Talent Trade Tidbit - When Coffee Means More...

Am I making a good first impression? Am I answering the questions right? Do I look presentable? Is this a date? No. But it MIGHT be a job interview...

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi, this is Stephanie Maas.

(00:02):
Today I wanna talk to you about a conversation I had several weeks agowith, it was actually a really neat conversation with a potential candidate.
They had reached out to me and said, Hey.
I have found that in somebody I've known for quite a while, I have foundthat I'm currently growing, dissatisfied with my current organizations.
We went through some reasons why and said, yeah, it's probably time to make a move.

(00:23):
So we talked through, Hey, what has been your strategy?
What have you done so far?
They weren't really an active candidate in the sense that they weresending their resume everywhere and anywhere, but they were selectively keeping their ear to the ground on what was happening in the market.
This person was a very well thought of banker in their niche.
So they had had several folks reach out to them and they shared this with me.

(00:45):
They said, Hey, I've been invited to several coffees to get to know different organizations, soforth and so on, and that led us to a really neat conversation about when does coffee mean coffee?
And when does coffee mean something more?
So what I shared with them was, Hey, when you get invited to, Hey, let's go grab a cup of coffee.

(01:06):
Let's just sit down and talk.
If it's someone that you have tremendous rapport with, you've known for years, you guysmight even coach the same little league team, or you guys go to the same church, or whatever the case may be, you've been colleagues before and have a true relationship.
Oftentimes, coffee really can be coffee and you can treat it accordingly.

(01:27):
However, if you don't have that level of a relationship with somebody, don't kid yourself.
Coffee is not just coffee, oftentimes it is something much more,and I really encourage this candidate that if they were gonna have.
Coffee with somebody to make sure that they really approached it in the right way.

(01:49):
Basically, you need to put on your casual interviewing shoes because I can guarantee there havebeen more deals put together, which includes recruiting deals that started with the right kind of coffee, and there have also been more deals lost because coffee didn't go the way that it should.
So.

(02:09):
Let me remind you, if you get invited to coffee by a closefriend, professional colleagues, hey, go enjoy that cup of Joe.
But if it's someone that you kind of know or you have a sense that they're probablytrying to recruit you for a position in the bank, hey, go have a good time.
Enjoy that cup of coffee, but you better show up with your interviewing shoes on.