No Makeup, No Job!

[00:00:00] This week on the Recruitment Flex, Canada's and USA job numbers tell a different story.

[00:00:07] Most of the employees who recently switched jobs did it because our recruiter reached out to them.

[00:00:14] Not wearing makeup at an interview? A reason not to get a job?

[00:00:20] Plus, your next new hire already works for you.

[00:00:23] Tear off with my dad and Shelly Serge right now.

[00:00:32] Welcome to The Recruitment Flex with Serge and Shelly. I'm Serge.

[00:00:36] And I'm Shelly, and we talk all things recruitment starting right now.

[00:00:43] Bonjour and welcome to The Recruitment Flex. Shelly, are your eyes hurting? Did you stare directly at the eclipse?

[00:00:51] No, I have to admit, I did not. I did catch some great photos though. A friend of mine is an amateur photographer

[00:00:58] and she posted them pretty shortly after. Unfortunately, I think in Calgary it was pretty cloudy,

[00:01:05] but it was funny because there was a whole setup at the U of C with their observatory team

[00:01:11] and they had this place where you could come stand in line, get the glasses

[00:01:16] and it became the joke of anybody standing in line, don't look at the sun. Why not? It's cloudy out.

[00:01:22] I'm going to look at the sun. It's cloudy out. What do I need glasses for?

[00:01:26] I'm just going to stare directly at the sun for the next 3.5 minutes. No, don't.

[00:01:31] I got to admit, it wasn't even on my radar but I wasn't really concerned or even thought about it

[00:01:36] because in Calgary here it was very partial from what I could understand. But it's funny

[00:01:42] because I was talking to some folks in New Brownswick which they were directly in the

[00:01:46] path of seeing the full eclipse and got some great photos. But I got to be honest,

[00:01:52] usually I care a lot about this type of stuff because it's once in a lifetime or whatever.

[00:01:57] I really didn't even bother with this eclipse. I think if your girls have been a bit older,

[00:02:03] yes, like even pre-teen 11, 12, 13 and also at school they make a big deal of it. But

[00:02:09] speaking of university, yesterday was Bermuda Shorts Day at the University of Calgary. And so

[00:02:16] regardless of the weather, you are supposed to wear like a Hawaiian kind of floral patterned shirt and

[00:02:22] shorts regardless of what it's like. I went to pick up Brooke in the evening and they start drinking

[00:02:29] at about 10 in the morning. So you add drinking in the morning then the eclipse and I went to

[00:02:35] pick them up, Brooke and her friend. And there were a lot of drunken, fallen down people

[00:02:40] on the streets. It's oh my goodness. That's the value of university, right? Getting drunk

[00:02:47] on the streets and wearing Bermuda shorts. That's funny. Shelley, let's jump quickly in the news.

[00:02:54] There's a couple things that I want to point out here. So our friends at Fama today, we're

[00:02:59] recording on Wednesday, they released a beta of a new product called InstaFit. And there's a

[00:03:06] campaign going on right now where they're using the hashtag magic of fit. And there's a question

[00:03:12] that they asked and I wanted to ask you that question. Can you tell me about a time that

[00:03:18] you hired someone and you're like, boom, they're an instant fit. They're going to work out.

[00:03:23] Like they are the perfect employee for what I need. Do you have an example of that?

[00:03:27] Do I ever? Oh my God. And I knew it within one day. I did. I knew it within one day. And

[00:03:38] I've always said you can tell someone's character by their first day of work and their last day of

[00:03:42] work. So I hired someone earlier this year in August, sorry, last year, August of 23.

[00:03:51] And I knew within the first hour that my life was about to get a whole lot better. So I hired,

[00:03:58] as most people already know, it's Leah Sobrin. And I've known Leah, but I was her customer, right?

[00:04:06] I really didn't know what to expect. But she joined and I felt like as a business owner,

[00:04:12] my game just went up. I've hired Leah Sobrin or WorkWitter in five different companies. So I

[00:04:19] can attest. And I knew you guys were going to be an instant fit.

[00:04:24] I know because you've worked with her and you and I obviously have worked together now for a

[00:04:28] long time. But how did you know? Like, how did you know she was an instant fit for me?

[00:04:36] Or that she would be?

[00:04:38] I know your strengths and I know your weaknesses and I know Leah's strengths and I know her

[00:04:43] weaknesses and it's almost like it's directly correlated. I knew it would be a perfect fit.

[00:04:49] And she is so easy to work with that I had no doubts that it would step up your game and you'd

[00:04:55] love working with her. And vice versa, you're a fantastic leader and I know Leah likes to work

[00:05:00] with someone with like clear direction knows exactly where she wants to go. So I knew it

[00:05:05] was an instant fit. So there you go, Pharma. We have an instant fit. I'll tell you a

[00:05:10] little bit what instant fit. So Pharma offers a range of products to identify misconduct across

[00:05:16] more than 10,000 publicly available online sources, including meta properties, Twitter and TikTok.

