what does recruiting look like post covid-19

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

What's going on podcast listeners? Very excited to bring another episode of guidance counselor 2.0 to y'all This episode is actually gonna be a little different than most episodes This is actually with a new friend of mine chase Tinkham in our Richmond, Virginia Beach office Chase reached out to me about a week or so ago and just wanted to ask some general staffing recruiting questions So we actually cover some really good topics about What's the staffing in the recruiting world look like right now? what it's going to look like and some tactics on how to build relationship with candidates while most recruiters are sitting at home doing zoom calls.

So if you are a job seeker and you are listening or want to listen to this I think it's actually a really good feel behind the onion episode if you want to say for recruiters and so you get to learn how recruiters work and how we operate in this market. So as always feel free to reach out to me you can follow me on all social media platforms at T. Dessin T D E S S E Y N. You can also shoot me an email Taylor at Vaco V A C O dot com. Please connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm doing a ton of posting on LinkedIn every day about some practical tips and tricks on the job search.

Also Twitter. I'm leaning on Twitter heavily as well for all of that. Also, please take time. Please, please, please, rate and review the podcast. While you're listening to it, I would love for this to, of course, gain traction and other people can find this podcast and use it as a tool for them in the job search process. Hope you guys enjoy this podcast. I am really, really excited to bring another episode here next week. A little sneak peek. It's my dear friend Alex Blue. He's actually a restaurant chef and owner, and we're actually talking about hiring and businesses pivoting in this market. So that's gonna be great as well.

Hope you enjoyed this conversation with Chase and I. Thanks y'all. Man, I guess talk to me. So yeah, I mean, give me a rundown kind of about you real quick, obviously. Have we officially met and if we have, obviously that's my fault for not remembering? No, we haven't. I came on with Beggo about two months ago at this point, a gentleman named CJ Ivan out of Virginia Beach. He is a acquaintance of mine from high school. And I put something out there. I'd left a startup that was out of DC. I've been with them for about three years. I was running Enterprise Customer Success over there.

Nice. And we were selling Customer Success software. So we grew pretty quick. I did what I came there to do. I started out in business development and then transitioned over and we had enough clients and we secured, you know, millions of funding and we're at the team to about 56 people at the time of departure. But I was looking for something new and I was trying to find a role in C.J. reach out to say, hey, you know, you might be a good fit over here at Vanka. And I said, you know, we'll check it out and see what it's all about. And what really, you know, obviously great organization, I have nothing but great things to say.

But the reason I got into it is because I hated literally hated my job search. Like it was so bad, right? Yeah, it was, you know, I couldn't get a call back in acid, you know, I'm looking at my numbers, I'm looking at everything that I've done at the street, but I should at least get a conversation and I'm not getting them. And that was so frustrating to me. And I said, I'm not gonna let that happen to other people, right? People that deserve a chance and deserve a shot, I'm gonna get them that shot, or at least do my best to do it. while I'm still serving the customer, right, and in the client.

And so that's kind of how I see it. And that's how I made my way into that game. That's awesome. Sorry. That's so my third. So, man, I guess how can I help? Yeah, so the reason I'm reaching out Taylor is I'm OK at BD, right? I'm not really worried about BD. I can tackle that. The challenge is recruiting it, right? And I don't think it's so much me connecting with people or being personable. I'm a natural at it. The challenge is kind of- Yeah, sounds like, I mean, super nice dude already. I've been on the call for two minutes. Thanks, yeah. You know, it comes naturally to me.

I've learned it from my dad. You know, he used to take me around the accounts in the automotive industry. So those guys are real down there. Yeah. I like to talk business sometimes to you, Matt. Right. But the challenge I'm having is, you know, kind of this concept and it's still a little lost on me. I originally came in just to do VD, right? And so they let go my recruiter the Monday or the Friday before I came on that Monday, right? And then COVID hits two weeks into it and it's just been a little bit of a whirlwind. And so, you know, what I'm trying to figure out is the concept of Matrix recruiting and, you know, and I understand there's a way to do it, right?

And there's a reason that we do it. But it feels, and again, this is just a perception thing in why I want to connect with you. It feels like we're giving potentially people false hope. But on the other side of that, I understand we need to be ready to present them if they want to find a role. So I need a little help navigating that. How do you do it? And how do you do it effectively? Right? How do you not bog down your time, especially if you're running a pullback where you have to be to get the roles to build the instruments? Yeah, I think this time right now is gonna change recruiting period, right?

