Confessions of a Recruiter
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Confessions of a Recruiter
Mastering Candidate Experience: Sales & Marketing | COAR S2-EP1
The hardest part of hiring isn’t sourcing; it’s steering the process with enough care and clarity that both sides feel confident saying yes. We’re back with one of the best in the industry, Christian Bonadio, Director and Founder of HireQ Consulting, to unpack a practical, people‑first approach to candidate control that ditches gimmicks and builds trust from the first call to three months after start date.
Christian is a master of building processes that actually work — from market coverage and why posting targeted job ads still matters, to tactical outreach using your CRM and LinkedIn, and why the phone beats email for real engagement. He shows how offering useful market intel establishes credibility before any pitch, how deep interviews uncover motivations, decision patterns, and fit, and why preparation is the unfair advantage every recruiter needs.
We dive into salary and counteroffer control: setting baselines early, reconfirming often, and pressure‑testing interest without burning trust. You’ll hear how to discuss offers without formally offering, when to pause, and how to orchestrate short alignment calls that convert wobbly maybes into solid yeses. Finally, Christian shares aftercare rituals that keep momentum through notice periods and reduce early churn, from week‑one coffees to one‑month and three‑month check‑ins.
If you want fewer fall‑throughs, tighter shortlists, and cleaner acceptances, this episode with Christian Bonadio of HireQ Consulting gives you a grounded, actionable framework you can start using today. Subscribe, share with a recruiter who needs a reset, and leave a quick review with your best tip for controlling offers without losing trust.
· Our Website is: xrecruiter.io
Alright, a big warm welcome to Christian Bonadio. Christian is the founder and director of HireQ. Let's just kind of start at the start. More often than not, recruiters boast about never posting job ads.
SPEAKER_00:How can you honestly sit there and talk to a hiring leader and say, yeah, we've absolutely got the best collection of people in the market? You have to put a job advert out there. You may not necessarily get the greatest of quality, but it's going to give you perspective. What is it like being on the dark side? Back on the dark side. We call the dark side internal.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, you're talking about internal, right? Yeah, what's it like? How are you going, guys? Very well. The man the myth, the legend. He's here. Thanks for coming on. Now, Christian is the founder and director of HigherQ. 18 months running your own agency. You've got a great background in recruitment. Would be really interesting before we dive into this season's topic, which is all about candidate control, managing candidates through the process and getting good outcomes. But before we go through that, would you mind sharing a few minutes on your background, your successes, and what's brought you here today?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, no problem at all, Blake. So, I mean, I've been in the industry just over 20 years now, which is hard to believe. I started in the UK, but I had my had my first interaction with recruitment, I had no idea what recruitment was until maybe six or so months before I moved to London and I was working for a juice bar company, and uh I thought about starting to look around. And I remember walking, I walked into Hudson, not knowing what it was that this whole idea of uh recruitment was. And I walked in, uh I'd just come off a shift off the juice bar, so I was in my t-shirts, blooded with um juice and pulp and all sorts of things. I was wearing uh runners and ripped jeans, and the the guy literally came in with his crisp suit, looked at me and was like, What are you doing, man? Like, is this how you show up? Uh and he gave me 15 minutes and then kindly uh escorted me out. But that that was the trigger where I thought this is something that I really wanted to get involved in. So I moved to London, uh, joined Michael Page and was in the UK for about four years, ran a couple of different uh sales recruitment teams and then relocated back, uh, moved into their marketing team, uh, did that for a while, and then moved around Australia within that business. Uh, I left there around 2017, took a year off, uh, needed to just reset and sort of understand what I wanted to do with the next part of my career. Uh, went traveling and came back and thought, I want to see what it's like on the inside, because we all know this as uh external recruitment consultants. It you can sometimes feel like you're always at arm's length. So I wanted to see what it was like on the inside and you know, have some of those more strategic kind of conversations, and you quickly realize that it's probably not quite like that when you join. Uh, but I was really fortunate. I joined David Jones, and at the time they were part of the WHL group, which also owned Country Road Group. So I ran the group recruitment function for about five and a half years. Uh, and yeah, towards the back end of 2023, I thought it's time. It's time for me to uh to do my own thing. Uh, I'd had a little boy and uh he'd kind of given me that spark. So yeah, started high queue at the start of 2024, and here I am.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. Now, before we dive into it, what is it like being on the dark side? Back on the dark side. Well, I we call the dark side internal. Oh, you're talking about eternal, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, what's it like? You know what? It's not too different, and I really enjoyed it because as much as you're not doing the business development, you are doing the business development because there are different points in an organization that feel like they are the experts when it comes to getting great people into their team and they'll do it their way. And when I joined uh DJs, it was it was in a bit of a mess in terms of lots of vacancies. The previous person hadn't quite been able to get on top of it. So we needed to build some credibility early, and it was about filling jobs really quickly. And once I was able to do that and demonstrate that I knew what it was that I was talking about, then it became a little more straightforward in terms of being able to have those deeper conversations around, you know, work strategic workforce planning and understanding what the talent of the future needed to look like and how you brought that in and influencing around biases that existed across the organization. But it looked it was it was great fun, but you are having to work almost as hard to gain that buy-in and credibility, even though you're a part of the same business. So really good fun for me. But but there came a point where I just felt like I wanted to get back talking to different types of people about different types of organization and having a broader perspective than just seeing it through the prism of, you know, a really strong, iconic retail brand, it has to be said, but but through a very specific prism there. So yeah, no, it's really really great fun.
SPEAKER_02:So to go through uh the steps of the candidate control process or you know the hiring process for a client. The candidate journey as well, yeah. The candidate journey is a better way to put it for sure. I'm just gonna rattle out some 12 like larger steps in the process, and then we'll start at step one. And I'd love to be able to pick your brain on each of these steps and understand exactly what you do, how you do it to get good outcomes. So at a high level, number one, you get your job brief from your client. Um, number two, you go outsource the candidates. Three, you outreach those candidates, how are you engaging those candidates to get them to want to talk to you? Number four, you have a screening call to either find out more about them, sell the job, and we'll talk about that shortly. That's that'll be interesting. Uh doing the interview is number five, candidate presentation number six, candidate preparation number seven, client preparation number eight, interview follow-up, how to uh follow up the interviews and get the best out of them. Uh number ten, pre-closing, making sure that they're going to accept a job before you offer them. 11, closing, and then 12, the aftercare. Super high level. Sure. And I'm sure there's many steps in between that. They're the key ones. Yeah. So so let's just kind of start at the start. Um, uh in in the job brief. So you've sat down with a client, you've gotten a great job brief, um, you know everything about the role. What's what's kind of next steps for you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I think there's a few things. Um, firstly, it's about understanding who are the people that immediately spring to mind that you think could be suitable for that. So whether it's existing talent pools or previous jobs that you've worked on that you've identified people that weren't quite right for that role, but could be right for something else, it's about understanding where where are the immediate people that you can go to and start tapping in and reaching out saying, hey, we spoke however long ago, uh, I've got something that could be interesting for you. Do you want to get on a call? Uh, that's probably the first step. The second step in then from there is thinking about okay, who do you go after from a proactive standpoint? So whether that's via LinkedIn or looking at your CRM, whatever the channels are, and you start to build those sort of lists and do and do the research. Uh, and and while there's still a lot of uh feedback around the effectiveness of putting job adverts out there, I think if you want to be comfortable and confident when you talk to your client at the end of your shortlisting process that you have covered the market and at the very least have provided an option for people to proactively apply, you have to put a job advert out there. Now, you you may not necessarily get the greatest of quality, uh, but it's going to give you perspective, uh, and that's important. So that would be what I would then do from there.