[00:05:22] Now the same web presence can tell employers instantly if a candidate is a strategic tinker,

[00:05:28] has business acumen, financial acumen, or even traits like confident. Pharma Instant Fit runs

[00:05:34] advanced text analysis models trained on a proprietary screening framework to measure

[00:05:39] a candidate's unique professional traits based on the web presence alone. In seconds, you will have

[00:05:45] data to add to your screening process to better understand how a candidate will interact with

[00:05:50] coworkers and customers. Very interesting. Remember when we met Ben at HR Tech? He kind of

[00:05:56] had a demo at this and we were supposed to go take a look at it and I think we ran out of time.

[00:06:01] This is what it is. I don't know how well it works. I don't know how great it is.

[00:06:07] Sounds fantastic, but we're going to have to bring Ben on the show to go in that what this actually means.

[00:06:14] What's your thoughts on this? The concept is great because it leaves you with something positive.

[00:06:22] In other words, here's the positive side of what we're seeing in your profile. You've got

[00:06:28] a career in talent acquisition. So you may have a bit of an advantage, but there was something

[00:06:34] you said and that was you understood my strengths and weaknesses and you understand Leah's strengths

[00:06:40] and weaknesses and that's what made the fit. So on the Insta Fit, you can't just do one part of

[00:06:46] the equation. You still have to have something that says, okay, what is going to be a nice

[00:06:52] compliment to the existing team or the existing department or entire corporation?

[00:07:00] Right? So I'd love to see a demo of it just to understand how they do it because candidates,

[00:07:07] one thing, it's a whole other thing to have an assessment done of your existing team to know.

[00:07:15] I love to go through your social media profiles and do analysis and see what your strengths

[00:07:20] and weaknesses are because you don't post that much. I know. I don't know how much data there is.

[00:07:26] Mine would be very interesting because I post more on LinkedIn but I rarely post on any other channel.

[00:07:33] So I don't know what it would bring up. So congrats, Fama. All the best. Hopefully this really kicks

[00:07:38] off. In other news, a good friend of the show, Angela Hood, who is the CEO of This Way Global,

[00:07:46] Big News. So she was named to Inc. I don't know if anyone reads Inc. I read it cover to

[00:07:53] cover every month. One of my favorite magazines. She was named Inc's 250 top female founders. She

[00:08:00] ended up being 106. Do you know who was 105, Shelley? Take a wild guess. I have no idea.

[00:08:08] These are female founders. Female founders. And is this the top 250 in the U.S.?

[00:08:14] In the world. Or worldwide? Yeah, worldwide. Worldwide. God, I have no idea.

[00:08:19] 105 was Paris Hilton. What did she found again? Did she find something?

[00:08:28] Something, right? She had to. She's a founder. Okay. Obviously, she's got still a massive brand

[00:08:36] similar to Kim Kardashian. Is Kim Kardashian really an entrepreneur? She is now, right? I'm assuming

[00:08:43] it's pretty similar for Paris Hilton. I would put Angela in a completely different category of someone

[00:08:50] that's built something from scratch that is extremely impressive. So congrats, Angela. We

[00:08:55] got to bring you on the show very soon to talk about this. I think that will happen.

[00:09:00] What else was in the news, Shelley? So Canada's unemployment rate jumped to 6.1%

[00:09:06] as job creation is stalled. So Stats Canada reported a loss of 2,200 jobs in March,

[00:09:14] contributing to the increase in unemployment. But it was also fueled by more people actively

[00:09:21] seeking work or being temporarily laid off that had not previously been in the workforce.

[00:09:28] Pardon me if I'm reading between the lines. Does that mean early career?

[00:09:33] Yes. Okay. Okay. If you look at the data more in-depth, it does look like the young folks

[00:09:39] are bearing the brunt of the labor market downturn since April 2023. Half of the increase in the

[00:09:46] unemployment rate came from job seekers who were previously not into labor force because

[00:09:53] they were in school. I think this is definitely a trend that we're seeing. If you're on TikTok

[00:09:58] or if you're looking at news in general, there's a lot of stories of new Canadians that came out of

[00:10:03] school or just Canadians that came out of school and are looking for jobs and now are having a really

[00:10:10] hard time. There's tons of competition for those entry-level jobs and I think

[00:10:15] employers in this market are being very picky and choosy and people with a little bit more

[00:10:21] experienced not the fresh new talent out of school, which is a shame because

[00:10:27] how do you get experience if you're not given the opportunity, right?

[00:10:31] I know. They must feel like the world doesn't care about them.

[00:10:36] You know what I feel about that? Yes.

[00:10:39] Sorry. It was too tempting, sir. It was just too tempting.

[00:10:42] What else is going on in the news?

[00:10:44] That's funny because I got a text from Chad Sawash after the last episode calling

[00:10:48] me a boomer because I was making fun of the people that said people don't care about me.

