the importance of partnering with a recruiting firm w/ jessica kashyap

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Hello, hello. Thanks for listening to Guidance Counselor 2.0. Listen, I want to give you a quick rundown of what this podcast is and what you're about to get into as you listen to these episodes. We had Guidance Counselors in middle school. We had Guidance Counselors in high school, but we didn't really have Guidance Counselors in college and now as professionals, we don't really have anybody to turn to to ask a quick question to learn something about the job search or to navigate your career. And so that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it to be a tool for you to navigate the job search and your career.

So that being said, I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you need to reach me, Taylor at vaco.com is how to get in touch with me old fashioned email social media at tdesint. D E S S E Y N. And finally, please rate and review this in the app store because I want this to be discoverable for others so they can navigate their careers. you enjoy the episode. Jessica, give the people what they want, give a background about who you are, what you do, and it will dive into all these topics. Awesome. Well, hello everyone. Thanks for having me, Taylor. I am Jessica Cash for Gaskis.

Here in Nashville, Tennessee, been with Baco, going on eight years, almost nine next June. And my background is in accounting. I started my career with Deloitte. So I call myself a recovering accountant. But since joining Vaco, I have I started my career more on the traditional accounting finance recruiting and then back in 2017 had the opportunity to help Fortune 100 company stand up their center of excellence here in Nashville and that's where I caught the bug for these massive relocation initiatives or corporate standups or hiring initiatives anywhere from like 50 to 200, 300 individuals if not more. And so that's my specialty now. I love what I do.

I'm very passionate about partnering with my clients. Aren't we all? But we're supposed to say that. We're very excited to partner with you. I'm supposed to say that. I mean, I'm paid by Vaco to say that. No, I'm just kidding. I was sponsored by Vaco. That's correct. But yeah, so we certainly have a specialty practice as it relates to special hiring initiatives. and we have the secret sauce for that. I love it. So I want to dive in. So Jessica, and give a quick background about kind of what your role is now. So like me, Jessica and I's role specifically has more or less changed, I would say, since the pandemic.

And so give the viewers listeners, whatever you want to say, Debjeet, what's going on, Useman, what's going on. A quick overview of kind of what you do specifically, now, especially on the remote side of things. Sure. So I partner with organizations that are looking to hire with the undertone of accounting finance. So it doesn't have to be accounting finance per se, but there's an undertone whether it's strategy transformation, advisory, pure accounting finance or even engineering rules for that matter like core engineering. So we partner with organizations that are like to give concrete examples, Deloitte is looking to hire a number of people across the nation as the consulting practices booming, everybody is looking for people, so So everybody seems to be short staffed.

And so naturally the impact is, okay, if we can't do it in-house, let's just partner with a consulting firm that can just do it for us. So the natural life cycle of all of that is a massive hiring initiative. So that's what my team and I specialize in. Earlier in the year, we also helped a subset or I guess an arm of Richton America is stand up their corporate enterprise here. And then we're also partner with another organization that's looking to do, build up another enterprise here that is looking to move away from New York. So all of these roles are in some combination, a remote role.

Yeah. Remote is the name of the game these days. Perhaps some offering of hybrid. Um, setting, but certainly continuing the remote flair of it is, is where we come into play. So that being said, so Jessica, uh, she called me last night and left me a voice mail. And I had one topic I wanted to talk about, but then like, of course, she just spit some absolute truth. Uh, and the voice was like, Oh, that's really good. So, so Jessica wanted to dive into that about specifically like partnering with recruiting for her. So there's hiring managers on here, specifically, and a few of them are watching right now, talk about what you left me on the voicemail.

I should have, I should play the voicemail. But the voicemail is specifically around basically exclusivity. Yeah. Right. And, and really leaning into the recruiting company working with. So talk, talk to me about that. Sure. So this, this goes back to 2017 when we, you know, did our first large project. And at that point in time, we knew that in order to go to the marketplace and be a true extension of their HR function or talent acquisition function, we had to be incredibly succinct. The messaging had to be the same. You had one shot and one shot only to get the messaging right because once that message is out in the marketplace, it spreads like wildfire.

And it's it's hard to contain it. And so what I found over time, and so this again, like I said, goes back to 2017, by being able to partner with hiring managers or companies exclusively, the responsibility is equally on me and my team to be successful. The only way this is a success story is if we find you the right candidates and you hire the right people and a year later they're all there, right? And the way we accomplish that is by exclusivity and a true partnership. I mean it's hard enough for managers to be like, okay, let me look at this resume and where did this resume come from?