SPEAKER_01:Because equally, from an internal perspective, that's kind of that process as well, right? Absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. But but I think how can you honestly sit there and talk to a hiring leader and say, yeah, we've absolutely got the best collection of people in the market, let alone the best, because you know that that concept I think is flawed in and of itself. But how can you sit there honestly and say that if you haven't given an opportunity to people externally to to apply and and for people within your organization, if you're internal, to share that job out there, to then go to their network and so on and so forth. So I think you have to do that.
SPEAKER_02:That's a really, really good point because more often than not, recruiters boast about never posting job ads. Yeah. Oh mate, I'd never post a job ad. Um, and so the way that you've like reframed why to post a job ad might not actually be to get the candidate for the role, but it might be to create more perspective around who's out there and who's applying to have a more of a higher-level conversation with the job.
SPEAKER_01:The amount of placements I made from people applying to that job ad for that job over there, yeah, you know, you're building out your your network in a few years.
SPEAKER_00:You're also building your own personal brand, right? When you're putting that out there to sort of say, hey, can uh Consultant X is working on some really great briefs. You know, I'm a candidate, I'm seeing the jobs you're posting. I want to proactively talk to you. So absolutely. But I think the other thing, and and this idea about people boasting about never placing a job advert, talking about having the best and the best always being the focus point, right now, in the way the markets are, clients want to understand that they've surveyed all possible options. It's an incredibly risk-averse market. If they can't see a transparent process to say, you know what, who have I said no to to then make me feel confident that I actually have the right person for the role? If you're only showing them one person right now, yeah, you might get a few of those over the line. But for the most part, at least with the clients I'm working with, understanding the process that you've gone through to go from however many that were started in the funnel to then the short list uh before they then make an appointment is crucial.
SPEAKER_01:On the proactive side of that, you mentioned you go to your immediate network and what have you, then you do make some proactive outreaches. Have you found any techniques work better for you? Um, I always found that emails just didn't work, unfortunately, too well, too much. But have you anything that you're using that you see being effective?
SPEAKER_00:I I still think there's a place for it. Yeah. Uh I mean, I get an okay response when I use in mail or email, but but by and large, you have to pick up the phone. I think ultimately, especially if you want to develop a meaningful uh relationship. If it's someone you haven't spoken to before, you need to think about different ways how you get that person on the phone. But ultimately, there's going to need to be some form of phone conversation just to get them on the hook to start with. You might not even talk about a job, but you might just use it as a way, hey, this is who I am, this is what I do, uh, this is where I specialize, or these are the things that I tend to work on. I'd love to talk to you about what's going on. Maybe I'll give you something for free around market intel or perspective around how people with your similar background are making transitions into other parts of the industry. But I think you can't shy away from the fact that the majority of the work that you're going to do when it comes to understanding a candidate deeply is going to be over the phone. But yeah, you can still get some success from a proactive outreach email. I think if you're tapping into what are by and large the key things that tend to get people thinking about why they might make a career move. And I'm always of the belief, and I know a lot of the AI tools out there are saying less is more, but I'm always of the belief if you can give someone lots of detail around what it is so they can start to build an image of what it might be like for them to work in that type of role, that's where you start to get people thinking about, hey, you know what, I could do this. Let me pick up the phone and have a conversation or set up a call.
SPEAKER_02:We were having a chat uh offline just before around uh recruiters going in for the hard pitch on the role versus maybe a strategy that you take where you try and extract what they're interested in and see how you can tie it back to the role that you're recruiting. So just talk us through what that process is. When you do, let's say you've short you've got a short list of you know 20 people that you you think is really good. Um maybe you send them all an email, then you jump on the phone and call them all. Um, but walk us through like what that process is for you.
SPEAKER_00:Inevitably, uh, when I get someone on the phone, uh the first five to seven minutes, I'm trying to understand where they're at right now. Like, where's their head at? Why would they even take my call? Like, what is it that's prompting you to be open to these types of discussions? What's going on for you right now? Why do you think the time is right? All the different things. And you're just trying to pick up on little cues, whether it's about, you know, I'm not really satisfied with the direction that my organization's going with, or my boss has started to become a little more of a micromanager, he's not engaging me a little bit more, or I'm not convinced that this is the place for me that's going to continue to develop my skills and my career plan, whatever it might be. If you can start to pull those things and more importantly, actually ask follow-up questions to show that you're actually more interested in what's important to them before you start to go into the pitch mode, that's going to be crucial. So I do that first. And then I need to make sure in my own mind that they have the base skills and experience for me to then be able to talk to them about what uh this role might be about and how it might align to them. But what I'm also doing there is I'm actually trying to understand their process and how much they then perhaps lean on others to do what it is that they do. But also if I can pick up anything else that comes out about why they might be interested in moving, because people don't realize that they share a little frustrations when they start to talk about what it is that they're doing and how they do it. Uh, once I get to that point where you know I'm satisfied that some of the things that are important to them align to what it is that this organization that I'm working with potentially has, I'll then start to talk about the things that make that will resonate the most and then start to get them on the hook. Um, and and I hate using the term on the hook because this is a really big decision for uh anyone in their career. And also if you're thinking about your own personal reputation as a specialist, as a consultant, the last thing you want to be doing is putting someone into a role where they don't feel comfortable or you're coercing them into a role where they don't feel comfortable and they drop out within three to six months and it was a complete mismatch. So you've got to make sure that it aligns. Uh, but yeah, I'll start to talk about what it is that could align. And when they've started to show some interest, I'll then also talk about some of the areas where perhaps things don't quite align as much because you've got to give that realistic view so that you're not positioning something that doesn't exist.
SPEAKER_02:What about telling them who the company is? I was always taught, get them on the phone, pitch them about who the company may be, what they do, don't tell them who the company is until they actually say, yes, this is somewhere that I can see myself working. And then only at that point you say, it's a weird X, Y, Z company.
