#27: How to Write Recruiting Emails Candidates Want to Read

Episode Transcript
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Brandon Jeffs (00:01):
My average email open rate right now is, like,
86% across my sequences. Writeto an audience of 1 is my
biggest piece of copywritingadvice.

Rhona Pierce (00:11):
Brandon Jeffs is a TA leader who has spent a decade
mastering the art of candidaterelationships. With experience
building teams at high growthtech startups, his approach to
recruiting breaks everyconventional rule. When you say
write to an audience of 1 When

I'm writing to somebody, it's often like,
alright, Chrome window 1 with myemail, Chrome window 2 with
their LinkedIn profile. And I,like, legit try to write in my
own voice as if I'm, like,talking to them.

But in an industry racing towards automation,
Brandon has discovered somethingcounterintuitive about human
connection.

It's crazy that I'm saying this as we go into
2025, but for me, what I'mseeing in real life is the
biggest pattern disruptor isjust by being authentic.

Do you have specific rules of where the
candidate journey you presenteach one of those, or is it a
mix?

It really depends. One of the things I've
been doing is bringing a lot ofthe information asynchronously
upfront.

With recruiting tools becoming more
sophisticated by the day,Brandon's insights challenge
everything we think we knowabout candidate nurturing. What
role do you see, like, candidatenurturing playing in the future
of work?

We don't have an insight in the future, but I
think this is one of thosemoments where we might be
overshooting.

Hey, Brandon. I'm so excited to have you today on
the show.

Hey. What's up, Rhona? I'm thrilled to be here.
Thanks for inviting me on.

Of course. So we're talking about a topic that
I absolutely love, but I wanna,like, go back to your early days
as a recruiter. Right? What wasyour first, like, moment that
made you, like, realize theimportance of relationships with
candidates?

Yeah. When I think back so this is actually
year 10 for me that I'm headinginto recruiting. And in my
twenties, I, like a lot offolks, took the advice and
followed my passion. I thought Iwas gonna work in restaurants
and hotels. And what I found isI was doing, like, management,
doing a lot of hiring, trainingteams, and I really enjoyed

(02:32):
that.
So I segued to a corporatecareer in recruiting. And for
me, my earliest TA role was verymuch community based hiring. And
what that meant for me in myrole was I was hiring folks in
the grocery industry. These arepeople that had they didn't have
digital profiles online, so Ihad to go boots on the ground,

(02:52):
knock on doors. So to me, theearly days was out of necessity.
If I was going to be effective,it was all rooted in community
building and handshakes in themost most authentic and analog
way, which is literally just byshowing up.

Cool. Love it. So let's make sure we're all on the
same page about what candidatenurturing means. So what does it
mean to you to nurture acandidate?

For me, when I think about candidate nurturing,
it's creating bespokeexperiences for candidates that
influence human behavior. If atthe end of the day, a recruiter
is trying to get to a handshake,yes, and an acceptance for a
role, nurturing thatrelationship has to be aligned
to that individual's motivationsand their personality. So, like,

(03:43):
I try to bring my personalityinto the recruitment process. I
work with early stage startups,so a lot of the stuff that I do
doesn't scale. And that's why Ienjoy it, and that's why I've
gone super granular in my careeras a recruiter.
I'll always be like a tacticalrecruiter. I think there's
tremendous value from workingrequisitions. So when I think
about what it actually means tome, it's really focused on what

(04:07):
is driving that individual. Andsometimes you can apply pattern
matching, but for me, I like tostay humble and stay focused on
the person that I'm in front ofinstead of thinking like, okay.
I need a 100 of the p thesetypes of folks.

Has that definition evolved for you over
time?

Yeah. For sure. I, a couple years back, created
like a mission statement, andit's empowering the candidate
employer relationship in thefuture of work. And that's
evolved now to the employeeemployer relationship as I've
moved into a people and talentrole building an entire people
function. And when I think aboutthat candidate nurturing piece,

(04:47):
that's the how.
How do I empower that employeeor candidate relationship? And
to me, it's all about thosemotions, that authenticity,
being genuine, beingtransparent, and just being
myself.

Love it. Love it. What advice would you give to
recruiters who are overwhelmed,rightfully so, really, and feel
like they don't have time tonurture candidates?

Recruiting is a high velocity function. It's one
of the reasons I love it. Andthere's probably a heated debate
about is recruiting sales ornot. And I think folks can go
back and forth on this. Thereare a lot of similarities, but,
fundamentally, the daily motionsare very similar, and it's that
high sense of urgency, velocity,get stuff done.

(05:40):
So my biggest piece of advicefor any recruiter out there or
even a sales rep who doesn'tthink they have enough time to
nurture something is to slowdown and to pause, think a
little bit more strategicallyabout how they can deliver more
value in the connection fortheir prospect. So tactical
advice, work in sprints, timebox yourself. We tend to

(06:04):
overestimate what we can getdone in a day and underestimate
what we can get done in a year.I don't know who said that, but
it's one of those, like, techbro mantras that has stayed with
me. So timebox yourself.
Be like a master of your owndomain. We often have more time
than we think we do, and you canfind 15 minutes anywhere in your

(06:25):
day. I think if you can breakyour work chunks down into
something that's digestible thatyou can sprint at a high
velocity in, you don't have todo, like, an 8 or 10, like, full
day high velocity. But if youcan find, like, little blips of
2, 3 x productivity, that'swhere you'll see those impacts
in your work and the resultswhen it comes to placing

(06:48):
candidates. Another piece ofadvice I have is super quickly
that when you say yes tosomething, you're saying no to
something else.
A mentor once told me this, andit reframed how I was taking
meetings, reaching out tocandidates. And from a
recruiting perspective, thatreally optimized my output at

(07:08):
the top of the funnel.