So I mean, I think it really changed our industry as a whole and I think for me, so I had a call with my recruiting team last Friday, it was an hour and 15 minute call of just, let's lay down table, what does it look like? How's everybody feeling, checking in? You know, I'm a big, lovey, dovey, crack commercials type of guy. So I'm definitely big on, you know, making sure everybody feels okay and is comfortable. And I think, I think the big thing is, is this question, right? How do you matrix recruit during this time? And I think that's a great question, and not many people are comfortable doing it, right?

It's like, well, hey, let me talk to you. We have a job, we'll know, we'll watch that talk to you. And you're like, because you should, right? And so I think the biggest thing I can say is the still incompetence in individuals. I think it's in its educating. And I think a lot of times recruiters get you on the phone and they're like, hey, Mr. Shown, so I see your dot net developer. I love the work. I love the work with you. Do you have a job? Well, no, no, I don't have a job. Well, why do I work with you? And there's no good answer after that.

And so I think for us, I think we're cruising this market right now, like we're thought leaders. I think my whole recruiter suck, you know, and kind of the tongue-in-cheek, the recruiters are so bad at their jobs, right? A lot of us are, but I also think too, I think we need to get away from the notion that we're these lowly recruiters, right? I think we look towards our financial advisors because they went to school and they've been in the industry and they know their stuff, right? We go to doctors because they have been in the industry, they know their stuff, like people need to come to recruiters, right?

I think the big thing is recruiters need to have the confidence and be like, you know what? Like, we know what we're talking about, right? And I think it's telling people that, right? So it's the question of, hey, listen, you know, so and so, I saw your resume, you look great. You know, I wore, you know, I know the market's crazy right now. I know that, you know, I know there's a lot of recruiters blowing you up right now. And of course, here's another one. But really, here's why you should work with it. Right? I know a lot of recruiters are probably going to call you for one role.

I want to call you to have a relationship with you for the next five years. Right? Like, I'm the one that you, I really want to work with you and be your friend, not only your recruiter. Right? And I think it's educating those individuals. out there are going to be people out there and there's a in my experience for last eight years of recruiting is there are some developers and cans out there that don't care they just see a recruiter like celery. It's a means to the end for ranch, right? Like like let's be totally honest. The only reason why you eat celery is to get to peanut butter.

That's weird to me is celery and peanut butter but then you also eat celery to get to the ranch and so and then that's what a lot of recruiters are and so we need to be thought leaders, right? And I think that's going towards putting out meaningful specific content in your market, right? I think, you know, recruiting right now is, is, hey, putting out a content of, you know, here are the top three things that I see in this market, right? You know, I think a lot of people are looking towards recruiters as the job labor experts. I mean, we that that's what we are, right?

I had a good conversation with my friends, Dan and Jake and Raleigh and Tampa. And they, you know, Jake from Raleigh made a great point. We have the opportunity to be involved with thousands of companies throughout our career and the inner workings of those companies. A normal person will only be able to see the inner workings of what, six, seven, 10? Maybe. Maybe. We have the opportunity to see everything. And so I think it's really positioning us and positioning yourself as a recruiter as, listen, this is what I do. I know what I'm talking about. And a lot of those are just board tracks, right?

Listen, here's why you should work with me. I get it. Let me be your advocate. I'm really big on providing value, right? And anyway, I can. So I just got off a call right before you with the JavaScript developer. He's on the market. anything for them. But I said, hey, listen, whether you want my advice or not, let's talk about your resume. Let's talk about your LinkedIn. Let's talk about how are you submitting resumes, right? If you, you know, I told him, if you see a job posting, please shoot me a text and let me know how I can help because I probably know engineers at that company that I can introduce you to.

But no recruiters are willing to have that third, fourth, fifth kind of a level of conversations. They're just, hey, do you have a job? No. Okay. Next. Yeah, it's interesting that you say that, right? Because one, education, absolutely, right? I mean, a lot of these folks are only hitting the market once every couple of years, right? And some of them longer. So they haven't navigated these partners. And if they have before, the game, so to speak, has changed drastically since the last time they did it, right? And so, Education, I agree with you, it is helpful. You know, what's also interesting that you said is, hey, I'll introduce you to XYZ engineers, right?