[00:10:54] Maybe I am a little bit of a boomer, but definitely a negative trend. It's the first time

[00:10:59] really that we've seen a job loss. A lot of job creation in the last year has been the private

[00:11:04] sector not the public sector, which is extremely concerning because it's flat.

[00:11:11] Private sector is not growing compared to the public sector where most of the jobs are coming

[00:11:16] from, which is exactly the case in the US. Jumping to the US, they reported their job

[00:11:22] numbers as well. They added 303,000 jobs in March, which was a surprise, but it seems every

[00:11:30] month as they release these numbers, all the economists are surprised of how good it is.

[00:11:35] Their unemployment rate edged down to 3.8%, which was at 3.9%. So compared to our 6.1,

[00:11:43] it's a significant difference even though we count the unemployment numbers a little bit

[00:11:48] differently from what I can understand. So if we're looking at Canada and the US,

[00:11:53] there's a lot of signals that the US economy is in a really good position overall. And there's a

[00:11:59] lot of signals that the Canadian economy is in deep trouble. I guess we'll have to wait

[00:12:05] to see what happens in the next couple of months. But telling you, Shelley, I definitely

[00:12:09] feel it on the ground. The labor market in Canada is extremely tight and it's definitely an

[00:12:14] employer market, which is not a bad thing, but it is the reality of the situation right now and we

[00:12:19] have to adjust to it. So in the US, this is the fifth month that they've created over 200,000 new

[00:12:26] jobs. Just impressive growth, but again, a lot of it seems to be in the public sector.

[00:12:33] In the US?

[00:12:34] In the US, yes. In Canada as well, but US is definitely reigning. And this brought me to

[00:12:40] a story that hungly shared or commented something on Twitter that I thought was really interested

[00:12:46] because it was Canadian. And basically what it stated is like in China, there's 104 males for every

[00:12:52] 100 females. In Canada between the age bracket of 25 to 44, which is probably the most important

[00:13:00] age bracket when it comes to the economy, our difference is there's 109 males to every

[00:13:07] 100 females. If we look at the past five years, there's been a massive increase because we saw

[00:13:13] an increase with men of 4.8 increase compared to a 3.9 increase for women resulting in 141,000

[00:13:22] more men than women in this bracket. I don't know what this means, right? It hit me because

[00:13:28] we've been talking about the gender gap in China for a long time and seeing those numbers

[00:13:33] in Canada was a little bit shocking. I don't know how much of an impact it will have to the

[00:13:38] labour markets in the future, but there's got to be a societal challenge that comes with it,

[00:13:44] right? When you have a lot more males than females, meaning there's a percentage of males

[00:13:49] that will never find a partner and that can't be good, right? Or maybe I don't know. I have

[00:13:54] no clue, but I don't see as a positive. Well, I think when we look to China and

[00:14:01] the unintended consequences of the one child law, like the reason in China is very different than

[00:14:07] Canada. You know what? The first thing that hit me, Surgeon, I'm not an economist,

[00:14:12] so it's just instinctual when I heard of this and that is the gender pay gap

[00:14:20] in Canada is about to get bigger because men will earn more than women. And now we have

[00:14:28] so many more men. I feel like that gender pay gap is, it could get bigger. That's just the first

[00:14:36] thing that came to mind as one of the potential outcomes or consequences of such a disparity in

[00:14:45] gender. Ours, of course, for the reason you pointed out is because of immigration and typically

[00:14:51] men will come first. The other thing with immigration though, Surge, is Canada has always

[00:14:56] had this policy to keep families united. And so what may happen is that men are coming first

[00:15:05] and then their families will follow. It'll be interesting to see five years out if this is

[00:15:11] still the case. It could be just initially because a lot of the jobs when, as we know,

[00:15:17] the Canadian government identified trades and true enough trades, especially if we're

[00:15:23] bringing them in from other countries, will be done by men. And so I think their families may join.

[00:15:29] It may not be the Lonely Hearts Club for men because at 25 to 44 that's also a really important age

[00:15:37] for population growth, right? Absolutely, yeah. No, that's a really good point. I didn't think

[00:15:42] of that and trades are generally extremely well paid. So if we're bringing people to do

[00:15:46] trades which I'm not convinced we are, but if we are, yes, obviously that's going to have an

[00:15:52] effect on the gender pay gap because it's mostly men and like it or not like it, that's been the case.

[00:15:58] So it will have an effect. I don't think that's a negative effect, right? And like for us to bring

[00:16:02] in people that want to do these jobs, let's pay them what they should get paid. Yeah,

[00:16:07] if they have the skills and if women want to do that job, yeah, they'll get paid the

[00:16:11] same amount. So absolutely. I guess it's something that we'll bookmark that right now,

[00:16:16] Shelley, and look back at five years if you're right, that they brought in their

[00:16:20] family and that demographic to the shift. I'm not sure that's the case, but...

[00:16:24] It'll even out, yeah. I think so.

[00:16:25] If you think it will, you must be right. Shelley, let's jump into the tip of the week.

