how to partner with a recruiting firm w/ ben henderson

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auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

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, VACO.com is how to get in touch with me old-fashioned email, social media at tdesintd 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. Hope you enjoy the episode. Ben, give the people what they want, give a little bit about you and then we'll dive in. All right. Well, hopefully the internet connection will remain stable enough that we don't turn this into a Max Headroom session.

Yeah, a little bit about me. You know, Ben Henderson, VP of software engineering at Celera Health, or a healthcare tech company based out of Phoenix, Arizona. I've been in the technology realm. I've been a developer. I've been an architect. I've been a CTO, an engineering leader of everything. You name it. I've done it. And I still do a little bit of it today. And so I've been in the realm for about 30 years now. And just love being a part of the ever evolving world of technology and then finding people and growing them in that realm as well as a huge passion of mine. So that's me, that's what I do.

That's what we're here. I love it. I love it. So Garrett, what's going on? Hillary, what's going on? LinkedIn user Good Morning, Erica Good Morning. We're a little light on viewers this morning, but that's OK. Everyone's like, nah, Ben's a repeat customer, so I don't have to watch again. Justin, what's going on? We are getting people trickling in. So the reason why I want to get Ben back on the show, because Ben and I caught up, I think, a month or two ago, or maybe six months. I don't know, time is all relative at this point, if you were promotes. It was last year, you know.

It was last year, yes, it was last year. And so Ben and I started at the end of our conversation, we started to get into kind of recruiting, partnering with recruiting firms. And listen, I'm gonna say this, Ben works with Vaco, right? Ben has worked with Vaco in multiple different stops and I am biased, but I will tell you this, I think Ben is one of the few engineering leads in Nashville that truly get it, that truly know how to partner with a recruiting firm, that understands how we work and is creative. And we're going to dive into that today. And so the first question I want to ask Ben is, hey, listen, for hiring managers out there who are struggling or VPs or CIOs who are struggling with finding a recruiting partner, what would be your advice to them?

I mean, you know, I know you've mentioned this in previous posts, but But you've got to interview your partner. And they're not all created equal. You're going to find people that when you give them what you're really looking for, not just on paper, but what you're looking for for an engineer to join your team and what their background needs to be and what they're passionate about and really digging in all those details. You've got to find that partner that really listens and really gets it and is able to pick out those key points that you're looking for. to be able to leverage that because you don't necessarily hire based on what the job description says on paper, right?

I mean, it's you can only fill that out to be so descriptive about what it is you're looking for. There's lots of details behind that description that you gotta make sure that you're recruiter and your partner really know, you know what that is, know you, know what you're looking for. Correct. So let me ask you this. How did you do you remember how you found Vaco? I'm kind of curious. I know it was back when you worked at My Health and I know you and I hung out at a networking event. I think that's where Ben and I's relationship really kicked off. But do you remember kind of how you found us at all?

You know, I don't remember exactly how it started. I think it was probably way back in the Davida days when we were doing a lot of content to hire and things of the nature and we started building out the relationship with different partners. But you know, I remember connecting with Darren. Yeah. You know, when you talk about interviewing that partner and the person you're working with, you know, he was, we just clicked. You know, it was, you know, I would say something. He knew exactly what I was talking about. He would dig into the details and he would say, okay, and so you mean this and what about this and if I brought you someone that had this what would you think and we just really went through that and got to know one another on a on a personal level of what really drives you And that helps him know exactly you know, he's like when I put this guy in front of Ben I'm gonna send him a text message too because I know he's the one, you know Yeah, yeah, well and I think it's so important too and and I talk about this and it's it seems ridiculous because I say it's all about vibe.

And listen, here's the deal. Darren, and again, love Darren to death, Darren may not vibe with another hiring manager. You know what, that's okay. That's okay. But I think as a hiring manager, like Ben just said, you have to find somebody that works for you. And here's the deal. And I'll tell you this too. We've had it time to vacal. Like if you're just not vibing with your account manager, it's a hard conversation to have, but I will tell you this, if you're not vibing with your account manager, the account manager probably is getting frustrated at the recruiting firm. And if you just tell them like, hey, this isn't working, do you think like maybe I can work with somebody else?

To be quite honest with you, that recruiter will pass you off too, because they are struggling as well. And so Ben again, thank you for outlining that. Because so let's talk about the job descriptions with the recruiter really knowing you. Talk about that a little bit. It's not all on paper. Can you break that down just a little bit more? Sure, you know, I mean, when you think about a standard job description, you're kind of talking about what the company is. You know, you're selling the company first, right? To say what it is, what our platform is, what we're doing, what you're gonna do on a day-to-day basis, and what the minimal requirements are for you to meet the description, right?