SPEAKER_00:Would you respond to that? Would you like if someone asked you about, hey, I've got this role, I can't tell you who the company is, all these sort of other things, but it's X, Y, and Z, like how would you feel about that if you were a job seeker? I would be like, what fucking game are you playing, mate? Exactly, right? So I think I think I think it depends. I think it depends. I mean, clearly, some of the work that I do, there's a lot of confidential briefs that uh that I work on. So I call that out from the get-go. I can't tell you, but these are the reasons why I can't tell you. Um, and so forth. And and I think it comes back to the relationship you've got with a client. If you're working a contingent role and it's super competitive against others, sure, I can understand why you might want to take that approach. Uh, there's another argument to suggest should you really be spending your time on those types of briefs, but that's a whole nother conversation. Uh, but for me, I think if you're wanting to build trust with a candidate and you want to manage them through a process and you want them to trust you with the advice that you're going to give them, you've got to give something up and take that risk. Because the the the reality is that the the candidates that are going to be engaged and work with you are going to value that and they'll and they'll respect you for it.
SPEAKER_01:I I'd agree. I would um I think you'd have to tell them. I wouldn't lead with it just because they you know, often I've seen candidates say, Oh no, no, someone to work, so oh no, it's not that it's too soon. But you might start with the job, give them make it exciting, and then say it's with X. Yeah, yeah, something something like that.
SPEAKER_00:But I think also, and that's it's a really good point because if you start with that, and you get them sort of moving towards where you want them to go, and then it's an organization where they might go, Oh, okay, I have whatever view on them. But you the you can then start to take that, okay. Well, tell me a bit more about that. These are the reasons why it might be worth a conversation for you because of the things you said that are important at the start of that discussion. Uh, but I'll tell you what, why don't you come in? Let's talk about what you've done, how you've done it, uh, and see if it if it aligns from that standpoint. And even if this one isn't quite right, it's good for you and I to connect. And that's how you get them in. And the reality is you're going to get greater buy-in once you meet them in person, virtually, whatever, whatever format it is. But that next conversation for me is where you solidify that trust and go a lot deeper around uh why this role could be a suitable fit for them.
SPEAKER_02:So I I want to just clarify something that's always been a bit of a gap in my mind. So, like Matt Cossens teaches this a lot around the screening call and conducting the interview. And and perhaps maybe you know, reflecting back 10 years ago when I first started in recruitment, I probably cut a lot of corners as just a hardcore 360 old school type recruitment um uh type of trained person. But so when you're when you're screening someone, well, what's the difference between screening someone over the phone for your for like 15, 20 minutes versus getting them in for an interview for an hour? Like what are the what's the difference in those conversations? Time.
SPEAKER_00:Time, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, time is one, but also you you you're not getting anywhere near level of detail that you need to understand whether the person has the right skills on the surface, acknowledging that you know, we as recruiters are not subject matter experts in those particular roles for the most part. You know, perhaps maybe if you're recruiting salespeople, it's a bit different. But um, so I think there's there's that. Um, and then second, the dynamic, because more and more people are choosing to join and definitely leave organizations based around the fit and dynamic of the people that they work with. So I think when you get someone in person, whether that's you know physically or virtually, you're going deeper around the behaviors, the personality, the intrinsic drivers, and then the process that someone goes through to be good at their job. So, and you can't do that in a 15-minute, 20-minute phone call. Uh, there's just no way. If you think you can, and that's what you're using, well, then you're leaving a huge amount on the on the table on both sides. Because when you then go and talk to a client about this particular candidate, you're you're flying blind and you're probably making some stuff up, or at the very least, you're making some wild assumptions. And then if you're wanting to come back and actually get that buy-in from the candidate through the process thereon after, you you've got nowhere near the same level of relationships as you have when you sit down with someone like this and spend time getting to know them. Again, depending on how you want to run that next conversation.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, interesting. Yeah, so it's more around getting more detail, building more of a relationship so they don't flake out halfway through totally.
SPEAKER_00:You're building trust. You're absolutely building trust. And again, like the way I would run that first part of that in-person, more detailed conversation, sometimes almost to my own detriment because I go over time, I'd probably spend the first 15 minutes, maybe even longer, just really sort of digging in under what it is that's making the person stick. And when you ask follow up questions, when someone starts to tell you things that are personal to them, the trust level goes up significantly in a relatively short space of time. Why? Because we like to talk about ourselves, and when you show an interest in Someone beyond just simply trying to get them in a position where you can sell them something and actually show that you you've shown a bit of care, uh, all of a sudden you you are dramatically different to 90% of the people that you're up against from a competition standpoint. And the person is more likely to say, well, what do you think about this in terms of how I approach this next conversation uh down the line as well? So yeah, I think that's crucial for me.
SPEAKER_02:How do you um how do you go with the instinctive desire when you've found a killer candidate and you just want to get him off like straight to your client, but you gotta do the, you gotta meet them first and they can't meet till next week. And it's like, come on, mate, I just want to send you details, you're a deal here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, look, I I think I think it comes back to this idea of the best, right? And the process that you've got to go through. And and maybe I learnt this more. I think I learned this more from being in-house is in that in-house, you're um you're tasked with acting on behalf of an organization. You can sometimes get caught up in this idea. Well, I'm the one that's hiring the person. The reality is that I'm not the person that's managing them day in, day out. That is ultimately up to the hiring manager to make that call. So, my perspective on what a killer candidate looks like is through my prism on the 45-minute job brief conversation I had with a client versus understanding what their day-to-day and lived experience is like. So I always try and temper myself from, oh, this person looks perfect until I've seen others. Um, and and I'm also of the belief that you want the, and again, I learned this internally because there were so many times where hiring leaders would say to me, Who would you hire, Christian? And I was like, doesn't matter who I'd hire because I'm not I'm not managing them. If I was managing hiring for my own team, well, this is the person I would hire, but but I'm not. You're the person hiring. These are the pros and cons. What you're gonna get from person A versus person B. What do you think is going to be best for your team? And I've taken that same approach into this new new incarnation. So, yeah, so I I taper it, but from an urgency standpoint, you got to drive that. You absolutely have to drive that. So it's about saying, okay, I get that you can't meet till next week. This is where we are in the process. These are the reasons uh why we probably need to move a little bit sooner. And I think the client might want to have this conversation. What else can we do to be flexible? And this is the great thing about the uh the use of virtual conversations where you can perhaps squeeze something in where you might not otherwise to make it work. And I think you, if you've got someone on the hook and you've got a timescale you've got to meet for your client, I think you've got to be the one that's got to be flexible to make it work for that person.
SPEAKER_02:Well, basically, in between screening call and internal interview for the agency.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. So let's let's that's a huge thing. And you can spend hours on this point alone. You can. But in your experience, your training you've had, your, you know, both sides, you know, what are some of the key things that you need to be including in that? Any tips or tricks?