So as someone who comes from the tech world, I'm a
former software engineer andproject manager, I understand
and a 100% fully believe in theworking in sprints and time
boxing. But for folks who arelistening who maybe aren't that
familiar with it, can you givean example of kind of, like,
what does working in the sprintmean to you? How does that look?

Yeah. Totally. I think for me, from a daily
perspective, it could be,alright. Morning coffee. I'm
gonna do 2 hours of sourcing.
Then I'm gonna have my blocks ofcandidate screens throughout the
day, and then I'm going to havean afternoon session of ATS

(07:51):
candidate communication cleanupand scheduling. So knowing what
I'm doing each day helps removethe cognitive lift of thinking
about what I'm going to do. Andthen from a requisition level, I
always reverse engineereverything when I'm raising a
wreck. How long is it gonna takeus to fill this position on

(08:12):
average? What does the data say?
Can we beat that? Do we need tobeat that? What are the drivers?
And then backdating through thatlife cycle of the requisition
from the estimated time in seatdate to have those milestones
and communicating them to ahiring manager. So from a, like,
sourcing and recruiting workflowperspective, I think about it

(08:34):
in, like, 2 week sprints for alive rec.
If I get a rec that launchestoday, I can build pipe and
present x amount of candidatesby this time. That means the
hiring manager will be having1st round screens this time.
Here's our estimated passthrough rates. That means in
wave 1, we're going to have xamount of candidates. And while

(08:56):
you're screening in week 2hiring manager, I'm sourcing
cohort number 2 of candidates topresent to you based on the
feedback you fine tune in week2.
And then from there, it'sreverse engineering the pipeline
for those outreach demographicsto understand, okay. How much
output do I need to put intosourcing in order to get the

(09:18):
results I'm looking for? If youwere to do all of this as an
exercise, I'm not a math person.I learned this on the job. The
estimates I could come up withare probably not going to have
too far off a degree of variancefrom what the data will tell
you, and good recruiters taughtme this.

Yep. Yes. Yes. Yes. So let's say we're people
are sold on it.
Right? They only have about 15minutes a day to dedicate to
nurturing. What would you say isthe main thing they should focus
on?

If someone had 15 minutes a day, the number one
priority would be to map thecandidate journey, leveraging
the types of tools that you havein your stack, identifying the
touch points, looking at thecandidate experience as if they
were a customer, and how are yougonna influence the behaviors at
each stage. I think in 15minutes, you can create a

(10:16):
communication map withautomation for the touch points,
the emails, the calls that youneed to communicate with the
candidate in order to get to ayes. So if you had 15 minutes, I
would do that.

So something like, okay. I have 15 minutes.
Obviously, the first time youset everything up, it's gonna be
more than 15 minutes. But okay.Now I'm maintaining the figure
that I've set up, the workflowthat I've set up.
I have 50 minutes. Today, I'mgonna focus on the people that
are in the, I don't know, hiringmanager stage. That's where I

(10:49):
have one touch point to them. Isthat kind of like what you mean?
Take it.
Yeah.

A 100%. And optimizing that yield ratio at
the top of the funnel. So thismeans being more precise as
sourcing recruiters andrecruiters and talent partners
when we're working with thehiring manager. Set ambitious
goals for yourself. And insteadof, like, a 45% pass through
rate, make it a 60 to 75% passthrough rate for yourself and

(11:19):
the hiring manager.
So if you break down 15 minutesa day, that means maybe instead
of 10 screens as a recruiter,maybe you book 6 because you
know those 6 are gonna be superhigh quality. And then if you
spend 2 minutes per those 6doing deeper research on that
individual, when you go into themeeting, you'll be able to
extract more motivation fromthem. You'll be able to build

(11:41):
that bond with the candidate andpick up on some of those post
hire outcome qualities thatyou're looking to integrate into
the recruitment workflow. So bemore precise.

It's truly a mindset shift, I think, and I
don't know if you agree fromwhat we're mostly thought to do
in recruiting because it'salways about more, more, more.
You have to do more screens,more candidates. You have to
talk to more people. But what Ifound and sounds like you too,
it's like really if you get morestrategic, more precise, and you
get better people, you actuallyspeak to less, but do way better

(12:15):
as far as results.

Oh, a 100%. I mean, at the end of the day,
recruiters from a firstprinciples thinking are getting
to a handshake. So when Iapproach a rec, it's like, how
do I just do this efficientlyand and get to a yes and find
the right people? I think a lotof us get to a point in our
career too where we have a greatcandidate bench just in our

(12:37):
network, but it goes back tothose daily rhythms and always
being on and always sourcing.There's also this idea of, like,
the difference betweenpipelining and sourcing.
It's just those daily rhythmsthat you get into as a habit.
And for me, that's whyrecruiting is like a calling. I
think all recruiters should besourcing, and there are ways to

(12:59):
build that community so that youcan pluck folks and pick up on
their motivations and theirskill sets more than just like a
resume submission through a rec.I think when we zoom out, often
recruiting is time boxed into30, 45, 60 days time to fill,
but the hardest factor toinfluence in recruiting is time.