I mean, that's the standard, right? And things have changed a little bit, Obviously as we're getting into a more competitive market, you've got to change your draft descriptions to really put air all to the dirty laundry. Here's what it is. Here's what we're going to do. Before we move on, let's sidebar. And I'm so glad you brought that up. Let's talk. This is how I am, man. I knew this would happen. We'd start talking and we'd go different directions. I never had a guess on and talk about the actual topic. We just followed up. Talk about that, because that is one thing I've noticed. In my opinion, I tweeted this or posted it to the other day.

I think companies should hire copywriters, like actually write a copywriter to write job descriptions in a voice, in a that displays a tonality of the type of person you wanna have within your organization. What are your thoughts on that? And let's dive into that. I think you're onto something because it's, it's not the standard bulleted list anymore, right? I mean, you've gotta sell your position in the CEO of Candidates today. And so we've opened ours up now, and they're by no means perfect. Don't get me wrong there. Yeah. Don't go to the web page and then pick apart those job descriptions. Yeah, yeah, right. But it's now to the point of here, it's really focusing on team, what your requirements are to be a part of our team.

We are a small company. We're in startup mode. We move fast. you've got to be able to think on your feet. And so, we're trying to build that into the description of what we're looking for. And it doesn't mean you're working long hours. It just means the hours you're putting in are intense, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so trying to build that in, but then also building out what you're working on. We're really elaborating on the fact of what we're doing in cloud, but technology we're using, what stack we're built on, that we're utilizing TypeScript and Azure functions and things of that nature. Just trying to lay it all out there and say, this is, we're publishing our architecture a little bit in our conversation.

You can just say, okay, come in. This is a great thing to work on, right? Well, yeah, and then going back to content creation, I mean, you have Twitter accounts like Netflix engineering, you have Spotify engineering, like you have these accounts that are putting out kind of pulling back the curtain a little bit and be like, hey, we're working on this problem, We're running this roadblock with this technology. And I'm curious, what do you think Stravitz? Cause I have my thoughts, so I'll follow up after you. But like, what do you think is driving this transparency from companies right now? With job descriptions and kind of just laying things out there.

Well, yeah. I mean, everybody's, everybody heard the stories. And I think a lot of people have been in this position. You know, you go through, you interview for a new role. You talk to everybody on the team and you get in and it's a completely different job or situation, right? And it's the unfortunate thing is I think the majority of us have been in that situation at one point or another in our careers. And so when you look at the market now, it's so competitive that no, we have time for that anymore. And so you've got to get it out in the open upfront because they're talking to five other companies and odds are that four of them are telling them straight up, This is what it is and gresert.

Here's our technical debt. This is our resolution plan and getting that up before they answer the question and before they even ask the question. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, and I think that's so true. I think now because actually I just tweeted something, retweeted rather. So there's a stat and I'm gonna mess up these numbers but like stripe hiring, by the way, if anybody's watching or has connections at Stripe, I would love to interview somebody from Stripe that I just wanna get a little bit more big tech on the show, that's sidebar. But he was like 39% of stripes interviewing or hiring last year was outside of Silicon Valley.

Now it's targeted to be 70% this year outside of Silicon Valley. And I think just because this, we've really crossed the threshold of companies not being confined by the city anymore and the people in the city. I think it's causing, it's forcing companies to try to attract, to really air, not air out their dirty laundry, but try to make themselves more relatable. So people can want to relate to them, to be a part of their organization. So I think that's where I was coming from. Wanna give a shout out to more people, Roshan Man. It's been a bit, hope you're doing well. GOT, good morning from New Hampshire.

I'm sure it's beautiful and snowy up there. Darryl, what's going on from Nashville, I love it. So, so let's talk about, let's get a little bit nuts and bolts here. Partnering with us, partner with other recruiting firms. What are your, oh, Justin, hold on, okay, I'm gonna go with Justin. So Justin, I think the more transparency allows less misses on the candidate, you hire to be a good fit. I agree with that. No employer under six months wants a place they can't call home. So the more open you are within that process, the more lasting impressions you gain and better retain employees. I don't think, I don't think, Justin, I feel like you have something that you want to say and get off your chest because that was very, very poignant.