SPEAKER_00:In the candidate interview, I I think you have to always be thinking about what you're not hearing. There are things that candidates will come in and tell you from the get-go around why they're there or what it is that they're looking for. And then when you start to dig into what have they actually done in their career and the decisions they've made and why they've made those decisions, you will start to hear either a great level of consistency or a level of inconsistency. And they won't tell you what those inconsistencies are, but their actions will. So you need to be checking that all the way through. And you need to then think about what is this then telling me about what is actually most important to this person or how reliable is this person for this role? Is this someone that I want to then put my name to? These are the things that you sort of need to look out for. And how do you do that? Well, you understand what your baseline is again. So you had your phone screen. Have they told you, have what they said in the phone screen, is that consistent with the first part of your in-person interview? If so, check. If not, well, hold on. When we spoke, you said that this was more important. Now you're telling me that that's more important. What's changed? Or why has that changed? Or did I misunderstand that? And get that clarification and get to a point where you have a really clear perspective at that point. Then when you go through understanding the how and why they've done things and the decisions that they've made, again, if there are inconsistencies. So you mentioned X before, but I noticed that you did Y here. That doesn't quite align. Tell me a little bit more about that. And again, what you're doing here is you're you're showing your uh expertise's understanding about people and what it is that is going to ultimately drive an organization to want to hire. And you can always um position it to say, the reason why I'm asking these questions is if you walk into an interview, whether it's through me or of your own accord, you're going to get asked these things. So part of today is about me preparing you for that, but also so that if I'm going to talk to my clients about you, they're going to ask me, so I need to know the information. We're in this together. So let's get on the same page. It's these little things that don't actually say a lot, but mean a huge amount when you're talking about building trust.
SPEAKER_01:That's a huge thing because behavioral-based interviewing is as recruiters, you get trained that you know, previous behavior is the biggest indicator of future behavior, but that motivational-based interviewing is actually a thing. Yeah, absolutely. Understanding those nuances, like you clearly do, is huge. You've got to fuse them both together.
SPEAKER_00:Totally. Yeah. Because when you sit there and talk to a client, ultimately at the shortlisting stage about an individual, you're going to then need to be able to bring to life, hey, you know what, this person is interested on the surface to have a conversation. However, there are things that you will also need to tick off as a client to suggest whether this is the right place for you, but you for them. But you can only do that if you've got a relatively deep understanding. Well, as deep as you can go within, say, an hour conversation.
SPEAKER_02:So one thing that um I've always um I've always looked at, and uh now that you're talking about this, it's all kind of coming back to me, yeah, making me excited. But I was a sales recruiter. Yeah, right. And so me too. Perfect. Still am. We'll work. So so the one thing that I loved about sales recruitment is you're dealing with other salespeople and you can kind of get on the same page as them. And whenever I would see someone's uh CV and I'm uh basically doing a screening, I would um try and overcome the objections that I know my client would have on the spot through that kind of screening interview process and go, look, all right, you've worked you know 12 months here, you did this here, you did that.
SPEAKER_00:It's all it's always about tenure, right? Yeah, big chunk. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:How did you do this? Okay, so this is going to be an objection for you. Here's three weaknesses that I see in your background that I want to be up front with you, not because I'm trying to chop you down, but I want you to be prepared to be able to overcome this objection in the interview. And usually they're like, fuck yeah, yeah, yeah, sweet. What's the what's the what's the weak parts? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and so as you're saying that, I'm just having these like flashbacks of just prepping candidates and screening them and going through that process before even presenting them. Because ultimately, you know, when we go onto the presenting part of this um, you know, sequence, uh, when you are selling the candidate in, if you can um highlight the objections you know your client will have before they have to come back to you and say, Oh, you know, oh, I don't know about this guy because of this, this, and this, that you're, you know, you're presumptive that they're gonna say that, you can kind of get on the front foot.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I think that forms part of again going down to sort of another layer that we'll we'll get to is when you prepare them for that interview, you've you've done a lot of that pre-work already. You've got them thinking about it. It's then, you know, you then go to the next level around these are the things you might want to think about, how you might articulate it. This this idea of coaching candidates, you know, for a potential interview that you might put them forward for, but just in general, giving them something for free that they might not otherwise have uh been aware of, huge tick in the trust meter. It's like imagine, imagine you walk into a conversation and you have no idea about how you're showing up, and someone turns around and says, you know what, when we're having a discussion, you're not maintaining eye contact, you're looking over there, you're looking over there, and that immediately says X, Y, and Z about you, or some of your answers are a little bit flaky. You haven't got any specifics. You don't talk in infinite detail around your process, you can't articulate the things that you haven't been able to do in a really clear and concise way, or the things that you've done to work on the areas of opportunity for you. And someone turns around and goes, Wow, I never even thought about it like that. So that immediately is like, I really appreciate that feedback. Anything else? And then all of a sudden, you've you've got you've got another lever to pull on when it when you come to sort of building trust and wanting to manage an applicant or a job seeker through a process because they're sitting there saying, Well, Blake's got my back. He's giving me feedback that no one else has ever. I've been to a bunch of interviews and no one said anything like this to me before. So yeah, it's crucial.
SPEAKER_01:I think it really comes down. I'm thinking now going flashbacks to when I was doing candidate interviews, you know, outlining the framework of what this interview's gonna look like. We're gonna do this, we can do why, we can talk about you, yeah. We'll spend some time with a bit of feedback on how you how we've um presented yourself today. And then um something I wanted to ask you about because it's something that was drilled into me very early in my recruitment career, all the way through, which was managing counter-offers in the interview stage. Is that something that you're still pretty diligent on? How do you do it?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it starts from the first conversation that you have with a candidate before you even talk to them about a job, you know, because you you need to understand what's your starting point. So once you understand what the starting point is, and and when you start to then talk to them about a role, I used to always do this. And you know, perhaps I'm reminding myself that I probably should go back to it a little bit more, right? But I used to always talk about the lower part of a range if I had a range. And sometimes if I felt like this person, there was something about this person that made me think they weren't being completely transparent around the salary piece, I'd actually undersell it further. So it wouldn't be unusual that I might say, say a role's paying would pay up to 140 and they've told me that their salary expectations are 130. I'd say, well, the role's paying 120, the end, silence, right? And then you wait for the response. Oh, it's probably a little lower than I would have thought. I get that these are the other things that it's going to offer you. It might not necessarily be there financially, but it's going to give you X, Y, and Z in your career, which you also said was important. Would you be open-minded to having a discussion on the basis that this is where the starting point is at 120? And if a candidate says yes, well, then you're in control. If a candidate says no, I'm not interested unless it's at least the same of what I'm currently on, which is 130, well, then you know where your starting point is. And then you've got some balance. And then you then talk about okay, well, then how do you manage that at the other end, which we can get to? But I think it starts there, and then it is a reinforcement every single time you talk to the person. What do you mean by that? Every single time you talk to that individual candidate through a process for that particular job, which could be, hey, you're coming in for an interview to meet with me to talk about X, Y, and Z, just want to confirm you've got the time, the details, and just confirming you're still comfortable, this is what it's paying, all these sort of other things. And if they don't say yes to that reconfirming, oh actually, I've thought about it, it's probably not quite right. You go back to the start. Okay, what's important, revisit, then get the new number. Right? Uh, you've got to know where your your point is and and not assume that just because you had that conversation a day ago, that things haven't changed. Um, when you're talking to them about interview prep, or you're about to go in and present them from a shortlist standpoint. Hey, I'm about to share your details with the client, amongst others. Just want to make sure you're comfortable. We agreed that this is what your expectations are. Yes, no, maybe talk about that. And and then all the way out through the process as you go through, whether it's post-feedback, you know, before the second interview, post feedback for the second interview, hey, I haven't got feedback yet around where things are, just confirming. So it's like every single conversation, you need to reaffirm that number and continue to shift it. And then make sure when you're talking to your client that they understand if things are moving. But you also then need to think about, and you know, you've got to be careful sometimes because you want to be transparent all the way through, but you can also represent a candidate at the other end in a different way to give yourself a little bit of a buffer. But you've got to be careful about that.