(13:21):
So you might have somebody thatyou've connected with, and 6
months later, they're a perfectfit, or maybe there's headcount
you can bring forward becauseyou picked up on a great
candidate in the market who'slooking then.
So that's how I think about it.

What's your take on how the ideal frequency of
staying in contact with passivecandidates?

There's no one size fits all solution, and
passive candidates can bedefined very loosely. I would
like to think that, like, myentire network of folks. And
then if my network has aconnection to your network,
that's an extension. Now we'retalking about, like, algorithmic
reach, especially when we'reusing tools like LinkedIn. For

(14:05):
example, I've had a privilege towork with some really amazing,
like, exited startup foundersand startup, like, early startup
hires that I just stay in touchwith.
And there's this one guy inparticular, he and I just vibe.
And, like, I'm not working awreck that has anything to do
with his background, and Ihaven't in months. But I know
that just the way this personshows up online is really

(14:27):
authentic, and it allows me toconnect with that person. So if
I have a role that comes acrossthe desk, like, of course, he's
on the shortlist. So that's howI think about frequency is fine
tuning my algorithm, having themost interesting high leverage
candidates in my networksurfaced early and often so that
I can chime in and showcase mypersonality.

(14:47):
I can be a little bit out theresometimes, especially on
LinkedIn, but I find it reallyhelps be being memorable to
folks, especially if they arelike an executive, and I know
it's gonna be a tough search.Like, if I can just represent
myself better and moreauthentic, then maybe I'll be
memorable to a candidate whenthe time comes for me to
actually approach them with ajob that I think might be

(15:09):
aligned with their motivationsand skills.

Doesn't it happen to you that because you keep top
of mind for people, theysometimes come to you or bring
you people?

This is most prevalent in the recruiter for
recruiter space. I kinda have apolicy where it's like, if a
wreck hits my algorithm, my newsfeed, or somebody approaches me
with a wreck and it's like, Iknow somebody that'd be perfect
for it, like, I'm not gonna tryand chase some arbitrary bill
rate and chase a buck. I am farmore interested in the long term

(15:42):
investment of that relationship,and that's how I try to
differentiate myself. Like, I'vegone out on my own in in the
past. I work in house now.
So now I'm like, I just puntthings to recruiters in my
network that might be looking.But the recruiter for recruiter
example is one that is aninteresting light switch moment
for me because there was a timewhere I was like, oh, I wanna be

(16:04):
an r for r recruiter. Thissounds awesome. I love
recruiting other recruiters. Butnow it's like, I just wanna be
friends with all the recruitersthat are doing stuff in our
space, and the best way I knowhow to do that is by
demonstrating value.
So I do that in a few differentways, but also, like, candidate
trading. I mean, if a recruitertosses me a candidate, I'm gonna
pay it forward either back tothat person or to the next one.

I love that. The reason why I love recruiting is
because of all therelationships, and there's the
relationship with candidates,with hiring managers, with other
recruiters. It's just reallytruly a people business. So I
wanna chat a bit about yournewsletter for candidates. I've
heard that you're really good atthis.

(16:48):
What, like, sparked the idea ofhaving a newsletter for
candidates?

So this is really interesting, and this is not the
first time it's happened. I'mnot the sole operator. I'm not
the founder of TLDR. This isprobably the 3rd or 4th time
where I've worked at an earlystage company directly with a
founder where maybe it's justthe way I show up online that
people have have thought it'sme, which is really humbling. I

(17:13):
mean, I wish I had founderequity.
But when it comes to the,newsletter you're talking about
so I work for a company calledTLDR. It's tldr.tech. We are one
of the the largest newslettersin the world. We cater to a
highly technical audience. Mostof our subscribers, we have
5,000,000 of them, are softwareengineers.

(17:34):
And so when it comes to thecontent that TLDR curates, it's
actually a collective ofnewsletters. So we are not a
publisher in the traditionalsense. We're not journalism.
It's like news from people intech for people in tech. And
what that allows is knowledgesharing and a great source of

(17:55):
truth and an email that somebodycan open knowing they're gonna
get exceptional value for what'sgoing on in the world of tech
from other folks that arefounders, engineers, r and d
developers, like trueresearchers that have, you know,
published or founded companieson the backbone of this.

(18:16):
And then on the reverse side ofit, that means we have first
party data on 5,000,000 of bestengineers in the world. So when
it comes to building our ownteam and growing as we scale,
we're bootstrapped, we'reprofitable, we're flywheeling
revenue, we're gonna 3 x revenuethis year. It's crazy. The
founder, Dan Nee, has afascinating story, but it's all
rooted in Internet culture. AndI think it goes back to how we

(18:37):
connect with candidates in anauthentic way that just focuses
on delivering value to them.

So when you yourself have had to hire
engineers for your company, Haveyou leveraged those connections
of those subscribers that youhave for your newsletter?

We run a very, very lean team. I think Jason
Lemkin would be shook if he knewour revenue per per employee. So
the short way to answer that isyes.

Amazing. So maybe not that formal newsletter, but
have you ever used I know lotsof tools out there have ways of
creating different types of,like, email campaigns and drip
campaigns for candidates. Haveyou leveraged those?