[00:16:31] You bet. Your tip of the week is brought to you by Plum. Plum knows that when people flourish,

[00:16:36] businesses thrive. Using science-backed insights, Plum aligns human potential with job needs,

[00:16:43] allowing you to build high performing teams from a single platform.

[00:16:47] Ideal for improving hiring choices, identifying future leaders,

[00:16:50] and offering personalized career advice. Plum supports the entire employee journey

[00:16:56] from hire to retire. Discover more at plum.io.

[00:17:01] So my tip of the week, Serge, I was really pleased with some feedback that I got from last week

[00:17:07] because I'm a bit of a geek about interviews and I've done a few of them over my career.

[00:17:12] And so I wanted to share another favorite interview question.

[00:17:16] And this one is trying to figure out from a candidate, where are they happiest in their work?

[00:17:26] And is there an interview question that will tell us that? Because if you're happy about the

[00:17:32] work you're doing, obviously, you'll perform best. So one of my favorite interview questions is,

[00:17:38] tell me when you could not wait to get to work. What were you working on?

[00:17:46] And I think the key to this is the simple question, but it is also knowing when to stop talking

[00:17:53] and let the candidate answer. And your role is to be curious. That's it. For me, a great

[00:18:01] interview is always when I do the least amount of talking. That's my tip of the week. Tell me

[00:18:08] when you were happiest at work and what were you working on?

[00:18:12] I love it. And one of the things you mentioned earlier on is, did they have a smile on their

[00:18:17] face or whether the case? I'd be curious to see how many...

[00:18:20] And their eyes light up when they start talking about it. Yeah.

[00:18:23] I've seen that before. Absolutely. Perfect. All right. Let's jump into the recruiting

[00:18:29] insights brought to you by our friends at Mitova. Shelly, are you tired of the same old outsourcing

[00:18:36] woes? Well, say hello to nearshoring. It's like outsourcing, but closer and it won't make you

[00:18:42] pull your hair out. Picture this, top notch IT talent from Latin American. Many Latin American

[00:18:49] IT professionals have strong English language skills and even live in the same time zone.

[00:18:54] So no more midnight conference calls. Hallelujah. Plus, Latin America's growing tech ecosystem,

[00:19:02] strong educational institutions and a pool of skilled IT professionals make it the perfect

[00:19:08] region for recruiting talent. I have the perfect company that does this. The company's name is

[00:19:13] Mitova. They have local experts who handle everything from recruiting to HR support.

[00:19:20] So why settle for the same old outsourcing blues when you can have the nearshoring party

[00:19:26] with Mitova? Look them up at Mitova.com and let's get the fiesta started.

[00:19:34] Shelly, what do we have first on the docket? So, super interesting. You know, HR talent

[00:19:41] acquisition, we've always got a coin in new phrase. It's like almost every three or four

[00:19:46] months. So now the latest thing is we're calling it the great talent grab. And it's where...

[00:19:51] That's a thing that you grab the talent, right? You just...

[00:19:53] Don't be using your hands. Okay. No, too bad.

[00:19:56] This is keep your hands to yourself, kids. So what's interesting is this is data released

[00:20:04] by Zip Recruiter that showed something super cool and that is more people recently switched

[00:20:10] jobs because they were approached by a recruiter instead of applying themselves for the job. And

[00:20:19] so this Zip Recruiter survey indicates a growing trend of employees being recruited by other

[00:20:24] companies with 46% of new hires in the first quarter of 2024 stating that they were recruited.

[00:20:32] That is up from 34% in the fourth quarter of 2023. Tell me, what does that indicate to you,

[00:20:40] sir? Well, I am surprised by how high this number is, but I'm not really surprised overall because

[00:20:49] people that are working in companies have always been more attractive than people

[00:20:54] that are looking for work. It's the analogy of dating, right? Like a girl is way more

[00:21:00] attractive if she has a boyfriend and then she doesn't and vice versa. It's probably actually,

[00:21:06] now that I'm saying that it probably works more for men. If they have a partner,

[00:21:09] they're a little bit more attractive to their female counterparts. I think this is exactly

[00:21:14] the case. A lot of hiring managers when they're talking to recruiters are like,

[00:21:19] no, we don't want anyone desperate. We want someone that is working somewhere else doing

[00:21:24] exactly the same job and we know that they can do the job. Unfortunately, that's not fair

[00:21:30] because there's a ton of people that get laid off that are really good at their job is just the

[00:21:34] circumstances of the company in that particular time and they're not been given a fair shot.

[00:21:40] Because if you dig in deeper to this survey, the job hunting process is taking a lot longer than

[00:21:46] it did in the past. I think we're seeing that across the board. Like every news article that

[00:21:51] I read, I built Jobseeker saying how long it's taken them to be in the job market before

[00:21:56] they get even a bite compared to you're working, a recruiter approaches you. It's a higher salary.

[00:22:03] Of course, you're going to talk to them. You're going to look at these opportunities.