Oh, this came from Lincoln. Okay, this came from this agency, this agency. what was communicated to each one of those individuals from different avenues, as opposed to being able to just always pinpoint it to one relationship and one relationship only. And then in this market of such a tight labor market, candidates, they know that they're in the driver's seat. And so being able to have honest conversations with both parties and being able to hold both parties accountable is only doable if if there is a true partnership and it's not that. Oh, I'm just going to partner with this agency and this agency and this agency and there's no value in that there's no value proposition.

So I want to dive in a little bit more, right? Because I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit here. Talk about like, like, so, so in my opinion, there's a difference between like a manager going, Hey, I want to partner with you, Taylor and only you. Okay, great. Talk about like the next level of what you and your team's done for like a Warner, right? Or these other clients. Um, talk about specifically like, because you guys have like managed the job postings and talk. When you say messaging, like talk about that, give kind of some very tactical things of what you've done aside from just saying, hey, Mr.

and Mrs. Manjoo, you should just give us these clues. Sure, sure. So, you know, oftentimes when companies are looking to do such strategic initiatives, you know, they have enough on their plate. So, we're basically a consulting firm that they're hiring to execute on this project from A to Z. So that starts with helping them draft job descriptions or at least taking a template that they, their legal team has approved so to speak and then filling in the blanks. And then managing the applicant tracking system for equal opportunity reporting or any other reporting metrics whether it be diversity or or so on and so forth. So we manage all of that disposition codes.

And then it also goes on the back end of it to offer letter onboarding background check drug screen. So really it's the full package from A to Z where someone within the organization is not being bogged down by this whole new initiative. should have, they have enough on their plate as it is. And so when, when, when you take on that responsibility, it's hard to, it's hard to feel like you, you don't have ownership, ownership of it all. And so, so that's where the exclusivity comes into play. Um, you know, it's hard to, for an organization to be like, okay, you do this, you do this, you do this and different agencies do this.

Too many hands in the cookie jar. We all know what happens when too many hands are in the cookie jar. Like nobody's held accountable. No one eats cookies. That's what happens. No one eats cookies. You know? And everybody points fingers at each other. And in this instance, if something goes wrong, guess who is responsible? Me, my team. Point fingers at me. I did it. I just told you that I was going to do it. And I didn't do it. There's no other fingers to point. And so that's the responsibility that we take on. And it's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pressure to deliver over and over and over again and these organizations that are Fortune 100, Fortune 50, you know, and they trust us.

And every executive will give us glowing references from the CEOs, the presidents, to the CFOs. So, so there's, there's certainly, we have realized over the years that, that it, in order to create that magic and it, and it's almost like, well, how did you find hundred people in this market when, you know, you're doing that now, right? Like I want to give you some, some daps, right? Like, like literally Jessica, how many people, how many people you hired right now for your current initiative? I mean, like with placed about, I mean, 250, 300 at Deloitte alone. And then, but what, I mean, talk, but again, like I want to highlight like it like listen two to two to 300 people like for those of you are watching like Jessica has been responsible for two to 300 people being hired at one single company, not like across multiples like one What's been the biggest thing that you've helped them with?

Right? Cause like again, higher managers watch this now in the future. This content is going to get cut up. Your face is going to be all over the internet. So just be ready. What's been the biggest thing that you and your team have been able to provide the lift with? I think it's the sigh of relief for a hiring manager that if we get another project And we need people and these are highly skilled consultants that have, you know, knowledge of technical standards, regulatory standards, et cetera. They immediately know who to go to. It's always like get the vehicle team on the phone. Let's talk through our needs and then we go to market.

And Taylor, you mentioned something and sometimes I really don't. I mean, I know what happens day to day, but you sort of get numb to it. You know, in order to place 250, 300 people, you have to remember your, at least talking to at a minimum time, six number of people, you know, so yeah. Yeah. What's the number behind that? Correct. You know, so I'm not a man. What is that? Two 50 times six was that 12, 13? No, 15. That's 15. Something like that. Right. Like you interview at least double that. Um, and our goal, I mean, our hit rate is pretty impeccable to where, you know, what do you think it is?

