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A-Players - Hire & build high-performing teams.
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A-Players - Hire & build high-performing teams.

Author: Robin Choy @ HireSweet

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"Talent wins games, but teamwork wins championships".

In the world of recruiting, some people have seen it all. They built recruiting teams from the ground up, hired hundreds of people for the best companies in the world, and developed their expertise year after year. I’m Robin Choy and I'm on a mission to collect their learnings
46 Episodes
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Subscribe here:👉 Apple.👉 Spotify. 👉 Deezer.About this episode : Why are many recruiters trapped into hiring as many people, as fast as possible, again and again? Maybe because KPIs are wrong. Everybody uses the same (us included) and I actually never really challenged this.It makes a lot of sense though: optimizing for time-to-hire pushes to close hires as fast as possible and move on to the next one.Also, why the urgency to hire within 30 days, while most hiring managers don’t plan more than 30 days ahead?Shouldn't we maybe plan 3 months ahead, so that we have enough time to fill the role with quality candidates?Now, how do we escape this rat race? Simply change the incentives. Everything will follow. That’s why I believe everybody should listen to our latest A-Players episode with Taylor Roa, Director of Talent @Wistia.He’s a contrarian, likes to think outside the box, and has a pretty convincing strategy to change the incentives for recruiting teams.This discussion is NOTHING like the ones I had before, and I can assure you you’ll get a lot of great ideas listening to it (I sure did)!In this episode, we cover:👉 (02:35) How to make talent a strategic advantage for your business through talent density.👉 (04:08) The importance of making quality hiring decisions.👉 (05:02) Things to consider when building a strategic hiring function.👉 (06:00) How to optimize for effective hiring rather than hiring as much as possible👉 (08:07) Why “time to fill” and “respond times to applicants” are poor metrics 👉 (15:35) Factors to consider when measuring talent density.👉 (17:43) Using performance reviews and talent x-ray to determine the accomplishments of your recruitment teams.👉 (20:40) Be aware of market salaries and plan to hire people on the high end, to attract A-Players.  👉 (23:30) How to navigate the good and bad metrics in hiring.👉 (27:20) You should make recruiters feel like they belong to the team they hire for. 👉 (30:09) The difference between speed to hire and time to fill.👉 (30:38) How to manage diversity in recruitingFind us on LinkedIn:To follow Taylor, click here.To follow me, click here. To know more about HireSweet, click here.  
Building a culture of recruiting early on in your company is critical.Miss that step and everything will get harder as the company grow:-harder to hire top performers.-harder to reach your targets.-harder to... simply grow.Matt is an Operation Partner at Human Capital, a VC firm based in SF, in addition to being a former sourcer at Google.In this episode, Matt explains:-how to use your sales skills to recruit your first employees-why and how to log every conversation you have with potential candidates-how to pick the good hiring agency for your company-how to fight against cognitive biases when recruiting-how much time should a founder spend into recruitingTo follow Matt on LinkedIn, click here.To follow me, click here.To know more about HireSweet, click here.
I often see recruiters addressing recruiting content like this:-a video by there-occasionally an article-possibly a LinkedIn post. All a bit random (and me the first!).Why?Because we were never given a simple, clear and efficient framework to know which type of content to do, and how to schedule it. So I wanted to find for you a playbook to get there finally.This is the topic of the latest episode of my A-Players podcast, where I’ve invited Matěj Matolín, an employer branding and content creation strategist whose work I truly appreciate.In this episode Matěj reveals to you:-The 4 type of content that performs better for employer branding-The STD framework he stole from Google to segment candidates and push to them targeted content-The exact duration and touchpoints it needs to attract a passive candidate through content-Examples of super easy-to-do content ideasTo follow Matěj on Linkedin, click here. To follow me on Linkedin, click here. To learn more about HireSweet, click here. 
Everybody talks about search in sourcing: Booleans, X-Rays etc. But finding candidates is not as valuable as 10 years ago. Because now almost everybody is on LinkedIn. The real valuable expertise? Getting people to reply: copywriting, personalization.That’s what I believe at least. The thing is… Balazs Paroczay believes the complete opposite. Balazs is a legend - a multiple speaker at events like SourceCon and Sourcing Summit, with more than 15+ years of experience.We had a 30-minute debate together on A-Players. In this episode, we talk mainly about:-Is search dead?-Why you are probably missing out on a lot of candidates on LinkedIn-Why it’s so hard to get responses from candidates on LinkedIn-Are reply rates better outside of LinkedIn?-How to best reach out to candidates on Linkedin and outside, to increase your reply ratesTo follow Balazs on LinkedIn, click here. To follow me, click here. To know more about HireSweet, click here. 