SPEAKER_01:I would always um help the candidate kind of visualize that a counter offer will happen when they resign to that to their boss. You know, they're gonna take you for a coffee, put their arm around you, tell you you've done an amazing job, you've been offered 20k more, we're gonna match that. And then if that happens without you preparing the candidate, they feel all warm and fuzzy and great about their current employer. But if you tell them it's gonna happen, when it happens, they're kind of irritated that it's happened because they knew it was gonna happen. Or if it didn't happen, they're even more irritated. Either way, you were gonna control that candidate. So for me, that was always something that was a just technique that was drilled into us, even at Michael Page.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. And I think so many candidates will turn around and say, Oh, there's an absolutely no way, there's no way to do it. I said, and you have to tell them. And and I think this again, this is where I think about my experience in-house, the panic that sets in when a really strong performer or someone in a team that might already be lean or when a manager feels like they're under pressure, the panic that sets in when someone resigns, the amount of times that my phone would ring the second that someone resigned when I was at David Jones to say, such and such has just resigned, we've got to get started on finding a replacement. Like it happened every day, every day there. But then the ability of organizations to miraculously find 10, 15, 20, 30, 40,000 to retain that person because they know that the amount of time it takes to hire to find someone, getting them up to speed, all of that stuff, it is amazing. So you have to tell them those stories. Yeah. And I I because I've lived it on the other side, I I I go into infinite detail there, but you're spot on. You have to prepare them. Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Love that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So what about like candidate and client prep? Like, what are you doing to try and get a better outcome for your clients so they can secure the candidates? Like, do you ever find clients bomb the interviews? Always. Always. So how do you so how do you overcome a client just bombing interviews and wasting all your hard work?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I mean I think there's there's a couple of things. Like at the end of the day, you you can get a sense, I think, if you're working with someone who knows how to conduct a conversation, whether it's a structured interview or not, but they're they're going to be able to hold themselves in an interview environment for the most part. Um, those that you think don't, you need to almost provide them a level of structure. You might even offer them uh an interview guide that you might have to say, hey, listen, if you're not sure how to run these kind of conversations, I've got a pretty generic interview guide that gives you a structure and some baseline questions to get started. And here might be some things that you might ask from a technical standpoint. Do it from that perspective. But I think if I start um in terms of with the client, and and I think, sorry, before I do that, I I think it's important. My view on this is you can never be overprepared for these types of conversations, you know, not to the point where you get yourself sort of built up into this panic around if I don't get this interview right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna uh I'm gonna kill myself for some degree. But I think the more information you can share on both sides, the better conversation the two people are going to have. And remember, what what we're ultimately trying to do is we're trying to get two people, because it's about people, we're trying to get two people to see whether they could work together, get mutually beneficial outcomes that are going to help them build their own careers and realize success and and and spend the majority of their week together to do those things. So if you don't prepare people to have a structured conversation where they can give the best version of themselves to make that informed decision, well, you're doing both a disservice. That's that's my my view. But with with with clients, it's yeah, provide them that interview guide. But make them aware, hey, these are the things that candidate X have some questions about. These are the things they're not quite sure. That they love the idea of this, but these are the things they're not quite sure about. So if you're in a conversation with this person and you feel like there's something there that you're feeling positive about, you need to make sure that you proactively cover these off. Because if you proactively cover them off without them asking, you're gonna immediately go up a notch as the type of leader that they could see themselves working for. Now, some people might say, well, you're overcoaching. It's like, well, the reality is that what I'm doing is I'm providing people an opportunity to make an informed decision and giving them the best version of each other to make that informed decision. So that that would be what I would do. Um, and and sometimes in that environment, I would also say to the client, if you don't think you can deliver on those things, then don't pretend. Be really clear about what is and isn't achievable because you can't get everything when you're looking for there's no such thing as the perfect job or the perfect candidate, in my view, and we've got to stop talking like that because it's setting people up for failure. On the candidate side, it's then I've got I've got a standard template that I will share with all of my candidates, and I adapt it based on what the role is. But there's probably 12 bullet points that I put in there about things that they need to at least get across. Um, some of it's specific to the role, some of it's specific to them, and then other points will be on things that I've identified about them through our interactions that they might then want to think about, about how they might counteract those or whatever it might be. And then it's a little bit of a brief on hey, this is the person you're meeting, this is their background, here's their LinkedIn profile, these are the things that they value in people. Um, so you just give them that sort of you're almost doing, you know, big chunk of the research, or you're providing them the parameters on the research that they need to do. Um, so they're they're the they're the sort of things that I'll do. And then you get on the phone and you talk them through it. Um, have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? Okay, what do you think? How you're gonna respond to this? Yep, great. Anything you want to ask me that you you think's important, and then away away you go.
SPEAKER_01:I would say the prep piece is such an undercooked. I used to see consultants all the time. Have you have you prepped the candidate? Yeah, they're gonna show up the this, they know where it is, and that's not a prep. Yes, but definitely on the client side, I reckon it's an underutilised superpower because if you think about the recruitment process, it's about control, really. And we so often make sure the candidate's prepared and the client can just do whatever they want. We're not controlling that. So that's actually something I think if we can take away something that's pretty powerful.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I think when you think about the point where you're starting to get to offer offer management on both sides, this is where that piece is really useful. And again, how you're going to maintain client trust is like you've helped them prepare adequately to make an informed decision because this hire is important to them realizing their own personal career objectives. Because it's not organizations that are hiring people, it is people hiring people. Um, so that person is obviously. So they're going to be thinking, well, Ed did a great job helping me be ready for this conversation to make a really informed hiring decision. So, and you're going to listen, they're going to listen to you down the line when it comes to they're there, but we might need to find an extra ex or this other thing that's important to them. What can we do here?
