Techserve Conference Podcast Panel: Top Critical Challenges Facing IT Staffing Firms in 2022

The IT Staffing industry is facing a lot of challenges (and opportunities) going into 2022:

• IT Talent shortage

• More Emphasis Than Ever On DEI

• Shifts In Remote Work And How We Identify Candidates

• Recruitment going digital

• Direct sourcing trend

How can you overcome these obstacles? What strategies will help your company grow in the future? 

Join us for this live podcast panel to learn about four important topics facing IT staffing firms today.

First, we’ll discuss practical strategies you can implement to tackle the IT talent shortage.

Next, we’ll talk about how digital recruiting and direct sourcing are shaping the industry and best practices to leverage recruiting technologies.

Finally, we’ll share with you some tips on how to develop an effective recruiting strategy so that you can attract diverse top talent from all over the world. 

In our panel, we have:

• Cesar Jimenez, military veteran, founder & CEO at myBasePay.

• Toni Harrison-Hogan, SIM DE&I Council Member and Senior Director of Technology Under Armour.

• John Bemis, President, Benchmark IT, LLC

• Hank Levine, President and CEO, iPlace USA

Learn about new trends, best practices, and proven strategies that you can implement right away!

Podcast Panel Transcript

Hank: “In the more immediate term, the simplest thing to do is to remove every restriction from job orders that isn’t a requirement. I would say the biggest one of all is remote work. When you allow remote work, you not only make candidates happier, but you can now recruit not only from the whole country, from the whole world, uh, you know, saying we, we heard other people talk today about college degrees. I would go to the hiring manager and I would go through every single element of a job order and say, if I found the perfect candidate, but she didn’t have this, would you still hire her? And at the hiring manager says, yes, it’s off. Right.

The second thing I would do is kind of a brute strength approach. If you looked at things, when there were more candidates around a recruiter might be able to get, you know, 10, 12, good send-outs a week. And now the number’s more typically six to eight. So if you’re gonna get the same number of send outs, you need more.

And you can either hire them and Charlie, or you can use an offshore company to do that. Um, going a little longer term. I think the best way to attack the skill shortage is through [00:07:00] immigration. So challenge, I want to do a little thought experiment. I know immigration is a very hot political topic, but let’s, let’s flip things around, pretend that you took the top 10 technical universities in the United States.

And a large portion of their graduates were going overseas because they felt they could make more money and they could have better career opportunities. If that happens in the United States, our country would go nuts. I it’d be a national emergency and they would find somebody to stop it. That’s exactly what happens when you let H one BS and stuff coming to our country.

These are the people coming from the best universities and other countries from the richest families. And they’re the most capable people in the country and it’s their countries, brain drain, and it’s coming to us, but you don’t let them in that’s that’s just counterproductive. Um, and you know, you can look no further to Silicon Valley, right?

Half the companies in Silicon valley are created by immigrants. It’s not a zero-sum game. It’s a job-creating game. Um, I, you know, looking a little longer term, a lot longer-term, there’s a lot you can do, uh, around training, uh, and, and, uh, and retrain people to other skills. But I would again say that that is probably more difficult and a longer-term solution.”

Cesar Jimenez: “I mean, those are, those are excellent points. I mean, I like to add, I just, I hear the, you know, you see it all over the place, posted all over the place, talent shortage issue. It’s almost like I’m tired of seeing it. I don’t even know at the time I like to tell people, I say, is it a talent supply issue or is it a talent engagement issue?

Like just to kind of reiterate, it was Hank saying, I think cut the restrictions, you know, are people capable? Can people, like, I love the gentleman that was speaking earlier impact, you know, do you really need that for your [00:09:00] degree to actually do the job? If you have any experience? I think that, um, you know, organizations, you know, I think the better us as you know, practitioners in this business have earlier conversations with our customers about having a seat at the table, as far as workforce planning, um, start understanding there are other alternatives to hire people outside the normal channels.

Right now there are hiring platforms as near short as offshore. It is. You’ve got to consider every time. Because the one channel you’re working on right now is not working. So, and that’s when you’re going to have those supply issues. So my PR my personal opinion, my take on the, you know, as far as the current shortage, it’s really more of an engagement issue.

A lot of candidates don’t want full-time work. They want to say, consultants. So you gotta be able to look at your organization. Do I fit this? Do I have enough FTE? Do I credit it to do I turn it into a contract position? So I turn it, you know, gig, and to, I turned to freelance communities, there are so many different avenues to hire right now.