Christine had a very interesting challenged: engineer the Financial Times’s tech employer brand. Of course the FT is famous around the globe for its business publication - but when Christine started working on it, the employer brand on engineering & tech roles was close to 0.The way she improved the employer brand on engineering & tech at FT was actually very close to how any startup could do it - and I wanted her to explain to us step by step how to steal her playbook.In this episode, Christine Reveals :-How to attract tech talent when your brand doesn’t sound techy at all.-The framework to succeed in your first month trying to build the employer brand-Why you should consider your candidate journey exactly like a customer journey-How to identify pain points in your candidate’s journey-How to make your career’s page stand out-How to attract more candidates to your company during industry events (without sponsoring the event)-How to include DEI principles in your employer branding strategyAnd many other things ...To follow Christine on LinkedIn, click here. To follow me, click here. To know more about HireSweet, click here. 
« Recruiters should personalize their messages to candidates to increase their reply rates.”Ok. But what if we can’t personalize because we have to send messages to hundreds of candidates?In that case, you’ll need a more advanced technique: making your messages stand out. Writing messages that are not personalized, but that have super high response rates.Jonas Waloschek, Senior Technical Sourcer ar MANTA, and ex McKinsey, is the expert of this technique. So I invited him on my podcast to talk about it.During our 30min conversation, Jonas explains to me the art of personalization at scale, giving me some tips and frameworks to apply in our outreach sequences to candidates.Specifically, Jonah reveals:-The difference between personalization and making your message stand out.-Why poetic messages have a better response rate.-Is sending videos to candidates effective? How can I personalize them?-What’s the interest of making your message sounds like it was written on a very specific time.-Why you should stop using emojis in your emails’ subjects.And many other things.To follow Jonas on LinkedIn, click here.To follow me on LinkedIn, click here.To know more about HireSweet, click here.
Yelling at your recruiting team “be better” will never make them better.Having a right-minded coach above them, will.I’ve been wanting to do an episode on this topic for a while:  how to coach your recruiting team well, to make them outperform. So I decided to bring Chris Ahsing on the podcast.Why Chris?Because in addition to having been a recruiter at Google and Dropbox, he is also... a football coach.In this episode, Chris Ahsing reveals us :-the first principle to know to be a good coach-the simple technique Chris use to understand people better-how to gain ICs trust faster-the framework to give effective feedback-the difference between focusing on the process VS on the resultsAnd much more.To follow Chris on LinkedIn, click here. To follow me, click here.To know more about HireSweet, click here. 
The baseline experience for candidates is terrible - most companies don't really prioritize improving it. That's a blessing for companies who do, because a very small investment into candidate experience can turn into a strong competitive advantage!Troy has been in the war for talent for years (previously founded a recruiting CRM called Resource.co), and recently launched a company called Guide.co that focuses on improving the candidate experience. He's one of the best people on earth to talk about this topic. In this discussion, Troy shares his advice on how to win the war for talent by leveraging 5 key tenets:  Proactive transparency. Be transparent without candidates having to ask for it.  Rapid reponse. Everybody knows about this, but how to really achieve it?  Empathetic opinions. You're in the driver seat. As the same time, always make sure to check in with your passenger. Consistent floor. Make sure the worse candidate experience possible is still OK. Repellent narrative. Know and embrace what in your company is going to repel candidates away.  To follow Troy on LinkedIn, click here.To discover Troy's latest venture, check Guide.co. To know more about HireSweet CRM, click here.And to follow me on LinkedIn, it's here! See you there! 