[00:22:07] I guess the message here is if you're unemployed, you just have to keep at it. Unfortunately,

[00:22:13] it's the circumstances you're in. You still do the work. You make your contacts. You apply for

[00:22:18] the jobs. You try to build as many relationships as you can, especially with recruiters. If you

[00:22:24] are in a job, this is where it's highly critical for you to have your LinkedIn profile at

[00:22:31] its highest level that you can and have the most amount of information and really telling your

[00:22:36] story on LinkedIn. I guess that same advice would go for Jobseekers who don't have a job.

[00:22:42] If your profile is not optimized for recruiters to find you and there's thousands of articles

[00:22:49] out there on how you can do that, you're out of luck because people are looking for you and

[00:22:54] that's where most of the hires are coming from right now. I guess what we could take away from

[00:22:58] this is make sure your profile is optimized on LinkedIn and anywhere else.

[00:23:06] Can I add one more thing that just occurred to me?

[00:23:10] Having worked inside the Zip Recruiter system and pretty much all the systems,

[00:23:15] I wonder, certainly there's a trend, but one of the cool things and of course indeed just

[00:23:24] enhanced their resume product. One of the things about Zip Recruiter as well is when you're setting

[00:23:31] up your job posting, it will reach out to candidates that are a match, but it looks like

[00:23:37] that reach out was coming from the person who posted the job. I think what this is indicating

[00:23:43] is certainly that the Zip matching tool is working really well because these are people who got hired

[00:23:52] and that is from 34 to 46% in one quarter. I speculate that perhaps their matching technology

[00:24:01] is getting really good because it does it for you. It reaches out to candidates which is

[00:24:09] the whole premise of the Zip Recruiter product is that it finds candidates for you as their tagline

[00:24:16] and it does. I don't know, just to give you a guess on my part that they've been quiet about

[00:24:22] their technology and we've been poking the bear a bit because they raised so much money in the

[00:24:27] public market and nobody was hearing much. These sort of results are maybe an indication

[00:24:35] that they have been working on what's under the hood. Yeah, that's a really good point, Shelly.

[00:24:40] I didn't think about it in that context because you're right when you're getting a message from

[00:24:43] Zip Recruiter is it looks like it's coming from you or from the recruiter itself. You might be

[00:24:49] right. I'm not as optimistic based on my past experience with the Zip Recruiter candidate

[00:24:55] outreach and the type of jobs I've been in. Maybe Zip Recruiter is doing some things to

[00:25:01] get ahead of the game and actually match somewhat accurately which not a good thing.

[00:25:07] Biggest complaint from everyone. Yeah, I agree.

[00:25:08] Biggest complaint. Solve that and they may hit a home run.

[00:25:14] Yes. Shelly, let me jump into the next recruiting insight. I don't know if you saw this. You know

[00:25:19] I'm on TikTok a lot and this made the news is talking about a lady that interviewed and

[00:25:25] I'm going to get her to tell the story. Let's play the video.

[00:25:28] Sure. Okay, Dick Talk, I need your opinion on something.

[00:25:32] So I interviewed for a job earlier this week. The interview went so well. Every question she had,

[00:25:36] I had a great answer for. I used to work in recruitment. I know how to interview my background

[00:25:40] and experience. I'm perfectly with what the role entails. I thought it would be great. But then

[00:25:44] I get an email from the recruiter saying that I'm not going to be moving on to the next round.

[00:25:48] It was really dumb because I wanted the job but I was also very confused.

[00:25:51] So I did something I never do and I emailed her back and asked for feedback

[00:25:54] and she said that while my background was exactly what they were looking for,

[00:25:58] my experience lined up with what they need for the position and my own personal goals and values

[00:26:03] aligned with the companies. She was concerned that for my interview I hadn't put in enough effort

[00:26:10] in my appearance given the level of role I was interviewing for.

[00:26:14] And it was interviewing for a vice president position and now my appearance. I had done

[00:26:17] a blowout for my hair. I had on a nice top of laser some earrings but I only had on

[00:26:21] chapstick. I didn't have any makeup because I don't really wear a lot of makeup not to

[00:26:24] be quirky. I just don't. So my question is does not wearing makeup for women to job interviews

[00:26:32] or to jobs make it seem like they aren't putting as much effort or care into their job?

[00:26:38] So Shelley, let's answer her question first. So a question at the end is like

[00:26:44] not putting as much makeup or any makeup does it share a message that you're

[00:26:52] not putting your best foot forward for that job?

[00:26:56] Unless you're applying to Mac Cosmetics or L'Oreal. I don't know. What I don't know is who is the

[00:27:03] company and rightfully so like this isn't about, I don't think it's been about the company

[00:27:10] or who she's applied for because I don't think she's ever revealed that.

[00:27:13] No, we know it's a VP of HR role. You know that.

[00:27:17] She has revealed that but she hasn't revealed who the company was or what the industry was.