And you really got to listen to what the candidate, the talent, the lead market really saying right now. And you got to match it to your requirements to see what works.”

Toni: “I like to add onto that. I think when you think about count shortage, right? And the engagement part, I think we need to start flipping it.

Cause we always, from a hiring standpoint or corporate hires, it’s like, what’s in it for them. I think we need to flip that and say what’s in it for the employee. What’s in it for the teammate because you start changing that paradigm. You’re going to really be able to attract that top talent. You’ll be able to retain that top, top, top talent, because you’re always focused on the individual, not the corporate results.”

John: “I agree. And I’m wondering if any of you have seen, uh, much work going global, like click and I know some of our clients are starting to open up, you know, remote is fine, but in the US or in the Eastern time zone, but, you know, can that person do that work sitting in Europe? Can they do it in Sydney? You see a lot of job orders, Hank. I don’t know if you’re starting to see some clients open up. Doesn’t matter what time zone you’re in or what country you’re in.”

Hank: “We absolutely say it. So we, we have clients in Europe and they’re hiring it talent everywhere. So we’re hiring people for them. India. We just hired some people from Singapore. They have to play nine states. Uh, you know, these are clients in Sweden”

John: “Right? So it’s just a question, the question of verifying and being able to pay them legally and, or there’s some complex issues around doing that, but, but, uh, it’s good. 

Hank: “typically, you know, that’s what the companies like that, that use employers of record so they can be compliant and all these other countries”

Cesar Jimenez: “I really, I liked what you said about flipping it around and actually listening to the talent community. Right. Understanding, and then creating a strategy to say, you know, what kind of compromise can we make? Because these traditional avenues of hiring are not working. Right. So we have to listen and, and create something that’s going to be attractive, you know, create an employer value proposition. That’s going to make people want to apply to your organization.”

Cesar Jimenez: “I believe it’s about 86% of fortune 500 companies have a direct sourcing program in their organization.

So what that means just to break it down is that they’re leveraging their own. They’re taking control, right? The employer says, you know what, I need more control and I need a hiring has gotta be my priority. And what they’re doing is they’re leveraging their employer brand. They spend millions of dollars, right?

Or any one of these major brands out there. And they’re going out to market and building their own contingent talent pools and issue with that is that, you know, staffing is a [00:14:00] science. You guys all know this as a recruiting business. It’s not just putting up ads and putting people in a database. You have to make sure that you are engaging with your talent pool.

It’s very different than actually, you know, from an FTE hire to a contingent hire. It’s a whole new set of rules that you have to. So I look at that, you know, a lot of people ask, is this a threat or is it opportunity? I think it’s a little bit of both. I think that low hanging fruit, general, basic skillsets, I think a lot of clients can hire on their own.

They can hire and curate talent and hire general type skillsets. I think there’s an opportunity for a lot of staffing firms to help companies in that journey as talent curators, right. Help them do that journey being the insider or someone else will right. Be part of that process and be part of that change, help them be successful in a direct sourcing strategy.

And then you’re going to. You know, you’re going to incumbent and you’re gonna wind up getting the rest of the market share anyway, versus waiting for them to call you when they have a need and they’re gonna hit the supplier list. Right. [00:15:00] Um, there’s a ton of opportunities to partner with direct sourcing technologies.

Um, there’s a lot of opportunity departments with ER, companies like ourselves where, you know, there’s an opportunity for an employee record and payroll and within, uh, a direct sourcing program because they need a separate, they can’t have any con co-employment issues, right? You gotta be able to have a program, a platform in place to make sure you pay people compliant.

So those are some of the, I would say threats and I think also opportunities, but I would definitely, you know, be in a Stafford professional in this business of practitioner, I’m paying a whole lot of attention to resources right now. It has to be, it’s not going to go away. And I’ve met with several different programs like contract contingent workforce program executives.

And I will share with you, the biggest thing is not saving money. It’s actually taking control of the hiring because. You’re not their only client. Right. You know, how, how do they know that supplier or you prioritizing their needs, right? Like the war for talent that is shortage and the gateway, wherever you want to call it, [00:16:00] they need to make sure.

So that’s why you see. So I think right now, I think there’s a study that showed out and there’s more recruiter openings, and they’re all software engineers in the U S right now. And most of them are corporate and the competing with agency salaries and then some, so they take a control and we need to, you know, in my opinion, we should be part of that change and create opportunities for ourselves in this, in this, in this new movement.”