What do you think it is? Braggle yourself a little bit. What do you think it is? 75, 80%. So like every, every, every four or three gets hired. Exactly. That's crazy. Yep. But it's, it's, it's because there's a true partnership. The hiring managers see the value proposition that we bring. And so they're willing to invest their time with us to be like, okay, you hit the bullseye here But if you can just kind of tweak this search a little bit in this direction or that direction And and imagine this imagine if a hiring manager had to do this over and over over again The different agencies and with different people But but the again the value proposition that we bring to the table you do it once and you do it once only.

And so then when we go to the market, we bring back candidates and then they're like, okay, I saw you heard me loud and clear here, but can you just pivot a little this way? And it's again, it's that true partnership and the exclusivity, you know, my success is truly because I partnered with you and I took this on, like failure's just not an option. I mean, if I don't provide you the candidate, I fail. And I mean, you could blacklist me all over the internet. It's like literally Jessica and I were chatting before this on how drained we are. I mean, it's just full trans pairs.

See, I mean, it's, we're onto something too, but I want to get my mind's all over the place this morning. The coffee's finally kicking in. First thing, I want to talk about messaging. I want to dive into that with how important messaging is. And so Jessica's been talking about a consistent theme, exclusivity, same page, partnership, getting the message out. Jessica, can you talk on the importance of like how important messaging is right now as an employer? And then why it's so important for the recruiter to be onboard? Talk about that specifically. Yes. Yeah, I think it's important because candidates more than ever know that they have choices.

And so they want to understand the why. They want to understand what the value proposition is of the organization, if they were to consider that particular opportunity. And I mean, considering an opportunity is one thing, and then getting them to interviews another, because they can hear us all they want, and then they do their homework on their own. And so having all the necessary information to go to market and be able to answer all their questions. All right. It's so important. And you have to remember, I think, the candidate's time is equally valuable. So the stance of like, well, just have a conversation with them.

No, that time is money these days. So if they have a 30-minute conversation with four different companies, I mean, that's two hours of their day. So what they will do instead is just really choose two that sounds the most enticing to them. And that's what they're gonna run with. And if it works out great, if not, they just kind of then pick up their search. But that's where you missed the window and the market is moving so quickly. How fast, how fast? Put in perspective, give me an example. Do you got one example? I'm sure you got one example. Oh, I'm sure. I mean, one week, Max.

Five business days. Five business days. Yeah. We had this engine to where, you know, companies interview on a Friday, two interviews by next week offer, keep going. Just keep going. It's just, Yeah, and listen. I'm gonna go that fast. And listen for companies, hiring managers watching this right now, like you're like, oh, this is a teed up conversation. Jessica and Taylor are at Vaco. This is a huge marketing deploy to use Vaco. Listen, this is the first time I've chatted with Jessica I think in a year and a half. Yeah. I mean, like literally like everything I'm saying, I get other people on this dang show to let other people, like to let the viewers know that I'm not crazy, right?

And literally like, this can I, where we didn't tee up this conversation. This is literally her experiences in another, I mean, she's in the county and finance. She's not even in tech. She's in accounting and finance, a whole nother industry. So Jessica, thank you for not making this out crazy. Oh, yeah. So I think it's just, it's very unprecedented. And we just haven't seen it go this fast, but the reality is, we've done this enough and we have lost out on 30, 40 candidates early on where. You really? It's yeah, we've showcased it real time, you know, and and perhaps it is part of the building a relationship and learning each other and trusting each other.

But but again, you know, the reality is is you chose to partner with us as an agency to help you find a candidate. Right. Let me help you. I want to help you. Let me help you help me or whatever that. Yeah, you know, and I, I, I, it sounds a little cheesy and I'm not one of those people to be cheesy, but I just, I mean, we all truly want to just help candidates help clients, right? That's it. That's all there is to this. this. And so really, the heartache comes as when we go to the market and we're running and we're working 80 hours, 100 hours.

I mean, that's the truth. I've worked past midnight God knows how many times just to go. I worked 12 hours easy for me every day, 6-6. Yeah. And so then we have those numerous conversations to just given the perfect 2-3, right? And so But then if it comes down to just speed to make decision, I mean, that hurts. That hurts so bad. And so to recreate that engine all over again, and then sure, I mean, organizations might feel like, okay, that's what we're paying them to do. But there comes a point where we run out of steam. We just- Yeah, there comes a point where we fire you as a client.