Yeah. A 100%. So I'm a newsletter, email die
hard. I actually started mycareer as a journalism intern,
like, as an editorial intern. Iwas working on a newsroom,
publishing a blog, OG WordPress.
And one thing that's beenfascinating over time for both b

(19:45):
two b and consumer brands isemail is incredibly valuable.
That's why every time you log onto a consumer website, they
wanna give you 10% off theiraverage basket size in exchange
for your email address. It'salways worth it to them. During
the 20 tens, we got superexcited about the capabilities
of social media for drivingrevenue. But at the end of the

(20:08):
day, email has come out on top.
So as a recruiter, I rememberspecifically back in 2018 using
Smart Recruiter's newsletter. Ihad a fantastic director of
recruiting, Beth Wolf. Shout outto Beth Wolf. I would not be
here without you, Beth. And shegave me, like, full keys to the

(20:28):
kingdom to run, like, a nurturecampaign from one of those,
like, talent communityrequisition openings.
And SmartRecruiters had a dragand drop email template builder,
which was awesome. So eachmonth, we'd put out, like, a
little hiring newsletter, and itwas really scrappy. And I was,
like, building stuff in Canva.We would do open houses at the

(20:49):
office. So that's how itstarted.
It evolves. I actually have beena marketer as well. I ran a
customer loyalty program to anaudience of 1,300,000 shoppers
for a publicly traded grocerystore. And I think that really
honed my email skills and divinginto more of that, like, AB
testing and then usingenterprise software tools for

(21:12):
managing those types of emailprograms at volume. So I've
always been huge on emailitself.
The time came to that Iapproached Dan at tldr and hit
him up with a cold email. Isaid, like, hey. This this
sounds cool. And we startedjamming, and the rest is
history. Here we are.

Amazing. What's been your, like, biggest
learning about what really makescandidates actually open emails?

Write to an audience of 1 is my biggest
piece of copywriting advice. Butif you're specifically asking
about how to open an email, Ithink, like, my average email
open rate right now is, like,86% across my sequences. It's
keeping it simple. 5 years ago,I would have told you put an
emoji in the subject line, andthat, like, spikes open rates in

(22:00):
the twenties for a consumerbrand. So I think, like, being
able to test things and beingcurious, but write to an
audience of 1 and keep it supersimple.
Like, if I'm inboxing aprospective candidate about a
job, I, like, literally justsay, like, the job. Like, people
can't not open it.

So that's amazing. When you say write to an
audience of 1, I believe Iunderstand what you're saying,
but I wanna make sure everyonelistening does. So does that
mean just, like, think of 1person and write to them?

Yeah. It kinda goes back to this idea that a
lot of lifestyle brands doaround developing a persona. So
when I'm writing to somebody,it's often like, alright. Chrome
window 1 with my email, Chromewindow 2 with their LinkedIn
profile. And I, like, legit tryto write in my own voice as if
I'm, like, talking to them.
And, like, sometimes that'slike, hey. What's up? Or yo. Or,

(22:56):
like, any type of vernacular Iuse in my speech. When it comes
to email and any type ofcopywriting right now, what
we're seeing is that we're allinundated with words on a
screen.
It's just a varying screen size.We go from iPhone to laptop to
television, back to our iPhoneto iPad to Kindle. Like, that's

(23:19):
my day. It's so sad. So when itcomes to the content, it's about
pattern disruption.
And it's crazy that I'm sayingthis as we go into 2025. But for
me, what I'm seeing in real lifeis the biggest pattern disruptor
is just by being authentic andcommunicating with people

(23:41):
through those devices the sameway I would on the street in a
verbal conversation.

How do you take that philosophy of audience of 1
when you're not necessarilywriting to 1 person? Right?
You're you're not okay. Youdon't have their LinkedIn
profile. This is your nurturecampaign.
You for whatever reason, they'rein your pipeline and you're
nurturing them, sending them a,hey, what's up type of email.
How do you take that philosophyand put it in that? There's

(24:09):
probably a

lot of folks out there that are mastering the
newsletter space that have theseamazing personal brands. So I
try to just see what otherpeople are doing and mirror it.
That's my biggest piece ofadvice there. I subscribe to a
lot of newsletters, stoppedopening a lot of them just

(24:30):
because I've run out of time,but there are a few that I open
pretty much every time. And someof that comes down to personal
connection with the author.
So I know that, like, when Iread them, I'm hearing their
voice, or it's somebody who is,like, an online creator. And
because they're taking amultimedia approach, they're

(24:51):
able to bridge that gap ofproximity and relationship
building because you might bewatching them on a TikTok, and
then you might see a YouTubevideo. You might hear them on a
podcast, and the next thing youknow, they're in their inbox,
and you're able to bridge thatvulnerability, that connection,
that intimacy. I think that'swhat great brand builders are

(25:12):
doing right now.

And on a on a tactical level, does this mean
that when you send thesecampaign emails, you send them
directly from your email, notlike a generic recruiting at
TLDR.

Yes. So my nurture campaigns right now are,
like, my playbook for the last 4years has been typically a 3
sequence drip on a 7 daycadence. And emails 23 are like,
hey. Did you get this? And email3 is like, interested?
So keeping it super small, thatto me yields the best results.

(25:47):
That's something that doesn'tscale. I know when you're
thinking about, like, creatingthese types of nurture campaigns
at an enterprise softwarecompany, there's just too much
paper pushing and policy andprocedure and approvals and
standardization in order tooptimize for, like, basis point
yields from the bottom line thatyou can't do that kind of thing.