John: “Okay. Cesar, what, how, how would you contrast that with VMs, MSP, VMs, MSP are, we are mature. They’ve been around 15 years. Did you say probably 87% of fortune 500 probably has some sort of VMs or MSP? Absolutely. Why are they feeling like they need to go to direct sources, more control of the hiring?”

Cesar Jimenez: “What they’re trying to do is have a pro it’s direct sourcing is, uh, is a proactive talent acquisition. And it’s separate. It’s a separate lane. It’s another source, VMs and MSP is one source and direct sources of completely different control controlled by TA directly versus outsourcing to a VMs. That’s going to control the supplier who lift suppliers.”

Toni: “So you think it’s about really lowering their costs. You think it’s about that or the timelines that the timeline, when you engage a MSP or service from the time that you have. Be able to get the resume then actually not onboard that he made on. It could be 60 days. And so I look at outsourcing, right, bringing the outsourcing in really reduces that timeline because they had that pipeline and they have that pipeline that they can really monitor what they’re being paid, their benefits, because that’s very much needed when you’re contingent worker that keeps them a contingent worker in some cases. And then also too, it’s much easier to flip them to full-time.”

Cesar Jimenez: “Absolutely. Those are, those are great points. I would say. Um, direct sourcing. One of the benefits of direct sourcing that we see out there is that as they build these teams and you have a talent curator as a partner, which it could be a staffing organization, is that they’re actually practically building the talent pipelines.

Versus your in-house staff. That’s where the opportunity lies for the staffing firms out there. This is where I say, it’s not necessarily a threat. This is where you can create more opportunity for yourself. They meeting with the business, they understanding, okay, what are the in demand? What are the hard to fill positions?

And let me start building those talent communities and keep them engaged because it’s not just filling up a database with available resources because those available resources are there for a day and they’re gone the next day, right? So it’s keeping them engaged and having the technology in place to make sure that the automation is there to keep that database very active.

And as they get the opportunities, what they’re doing is they’re marketing those contingent, uh, openings over to that, to those talent communities first, before they hit the suppliers.”

John: “Well, that’s, that’s certainly one. Challenges in VMs, MSP is by the way, they’re designed the recruiters who have the candidates are not given any future view of what’s going on, are not even supposed to talk to the managers about what your next initiative is.

And then all of a sudden you need five Java programmers where, oh, okay, let me go find them. Whereas with the curator talent pool or what we do for our best clients and all of that staffing firms do this for our best clients. We know what’s coming down the pike, we’re pipelining and we’ve got people ready.

So, you know, you’re basically just trying to shift that basically create the value of client model, but even tighter on the inside.”

Toni: “last year, I actually did some work with a, a staffing firm in Atlanta, Georgia, and her issue was really being able to, uh, create that diverse. And so I think having, um, direct sourcing or MSP or [00:20:00] VMs is a benefit in some ways, right?

Because they can do the legwork for you around creating that diverse pipeline for you. They can already have those, um, candidates fed it, um, qualified. And then as you need these talent to staff projects or full-time roles, or for growth purposes, you have that pipeline there.”

Toni: “great question. I will say this when you stay recruiting diverse talent, where we go, right.

Machine learning AI, but the only issues with, especially with AI, if you don’t have. Governance body. You don’t have ethics, uh, strategy. You’re going to infuse unconscious bias in that process as well. So we all understand the recruiting process from attract to the decision-making is fought, right? We all know that we all come with our unconscious bias regardless of who you are and how good you are as a person.

And so I think one of the things I think you touched on it is I know for me, I’m really working hard to create that employee value proposition. And so in my job descriptions and things like that, I always make sure that that is stated in there because I want the candidate to have a sense of what the tower or the vision that they’re going to be joining and how they’re going to be able to advance.

And what’s the culture of that team. Because that seems for me, that seems to have helped with trying to find that unique talent. Um, so that’s one issue. I think another great way of starting to highlight and showcase your diverse talent you have in your organization. Right. Um, urban, as on some social platform, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, there’s a couple more, I’m probably forgetting.

Um, but I do believe, right. I think it was a commercial last year that I just loved. I can’t think of the, the retail brand. Um, but they highlight it all other female executives. And that was a great example of how they’re approaching their employee value proposition by showcasing how women, how they are committed to women and advancement and all sectors, just like.