That was very poignant. So maybe we can talk in the DMs about that. So feel the pain. Yeah. So, all right, how do you kind of structure hiring right now, kind of working with us or other recruiting partners? You know, one thing I think you do well is that you don't just look at direct hire, right? One thing I talk about all the time is direct hire, in my opinion, is only a quarter. or technically I'm bad at math, but it's one of the four ways you can hire, right? So you have pure software consulting. We have that with our VACO built. It's like a pure outsource software development team.

Then you have your contractors, right? Just hired guns, come in, crush out some work, leave three, six months, nine months, whatever. Then you have contract hire, then you have direct hire. That's four ways. And you could argue five with part time. So Ben, talk about how you've leveraged us or other recruiting firms to try to fill some holes within your organization. Yeah absolutely. I mean, direct hire is a key. You've got to focus on building up the right talent in your FTE bench and making sure that you've got people that are calling your company home, right? Right. That they want to be there, they want to be invested in what you're doing and grow within the organization.

That's still a big important part of career growth and software engineering even though people are moving quite frequently. That's a staple. You've got to have those people part of the organization that are going to maintain the domain expertise over time. And then from a contract perspective, you look at that from project based or staff augmentation while you're trying to fill those FTE roles or whatever. And that's very important as well, right? I mean, my mix right now is I've got FTEs, I've got contractors, I've got part-time contractors. We've done a contract to hire from an FTE perspective. And so you've got to leverage every possibility, you know, because for two different reasons, right?

One of it is you've got to have people to do, to do the work for the organization, but two, you've got to be able to meet people where they are, you know? And so I got chills on that one. I got chills, it's so true. Sorry, sorry, keep going on. No, no, yeah, I mean, you're right. I mean, because, you know, that goes to what we had to do towards the end of last year, right? We're going through, we're trying to fill these out to e-rolls. We've got, you know, some really senior positions that we had open, but we had some work to get done prior to the end of the year.

And so at that point, you know, Vaco being, you know, one of our partners came to the plate with a, hey, I've got some guys, they meet the senior criteria, they're a good fit for what you need to do, technology fits, everything else. They got a full-time gig, but they'll give you 20 hours a week. And so we were able to bring that in, ramp those guys up pretty quickly, and be able to make full progress on the deliverables for the end of the year. And so, you know, it wasn't something I was thinking of, But having a partner in the corner that knew what was going on and knew their people and knew their bench, were able to bring that to us and execute.

And we were able to turn that around and have them on board and writing code in less than two weeks. Really? Yeah. See, that's what I'm talking about is that, so I talk about this all the time with recruiting companies. You have to partner with a recruiting company that tries to solve problems. Because now, now, I could, now, there could be recruiting companies that aren't problem solvers. And they're still good resume slingers. And it just depends what your organization wants or needs, right? Like there are some organizations out there, Ben, I'm sure you've worked with them in the past, maybe you haven't, but like, hey, we just need a source for resumes, we feel pretty good about our internal hiring structure to where We don't really need y'all to kind of go through all the screening, which is fine.

There's nothing wrong with that. But then in this instance, Ben had a need. Darren, like did some critical thinking. It was like, you know, maybe we got to try to solve this somehow and then offered a solution and then boom. Right. So, so I want to, I want to highlight something too. You said within two weeks, right? Talk about the onboarding process working with us and the hiring. Cause I think a lot of times companies are like, well, I don't want to use a recruiting company from a contracting because like, we'll have to do everything. Like, like, that's just another thing we have to do.

Talk about your process and working with us and getting those contractors to part timers like Rowan. Yeah, I mean, you know, once once you've got an agreement in place, everything, everything rolls pretty well, right? I mean, you've covered from an MSA that covers your FTE and your contracting aspects. And so once that's out of the way, the partnerships there, it's, it's really easy to pivot across those different lanes and make that work, right? So from our perspective, it was you guys have taken care of background checks and everything else. And so all the things that we would normally do on an FTE, it's already done for us.

So we're ready to just say, okay, we're sending out hardware to a certain address, and here's the start date. And so it definitely simplifies things. I mean, and if you all watch this now, if there's a hiring man watching down in the future, you're like, that can't be real. Like, are you saying that like, they could does all the background stuff and like, once the agreement's in place, like we can just send a piece of equipment and then they start? Yes. Like, it's literally that simple. And then that's why I don't know. Why do you think, and no wrong answers here, no wrong answers. Why do you think companies only want to do direct hire right now and not get quick?