You know, there's a gentleman that I've been working with in the local market, got pretty close with him. You know, and he ended up getting placed somewhere. I don't know if it makes me a bad recruiter or not, right? But I, as a direct result of my efforts, he said, feedback on LinkedIn, feedback on his resume, tips for the job and review, all these things we talked about face to face or at least virtually and it allowed him to take that step forward after getting like, oh, after 20 years and that feels good, right? So that part of it I feel really, really great about the challenges, you know, did I do everything possible in that transaction or or even call a trans guy in that interaction.

Interaction, yeah. Yeah, to provide the most value possible. And I think too, and I think too, another problem that, another frustration, so my, and that's what I love about my team is my team is, I mean, we just want to love on people, right? And I think that's, and I think what's hard right now, is a lot of people feel virtually constipated, right? In regards to where, they're like, like, I can't shake somebody's hand. How do you build a relationship in a Zoom, in a seven minute Zoom call? Right, that's the biggest question that came out of my recruiting meeting last week. How do you build a relationship out of a seven minute Zoom call?

And for me, the fact that you're even having a Zoom, a video call already builds the relationship. Yeah. Right, and many recruiters are not, obviously having that conversation over, over video, right? It's mainly through phone. And so I think that's the first thing to, to be aware of is that you're already one step ahead of a Zoom call, with a Zoom call, right? I think the next thing to understand as well is that, hey, listen, like it's all about the follow-up, right? So for me, it's like wrapping my arms around the community right now. And so it's a lot of making sure I get them connected on LinkedIn, right?

Make sure, you know, I actually created, you know, we can get, you know, specific recruiting stuff right here, but I created Tear Sheet, right? A tear sheet in Bullhorn where it's labeled, you know, TD COVID-19 and everybody I'm speaking to you right now, I'm adding to it and I'm sending out an email every other week to check in with those folks. Hey, let me know your successes. Where did you end up? Would love to hear from you, right? How are you doing? Is your family safe? Because that's another way to show value instead of just having a Zoom call when you're done, right? And so I think that's another way to to kind of think about, again, it's a big funnel, what we do through so many people that we're talking to.

Like how can you like get a one-on-one interaction with somebody and a lot of it is through text and or email? Yeah, and the tear sheet thing is interesting, right? Because... Hey, so Chase and I actually had to end our call early and so we are picking back up to a second call that we had to finish out our great conversation that we're already having on recruiters in this market. Thanks for listening. A little different from recruiters here, internally here at VEGO. And not totally surprising, but yeah, really interested in matrix recruiting. Specifically one, I want to help people. I got into this because I hated my job search and get through the ATS.

I guarantee you some of those places never got a set of human eyes on my resume. And so, you know, I didn't want people to have that experience. And then in that same vein, you know, I don't want to give people false letter, right? And so, you know, what do you say to somebody that might not be grounded, right? Like, hey, Mr. and Mrs. Candida, you're just graduated from college. I totally understand you want to 80k paying developer job, but you have no experience, right? How do you guide them in that conversation? And then two, personally, internally, they keep track of people in your matrix.

You do use when and how often do you keep up? That's the part I'm struggling with most, especially since I'm running with that. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think, well, first off, I think we discussed this, you know, the last time we chatted, but I think it's been, it's having the confidence of bringing the confidence of being a market labor expert, right? I think a lot of times recruiters, you know, have this, oh, what was me? Like, I know we're the worst. Like, feel free to work with me if you want to. And it's just like, as soon as you can just be like, listen, I understand what you're asking for, but I think it's educating, right?

I think a lot of our careers are willing to educate. It's like, listen, you have no experience. You know, we, I've gone from working with a handful of people at one time to over 20 people at one time. Right. The market's more competitive. We're seeing people take 10 to 15 to 20k pay cuts to get back in the door. Are you willing to do that? And, and, and, and most recruiters don't want to educate because it takes time. Um, and, and I think the moment that you're willing to educate people, they go, Oh, Oh, okay. Find out. Yeah. Yeah. But, but people want to educate.