Um, making sure that they understand when women are a part of the team, we come with different types of expectations and also different obligations as it relates to family, uh, and other outside life into work-life integration activities. So, um, that was a great commercial. And if you see if I’ve kind of tracked it, the, after they went live with that commercial, they had increased their talent pipeline, increased their hiring of diverse talent.

So that’s, that’s an example. And then I think the other example too, is, um, holding talent, acquisition accountable, right. Um, making sure that there is a business driven or business outcome driven type of metric strategy that really drives the recruiters performance, uh, drives their decision-making and with, because it’s based on.

Not based on their preferences or understanding of what they think, the role that can, what the role should look like, or the candidate should look like who’s filling the role. And then also too, it gives you some data around your organization from a DNR perspective.”

Hank: “I really liked what Tony said. Um, I, I, I think there’s a big distinction between the recruiting part, uh, of getting diverse candidates. There’s a lot of things you can do just in recruiting and you can go to custom search engine and you can go to diverse job boards and so forth to identify the candidates.

But in my experience, cause we, cause we do work with several large companies on diversity hiring. After they’re hired, if they don’t have a good experience and it doesn’t kind of reinforce itself and bring in more people, there’s a lot of effort that goes poof. And I, and I will tell you, the companies we worked with, I would say half of them are doing diversity for marketing.

The other half are doing diversity because I truly believe it. But even the ones that truly believe it and believe in it and are very committed to it. When people get higher there, it’s challenging. And I know they don’t always feel welcome. And the other big challenge I would say is if they start to do well, then they have a big brand name on their resume and their diverse candidate.

And the whole world comes after him. I said, these companies have to keep them. And yeah. It’s hard. It’s hard to keep them because they’re a superstar now. So, you know, so it’s really a much broader than just the recruiting part of it.”

Toni: “Um, I had a late night, so I decided to Google, there are thousands and thousands of definitions of diversity. Um, I couldn’t even count, right. I mean, by that I knew it was a couple, it was like a lot of zeros. Right. So I really wanted to make sure that as we kind of talk about diversity inclusion, we were all on the same page as the traditional definition of diversity.

So I didn’t want to mess it up. So I actually wrote it up. So diversity is any dimension that can be used to differentiate groups of people from. These dimensions are race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, social and economic status, age, physical abilities, and neuro diverse abilities, uh, religious beliefs and other ideologies.

So when we think about diversity, we always go to what race, but race is important, right? But there’s other dimensions as well that sometimes lead to teammates after they’re hired to have that same mantra I’m not being seen or heard. So equity is ensures. Everyone has access to the same treatment opportunities and Avast and advancement.

It aims to identify and eliminate theories that print prevent full participation. And then the last one is inclusion is a state of being valued, respected, and support. It’s about focusing on the needs of every individual and ensuring the right conditions are in place for each person to achieve their full potential.

So, as I’ve been here since Sunday, I’m spending times spending time with my SIM members and peers. Uh, we talked about diversity, equity and inclusion, and everyone had their own definition. So for us to really move the needle on DNI, we have to come to some common ground on what it is.”

Hank: “I think maybe more important is why. Why diversity matters, right? So equity is a very, very nice concept, but I don’t think in a capitalistic society, it’s kind of roll the day cause people because companies are going to do what makes them money. And the good thing about diversity is it will make you money because there are endless studies that show that diverse teams, outperform teams, where everybody is the same.

And the reason they do that is because when you come from different backgrounds, you have different life experiences. Your brain actually develops differently is neuro-plasticity right. And, and if you’re creative, if you’re presented with the same opportunity or problem, you will come up with different solutions.

And if you have more solutions on the table, on average, you will make better decisions and less risky decisions, but that’s only. If you listen to the people who have diverse ideas. And, and so if you have a company that’s run by a bunch of men and you have a bunch of brilliant women in the company and they have got ideas, but no one listens to them.

It doesn’t matter that you’re diverse. Right. And so, you know, I think that two values that are absolutely connected is respect and diversity is respect. You will listen to people and diversity means you’ll have different ideas and more options.”

Cesar Jimenez: “Great points, um, diversity, uh, you know, I would say that I, I would love to see corporations and little more ownership around teaching and some awareness around what diversity is.