Like just like, I mean, listen, I'm gonna say it now. Like, like literally, and I'm sure you're having these conversations too, Jessica, but literally I met with my team this week, last week. Today's already Tuesday of the following week. Met with my team last week and I was like, hey listen, we gotta be okay firing people. Yeah. And we gotta be okay with saying, you know what, this may be not the best business. And again, hiring managers on this and that's gonna hear this later, like, you're like, oh, well that's a very, that's a very whole area of them thou attitude. It's like, listen, I get that, but like there's a lot of other people who need talent and you're just dragging me along.

Right. And we only have so many recruiters, right? So we constantly are re-prioritizing their go-to market, like, hey, you need to work on this today. You need to work on this today. You need to work on this today. And so a recruiter, especially given we're all commission based, guess what they're going to do? They're going to stay closest to the dollar. So if they spend their time here and it bears them no fruit, and they know that this company is quick to make a decision. And they know what they want. If we find it, they will hire them. I mean, that's what they're gonna recruit.

And I can't fault them for that. I can't really fault them. And so then it goes back to this whole cyclical thing of like, okay, I took this on. I said I would find you the person. If I find you the person now, you need to hold your end of the bargain. hire the person and that's where the accountability comes in and the partnership comes in because then there is no like escape code of like, oh okay, you go, we'll just use this agency, so on and so forth. I mean then, okay, if that's your value proposition and that's how you want to go to market, then I'm not the person for you.

Yep, yep, absolutely. I want to ask this before before we kind of change topics just a little bit. But, and of course I knew this would happen literally, like it's already 10 o'clock. But do you think that leaning on a recruiting company, doesn't even have to be us, it can be somebody else. Do you think leaning on a recruiting company could level up your organization in 2022? Yes, big time. Yeah. We are. That was kind of a softball answer, but. No, I mean, you're right, but like, you know, we always say we are, we are walking marketing that you don't have to pay for. Oh, I love that.

We are walking. We are walking marketing for you know, and we candidates. I mean, we have built these relationships with candidates over the years and they trust us. And most of the candidates, I mean, Taylor, you know, you've placed people one, two, three times. And every time they make a career move, they value your input and they value, they use you as a sounding board because you are talking to so many people and getting real-time feedback from people all the time. So I, we say this all the time. I mean, it doesn't have to be, You know, you don't have to pick me, but just pick one.

And I love Jessica says that because I say same thing, like, listen, like, there's sometimes we not we may literally just can I may not be the best for you. And that's okay. It's okay. But I think it's not but here's the deal though. It's finding a recruiting company who can say that because I will tell you that most recruiting companies are going to sit here trying to do a square peg in a round hole situation. And those usually recruiting firms do not work. Literally, if you're talking to a recruiting company and they are open to walking away from this conversation, I would actually, I would argue and lean into them even more.

If they're telling you, hey, like this may not be a fit and this may not work because then it's like, there's awareness and I feel like awareness is something that our industry is lacking. Absolutely. I think we, our industry has been over, like over and over again, positioned as, I I mean, kind of use car sales people, right? We just, yeah. I mean, everything. That's what I say. And, but, truly, I think where VACO and our groups have differentiated ourselves is we're all, we're all pedigree players. We're like, you know, when, even though I'm in accounting finance, like, I started my career at a fake for consulting firm.

I am a CPA. I have a master's in accounting from Vanderbilt. And so we're pedigree players that just choose to help organizations, you know, find talent solution. And this is what I love to do. I love helping people. I love helping clients. And I've done this for nine years now successfully or eight and a half, whatever. And I like it. And that's my value proposition. So you're absolutely right where, you know, we, we are in that position where we want to continue to drive success stories, but in order to drive that we also have to be true to ourselves and walk away from things that we cannot be a success story.

Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree. That's to our own detriment. A lot of comments have come in. I haven't gotten to except it's been so in thrall with our conversation. Your line of thanks for tuning in. Elliot Barrett goes back to the cookie comment. I cookies me too. Listen chocolate chip. Oatmeal cookies. What's your favorite cookie Jessica? Like like if I were to bring you. Oh, my wife loves that. I just not a fan. Ralph, what's going on? empty cookie jars, not a jar of recruiters want. Absolutely. Speaking of somebody that placed a few times, Sal placed them four or five times. It's It's great to see a big dog.