SPEAKER_02:I've got an interesting question for you.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:So uh earlier in this conversation, um, what you said was when you're talking to a candidate, um, and they would say, My expectations are 130, and you would naturally just go, Well, this pays 120, and you would try and find that like baseline. I I want to flip that around to the client side of things. So let's say, for example, we get to the offer stage. Um, they love the candidate, they're starting to talk about an offer, and they go, Yeah, we're thinking about an offer of 130. Would you ever go, oh, their expectations are 140? Well, I would start before then. Like, do the opposite?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I would start before that. Um, you've got to be careful though, because um there is a risk here because there are, and it doesn't happen often or it hasn't happened often in my experience, but it does happen, where the client will go rogue in a conversation and ask them, what are your salary expectations? So you run a little bit of a risk if you want to play that game. I would I'd be careful with my language, but I would absolutely try and build a little bit of a buffer, and it would be on the CV generally. I would put on my covers um cover page of the CV, salary expectations 140. Um uh but open or something like that. Um but the number that they see is where you bring them back to. Uh, but you do need to build a little bit of flexibility in that in the in the advent that they might sort of want to try and find out themselves. But that's what I would do, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because I uh I'm just like reflecting on what you would naturally do with a candidate. So let's say, for example, you're at the end of the process and you go, okay, look, would you accept the job if it was offered? Yes, I would. Okay, if the offer is 120, would you accept that? Maybe, yeah, I'll definitely have a good think about it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, what you say there. So I can reject on your behalf at 120. Yes, yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_02:Or if they go, yeah, I'll have a think about it, and you go, okay, cool. So if it's 120, I'll just say no, don't worry about it. And they're like, oh no, no, no. Okay. On the other side, if they go, yeah, I would accept 120, but okay, great. So if it was 119, would I reject that? Oh, if it's 119, it's only$1,000 different. So I'd accept 119. Okay, cool. So what about like 118? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you just kind of constantly naturally try and find where this like point is.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you've got to find the point where they say, I won't accept that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's kind of where you want to point for me to that 119, 118 is less about the number, more about the times you ask them. Yeah. So you kind of go 115. They'll go 117 is it, Blake. Stop asking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And that's why I that's why I always used to, and like I say, I don't do it quite as often now. I'd go aggressive with what that bottom number is. Same. I'd almost be at that point, okay. Well, they're probably not, there's not much movement on 120. So if you're not interested at 120, then I'd need to test whether the client would actually be open to some flexibility. And it's amazing when you start to, when you've if you've done your job the right way and you've positioned it, linking it back to what's important to the individual, it's amazing when people start thinking about, well, I might lose out on at least the opportunity to talk about something that they'll be like, no, no, no, no, no. I want to have a conversation, but I'd love you to try and get me as much as you possibly can. And when someone tells you that, you know that you've you've reached that that kind of that point.
SPEAKER_02:Do you ever make up a second candidate for the ability to just conclude?
SPEAKER_01:When you're speaking to the candidate.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So I'll give you an example. And this might be licensing.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so this is an example that um that sometimes I I would use a lot, even if they're the only candidate in the process. Um, and this is really just to tease out where they're at with things. So let's say, for example, I'm gonna use around number 100k. This guy's like, Yep, um, if I can get you the job at 100k, would you accept it? I I would definitely highly consider it. And they're just super non-committal. My default typically, and whether or not someone's gonna just flame me for this, I'm not sure. My default would be, okay, cool, look, totally appreciate that. I'll go back to the client and let them know that you would definitely consider it. But the only challenge that I'm gonna find for you specifically is there's another candidate there that would 100% accept the job at 100k. And so if I go back to the client and go, hey, we've got these two candidates, John will definitely consider it at 100k, and this person would definitely accept it at 100k.
SPEAKER_01:Is the candidate real? Is the second candidate real? No. Right, okay.
SPEAKER_02:Um, and then and then you see how if I present you and say, yes, he will definitely consider it a hundred K, but if there's someone there that would 100% accept, you can see how naturally people like people that are interested in them, and so they'll naturally go for someone that they would 100% accept. So, how do I present you in a way that makes them want to just focus on you only and put the spotlight on you? That's kind of like the approach that sometimes I would take where they go, Oh, I see what you mean. They're not gonna want to offer me the job if I'm not committing fully, if there's other people in the thing. So, how do I commit? Um, whether that's a different, whether we need to go to 110k or you need to go think about like whatever the case might be. What's your feedback on that? Is that rogue?
SPEAKER_00:I person I personally wouldn't do that. Um politely said, mate. No, no, no. I mean, I mean, I'll tell you why though, because I think if you if you're going down that road, you you're probably missing the really important bit, which is there are some unanswered questions that the candidate has about the role. They're not saying they're not taking the job, they're saying I definitely maybe consider it. So my my approach would be okay, fair enough. Let's talk about that. What is it that you would need to consider? What's on your mind? What are the questions that are left unanswered? Um let's let's kind of go deep on that because you might find that it's not so much about the money, it's about something else. The way the hiring manager referenced a particular part of the role, or the location, or uh the fact that they might not necessarily see where there's enough stretch in the role, or whatever myriad of other things that have kind of gone on. So I think you've got to get back to that to then understand because what inevitably inevitably you will find is uh they've either got up some they've got other things going on, right? Which is the other piece we haven't necessarily talked about in terms of where they are with other things in their job search. Um, but there's there's probably something there, or there might have been in the discussion less time for them to ask the questions that they felt were important. So it might be you going back to the client saying, Hey, listen, we've got John who's showing a good level of interest, he hasn't felt like he's been able to ask the questions that are important to him. These are the things that is on his are on his mind. Can we schedule a 30-minute call for the two of you to nut that out? And then you can kind of go back to that before I then start talking about um sort of other people in the process. But what I would do to be really transparent is if there are if there have been other people in the process, or if I know that I've there are other people that I could bring into the process, I would reference that. So, hey, listen, they're really interested in you. Like let's not let's not shy away from that. But they also need to keep moving. So if you don't necessarily feel like this is the right thing for you, or you have unanswered questions, let's get to the bottom of that and see whether we can overcome those and then kind of continue to move forward. I think people are gonna want that level of transparency versus feeling like they're they're they're kind of pushed into a corner to make a call one way or the other, because the risk you run with that is that they then get in there and then whatever else is going on over here that we haven't resolved is then gonna bubble up and you probably have a backup and you're gonna replace the role for free.