And I think, I think another, and then I think from a recruiting aspect, trying to keep up with everything. I mean, I think, you know, one thing I've implemented on my end that I think it's helped a ton is to implement, you know, I best basically in every other week email newsletter. So not even email newsletter, just an email. I use email newsletter kind of loosely. It's just an email and it's just checking in with people. I mean, I think right now, say what? I didn't forget about you. Yeah. Like, hey, listen, like, you know, and but it's again, right? It's educated people. expectation of listen, I'm dealing with an absurd amount of candidates right now.

I know I probably, and I said this in my mass email, I know I probably have missed some things for you. So please email me back and check in with me. I mean, even as we're talking right now, I just got an email from that from that email and developers checking in with me about something. So, you know, I think that's one way to keep people close. And I think because I think right now people are scared, people want to know they have somebody fighting for them. I also think too, I think recruiters feel like this kind of, and I know this because I felt it, I know my team struggled with this overwhelming desire to help people, which is why we're in this industry.

But you also have to understand too, that you cannot help everybody, but I think people just want to know you're there. People don't necessarily, right? It's kind of like, I'm sure you can probably test this being married, right? But there's sometimes where your wife doesn't want you to fix the problem. Believe it or not, right? We can go on another tangent, you know, with that conversation. But sometimes your wife just wants you to listen, right? And I think a lot of these can now grant it. A lot of them want to find a job. I mean, that's, I mean, that's the current dire situation. But I think a lot of times too, canists just want to know you're there and just want to know you're trying and just want to know that there's a free access and a free availability to get to you.

That's why I'm always saying text me, call me, email me, smoke pigeons, smoke pigeons, pigeons or smoke signals, smoke pigeons. That's a good one. LinkedIn, right? I think making sure that the line of communication is there, I think is a good way to manage your cans. And it also makes you feel good, right? I felt good sending out the email this morning. Hey, I'll just check it in with your own my thoughts. Be safe. How can I help you? And so that helps me as well as let them know, hey, I'm here for you. It's interesting you say that because you mentioned the review that I got that person was not somebody that I was actively working with That's all right in this market.

That's somebody that I worked with Forever ago that unfortunately got laid off right so it it serves you in a different way I mean if you're keeping up with these folks It will come back and it will come back tenfold in fact if that person as a result of you helping them out or whatever you don't get a 10k 20k 30k a fee, which some recruiters us all they care about, right? Right. You know, when that person gets placed and they give you five, 10 racks, that made your money 10 times over. So that's kind of the route that I'm taking. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and so I think keeping people close, you know, with some sort of communication, but also thing too, I think it's, you know, and this is where, you know, kind of the branding comes in too.

I think posting on LinkedIn right now is really the way to go. I think from a recruiting aspect, you need to be posting one thoughtful piece of content a day. And it's easy. Now there's arguments and I've kind of some, some, some A-B testing on my own. Like the second or third posts do not get a lot of reach, but then here's the deal. When I say a lot of reach, it's still a few hundred people. That's still a few hundred other people that wouldn't have seen your second or third post. And I think it really kind of snowballs on itself. And so I think right now, honestly, I think if you're in sales, like true sales, right?

Recruiting is sales, but it's more like working with candidates. I think if you're in sales, if you are not real-time documenting posting, how can I be there for you? Here's what we're dealing with. Here's how we staff teams. Here are some success stories during COVID. If you're not actively posting that, I don't know how you sell right now. Right. Because you're not. You're not. Yeah. You're not. Yeah. I mean, even when you call the person's desk, they're not at their desk. They're at home watching their kids run around the yard without supervision, right? Like, you can't even keep up. And so you're absolutely right. You have to be posting that stuff.

And if they're not going to get you the sale now, that gets you the sale in five, six months from now actively moving because they say, ah-ha. I saw Chase again, Andy called me, and he emailed me. I forgot. We essentially have to be top of mind for like 4,000 people. I mean, I mean, if you think about it, we have to be top, like people are like, you know, how many people we meet all this early, you know, what do I do? It's, or, you know, how do you get the network you have? You essentially have to be top of mind. That's why I'm on Twitter.