John talked about hiring cadence, hired in five business days. Again, like there's gotta be speed. There you go. They found a good one in John. Elliot goes here, says, I can honestly say that applications are intimidating, but a recruiter once was intimidating too. Now I see that once I sift through bad recruits and find a great senior crews and remove the intimidation factor. That's what I'm saying. Like really recruiters can be such a huge advocate, not only companies, but for job seekers as well. I don't know if yet any comments on that Jessica. No absolutely. I mean, use a recruiter as your friend. They are there to help guide you.

And you're right, the bad recruiters are the ones that will corner you and force you to take a job just for the placement. But the reality is, is when I am partnering with clients exclusively, that equation just doesn't work. Because if in 90 days, it's not the perfect fit or in six months, it's not the perfect fit, guess what? The company's gonna be like, hey, so I'm so quick, can you find me another one? I still have to find them. So the value proposition does not work in that equation. And so it's in, we at VACO truly take pride in life. Hey, let's find you the right thing.

Like I want to be able to sit across from you cook fully at lunch or coffee or virtually or whatever that is and ask you how's it going and you say I love it. I love what I'm doing. This is a great, you know, next stop in my career. I'm learning a lot. And so yeah, run, run, run the other direction. The moment you have a recruiter that's cornering you to take a position and not supporting you in your decision is wrong. So I knew 30 minutes would fly by. So I want to leave. I want to I always let guests kind of give their last little bit of nuggets, wise words of wisdom.

So I'm going to we're going to shut it down with this question. Jessica, any advice for hiring managers and companies and or job seekers going into 2022? Oh, that's a loaded one. Probably how much longer do I have the answer? I know, I know. No, I do. I think I think I'll leave it with this. I over the years and considering I've had the like the front seat and in partnering with, you know, again, Fortune 100 Fortune 50 companies and partnering with them exclusively. There's, it sounds daunting because organizations or hiring managers would be like, man, I'm gonna put all my eggs in this one basket to help me find this person.

There's a huge value proposition and opportunity there because then the recruiter's like, oh my God, they trusted me to help them find this person. So it's even more of this trust and this relationship that you build and you continue to foster and you're always put first because then they know that they're relying on you. So I would encourage companies and hiring managers to find that one recruiter that truly aligns with what they want, what they need. And similarly with job seekers, don't think that all recruiters are bad. We truly have your best interest in heart. You know, like I said, if there are those recruiters that are where you just don't get the warm and fuzzy and they're not giving you the lay of the land or what I call, we don't play God.

We're here to show you opportunities and then you decide what you want. Find those recruiters in your verticals because they're truly your advocate And it's an easy way for you to find and navigate opportunities that seem so daunting to go on the internet and let me see what does this do and having to decipher different jargon from different organizations. What does this mean here? What does this mean there? I mean, that's what we do, right? We understand all of it. And we're this, again, in cyclopedia for job seekers. And so use us, use us to your advantage, use us as a sounding board, even if it is that we're not presenting you the role, use us to navigate that because we want to see you land well.

And then the evolution of everything is such that, guess what? At some point you'll be like, Oh my God, he was so helpful or she was so helpful. Now let me reach out to her again, because I'm in the marketplace again, or let me reach out to Taylor or Jessica, because I am hiring for so and so. I mean, there's a natural evolution in everyone's career. We wanna be a part of that journey. It brings us nothing more but joy to just be everyone involved in their careers. I mean, that's what we do, right? Yeah, absolutely. Cool. Well, y'all, thank you again, Jessica. Thank you.

Thank you again for joining me. Stay on real quick after I wrap this up. But so tomorrow I have another Vaco person, Jeff Ramsey. So very, very excited to hang out with him tomorrow, 9.30 a.m. Central, again, kind of the work he is also in the accounting finance division. And you're probably like, Taylor, is this now in accounting and finance show? No, it's not. But I want to get some players at Vaco to give a little bit more lay of the land because at the end of the day, sometimes it's kind of annoying hearing about tech all the time. So I want to make him a little bit more land, a little bit more holistic approach to tomorrow, not through am central Jessica go kick with just going to LinkedIn.

She's fantastic. And y'all thank you again for tuning in. I appreciate it. I'll see you all tomorrow. Thank you. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode and I am very grateful. Cause you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes, and I myself rarely finish an entire episode, so I appreciate you so so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the App Store. I want this to be discoverable to others, and the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it. Please, like, right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it.

So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me, Taylor at Vaco.com or at T.S. and on all social media handles, And I hope you have a fantastic day.