SPEAKER_01:We make a great point about you know, we probably have missed in this conversation is understanding what else is going on in their world at the time. You know, how does this role stack up versus the other ones you're in process with? And you know, be honest with me because the reality is I want you to get the role, I want you to have a good experience with me, and whether that means accepting my role or taking that role, I want you know, and you need to understand that because nine times out of ten is because they've got something better on the table.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you you know, that that that's a fair point. And and like reflecting on it, generally I would go down the all right, well, what are the things we need to talk about? But it's it's not often that people will give you the reality of what they're considering, they'll kind of keep it to themselves most of the time.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know about that. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure I've had that experience. I mean, there there will be some, absolutely, and then I I would say, but they would be the exception, not the rule. I I think again, we we come back to this thing that for most people, and there's always gonna be exceptions, but for most people, it is a really personal and challenging experience to find a job, and uh it is something that that they will wrestle with because they have to spend so much time in that work, and it's ultimately what's gonna put food on the table for their families and all sorts of other stuff. So I think for the most part, people will go there if you show enough care. That would that would be my view, my experience.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's a good point. I guess I've always approached it that the first objection, never the true objection. So if they're going, look, I need to I need to think about it because of the money, um, and you go, okay, let's talk about the money, and they they get a little bit more vague and you try and dig deeper, and really it's maybe because their partner just got a job and they're in probation, and they actually are just a bit concerned to also get a new job, and then they're both in probation as instability at home. But they wouldn't actually just come out and go, Well, okay, so my partner's just got a job, and sometimes they would if you've got great rapport.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's where you lift it out, lift out the objection put over here. If we can sort the money out, is there anything else in your mind?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Simple as that. Yeah. Uh but you you're right, with like ranking the opportunities with what you just mentioned before. Totally. Generally, I would say, where does this rank uh in comparison to other opportunities? I'll tell you where you rank for my client because I'll ask you, is this one, two, or three? And I'll ask my client, is Brad one, two, or three? And I'll let you know if you're number two or three, man.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it helps you manage. I've always found that understanding where the rank for the candidate is important, not to necessarily share the detail, but you'll start to push your second-place candidate more with your client. Totally if you know this person's not. It just helps you control the process. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But I think all that information exactly, you go back to the client, and and I think with the with the client to sort of go back to that a little bit around them coming in at an offer that's say below where you had hoped it would be, it's it's your job to then be able to go back and say, with all due respect, I appreciate where this number is. We've talked about the expectations here. This is a number we've spoken about all the time. Is there a reason why we're not there? And you've got to the same process that you have with your candidate is the same process you've got to have with your client and and outline the risk, especially again, especially when we come, if we think about the current market, if someone's getting to a point where they're offering someone, they they don't then want that person to then not happen because then they're likely to go back to the start. So it's like for the sake of whatever the money is, are we really going to go down that path where we go back and forth? And you might need to get a little bit cleverer around okay, the I can take the offer to the candidate, but if they aren't comfortable, where's your flex to then then go up from there? We'll take it to them and let's have that conversation. And then it's about how you then have that con that conversation with your with your candidate. But I think it's you can have the discussion around offering a job without actually offering the job to know we've got to be.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think so. Because you get so you get the the offer from the client. They want to make offer to X candidate. Yeah, how do you then use that information in your world? Send them a text.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, got the job. Yeah, yeah. Great news. Great news. You start you start next week. Um send me your passports, check working rights. Um, yeah, look, I think so you you're then you're back on the phone, right? Um, you're back on the phone uh assessing sort of where they're at before you do anything, what's going on, what other things, where have job A, job B, job C, where have they got to? Um you know, you've had some time to reflect on the job that I'm representing you for, anything that's bubbled up off the back of that, how you're feeling about it, feeling good, not feeling good. Okay, why aren't you feeling good about it? Let's talk about that. So understanding kind of where your baseline is. If you if you're feeling like there's a very real chance that the the candidate isn't going to accept, I'd be sitting there saying, Okay, well, uh the candidate, the client is still working through um where they're at. Uh, there's a couple more things that they've got to work through internally, but I'm hoping to get some feedback today. Um, I'm scheduled a call with them later on this afternoon. Um if it was to come in at an offer for you at this level, based on the conversations that we've had, which is sort of what we've spoken about, um, and again, you always go back to the number that you have been talking to them about, not necessarily what the offer is that the client has spoken to you about, unless, of course, the client's gone super rogue and said, well, actually, we're going to under-offer by 15k, and then you've got to try and peace through that. But let's hope that doesn't happen. But you always go back to there. And if there's no, if there's not a definitive yes, well, then you just stop. And you've you go back and try and revisit all of those things like we've talked about just before. And if you're still not convinced that this candidate is going to accept that job, you leave it there and you get back on the phone to your client. And you're not offering them the job.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I was always trained. The moment you offer the job, you've played your hand of cards. Yeah. You're no longer in control of anything from here. So you only make that when you know you've got the winning hand.
SPEAKER_00:Before you go back to the client, you need to have a plan as to what it is that you um that you're going to do next. If you don't feel confident that even with an improved salary offer per se or some sort of change, if you don't feel that offer's going to happen, then you've got to go back to your client and say, look, I don't think we should offer right now. Maybe we revisit some of the other applicants because I've got a very strong view that right now this person's not going to accept your old. Um and then it can be there can be a whole bunch of things that you can do from there. But that that would be what I would do. Um the one thing you can do that might help you to sort of temperature check this even more is, and I always use this, I don't necessarily offer the role, but I'm I might say before the client wants to offer you, they're actually keen to have a conversation with you directly to sort of stress test around are there any questions that are left unsaid? Um, are there things that uh we can clarify, but also to give you a bit more of an overview about what they expect from day one. And that might be a way where you can get two people in a room figuratively to discuss, hey, this is what we think things could look like if you were to come on board. So that might be another way that you would do it. But yeah, if you don't feel like the person's gonna accept, don't offer the job. Try and get to a point where you might get a more palatable offer or come up with a contingency plan with your client. Awesome.
SPEAKER_02:Uh okay, so that all makes a lot of sense uh from an offer standpoint. Don't send them an offer unless you know they're gonna accept it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. I think I think so. And then work through how you might get to a point where they will accept it. I mean, I had this the other day where um I had a candidate and I never really formally offered her, and she made it really clear that based on what she understood was coming, she wouldn't accept. So we sort of navigated it back with the client to say, hey, this is where we're at. Can you two get in a room and work out how it's going to work? Because the the beauty part was she wanted to work there, but um the way that the offer was built and set up and the working conditions, there were a few things that didn't didn't quite meet. So you had to get them in a room and and they worked it out amongst themselves. So, but it was only because we'd had that sort of ongoing dialogue that we were able to get to that point.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So I love that. And then the final step in the process is aftercare, something that I um I probably had a massive gap on when I was in recruitment.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, are there any strategies that you take for aftercare on checking in with the candidates, maybe getting referrals from the candidates, referrals from the clients, and just seeing how well the candidates actually doing in the role?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. So I think the first thing is you've got to make sure they show up on day one, first and foremost. So the aftercare piece starts the minute they sign the contract and then navigate them through their notice period. And that can just be finding reasons to check in and say, hey, spoke to the client and mentioned that they they were going to get you to do X, Y, and Z. Has that come through yet? Uh, they've also been working on A, B, and C. So you just you just share reasons why that you kind of reconnect them back to why they've joined that particular organization. So assuming they get there on day one, then I would always try and find a way to either lunch, coffee, something in the first week. How's it feeling? How's it landed? You've walked through the door. Does it feel like what it is that was discussed through the recruitment process? And then you're doing the same thing with the client. How have they landed? Are they working as as you'd hoped? Are they getting around the business as you'd hoped? All of those things. And then I would probably then do that again at the end of month one. Uh, and then definitely at the end of month three. Uh, that would be my piece. Uh, and and then it would just be about just checking in when you notice something that might have happened that could be suitable or relevant to give you a reason to pick up the phone and just say, Hey, I saw you guys have done this. How's that going? Um, are you getting the chance to sort of be the person that you want to be in this role and vice versa with the client?