(26:08):
I've also sent, like, on behalfof messages before, if I'm
working with a founder and I'moutreaching software engineers,
sometimes there's a little bitmore equity coming from the
founder and, like, pretending tobe the founder. That's just,
like, the way it is now.
And I think some candidates knowand some candidates don't know
that, but, ultimately, it's hardto prove. And, ultimately, if

(26:29):
it's a great email and a strongvalue proposition, it's low risk
for the candidate. But I alwaysleaned out from OBO type of
sequences just because I wannapresent as myself, and I don't
wanna have to have thatcognitive load later of, like,
oh, wait. Is this person I'mtalking to from my sequence or

(26:49):
the founder's sequence? So Idon't like to backtrack often,
so it really comes down to justfinding my voice, finding a
playbook that works, AB testingthe copy, AB testing the subject
lines, but we talked aboutsubject lines earlier, and that
that seems to be working.
So for me, it's all about, like,getting to that 40, 50% reply
rate.

Cool. And we've talked about you've mentioned AB
testing and experiments andthings like that. Is there any
experiment that you've run that,like, totally flopped?

Oh, this is a good one. I'm a terrible copy
editor. This goes back to mydays in the newsroom. I remember
I published an article once, andI was covering an Olympic figure
skating event. And I, like,listed the wrong gold like, the
wrong color medal that a certainathlete had received.

(27:42):
And I learned then at, like, 21years old, like, the process for
correcting that in a newsroom.So that's probably, like, my
biggest mistake, like,publishing in a newspaper for,
like, a Hearst newspaper thewrong information. So fact
checking. But when I think aboutit from a recruiting lens, the

(28:02):
only thing that has been a flopis over indexing on it to
deliver results. Newsletter,nurture campaigns, email
campaigns to your database offolks in your recs should be one
arrow in the quiver.
I think when it comes tooutreaching candidates,

(28:24):
particularly in early stagestartups, it's really focusing
on getting net new into thepipeline. A lot of companies can
be successful sourcing fromtheir ATS at scale, particularly
if they're leveraging EvergreenRecs and they have an incredible
brand. But for the work that I'mdoing on a daily basis, it's net
new.

Cool. I always like to ask about, like, big
flops and and things like thatin people's careers and it,
like, I didn't actually rememberthis one when I was planning
this episode, but as you weretalking and it has nothing to do
with having the wrong metalcolor, but I remembered I was
testing something out with anurture with a drip campaign,

(29:06):
and I chose the wrong templatefor I had segmented into, like,
my top people that I wanted tocome to about the the role. I
sent the template for rejectionemails to the people I was just
Oh, yeah.

Yeah. For sure.

To to, nurture. Oh my gosh. I still

have those If you haven't done that, like, you're
not a real recruiter. If youhaven't accidentally told a
candidate, like, okay. Bye. Ilove you. You're not a real can
recruiter.
One of the things actually asyou say that that I think about
that I've messed up, this isactually a trick. And I've I was
gonna post about this, but it'slike a fake mess up. Say I'm,

(29:46):
like, sourcing an IC. And one ofthe thing that I'll do is I'll
offer to throw a director or aVP or the people manager into
that IC rec. Usually get, like,one of 3 responses.
Response 1 is, like, notlooking. Here's 22 or 3
candidates. Sweet. You just gotpipe. Number 2 is sometimes,
like, I'm I'm a manager.

(30:08):
I'm not an IC. It's like thiskinda how dare you tone. It's
like, yeah. But you took timeto, like, email me back. Okay.
Sweet. You're insecure, and Ibet your team probably doesn't
wanna work for you. That givessignal to go source that
person's team. And then 3rd isthey'll probably, like, email
you back because you're in theirICP, and they wanna pitch slap
and reverse sell you, which istotally fine because, like, in

(30:30):
the exec search game, like, it'sa long play anyway. So, like,
I'll take that call all day.
It's always worth 20 minutes tobe try to reverse sold by an
executive that I'm always tryingto grow my network with. So
that's a a fake flop to send adirector your IC sequence.

Love it. Love that. How do you decide what
type of content is worth sharingwith your candidate pool?

There are 3 pieces of content that I think
are worth sharing with thecandidate pool when it comes to
recruiting talents. 1, theproduct story. 2, the growth
story. 3, the financial story.Everything I send to the
candidate needs to touch on oneof those pieces in order to
drive the conversion to a yes.

(31:16):
It's just about where in thatcandidate journey we present
that information.

Do you have specific rules of where the
candidate journey you presenteach one of those, or is it a
mix?

It really depends. Depends on the role if
it's technical or nontechnical,depending on what the data says
for yield ratios and conversionmoments at which stages in the
funnel. And it also just comesthrough doing the work and
having these conversations andunderstanding if it's gonna
take, like, a cell call and ascreen at the top of the funnel
or if I can cover a lot of thisin a recruiter screen. One of

(31:50):
the things I've been doing asI've taken on more strategic
work is in my commitment to thetactical work and being a a
recruiting leader that works REXas a senior IC, but also setting
the strategy is bringing a lotof the information
asynchronously up front. Soafter a candidate books that
first screening call with me, ifthey're an outbound candidate, I

(32:11):
have pretty much like a templatethat I'll send out with
everything I need them to knowand want them to know so that
they don't have to spend 2 hoursdoing research.
They've just got an email with,like, 3 or 4 pieces of bread
crumbs that tie back to thatproduct growth and financial
story.

I love that. And I bet you that makes for a really
rich and just meaningfulconversations with them when it
comes to, like, questionsbecause they're not asking,
like, the surface level thingsor, like you said, spending all
this time trying to research thecompany.