That's why I'm on LinkedIn. That's why I'm on Facebook. That's why I'm on Instagram. That's why I have a text messaging platform. That's why I have a podcast. That's why I have a YouTube channel. Literally, and I hate this term, but you have to tickle. Like you have to tickle your network every single day and it's such a weird term. But I really truly think like if you are not tickling your network in more than one or two ways every day, you are falling behind. Well in this world, yeah. And my team asked me the gentleman on my team and said, hey, you know, how are you, why are you on LinkedIn all the time?

I said, I'm not on LinkedIn all the time. I set that out. In fact, I used the tool that they could. Yeah, the elevate. I mean, and there's not a lot of people engaging with it in the sense of commenting or anything like that. But the amount of people that are clicking on that content and seeing Veko's name, seeing my name is astronomical, right? I mean, hundreds and hundreds of folks a week. And so that also lends itself to not only meeting successful, but the Veko nation. 100%. I feel good about that. Yeah. I mean, I mean, it's all, I mean, and I think, you know, I think, moving forward, I mean, people have to be so much more intentional about, I mean, I think for the next year, right?

I mean, and we may have talked about this in the last time we chatted, I think, I think in the next, for the next year, you're gonna have to like brand awareness is going to be key. And I think if you're going in for the ask, if you're in sales, if I guess, if you don't even have a candidate in your calling on a client and you don't even have a candidate in your hand. You're already 15 steps behind. I think the bare minimum at this point needs to be calling with a candidate and hey, Mr. Manager, I know you're a Java shop. We just found one of our favorite Java candidates just was laid off.

We've already, you know, we've placed them before. We've done references. Do you want to talk to them? Well, we don't really have an opening. Totally get that. But I just want to let you know I was thinking of you. And you literally, you separate yourself from every other sales person in town. From a recruiting perspective, you know, the recruiting team, I know we talked about this last time, how do you build relationships on a seven minute zoom call? You just do a zoom call. Yeah, right. Like you don't have to overthink it. I think in your face. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You've seen my face, right?

I already have a better relationship with you than most people in make up nation because we're doing a video call. Exactly. And, and, and, but I think people, I think people right now, I think recruiters and salespeople are like or overthinking, oh my gosh, I'm not meeting them, you know, in their office, I'm not doing a traditional thing. I mean, like, I think this is even when we go back, most companies are going to have a heavy work from home policy, at least out, you know, that I'm sure you've you've been here in that I've been hearing that. I mean, most companies are going to have heavy work from home policies.

So your traditional sales tactics may not even work fully, even in the best of times anymore. Well, what's interesting about that, right, is we have this policy of bringing folks into the office. We have shut hands. I totally respect that. But coming from a software background where I was managing clients, literally, I've been up at 1 a.m. in the morning and have a software training, right? And so it is acceptable and it's very possible to build a close relationship without going to a physical location. you do it if you can absolutely you should be that candidate or that client. But it's not necessary to do every single time and we're going to maximize our time and our clients time by not taking them out of their work every single minute of the day or for 30-45 minutes of the day, right?

So I couldn't agree with you more. And so when it comes to recruitment, you know, you you you joked around about recruiters against recruiters, right? That's when I see that's what I think about. And I've had positive and negative experiences myself with recruiters. What do you think makes that positive versus that negative recruiter? What is that? What is that one or two things that you're like, you can just do these few things. You're gonna be way, you just talked about being 15 steps ahead. You're gonna be way better than anybody else that's gonna come to that. Come to the table. I think the biggest thing that recruiters and salespeople like that need to do right now to set themselves apart is one deploying empathy and then also being upfront, right?

So talk with a bunch of junior developers recently. I laid off at a really good software company in time that we know. I don't have anything for them and I tell them that but it's like listen, I still wanna help you and here's how I'm gonna help you. Send me a resume. I've gone back and forth with one dude for the last four days on his resume, right? Most recruiters aren't gonna do that. I think it's talking about, you know, hey, listen, let me be a resource for you. Let me be like the go-to guy. Let me be your agent during this time, right? And it's saying, listen, but it's saying an expectation.

Listen, I don't get a ton of junior dev jobs, but let me help you. I think it's deploying empathy, being kind, wanting to go the extra mile for somebody, not, oh, I don't have a job, so I'm not gonna work with you. I mean, I think Gary Vee says it best. I think it's the 51-49 rule. always try to give 51% of the relationship, always try to give more. And so I think that's incredibly important. I think too, is have open lines of communication. I think get back to people pretty quickly, or as quickly as possible. If you're having dinner with your wife, don't text a candidate then, I've done that before.