[00:27:22] What are your thoughts, Serge? I've got several thoughts but

[00:27:26] maybe let you go first this time. I was hoping you'd go first because I'm just treading really

[00:27:31] lightly on this one. Okay. Taking the filter off. Absolutely ridiculous. From what she

[00:27:37] described that she was wearing and how her hair, she definitely had a professional appearance

[00:27:42] and looking at this TikTok video, she is not unattractive. Not that that matters but she's

[00:27:47] not wearing makeup and I'm not like, oof, did she crawl under a bridge? I just think not a

[00:27:53] troll but yeah. For me especially for VP role or anything, who cares about makeup? Obviously,

[00:28:00] I don't want them to come into the interview completely disheveled and a mustard stain

[00:28:05] under t-shirt but the way she described and how she is, it's embarrassing that this company

[00:28:11] and this recruiter would come back to her and say, we don't think you're professional enough.

[00:28:16] That's absolutely ridiculous. I think in this world where people wear way too much makeup,

[00:28:22] that's my personal opinion, my personal bias. Do what you want and what you feel comfortable.

[00:28:28] Obviously, if you're going to show up with tattoos on your face and piercings

[00:28:33] everywhere on your face, well you just have to take in an account that some people might not

[00:28:37] like that and might hinder your chances of getting a job but no one should ever be discriminated just

[00:28:43] being themselves. When I'm saying being themselves, she looked professional.

[00:28:47] Why does she need makeup? That was my first thought. I thought it was ridiculous

[00:28:51] to the point that someone brought that up because I would never get that as a dude

[00:28:56] at all. No one would be like, you didn't trim your beard a certain way. No one would ever say that.

[00:29:03] Ridiculous. I think she definitely avoided a really bad place to work in my opinion. That's my first

[00:29:10] guidance. I've been following this story for a couple weeks. Actually, I saw one of her first posts

[00:29:18] and it was more just a blog where again, she doesn't reveal who the company is or the industry

[00:29:25] but the first time I read it, Serge, I got more of a sense that the recruiter just said

[00:29:31] that you weren't a match or cultural fit or something along that line. Then she interpreted it to mean

[00:29:39] because she didn't wear makeup because in her mind, she was qualified in every way. She felt

[00:29:45] the interview went well. The only thing that she could possibly conclude was that it was because

[00:29:51] she has a more natural appearance, which first thing I thought of is the same thing you did.

[00:29:56] That's ridiculous. I think the recruiter again, idiot, why would you say that to someone? If

[00:30:05] you were just to say simply, we have other candidates that just really knocked it out of

[00:30:11] the park and we're really excited to move forward and I'm sorry. This is the hard part

[00:30:16] of my job. This is the hardest part of being a recruiter is having to tell people that unfortunately,

[00:30:22] yes, you put a lot of effort and energy into this. I find it especially hard to comprehend

[00:30:30] that a recruiter would say this because it's a VP of HR role and it's a small world. Wherever

[00:30:38] she goes, she is going to land a VP of HR role somewhere else. Guess what? She probably is

[00:30:44] going to have a recruiting team. Oh, and guess what? You're never, your chances of ever working

[00:30:50] and she's been very professional not to disclose who the recruiter was either because we don't know

[00:30:56] if the recruiter was through a staffing agency, executive search firm. I highly doubt it

[00:31:03] because an executive search firm would never make such a mistake. It wasn't an in-house

[00:31:08] recruiter because in what world do you have your in-house recruiters recruit your VP of HR?

[00:31:15] It requires an outside perspective and search generally. So I don't know what to make of this.

[00:31:23] It doesn't make sense to me and here's the other thing, Serge. I saw this go from a blog post

[00:31:30] to now how many thousands of views and likes on TikTok and she's almost made it her brand

[00:31:39] now, the girl with no makeup that didn't get the VP of HR job. It's now become her brand

[00:31:46] and part of her flag that she has planted. But the story's changed a bit over time. If you go

[00:31:53] back and look at some of her original posts. So I don't know. There's part of this story

[00:31:58] that's missing. It is, but I did want to take this particular example to raise another question

[00:32:05] because we've over the past four years, it's been a challenge when it comes to interviewing,

[00:32:10] especially right after the pandemic. We did all our interviews over Zoom. So we have really

[00:32:18] lax on how we dress up for interviews like the standards have gone down and for many reasons

[00:32:26] great. But I'm wondering now that pretty much everyone is returning to the office across the world.

[00:32:32] You're seeing less people work from home and doing a lot more face-to-face interview. It seems

[00:32:37] to be the norm again. What are the standards now? Like for men, obviously depending on the role,

[00:32:42] but let's say a white collar type role. Do I go in in the full suit? Is it back to pre-pandemic

[00:32:48] levels or is it a little bit more laid back? What should be the expectations when it comes

[00:32:54] to interviews and our candidates? You said it right at the top of this article search. Neat,

[00:33:00] clean, your clothes fit because it's about what comes out of your mouth, how you answer questions.