Yeah. And it's one thing that I see
occasionally too where somebody,like, comes to an interview and
they're not prepared. This isusually more for inbound
candidates, And I've hired someamazing inbound candidates who
are prepared, so this is not adig at inbound. But I'm
surprised by a lot ofcandidates, particularly in go
to market roles that come to arecruiter screen and don't have

(33:08):
this type of information andresearch done already, or
they're asking questions aboutthe job descriptions. Like, I
take a lot of pride in my jobdescriptions.
Like, I spend time writing them.So when they ask questions that
are, like, in the jobdescription, it's just like a
dead giveaway that they're notaligned for the role and, like,
we just waste each other's time.

Yeah. I've done a lot of, like, startup recruiting
as well, and it's it's adifferent game. You want the
person to to want to know aboutthe company and research and
things like that. So I totallyget that. What's your your tech
stack for candidate nurturing?

When it comes to my tech stack for candidate
nurturing, I've run a prettylean stack. I've sandboxed a lot
of AI tools in the last 18months, ChatGPT week 1 user. So
it's like, I'm interested in it,but I'm not putting all of my,
like, eggs in the AI LLM basket.I think it could be helpful, but
one of the things that AI andLLMs are terrible at is

(34:08):
personalized outreach. One ofthe things they are great at is
research.
So when I think about, like, thetech I'm using, it's pretty
lean. It's like couple of Chromeextensions. It's an applicant
tracking system. I like a aKanban board style ATS, so I can
drag and drop, see visually,move fast. So when it comes to

(34:30):
nurturing, it's using an emailsequence directly from the ATS
that's piped directly to therequisition and the job so that
I always know, like, my currentconsiderations for active
pipeline and my prospects so Ican run, retargeting campaigns
if that first sequence onlyyielded a 20% reply rate.

(34:51):
And then in terms of tech stacklet's see. Is there anything
else I'm forgetting? I'm aSlack, Google Workspace Notion
guy. I've built ATSs in Notion,Airtable, and Zapier myself. In
the past, Slack integrations aregreat for working with the
hiring manager, especially whenyou're doing, like, at mentions
in interview scorecards to getquick feedback.
My favorite micro metric is timeto completed scorecard. If a

(35:14):
hiring manager completes ascorecard within, like, 2 hours
of an interview, I know thatcandidate is, like, pretty
legit. But if the hiring managersits on it for a day or 2, it's
like, okay. We need to keepworking here. They're not a fit.
So that's that's pretty much mystack today. I I love I love a
cell phone, and I got my, like,dented iPhone 11. It's cracked.
One of the things I've noticedis reschedule more video calls

(35:37):
these days, and I've beenleaning into this. I've started
actually taking more videorecruiter screen calls than old
school phone calls, but, I lovejumping on the phone.
I'll give everybody my phonenumber. I'll send you silly
little TikTok style videos of meworking remotely from my house,
singing songs, being a goober.

Amazing. And you you spoke a bit about automation
with Zapier and things likethat. Are there any other tools
or, like, how do you use that toautomate your drip campaigns?

Yeah. So in the applicant tracking system that
I'm using, there is like anemail sequence tool. So I'll
build it out directly in theATS. I know there's a lot of
great applicant tracking systemsout there that have evolved. I
think about this as, like, the3rd wave of hiring.
First, it was like paperresumes, scanning resumes, then

(36:29):
it were was like largerenterprise ATS systems that were
not candidate focused. Theyweren't built with human
centered design in mind. Theywere often HRIS companies that
needed an ATS solution. But nowwe're in the 3rd wave of hiring
where it's human centereddesign, candidate experience

(36:52):
first, heuristics, beautiful UX,beautiful UI, but it also takes
into mind the recruiterexperience. So I've done things
as petty as, like, matching upmy tech stack by color.
So there's a lot of great toolsout there. I think if you go to
a conference, particularly likein HR tech in Vegas, there's

(37:13):
tremendous market parity when itcomes to buying these tools. I I
wanna support my friends. Iwanna use bleeding edge
technology. But But at the endof the day, like, there's
there's a lot of ways to getthings done.
I mentioned it earlier in ourepisode. Like, I have a passion
for cooking. I actually hatefancy cooking equipment. Like,
give me, like, the gnarliest,like, worst knife in the

(37:34):
kitchen. I like a plastic handleknife.
I like a plastic cutting board.I like an old pot that's been
around for 20 years. It's aboutthe end product that needs to be
polished and and beautiful andwonderful. So maybe that's how I
think about my tech stack andand why I like doing stuff with
bubblegum and paper clips, butI'd be happy to dive deeper if
if you wanna talk specific toolsor any give anybody a tutorial.

(37:55):
Like, if anybody wants to callme up and be like, yo.
How do I use this Chromeextension? How do I run a bash
script against a PEL's leak?Anything you wanna know about
getting candidate data andenriching emails and figuring
out ways to connect with peopleis is always a fun conversation.

Yeah. No. I I think a lot of the the people
that listen to this podcast, Imean, kind of like why I named
it throw out the playbook andstuff like that. We don't I
always say budget is a triggerword for most people in TA
because we hardly ever get any.So we I know I am and the
listeners are usually people whoare like you doing the most with

(38:35):
the least and just using whatyou know works.
I love your your example aboutyour knife and stuff like that.
I it was funny. I think I boughtan actual set of knives, like,
probably 8 or 9 years into mymarriage, and it was because my
cousin who is a trained chef wascoming to visit for Christmas.