Well, you know, I think that, I think people are still in the mindset that direct higher equals a longer stay. You know, that when you go through this, this, you're a full-time employee, you're going to be here for the long run. And think that the contract side of things is really just, you know, I'm paying this overhead. it's more expensive for me to do this and it's a short-term thing and and I don't know I think that that has something to do with it just the stigma the overhead of the contractor versus You know the FTE of this is gonna wash out the long run, right?

Yeah, yeah I mean I I think so I if I would tell a hiring manager I mean literally I'm interviewing a hiring manager so I would tell you this but I would argue that that you're probably gonna get potentially the same amount of products. So I've talked to a lot of people, you can create me from wrong then. I've talked to a lot of developers, a lot of hiring managers that it takes around six months for an FT to kind of ramp up, right? Onboarding, documentation, training, going through technical debt, whatever. It takes about six months to kind of really get that person producing. If you hire a contractor who is senior, who knows what's going on, who can have the ground running, they could literally start producing day one.

Now, could potentially the direct hire person last longer? Sure. They could, but let me ask you this. Are you trying to get them, trying to get someone to stay longer just to stay? Are you trying to get work done? And I think there's got to be a balance. I mean, I'm not saying that like you should never do direct hire, but I think there's a balance. And I think that's what you guys are doing pretty well at Celera. Yeah, and I think that, you know, there's not all contractors are built the same either, right? Sure. So you've got to be able to work with someone that knows, hey, you know, this guy is going to be that level of seniority that, you know, they are going to pick it up and they're not going to take three months to ramp up.

That they're really quick. This is their MO. They've done this for us in previous engagements. They come in. they quickly get up speed and they're able to execute on the project. And then you got others that don't have that consultant mindset. They're really just, look, I'm just on contract. I just don't want to, I don't want to tie myself to an organization. I'm more than happy to contract with you for six, 12 months and then move on to a project. So it's two different mindsets from that. I see it. I see it more of the consultant mindset and the contract engineering mindset. You know what I mean?

and and and and then Daryl here goes I love contract higher will I go swipe right straight to marriage well I swipe right and went to marriage and also it does work it does work you know I so there's one organization do I need to do I think I may do a series in February. And we're not safe February because of Valentine's Day. Or I may just do the week of dating and the job search. So look towards, look for that, the week of Valentine's Day. I think I'm gonna do that because there's so much similarities. But there's one organization Ben, you would obviously know of them here in Nashville.

I'm not gonna say who it is though, but that really does pure contract to hire and they've had a great success rate. of actually keeping people longer. So what are your thoughts on kind of contract to hire just at a super high level? I think it's a great model. Not, you know, I think you got to find the right people and obviously you guys are working with individuals and you know, cause you got to talk to the people themselves right and they're like, okay, I just want to, I want to direct, I want to go directly into benefits or whatever. But no, I think it's really fantastic for both sides, right?

I mean, when we look at this landscape that we're in right now, and we talk about earlier that people are getting burned in situations where they come in and it's a different job, it gives both sides the opportunity to say, look, we've got six months we're going to sit here and we're going to figure out whether this is the right thing. And at that, 90, you pretty much know, right, on both sides of the day or 90, again, and engineer knows that, yep, this is the job that they said it was going to be. And I can see an upward trajectory and a growth plan for me.

And it lets both sides know that you've got the right person and the right fit. And you get to figure that out over time and it changes your investment model as well. Yeah, so as we wrap up here and again, time flies as always. So what are your, and then Brian is good to see it, but you know what, it's okay, you're late. I'm just glad you're here. So what are your thoughts? So two final things we wrap up. Do you structure your staff, your hiring? Like, all right, and you may, we may have already talked about this, but I wanna re-clear it. Do you like, all right, so we get this project with this need.

It's like, is this like a core group need? Or can we like, is this a contract, like a contractor, not a court need? Is that like, do you have the core nucleus? And then do you kind of go, you evaluate each project as a part-time contractor and then a core group, like tell me your thought process from that perspective. If I'm making any... Yeah, absolutely. No, no, I know exactly where you're going. And yeah, you absolutely have to look at things that way. That was one of the key things for us of being able to bring on the contractors last year is you carve out different pieces that say, okay, this project doesn't require all the the domain expertise that we need in our core group.