[00:33:08] And that's why I guess she's getting so much mileage out of this is because it's shocking to

[00:33:13] think that from her perspective, she answered everything intelligently and she's fully

[00:33:17] qualified for this job and she didn't get it. It just doesn't make sense.

[00:33:23] I don't think the standards have dropped to the point where we're criticizing people over makeup,

[00:33:29] unless she was applying for RuPaul's assistant or the VP of HR for RuPaul's drag race.

[00:33:35] I don't know. I don't know. I think in the past it mattered. I definitely think it mattered if

[00:33:41] we go back to the 80s, 70s, 60s how women and men like appearance is always a consideration.

[00:33:48] I think earlier, yeah, absolutely makeup would have been an issue and I hate to say it.

[00:33:54] Issue? No. I think too much makeup would be an issue.

[00:33:57] Well, too much makeup is the other realm of it.

[00:34:00] If you walk in looking like a drag queen.

[00:34:02] I am going to say this and it's a little bit maybe controversial.

[00:34:07] If you're going to an interview today as a man or woman, overdress,

[00:34:13] silver dress, if you're wrong but no one's going to look at you negatively if you went in

[00:34:19] and your best possible attire, you might think it's not fair that people shouldn't judge you

[00:34:25] on how you dress or what you dress with. The reality, it happens. Dress up

[00:34:30] and go at a higher level than you think what the office is.

[00:34:33] Don't go out and rent a tuxedo like this.

[00:34:36] If the office is, I don't know, jeans and t-shirts, go in with jeans and button up shirt and a blazer.

[00:34:45] It's business casual. Step it up a little bit. Add that jacket if you're a guy.

[00:34:49] For women, I don't know what should you wear at an interview, Shelley.

[00:34:54] I think you should be dressed conservative and clean.

[00:34:59] That's good advice.

[00:35:00] Conservative meaning put the girls away. No, really, I find that probably more embarrassing

[00:35:08] mostly for the hiring people, men or women, if someone walks in and the girls are in your face,

[00:35:16] splitting off topic. We better move on, Serge.

[00:35:19] I love that. There's a hashtag in there somewhere, girls in your face.

[00:35:24] We're going to start using that.

[00:35:25] No. Listen, nobody wants to see it, especially in an interview.

[00:35:29] It's so embarrassing. I had one girl show up once, Serge, Frolis with a thin shirt.

[00:35:38] They were moving when she was walking. I tell you honestly, everyone's looking at me like,

[00:35:44] I'm not looking. Everybody's looking at the ceiling. Was it nippy out there?

[00:35:50] Oh yes, it was. It was so embarrassing.

[00:35:54] I have stories like that too, but I'll keep them.

[00:35:57] Okay, we got to move on.

[00:36:01] Shelley, let's go into the last recruiting insight.

[00:36:05] Over the past, I would say a couple of months, we've talked a little bit about

[00:36:09] how it used to be. When you came into the world of work, you started at entry level,

[00:36:14] be really good, get trained, promoted into that role and on and on it went.

[00:36:19] For some people, they ended up to be the president or CEO of that company and worked

[00:36:22] that company their whole lifetime. Obviously times have changed and that's no longer the norm.

[00:36:29] And it partly changed really with the advent of the ATS and job boards where the availability

[00:36:35] of talent out there, there's a lot more, right? There's more options because

[00:36:39] you can go post a job on Indeeds at Recruiter or any of the major job sites

[00:36:43] and you get millions of eyeballs on that job compared to in the past,

[00:36:47] you would put an ad in the local newspaper and maybe 20 people applied.

[00:36:53] They went through the whole process, would drop off the resume.

[00:36:56] In this world, instead of training and really creating that learning and development

[00:37:01] opportunity internally for those people to grow in other roles and maybe take a little bit

[00:37:05] of risk on them, we decide that we need someone doing that role somewhere else and

[00:37:11] we automatically go higher externally to bring them internally.

[00:37:14] I know we've been talking about it's an employer market recently, but there's still

[00:37:20] a massive skills mismatch, right? And it's very challenging to go out there and find the right people.

[00:37:27] And I think what we're missing is part of this equation and there was a really

[00:37:31] interesting article and Josh Burson talks a lot about this, about internal mobility.

[00:37:36] This is the time for us to really look at what are we doing internally?

[00:37:41] I think we have to shift our mind frame in certain companies to go from talent acquisition

[00:37:46] to talent management and it might not be a role as a recruiter, right? To recruit internally.

[00:37:51] But if you're looking at an organization, your VP of HR or your executive at a corporation,

[00:37:56] what are you doing internally to promote those people? There is tons of data that shows that

[00:38:03] these people will last longer in your organization. They already have the

[00:38:08] knowledge of the company, which is a huge training challenge. You already know they're a

[00:38:12] culture fit or a culture ad. How do we get them to that role? How do we give them the skills?

[00:38:17] Obviously, that's not for every role. If you're hiring an astronaut, you're not going to promote

[00:38:22] someone that works as a janitor, right? Unless they get their training.