Do not do that. Say what? Not a good move. Not a good move at all. Not at all. No phones at the dinner table. But I think also being quick to respond, I think the typical nature of recruiters, like, oh my gosh, I've called him five times. I've texted him. I haven't heard anything. And so I mean, I'm working with one developer. I submitted him for a job. Just found out he's probably not going to be a match. I'm going to go back and text him. I'm going to go back and text him now. I'm not going to wait. And so I think being quick to communicate and then also showing value, I think it's huge.

Yeah, I have this role that unfortunately, we're not hearing back from the client. I don't know if the need's been frozen, right? That happens. And so one, helping plan to understand that this happens from time to time and you are best to mitigate against it. But secondly, I sent an email. It was two weeks ago and I said, hey, I know I said, my promise to you was that I will keep you on the plate. And that's why I sell myself to my clients. I'll keep you on the lip. It's funny. That little statement, they're like, wow, you are way better than anybody. Or you send them an email and says, hey, I don't have an update, but I wanted to let you know I didn't forget that this was something that you were.

We're excited about it. 100%. Wow, this is fantastic. I can't believe I even heard from you. I mean, the fact that that's happening and that is the above and beyond is really. Listen, the bar's really low for us. I mean, literally the bar, the bar for recruiters, the bar for the staffing industry as a whole is incredibly low. And so I think you can do a little bit above average and be incredible. And then, you know, how far you want to go above average, I think the sky's the limit. And so what about, you know, one of the questions I had, and I'm really excited to hear this, because you've been doing this a little bit, right?

What do you wish you knew earlier on in your career, whether that be, you know, with talking with candidates, working with internal parties, what do you wish you knew earlier on in your career as a recruiter, either with BECO or earlier on in your career in general? You know, it's so I've been, you know, very fortunate to have been here for the last eight years. I mean, my entire career going on nine years. And I think the one thing I'm kicking myself the most at is building brands sooner. I mean, I think for me, I've really kind of started a year and a half ago.

Um, and I've really started to kind of put on the gas really through quarantine or in during quarantine. And I think, um, I think for me, I think if somebody said, hey, listen, you need to start like an email newsletter. You need to start a like, you know, text messaging platform. You need to start just just a way to start getting touch points, right? Because because whether it's at Vaco or anywhere else, you go, you know, even if I retire at Vaco, I'm still going to have my book of business and I'm going to have it on a Excel doc, right? all these guys on Twitter that are software developers, developer advocates that go around speak across the country and they have email newsletters about the ways and greatest features and some software that is their primary focus.

And I've seen guys like, yeah, I have 3,000 emails, I have 30,000 emails, right? Or I have 30,000 phone numbers, right? Like right now, like I have a text messaging platform, there's about 80 people on my text messaging platform across four different areas. I've only rolled that out like I think this year. I got to go back and look at my receipts or it was late last year. So what if I've been doing this as 2011? Right? It's trying. It's starting a big funnel. Right? It's like this and down here at the basis of the funnel is you. Right? So it's like everything up here, what is all this up here to get everybody to you?

And so that's what I would say. And then also just be yourself. I came into Vaco, loud, cocky, honestly the same guy I am now, a little different. But I think too, I think just being who you are and being your personality, if your personality is floral shirts and loud, then do that. If it's really subdued and you kind of like to do things not in front of people and not on social media, there's a lot of ways to build your brand through email newsletters and text messaging groups and everything behind the scenes. You don't have to go speak at code conferences. You don't have to do any of that.

There's a lot of stuff you can do behind the scenes, but I think start now. Dan Thompson in Tampa said, what's the best time to plan a tree 80 years ago? What's the second best time to plan a tree now? And so I would say that's my biggest suggestion. You know, it's all about pulling the right letters. I mean, that's been in my sales career the whole time. I'm doing this letter, I'm pulling that letter. Am I getting anything out of the machine or should I move on to another one, right? Is there any letter that you've pulled in the past that you're like, that was a complete waste of time?