I think it’s, you know, and to spread that across organizations, I think that’s going to be more effective. And those like those types of examples that you mentioned, like some data demonstrating that more diverse teams are more successful. I mean, that’s, that’s hard data. That’s great. That’s great news. And actually I wanted to share something that I can’t take it away from her, this, um, a friend of mine, Michelle, uh, from Gartner, we had on a podcast that we have, and she says something to me that really resonated. She said, diversity is really about diversity of thought, right perspectives. And that, that hit me, that kind of changed my, you know, thinking of diversity and, and kind of like the why behind it and why it matters.”

Toni: “And when you talk about first, she had thought you can have diversity of thought, but if you don’t have a sense of belonging in the organization, it really doesn’t matter. So we’re back to the same statement I made not being seen, not being heard. And so belonging really is, like I said, it’s about. That security and acceptance and your work group and your cottony, and making sure that you fill apart.

You’re not also, you’re bringing your authentic self to the table as well. And when a company focuses on the law of belonging, what they get through diversity, right? They get through inclusion and equity. The next step is belonging, and that’s when they’re going to see an increase in productivity, typically around over 50%, if you look at their promoter scores, they will increase over a hundred plus percent.

And then also you see a reduction in turnover and sick time. And basically that translates into millions and millions of dollars for a corporation or a year.”

John: “Well, as all of us staffing companies that are here now, I mean, technology is, is really changed the business a lot in the last, uh, let’s say five years, it’s really made a lot of difference, you know, recruiting. It has a tradition of being sort of old school, get in the office, sit down and get on the phone, you know, and it’s changed dramatically.

And the people managing the companies have had to change and leverage technology a lot. I just noticed the other day I looked on dice and there’s a new switch on the top of dice where you can flip the switch and it’s somehow it’s a DDI switch and it’s supposed to, you know, sort of change what you see in the resumes to make, to help reduce discrimination.

It’s an interesting brand new feature. I just noticed the other day. That’s great. So we have to get a little training for our team, you know, [00:34:00] digital recruiting. I mean, it’s, the term is so broad. Um, I just thought I’d just, you know, zero in on a few areas that I think we’re all going through in the staffing business in the last few years.

Um, you know, what is digital recruiting? It’s, it’s, it’s everything. I mean, ever since the beginning of the COVID and we, we stopped using desk phones and now everything is. Uh, we don’t, we don’t even have any paper in our office anymore. Everything is totally, totally paperless. So everything is digital. But I think the definition for us is the tools we use that our clients use and our candidates use in the hiring process is probably, you know, digital recruitment and, um, a few of the, the areas that are really impacted.

You’re talking about the talent shortage. Know you’ve got to get out to a relatively small talent base pretty quickly. So, uh, digital recruiting tools have helped us fill out the top of the funnel. That’s, uh, you know, my friend, Sean Malley, who’s running one of my groups. [00:35:00] Um, my Tom non-group said it really well.

The other day said, uh, these tools help us really, um, engage with the candidates and, and so that we can spend more time closing the candidates. You know, we did the human time, what the recruiters value is really once we speak with the candidate and then we can start to evaluate and get some countries.

But the tools can really help us. You know, you’ve mentioned that there’s so few recruiters out there and it’s so hard to hire recruiters and they’re not as productive because the talent is, is, is scarce. So, you know, you can, you can use the tool to, to help you get that go from that. Maybe that eight number eight submittals up, back up to 10 or 12, uh, by using the tool.

So filling up that top of the funnel, better communication, um, you know, it used to just be all email. Now we’re leveraging texting, we’re leveraging LinkedIn messaging. LinkedIn now lets you, you know, send 25 emails at a time. That’s powerful. Um, LinkedIn [00:36:00] has some interesting AI now where every time you do a search, it’s giving you kind of a lookalike search off to the side and it’s showing you here’s some candidates that look like your, like your search.

It used to be, you know, you’d have to set up a safe search and then go back and it would email your results. The next day, this is con this algorithm is constantly helping. You know, it’s changing as you change your search, which is just more efficient for recruiters, then they like it. They like the, they like the communication of being in a text, the text string that stays together instead of emails that are all over your inbox.

Um, so, uh, and chatbots, chatbots have a pretty big impact in helping us, you know, engage with candidates and get to the point where yes, you’re somebody that I should talk to because you’ve got the basic qualifications and you’re available. So I’m going to spend my time talking to you so that those are areas.