(38:57):
And I'm like, maybe I shouldn'texpect her to cook with my steak
knives from Walmart that

I used to cut. No. My I'm with you. Great to
hear you have a passion forcooking too.

I'm the same way at work with stuff. It's just
like, let's just use what's beenworking, what works. It doesn't
have to be the fanciest thing.

Oh, I've got a great example, actually, in my
real work today. So leadingpeople and and talent at TLDR,
like, we're we're implementingLattice, actually. And I had
built, like, a performancemanagement and OKR framework in
Notion, and I told the founder,like, yeah, we could do this
this way, bootstrap it, make itwork until, like, this milestone
where I think we might wannainvest in software. And then,

(39:39):
like, I talked to the folks atLattice, and it's, like,
literally a $100 a year peremployee. Like, HR tech is so
cheap.
My recommendation is, like, gotalk to these folks, test tools,
hit up the founders, figure outthe differences, understand why
something doesn't work. I thinkthat's a big piece right now
for, like, this second to 3rdwave movement for recruiting
tools, particularly in thecandidate facing side of it from

(40:01):
outreach and scheduling is,like, understanding why
something doesn't work. Ifyou're a recruiter and you're
getting a candidate drop off orlow attendance rate, like, do
you know the difference betweenan API call for a calendar
versus a dotICS file? So thesequestions around curiosity and
understanding how our systemsserve us is really what dictates

(40:23):
the market, not the other wayaround. Like, don't roll up to
HR tech and let some founder,like, you know, tell you how to
do something.
Like, be confident, haveconviction, test things. It's
cheap enough to figure outsolutions.

I love that. Have candidates ever given you any
feedback on your nurturingprocess? Like, have they what
have they appreciated the mostabout it?

This is something that I actually struggle with. I
don't take positive feedbackwith a lot of absorption. It's
nice when I get that message,and in the moment, I'll smile,
but, like, I will it'll go onein in one ear and out the other
so fast. I actually encourageany new recruiter to create a

(41:06):
brag book, like, day 1. Create afile, open it in your iPhone.
Just do something so that onthose hard days where you're
like, why the heck am I doingthis? You can go back and pump
yourself up. As a team, as afunction of 1, like, I am my own
pep rally. I am a little bitextra. I annoy myself most days.

(41:28):
But being able to go back andthink of those wins at a very
granular level, if we'reinfluencing one person in one of
the most important decisions intheir lives, which is where
they're gonna go to work, that'senough. So this is something I'm
actually working on and wouldlove to hear how you do it.

I love your advice because I wish I would have
started a bradfolder earlier onin my career, and I didn't. When
I moved to recruiting, it wassuch a, like, literally pushed
into it from what I was doing.It was so different from being a
software engineer and and all ofthat. And I was I started in

(42:05):
leadership of recruiting becauseI was already in leadership. So
it was hard.
But, yeah, that's what I do. Ikeep screenshots, anything
anyone has said because likeyou, I don't remember the good
things. But one bad thing, onenegative feedback that I
remember it detailed for therest of my life. But the good
things, I kind of like don'tremember them. So I like to have

(42:27):
that for those days when I getthe negative feedback because we
all get it.
I can open my brag folder andliterally go through the
screenshots and be like, I'mactually good at this. I
remember.

You know, it's really funny you say this, Rona,
because this morning, I saw thisquestion. You teed this up in,
like, the preshow notes, and Isaw it last night as I was going
to bed. And there was actually acandidate that I remember
speaking to a few months back,and he gave me, like, one of
those notes that I remember mademe feel really good. And then I
was like, okay. What is hisname?
What is his name? And I was,like, racking my brain as I was

(43:00):
falling asleep. And then sureenough today, like, I posted
and, like, I just saw it a fewminutes ago before we recorded
that he liked one of my recentposts. And it's like, I can
remember a face, and I try toremember people's names because
it's the most important thingabout them. But, like, as a
recruiter, we see so many names,but I can remember faces.
And it's usually only, like,occasionally where I'll forget
somebody's name or not actuallybe able to thread that needle

(43:24):
from a memory perspective. But,like, because of this, because
of you prompting this, I'm gonnabe able to go pinpoint that and
find that person because Iactually want to sell a role to
them and reengage them for anactive wreck I'm working right
now. So thank you for makingthis, like, recruiting
happenstance real time for me.

Amazing. I love that. As we wrap up, what role
do you see, like, candidatenurturing playing in the future
of work, like, especially withremote and fractional and just
where we live right now?

This is tough because we don't have we don't
have insight in the future, butI think this is one of those
moments where we might beovershooting the capabilities of
AI. I think we're very muchmoving towards the dead
Internet, but we're not going tobe there as quickly, I think, as

(44:25):
people anticipated. So the shortanswer is, what does the role it
play? What what is the role itplays? Same as it always was.
And one of the things that setspeople apart is adding value.
Specifically, what do I mean bythat? If I work in the exec
search space, if I work in thesourcing recruiting space for

(44:48):
early stage companies, I havelearned that I always have to be
pipelining. I can't just open arack, optimize for application
yield ratios, and and get ahandshake. Yes.
It's gotta be part of my dailymotion, and that's why I'm
committed to recruiting. So oneof the ways you can do that is,
particularly if you're reachingout to an engineering leader,

(45:10):
demonstrate value to them.They're getting bombarded with
tons of emails each day. Go backto that pattern disruption.
Don't be precious about ourcandidates or introductions you
can make.
Put a little sauce on the plate.Leave people wanting more. When
it comes to nurturing, it'sleaning into the value that we

(45:33):
can present for other folks, andmaybe it's shipping a candidate
or 2. They'll remember you forbeing generous. There's also
nothing wrong with a little quidpro quo when it comes to
understanding more of those coldrelationships and threading
opportunities to add value.
So that's kind of a sellertactic once you get into that

(45:54):
that call and have theintroduction. If you need to
leverage, like, quid pro quo,like, I think it works in
respectful ways. So, ultimately,what it comes down to is
recruiting is about influencinghuman behavior, driving
connection with other people. Ifyou don't wanna do that, like,
there's a million other ways tomake a living.