And so it's something that you can carve off and say, you know, you guys can ramp up on this pretty quickly. You don't have to understand everything that this form does. You just need to understand this small domain and it's easy to ramp up. So yes, it's absolutely imperative to kind of break up your projects that way and be able to say, yes, this is a prime candidate for me to give to, you know, either, you know, an outside group or a couple of contractors to come in and just knock this project out. And they can do it completely outside and not interrupt the core team.

Correct. Yeah, I tweeted this the other day. I said, so I'm a big college football fan, or in football in general, but mainly college football. And I'm one of those nerds that follow recruiting and all that stuff. But I think what's fascinating is, you start to get into how offensive players are using an offensive system. Do you move them here, how they best be utilized? And I kind of said, I tweeted that I said, hiring managers should be obsessive just like, I actually compared to a NCAA on PlayStation. But like basically should be obsessed right now with the Xs and Os of your team and how you move people around to best suit your organization because everybody right now is understaffed for the most part, overworked and dealing with burnout.

And so you kind of have to keep moving these players around to make sure they're stimulated, not burn out, make sure they get their validation at work because we're kind of in this new era now. And I think it's a little harder to keep retained talents. You kind of have to keep moving people around. Is that any thoughts on that? Yeah, absolutely. And that really goes with making sure that you're in touch with the growth plans for each one of your team and, you know, we're working on that as well as moving to different projects, getting more full stack exposure. And so, yeah, we look at it for two different ways.

One is really focused on growing the individual in their skill set. And two, yes, giving them some new projects and new challenges and new problems to solve. It benefits both, right? And that's usually, if you can end up with that win-win, that win-win and you're in a much better spot from a retention standpoint and a happiness. Yes. That's very important. So Ben, as we wrap up here, and again, thank you all for tuning in this morning. Ben, what's just some final, I always, again, like to leave final thoughts, words of wisdom. It doesn't have to be around hiring. It can be for the job search for hiring managers, for IT organizations right now.

Is there anything that you just want to say, maybe that your team's struggling with, that you're struggling with, that you want to encourage others, just some general last thoughts from Ben Henderson this morning. Oh my goodness. I don't know. It's crazy times. I think that I think we're all just struggling right now to come up with new creative ways to get the job done. And so I know I'm not really good at this, but I do enjoy that you're able to kind of pull things together to kind of help us introverts that don't network very well. To kind of get, to feel other people's pain and know what they're doing and what techniques they're using for problem solving.

And so I'm hopeful that maybe some of the things that we're doing kind of, you know, triplets my ideas for some others. And I just, I just, I hope that I can hear some of those ideas from others and incorporate into my pain as well. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, y'all, thank you again for hanging out with us today. We appreciate it. Ben, thank you so much, me, and stay on, of course, for a quick second afterwards. But listen, go connect with Ben on LinkedIn. Again, he's one of the few hiring managers that does it the right way. Ben, real quick, are you hiring? And if you are hiring, what are your main skill sets that you're all looking for?

Yeah, no, we're hiring engineering leadership. We're hiring front end react engineers. We're hiring back end node type script engineers. Yeah, we're hiring all across the board. Cool. I love it. I love it. So real quick, we had a quick question. So I'm going to dim the music, McQuire the music real quick. So from Derek says, good morning. you both through insights in the contract to hire work. It was an eye opening when viewed from the lens of let's see if we are both a good fit. Yeah, again, that's the big thing. And again, I know it's not for everybody. I'm not saying like you should only do it this way.

I showed up a bit like so maybe this was discussed earlier, but do you view that the same way for entry level positions or is this typically reserved to mid to senior positions? I have my thoughts. Ben, what are your thoughts? I'm open to any level. Typically, I'll just say from past experience, typically the more entry level positions are usually just a direct because it's kind of a different recording process. Correct. But I'm open to it at either level. Okay. Awesome. Fantastic. Cool, cool, cool. Alright, y'all. Thanks again. Yo, connect with Ben. And then it's Solera Health, right? So go to Solera Health. Check out their website.

Tell them that you saw our show and maybe Ben can give me a kickback. Other than that, I appreciate you all time. Thursday, tomorrow morning, unicorn finders. We're going live. We're talking with a startup out of Orlando in the low code space. They're doing something a little differently, so check it out tomorrow. Not there at AM Central. And then Friday, I have one of my dear friends, David Cabal on the show. He's a fantastic engineer. We're going to talk about the job search. So y'all have a great one. Ben, thank you again, again, my friend. I appreciate you. Thanks, Daniel. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode and I am very grateful.

Because you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finished 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. Destin on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.