I knew you learned from it, right? But that just isn't worth it. It's not effective. People that are doing it, open houses, for example. Back in the day, open house was how you found clients in real estate. Now, if you're doing it, I've read a statistic somewhere from a startup in DC that said, less than 1% of closed deals in real estate originated from an open house. That's comical, like you are wasting your time. And so is there anything along those lines that you say, God, that's old school, it's not worth it, it doesn't work? I think from a tactical recruiting perspective, I mean, we're going like super kind of granular.

I think staying away from vendor candidates, like H1B's green cards, not that there's anything wrong with that, but I think the biggest issue that I've seen in my career as individuals, and even myself, when I first came to Nashville, I think the general notion of recruiting for a newbie is, oh my gosh, I'm going up against all these people, I'm never gonna win, so I need to leverage offshore talent because they've already kind of been vetted and they're given to me, right? And so I think, you know, I would advise to, to really not use it. I mean, I think the big thing for me is, allow yourself to suffer and be okay suffering, just recruiting your local market, because the faster you can start gaining traction in your local market, the more successful you're gonna be.

So that's my two cents from just a tactical like hand to hand combat newbie type suggestion. I think if we're talking about my endeavors of doing kind of various things, I honestly, I haven't had anything, you know, really fail. I mean, you could say, oh, Taylor, we only have 80 people in your text messaging platform after like six months, like that's not that much. Sure, that could be a failure in some people's eyes. To me, that's 80 unique individuals that are getting my text messages, three, four, five times a week. So, you know, for me, it's not about numbers. I've become very interested in, you know, kind of going away with my Instagram and kind of rebranding from a business perspective.

And I think people are concerned about, you know, with and not depth. And I think having an email newsletter of 100 people where 99 people open up your newsletter is more effective than if you have 3000 people and only 100 people open it up, right? And so I think recruiters right now and salespeople like They don't need to go wide, they need to go deep. No, those relationships. Get to know them, get to know. Actually, well, that's part of being empathetic and listening to people. You talk to people all day, especially right now. Hey, I lost my job. I'm going to lose. I got a lot of stink right now.

It's worth us saying, hey, let me look at your resume. I'd love to be your advocate wherever we go. But if there's something out there, and I can't help you, they didn't go for it. And just go for it. I'm not gonna feed myself on the buyer to a story of the candidate having to sign stuff. Like, hey, you're my recruiter, it's gonna work with like, what? It never need to do that. What? That, to hear that that's a business practice right now, it's absurd. Yeah. Yeah, this is exactly what I needed. Good, nice. It's a good question. It's a good question though about the matrix for a minute.

I know you're coming up on time. Do you maintain, so I talked to a gentleman that says, I just use a folder in my OneDrive. Some people use Excel, some people use Borne. What is your personal preference when it comes to keeping track of your matrons? We've tried a few things with our office in Nashville. We use a software, an agile software, where actually a Kanban, a Kanban, like Post-it board, that's software, it's called Linkit, I think it's called Plainview now. And when times were tough, right? When you only worked with a handful of candidates at one time, I used it a lot, but things are changing so much that I actually use a software called Notion.

And Notion is free. And it honestly is just a way to kind of keep everything together. I have recipes I find online, right? So I have a recipe for, you know, the cook. I have notes for marketing objectives I want to do, new content, I have all my hot candidates, I have all my hot jobs, and it's just this one place you can click between tabs. And I've actually made an emphasis over, really says, beginning to do everything virtual. So no more post-it notes, no more journaling, no more pads, everything is on my computer iPhone iPad. And so that, so like, you know, there's been times where I've, I'm not by a pen and paper, I can just go and jot a note on Notion and then that thought stays.

And so that's what I use right now to manage candidates at the moment. That's interesting. Yeah. And your email newsletter, what are you running that out of? Nothing. I just sent an email. I mean, it's not, yeah, it's not really a thing. I'm going to look into kind of making it more of a standard newsletter type thing. But right now, I'm much more concerned about putting out content and making it look quite pretty. And so, you know, for me, I made a joke in my I BCC, all the emails, I was just like, Hey, listen, like this is a newsletter. I gave one specific tip on how to network right now.

You know, I gave some links to my resume document I use, my resume template, I suggest and you know, and some YouTube videos that people can watch for instruction. And that was it. It literally, it took seven minutes to compose email. And for me, it's like people right now just want to hear from you, I don't care if it's pretty. With that, one thing, right? Could be what leads one or two of those people back into a job, pace their rent.