[00:38:28] One of the things and I was just trying to think in my past, like what has held back

[00:38:32] companies from going back to that tried and tested true method. I think it's a little bit of

[00:38:40] the incentives that are internally. I'm going to give you an example of, say a sales team.

[00:38:45] You have a great sales team. One of your top sales leaders is just killing it. They're amazing.

[00:38:50] Suddenly they see a role in marketing that's really what they want to do next.

[00:38:55] A lot of managers, and I'm going to say this, I've done this. I have been a talent

[00:39:00] hoarder, meaning that I can't lose that person because if I lose that person,

[00:39:06] I'm not going to hit my targets, which is going to mean a whole lot of financial benefits to me.

[00:39:13] Subconsciously, I am doing what I need to do to keep that person winning their role,

[00:39:18] which is just not fair. How do we avoid talent hoarding? How do we get into a position that

[00:39:25] we are looking at folks within the organization and how they can grow into those critical roles that

[00:39:31] we will need in the future? What's your overall take here? Your next great hire should be internal,

[00:39:38] is the name of this article. I think it makes a lot of sense.

[00:39:42] Your example is a great one to look at because if you as a manager were given maybe

[00:39:50] an incentive of some sort, would that not have changed? You realize that this is for the greater

[00:39:57] good of the organization and allowing your top performer, you could maybe have the opportunity

[00:40:06] to build a case and say, listen, I'm going to need an extension on my budget deliverables because

[00:40:13] this person is currently responsible for, let's just pull a number out of the air, 22% of sales.

[00:40:20] Losing this person and then getting another person up to speed, which you absolutely can do as a

[00:40:25] sales leader because you also get to choose the talent that you bring onto your team.

[00:40:30] But it does mean there has to be some sort of acknowledgement because I built my goals and

[00:40:36] my commitments to the organization based on the capabilities of the team that I have.

[00:40:41] If you kick out the legs from under me, of course you have to because it impacts other people on

[00:40:48] your team. It impacts your workflow. It's some sort of I think transition plan would be one thing.

[00:40:55] The other thing is an incentive that as a hiring manager there's some acknowledgement.

[00:41:00] I've had the same experience having worked in HR where internal mobility was on the plate of

[00:41:08] the talent acquisition team and it was about 50% of our job was internal movement, unionized

[00:41:15] and non-unionized. What was happening though in the non-unionized there were some managers

[00:41:22] who employees wanted to put their hat in the ring for a role say in marketing or

[00:41:28] another department where they could be cross trained but they wouldn't do it because

[00:41:33] they had to notify their manager and if they didn't get the job their life just became hell

[00:41:39] and they knew it would be the beginning of the end. So I believe that recruiters and talent

[00:41:45] acquisition we can absolutely contribute to that internal mobility. I don't think we're the problem

[00:41:52] though. I really don't. I don't think I think there needs to be internal changes for hiring managers.

[00:42:00] I completely agree with everything you said there. I think the incentives are just

[00:42:03] misaligned. If someone's on your team is so good and they could be the right fit and they get

[00:42:08] promoted into whatever role that should be a boon to the manager that guided and helped this

[00:42:16] person get to the next level and help them grow in the company. So 100% agree and what's

[00:42:21] interesting about this is during the pandemic internal hire numbers went up dramatically

[00:42:26] because it was definitely an employee market. So we're trying to figure out how do we get

[00:42:30] the talent but the minute that's shifted back to an employer market internal hires have gone way

[00:42:35] down. So something for us to think about when we're looking at our whole landscape talent landscape

[00:42:41] how do we get more people internally promoted and hiring in the right role?

[00:42:45] Shelley on that note have a fantastic weekend and enjoy the rest of your vacation because I

[00:42:53] know there's a day or two left and I appreciate you coming in recording while you're on your

[00:42:57] staycation. Thank you sir. You have a great weekend as well. Au revoir.

[00:43:11] Shelley let's face it taxing candidates is the easiest way to hire quicker today but your

[00:43:17] cell phone doesn't connect to your ATS. You're sharing your personal number with strangers

[00:43:22] pretty scary right Shelley and it's not even legally compliant. This is where our friends at

[00:43:28] Rectex come in they've created simple yet powerful text recruiting software that works with your ATS

[00:43:35] plus it's designed by recruiters for recruiters so you know it works. To learn more and book a

[00:43:42] demo visit www.rectxt.com mention the recruitment flex and get 10% off annual plans.

[00:43:53] Imagine how fast we could solve the world's biggest problems if more SaaS startups would gain traction

[00:43:59] sooner. Welcome to the Tech Entrepreneur on the mission podcast. This podcast is dedicated to

[00:44:04] sharing experiences from B2B SaaS CEOs who are going above and beyond to deliver chains that

[00:44:10] is noticed. You will hear their secrets and learn what is required to build a SaaS business that

[00:44:16] the world starts talking about and keeps talking about and how to overcome the roadblocks to do so.