I love that. It's true. Anything about candidate
nurturing that I didn't ask youthat you think is important for
listeners to know?

Yeah. Like, you can't spell nurture without you
are, so I wanna know what youare doing. Sorry to be a dork,
but, like, how do you thinkabout nurturing? Like, it's it's
so complex, and I'm I'm reallyappreciative of us diving in on
this.

Great question. I I think about it very similar to
you. To me, it's all about therelationships, and it's about
it's the long game. Just likethe way I think about my content
as a content creator, it's thesame way I've thought about
nurturing candidates. It's likelike you said, you it's the
people that you meet today thatyou just know, okay.

(46:53):
I don't have something for themright now for whatever reason,
but I just this person totallyfits with either the company I'm
working with or the types ofcompanies I like to work with
because I know what types ofcompanies I usually work with.
So just starting thatrelationship and, again, giving
value. There's been so manytimes where it's like, oh my

(47:15):
gosh. I I don't know. Forwhatever reason, people write to
me when they've had a bad day atwork.
It's like, can you believe whatmy manager said? And not in the
slimy like, oh, let me slide.Oh, yeah. It's a great time to,
like, sweep them up from wherethey are at, but it's like, what
did they say? Do you have 5minutes?
Let's talk about it. How are yougonna reply to that email? Just

(47:36):
basic how I would help any of myfriends. I do a lot of that, and
that has really helped wheneverI find a role for them. And it's
like, hey, what about this?
Even if they're happy at wherethey're at, because I've
listened to them on those offdays and because of the
relationship that we've builtthrough the years, they always

(47:57):
take my calls. They always openmy email. So it's very people
first approach. And the reasonwhy I do recruiting is because I
love people.

100%. I agree with all of that. And that's
what's cool about the toolsright now being built. And a lot
of these, like, 3rd wave ofhiring vendors are focused on
the recruiter experience. Theywant our feedback.
Like, Team Taylor does a greatjob at implementing product
feedback in 6 week sprints.They're approachable. It's an

(48:28):
elegant product. It looks cool.It's like bubblegum yum yum
pink.
So if you're talking aboutmatching up your tech stack and
maybe matching your microphone,it's cool to see their evolution
as well. They're breaking intothe North America market, the US
market. They're wildly popularin in Europe. And I know some
folks over there and have workedwith them, and it's just really

(48:49):
cool to see that candidatenurturing component, how they're
thinking about employerbranding, the modules there. So
we're we're on the precipice ofsome really cool emerging
technology, and that's one ofthe benefits of start up
technology and start up tech is,like, you get to sandbox things
and try new tools in a way thatenterprise solutions can't work

(49:11):
as nimbly.

Yeah. Oh, and I could talk about team Taylor for
hours and hours, but truly assomeone that comes from a
engineering background, I I wasvery big on, like, user
experience and user testing. Andlike you said, Team Taylor is
really about the, like,recruiter experience and the
nurture section in their connectsection of their or features of

(49:35):
their application are trulybuilt with the recruiter in mind
and the candidate in mind, andyou can totally see it as with
the ease of how you use it andjust how easy it is for
candidates and also for you. Soyeah.

I I love to see it. I think we're we're
definitely gonna be in a spacewhere, yes, there's continued
market parity, but it reallycomes down to having the right
tool for the job. And I've useda lot of different tools. I
wanna use a broad variety ofthem, and it's also, like,
relatively inexpensive. So it'slike Yes.
Go try it. Go sandbox it. Go aska vendor for a sandbox instance.

Yeah. You'll be surprised how many times you get
that just by asking. So I haveloved this conversation. How can
listeners get in contact withyou?

My number is 720-646-9075. Shoot me a text.
Say what up. I'm for real. I Ilove talking to folks.
I will be speaking at TA Week inSan Diego with some friends.
Really excited to see the TeamTaylor folks out there. We're
gonna gonna hang out and do somecool stuff around the employer
brand and nurturing space.December 10th, I'll be at the

(50:47):
hire easy for recruiters byrecruiters conference talking
about recruiting in 2025 withclarity and confidence. Shout
out to hire easy and the team,Shannon and Daniel.
I run a podcast called the RebelTA podcast, where we talk with
people and talent leaders in thefuture of work. My content is
sometimes a little out there. Itmight not be for everybody. I'm
I'm kind of a goober, but,engage with my contacts. Send me

(51:10):
an email.
I love a good email. Love a goodtext. And then if you are
looking for recruiting support,like, happy to connect anybody
to the right folks. I've beenpunting a lot of inbound leads
that, like, my own contentengine has developed. I run a
little strategy firm that I puton hold while we build TLDR.
So, yeah, anyway you wanna getin touch, I'm always down to
Jam.

I love it, and I can't believe you gave your
phone number. That's amazing.That's a first on this podcast.
Amazing. Well, thank you somuch.

Thanks, Verona. This has been awesome.

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