And then all of that has been impacted by automation. And, uh, we we’ve spent a lot of time in the [00:37:00] last three or four years on automations. Um, so it’s not just one reach out from a recruiter. It’s an automation that sends out two or three or four emails and, and stops, stops once the person responds or when the person says, no, I’m not interested, but you know, how many times does a recruiter.

Try to reach out to someone. How many times did the salesperson make a call hurt? Not never enough, but we can, we can, we can and recruiters make the one call. Do they ever call the person again? No, because they’re too busy. So automations are huge. Um, um, and automations can help with onboarding, take the drudgery out of onboarding, uh, consultant care.

We don’t call our candidates. We don’t call our working candidates enough. Um, but we can be emailing them a survey, uh, texting them a survey. And so, you know, last time you talked to the candidate, everything was fine. But two weeks later there be a problem. You’re a little survey goes out, you’re alerted to a problem.

You call them, you’re doing a better job. Um, [00:38:00] our candidates really like that. Um, you can keep your database up to date with automation. These are all, these are, these tools are really wonderful. Um, since here fish are two of the big ones, they’re all limited, except by the time you have to dream up what you could use them for and the time to implement, but they’re really great tools.

Um, calendaring tools, people are starting to use Calendly and the calendaring built into LinkedIn. I think the days of, you know, recruiters coming in and making 50 calls a day are over there. My recruiters are coming in now and they’ve got seven or eight or nine calendared calls already agreed to with the candidate set up yesterday on their calendar for today.

So they’re spending their time more productively with candidates and less time, just, just, you know, who picks up their cell phone anymore. Anyway, my wife and I don’t even know who’s calling, you know, it’s like, so, so setting up calls really [00:39:00] helps. Um, it’s helped improve the client experience. Um, you know, we used to just email, email resumes to.

You email a resume, you know, the client gets another 150 emails during the day, can’t find your candidate. So now tools like 3d IQ or candidate league kind of create like a client portal. So the client’s hiring activities all in one place. I really liked that. And clients are really starting to like it web shopping, where the clients can sort of self service your database and look at your candidates abstract when, on their time, not just when you happen to catch them, you know, on the phone.

Um, you know, people like to shop online. So these tools are letting, letting us offer that to our clients. Um, just two other areas. One is feedback. I think, I think these digital tools have really let us, uh, collect in real time how we’re doing reviews, uh, that we get through our great recruiters tool [00:40:00] are, are giving us immediate feedback on our, our, our recruiters, how they’re doing our salespeople, how are they doing with their clients?

Um, That’s really good for employee development. It’s really good for marketing. Um, Google review at the same thing. Um, I really liked the fact that that, uh, since people shop online, they can go online. They’re finding out they see that we get good reviews. That’s really powerful. And then the last thing kind of goes along with how are we doing?

Is who are we dealing with? Um, digital verification of candidates. Now this is kind of a new area. And I think there’s going to be some talk here at tech serve about this product Verimark but we have a real problem in the industry with falsified resume, inflated resumes, you know, especially with remote work, who is that person that I just interviewed?

Are they the person they say they are, is the person who’s now logging on with the computer, the person I interviewed, you know, so we have a real identity management problem and, uh, [00:41:00] um, you know, all it takes is a few band-aids. And then all of a sudden clients think everybody’s a fake and the recruiters are totally skeptical.

So I think there’s some technology coming, using blockchain, et cetera, that will help us know who our candidates are and help them prove that they have, they are who they said they are and they have what they say they have. So I think that’s going to help everybody. So that’s, I’m looking forward to learning more about.

Toni: “I mean, I, I think all of us, right. And our LinkedIn box emails, sometimes even phone calls on the house, you get your phone, your phone number, but I mean, we get bombarded with recruiters all the time asking us, do you [00:42:00] want a job?

Um, I think if you really want top talent, right? They’re not going to respond to a generated LinkedIn email. Cause we all know what they look like. Right. I think we need to take the time and go back to old school to your point, right? There’s nothing wrong with picking up the phone and having a conversation and saying, we’re interested in you.

This is why, what are you doing right now? Are you, are you still enjoying your opportunity, your current opportunity? Do you see advancement? I think we need to go back. I think I love technology, right? Been in for 15 years, I’m a techie at heart, but still that, that rich conversation is very important. If you want to find top talent and be able to secure them and move them from.

So it’s not really a talent shortage, it’s really moving that top talent from where they are today to your current. [00:43:00] And you can’t do that just with generic emails, in my opinion.”

