:27):
be surprised, there's hospitals paying up to
5, does it
Shally Steckerl (14:31):
matter?
What I'm asking is, if thehospital pays 5, 000 or 5, 500
or 500, does it really
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (14:38):
impact?
So I say it's a balance betweentwo.
Uh, if you want the amount to below, you need the experience to
be easy.
Okay.
If you want, if the experienceis not easy, you want the amount
to be high.
Okay.
If I'm gonna spend five to tenminutes referring someone, that
may, that better be worth it.
It better be like, you know, 750bucks or a thousand bucks I'm
getting.
Okay.
I'm not gonna spend 20 minutesfor 50 bucks.
(15:00):
So what's low then?
I'd say that, you know, in thehourly...
Shally Steckerl (15:04):
What's okay low?
Like what's low that's stillokay?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (15:06):
250, 250 to 300 is a...
Shally Steckerl (15:10):
So if you're gonna do it, you gotta put 250
bucks on the table.
Brian Fink (15:12):
Now wait a minute, wait a minute.
Plaza Bach in Work Rules saysthat they did studies at Google
Uhhuh that the amount doesn'tmatter.
Shally Steckerl (15:20):
That's where I'm going with this, but that
was a while back.
That's why I'm asking somebodythat knows now.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, because that was some timeago.
Yeah.
And yeah.
And that was Google.
It was Google.
And when I was at Cisco andother companies like that, I was
at Google myself.
Yeah.
Um, I've noticed that there'svery little impact in the
amount.
Yeah.
In fact, what I did notice isthat when the amount gets really
(15:40):
high, you end up getting people.
Who stopped doing their job.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (15:45):
And they turn into full time sourcers.
And turn into recruiters.
Shally Steckerl (15:49):
But, so you know, you know now what's going
on.
So, put 150, 250 on the table,minimum.
And then what's high, what'shigh that's like, the number
where you really, if you get anyhigher than that, it's not going
to impact.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (16:00):
I'd say 5, 000.
5, 000 is surely the number.
Shally Steckerl (16:03):
So if you offer 10, 000, it's not going
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (16:05):
to get you any...
Yeah, it's probably not gonnagive you that huge of an impact.
Um, and that's also some of thedata that we're excited to dig
into with our, for those six,seven beta early clients that
we're working with is havingthem test that out.
Hey, do this amount versus thisamount.
Are you getting difference?
And just, right, showing themthat on their dashboard as an
admin for sure.
Shally Steckerl (16:24):
And what about the, um, tax implication with
employees that are not fulltime?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (16:29):
Yeah, good question.
So, sometimes it gets trickythere, but typically bonuses.
are paid as wages.
They're just added to thepaycheck and they're taxed
accordingly.
Adam Couch (16:40):
So over the last, I don't know, half a day today, we
heard a lot about the candidateexperience.
And you just touched on thereferral experience.
It's got to be easy.
So what, how are you guyslooking at the referral
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (16:50):
experience itself?
Yeah, absolutely.
So today, uh, with ECHO, 6730.
And be able to refer someone in15 seconds from there.
Our tech technology recognizeswho they are from their phone
number as an employee, knows whothey are, thanks them for
engaging, asks them just a fewquestions, gives them a unique
(17:11):
referral link that they canshare with anyone who they want
to refer.
Huh.
Right.
Shally Steckerl (17:15):
That's easy.
Yep.
15 seconds.
Why don't we have
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (17:18):
that for recruiting?
Brian Fink (17:20):
Uh, because we over engineer a lot of things and put
them on spreadsheets.
Yeah.
Shally Steckerl (17:26):
Right.
Spreadsheets.
Yeah, Google Docs.
Yeah.
All right.
Brian Fink (17:33):
That are not shared.
That are not shared.
Not shareable Google Docs.
Yeah, so, um, to kind of wrapthis up and to bring this home,
we've talked a lot aboutcandidate experience, referral
driven experience, we've eventalked about the entrepreneurial
experience and the journey thatyou've gone through.
Is there anything, I mean, nowthat we've got a lot of things
on the table, is there anythingthat you wish that we had asked
(17:54):
you about?
That we didn't ask you about,whether it's about the product
or about your personal journey.
What is it?
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (18:00):
well, good question.
I'd say, you know, I'd say like,what are the, you know, today
you have all these founders andentrepreneurs.
It's a shiny word on LinkedIn,only sharing the good stuff.
You rarely find someone sharinglike the hard stuff.
Brian Fink (18:13):
Yeah, but you guys build in public.
Like, your co founder was onLinkedIn showing how she was
making these shirts that youguys are wearing.
Yeah.
Okay, sorry, I interrupted youranswer.
Go for it.
Tawfiq Abu-Khajil (18:21):
Yeah, so I would say to your question is
like, what are the things thatsuck as a founder or early stage
employee at a startup?
Right, no one ever asks thatquestion.
People generally just go, sharetheir, oh, we've raised 30
million, we've raised 20million, oh, you know, we've
partnered with X, we'vepartnered with Y.
Here are all the good stuff,which I think is good.
But then you give this falseimage to a lot of folks, and
(18:42):
it's hard.
Like, it's really hard, and youjust gotta keep going.
And the harder it gets, thatmeans you're doing some right
stuff, you're doing the correctstuff.
Brian Fink (18:49):
Alright, and I think that you've delved into it a
little bit, like, what thejourney is, what the struggle is
to build in public, to go fromzero to one.
I'm Brian Fink, he's ShallyStackwell, we are powered by
Oleeo today on the floor at out,this is great.
hR Tech.
HR Tech, we are the ContentLounge, we are sponsored by
Oleeo.
Good luck, brother.
Adam, appreciate it.
Y'all have a great day
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