SPEAKER_02:What if the candidate's like, oh mate, I don't know about this joint A. This guy's a bit of a dick. I don't know if you're trying to control the situation for the first few minutes, right? Well, yeah, do you go back to the client and be like, hey, dude, the clan and it's feeling like this, like, what's going on here?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, do you try and I think you have to get on the phone to sort of say, hey, um, how are you finding the person's transition at the moment? Uh, and and you know, delicately sort of say, Yeah, I caught up with person X, and these are the things that they've got a few questions about. I'm not sure, is this something that they've raised? Because inevitably what happens is you come in on day one for and you you think about trying to sort of transition, you don't know you don't know what it is that you're dealing with uh around you, you don't know how things get done, you don't know the people, you start to doubt your own capabilities, and you know, inevitably a hiring leader is hoping to be able to just set and forget, they don't really focus on the onboarding piece. So I think if you want to again separate yourself from other consultants, you want to be able to proactively say, hey, these are some things that aren't quite landing, but what are you seeing? And then it could be quite as simple as you provide the perspective from over here with your candidate, and then the perspective from the candidate over here, and you almost indirectly find. Formul them, hey, you you might just want to just briefly mention this and then get ahead of it. Because sometimes that's all it is. It's just literally our conversation to acknowledge that the first six to eight weeks are always the most uh uncomfortable and awkward for any person in a new job. Um and you then start to doubt yourself. So I think that but yeah, you have to do that. You have to do both.
SPEAKER_01:Well so guarantee period, mate. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you've got you've got to manage that. Guarantee period, absolutely, thinking about replacement. But no, no, no, no, no, you're right. But there's that. But but there is also this sort of idea that you've worked hard to represent something on behalf of a client and on behalf of a candidate, you want to kind of make sure it works. Because you you're also per well, for me anyway, you're personally invested by the way.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, 100%. All right, so if recruiters could take away one key lesson from this episode, uh what should it be?
SPEAKER_00:Don't be scared to ask why if you don't get the answer that you'd hoped. The reality is that we can sometimes put our heads in the sand and just hope, well, it'll be okay because I don't know, I'll find a way, and they absolutely must take this job because it's more money or whatever. Just ask. Stop and ask. Find out why, go a bit deeper, get to know the person a little bit more. The more times you ask, okay, tell me a bit more about that, tell me a little bit more about that, the more trust you're going to build, which is only gonna help you down the road. So I'd say don't be scared to ask if you're not getting the uh the response that you think you want.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome, love that. This has been an awesome episode talking about that process. Thanks, guys. Enjoyed it. Now we're gonna finish up with one last exercise.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:It's an exercise now. It's an exercise, it's a game. Are you smarter than Ed? It's best of five. Okay. Uh, your buzzer is your name. If you jump in before I finish the question, I'll stop the question, answer it. If it's wrong, I'll continue and uh continue explaining what the question is, and then the next person has a crack. Q, Who Wants to be a Millionaire Music? In what year was the first private recruitment agency ever established? Ed.
SPEAKER_01:1947.
SPEAKER_02:That was all the half, I thought. I thought that was the first one. A 1530. B 1780. C 1650. D 1960. Do I have to say my name? Christian. Yep. I'm gonna go D. The correct answer was 1650. Wow. Can that be right? Can we get what the name of that recruitment agency is or what's? Yeah. Wow. Higher Q. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is like heavy history-based questions. We're surgery. We're in big trouble.
SPEAKER_01:If we get five wrong, can we just let it all go? No, seriously, this is heavy history based. Someone's gotta get one right.
SPEAKER_02:Which war boosted the demand for staffing agencies in the Christian. World War I. Which war boosted the demand for staffing agencies in the 20th century? A. The Cold War. B, World War II. C, Vietnam War. D, World War One.
SPEAKER_01:Ed, Vietnam War. It's a Cold War, then, isn't it? It's World War II.
SPEAKER_00:Is it? You know what makes sense? Because it's a talk. They talk a lot about, I've been reading a little bit about this. They talk a lot about how World War II, the pent-up demand, when all the in America at least, when all the soldiers came back, they had all this flush cash.
SPEAKER_01:Oh.
SPEAKER_00:And they got great jobs, and they all just started sort of the this huge idea of demand. That's where it started. There you go. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Not in World War One, though, was it?
SPEAKER_02:Alright, Ed should get this next one, but we'll see. All right. Wow. That's big calls. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What is Ed's middle name?
SPEAKER_02:How many job applications are submitted through LinkedIn every minute? A 300. B 1000. C 800. D 2000. Christian. Christian.
SPEAKER_01:800. Bumble. Ed D 2000. Bumble. Mate, we need to give this up. Oh man. I reckon it's just whoever gets the next one right. Yeah, we just. We could be here for a while. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Which 1987 movie is famous for the quote, Greed is good. Ed Christian. Wall Street. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Alright, we've got one on the board. Oh, is that based on 1987?
SPEAKER_02:It came out then. Yeah. Okay. Alright, it's one to Ed. Are we still going? Okay, cool. Which city is often credited as the birthplace of executive search? Christian. Oh, I think you got that. London. Bubba.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, you're so confident you even look in your nails. I know. It was like, yeah. Ed New York. Yes. Correct. Wow. It has to be the executive. Walters went over to New York to set up a page, then started Walters over there.
SPEAKER_00:But exec search? Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02:The famous always be closing monologue comes from which movie? Christian. Glen Gary Glenn Ross. Oh, Ed's water. Well done. No one's close. Well, Christian, thank you for coming on Confessions. It's been fun. If anyone wants to reach out to you, talk to you about how you do things, your business, how can they reach you?
SPEAKER_00:Uh check me out on LinkedIn, or you can um get me at Christian at high q dot com.au. How do how do you spell that? C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N at h I-e-q.com.au. Done. Awesome. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks, Ray. Good to see you again. See ya.
SPEAKER_00:Cheers.