Cesar Jimenez: “No, a thousand percent agree with that. I think it’s a have to put a plug for a friend of mine, but definitely, definitely. If you guys haven’t read it, robot proof recruiters, please get it.

You’re gonna love it. I mean, it’s kind of what I like about it’s the best of both worlds though. Cause I mean, John, you have so many great points on there’s so much that, um, our recruiters spend time on that they really shouldn’t have to. And that automation really kind of solves that problem for us because we are the challenge that we are facing.

We’re always competing. We have to fill that rec within a certain. So you have to have this automation to kind of serve those candidates and spend more time talking to them. So it’s kind of having, like what I like about both perspectives. You have, it’s having the bus basketball for us. You have to have those quality conversations.

You have to have, you know, the generated emails there. You know, when I see that happening, I just say, we got to stop. I mean, it’s, you really have to, you know, curate, you know, an [00:44:00] approach, you know, you have to really understand and call out certain specific things. When an organization is show your real interest that you really took, you’re not a robot.

You know, you, you don’t, you really took an interest in their background. You want to talk to them about an opportunity. So those are the things I think technology, uh, if we’re not moving along with it, it’s a mistake, but I think we can sprinkle some of that old school on top of that technology.”

John: “It’s all about having more, more people that people conversations and the technology just helps you get there.”

Cesar Jimenez: “hoping to kind of take some and, uh, cause I guess I talk about it all the time. I would say, you know, direct sourcing is for real it’s for real. I mean, it’s think about 15 years ago or VMs weren’t going to work. It works. It’s an incumbent. There’s no way around it, but also there’s a, there was a great opportunity, even though it was a.

Too many staffing firms at first, it was a lot of resistance. It became a great opportunity, right? Same thing with direct source. I think direct sourcing is a better opportunity to BMS because it allows like you don’t have that, those, the gates blocking it. You’re going to have that direct contact with your client.

And if you’re not having those with your, those conversations, with your, um, your, your best clients today, somebody else will and it’s happening. So, um, [00:46:00] definitely, I mean, that’s one thing I would love, obviously my contact information. You can reach me on LinkedIn, if you don’t want to talk about direct sourcing.

Um, but it’s that stuff that I guess I want to make sure you guys leave with. It’s spend some time and see it, how that, you know, you can add that to your organization as an offering potentially. And how can you guys win in that and helping customers.”

Hank: “There are so many great points made today. If I can just sum up, um, When it comes to hiring diverse candidates or, or hiring, you know, more senior level candidates, the people factor is huge. I, so I think we are going to see more and more technology. I think the technology is going to really become pervasive at more low labor cost jobs, more entry level jobs.

Um, frankly for economic reasons, because a recruiter can not spend five hours with a low [00:47:00] level candidate because there’s not enough money to be made and then placing that person. So that really makes it viable for technology. They’d come in and remove a lot of those recruiter tasks, but you get the, again to more senior jobs where you get to diverse candidates where understanding them and having a conversation.

So important technology is not going to cut it. You need people.”

Toni: “Um, I think my takeaway for this group is we focus so much on diversity and equity, right? Um, I think we need focus on belonging, right? I think if you focus on the longing in your companies, you already, you’re going to attract diverse talent.

You’re going to retain diverse talent and you’ll be able to advance your talent that you have regardless of their, uh, diversity dementia. Um, so I think that’s where I want to leave us with is that sense of belonging is so important. It’s actually hard law [00:48:00] hardwired in our DNA. And so if you can think about that and think about your experience of being outsider and then flipping it, you would make sure that you had high-performing caned in an inclusive culture.

That’s going to, who they drive your corporation. And PR and help you get to the future state.”

John: “Well, uh, for me, I think the mantra is just always be, always be learning and keep an open mind because when all of these topics, whether it’s technology or the D and I, or sourcing globally or direct sourcing, which when I first heard of it, I’m like, that sounds like a terrible idea.

As I started to think about it and listen to Caesar a little more. I’m like, I work for my really good clients. You can have a piece of that, you know? So, um, uh, you know, we just, we’re in a business that was, that operated the same way for many, many, many years, and is now in a rapid, uh, state of [00:49:00] change. So, so we’ve gotta be, you know, not just focused on today, but training our people and having them keep an open mind to, to what we should be doing tomorrow. And. Taking advantage of it.”