Closing candidates is an art & science.   It’s one of the biggest-leverage activities in recruiting - get better at closing and everything else just falls into place. Less sourcing, less interviewing time, and better internal satisfaction. So I brought in the best expert on the topic I could find!  Jose has been doing recruiting for 15 years, working for startups like Nebula, Edmodo, Dropcam, or large companies like Google and Cisco. Jose has also worked at Andreessen Horowitz (helping on recruiting executive talent) - one of the most prestigious VC firm in the world, and then coached Y Combinator founders. He knows his stuff.  There’s one reason why I picked Jose to talk about closing: his impressive 92% closing rate at BuildTalent. See, that’s an agency dirty little secret: when a search firm works on a mandate, they’re only ~40% to actually find someone for the role (hence the reason why companies tend to use several agencies at the same time). Jose is at 92%. That’s twice the industry standard.  In our discussion, Jose shares his closing techniques, his numbers, and his secret sauce.   We used Jose’s learning and then more to write our chapter “Closing” in our Definitive Guide To Sourcing, check it out here. Follow Jose on Linkedin here. Follow me on Linkedin here
“In recruiting, trust your gut”. Bullshit. Any recruiter worth his salt knows that it’s the best way to fall into every possible bias. Doing structured interviews is actually the ONLY way to recruit accurately. Now the question is how to do it. Good news for you: I invited Adam Redlich, one of the first recruiters at Google back in 2003, to talk about it with me during a podcast episode. Throughout his career, Adam has helped dozens and dozens of recruiters become better at their jobs. And for the past 3 years, Adam has been VP Talent Acquisition at Octane, where he has grown the company from 140 to 590 employees. So trust me: Adam gives battle-tested advice.  In this episode, I talk with Adam about: -How to set up structured interviews in your company. -The perfect number of steps to have in the whole interview process -Specific topics to be covered in each of these steps -Reference checks  To follow Adam on LinkedIn, click here. To know more about HireSweet, click here. And to follow me on LinkedIn, it's here. 
Too many companies believe sourcing is an entry-level job. This is the worst way to look at a very critical function. Sourcing is NOT an entry-level job for recruiters! And Garrett is as convinced as I am.  Garrett joined Google when the company had 35,000 employees and left the company 7 years later when they were 180,000. Today, he builds the tech sourcing team at Grammarly.  So who better than Garrett to reveal to us in this episode the secrets of how to build and manage best-in-class sourcing teams.  Here’s what you’ll discover in this new episode: -How to radically change your vision of sourcing -How to structure a sourcing team -How to decide on the right recruiter-to-sourcer ratio? 3 to 1, 2 to 1, 1 to 1? -What are the standards for a sourcer in terms of number of emails sent per week, open rate, and reply rate? -How to find, manage and optimize sourcing data To follow Garrett on LinkedIn, click here. To follow me on LinkedIn, go here. Finally, to know more about what we do at HireSweet, click here.
In that episode, we decided to address the specific challenge of DE&I in companies below 200 people.Step by step, the challenge increases. Here's Claudia advice for companies at every step (0-20 people, up to 100 people, 100-200).Claudia actually wrote an entire outline of this discussion, with links to all the resources she mentions in the recording. Here is it: https://bit.ly/3NSz4hr--To follow Claudia on LinkedIn, click here.To follow me on LinkedIn, click hereFinally, to learn more about what we do at HireSweet, click here
I’m convinced that nurturing your past candidates to finally hire them is a powerful strategy.  And Lance Sapera is as convinced as I am. He is so much in favor of past candidate nurturing, that his team made 48 nurtured hires the last year at @Talend.  Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: How to reach a target of 10% of hires coming from nurtured candidates Why they are incentivizing each recruiter with a day off for every nurture hire they get How 83% of candidates that don’t get a job at Talend said they were happy of the recruitment process. How to concretely nurture applicants on a daily basis. To follow Lance on LinkedIn, click here. To follow me on LinkedIn, go here. Finally, to know more about what we do at HireSweet, click here.
In this episode, I welcome Larry Anderson, Senior Recruiter at connect RN.  Larry reveals to me how to greatly improve your conversion rate and candidate satisfaction as a recruiter, by organizing preparation calls and debriefing calls with candidates.  Here’s what we talked about:  1/ Why organizing prep calls and debriefing calls helps improve conversion rates 2/ The 3 parts of a perfect prep call: logistics, process explanation, coaching. 3/ The question Larry tells candidates to ask the hiring manager to succeed in every interview. 4/ The key steps and questions of a good debriefing process  Don’t hesitate to follow Larry on LinkedIn, by clicking here. To follow me on LinkedIn, click here. And to know more about HireSweet, it’s here.
Discovery is key in the recruiting process. A good discovery will save so much time later during the recruiting process, help you increase your closing rate and internal satisfaction. Discovery is two-fold: Job discovery (aka the intake meeting) and candidate discovery. In this episode, James shares his tips on how to run a proper discovery with both sides - he even goes further and shares the link to his actual intake meeting for everyone to read:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hIivRKWdAI2WZRApVb8mDjXCpGMZz87AVq4zI6arE0E/edit#heading=h.shjdhdtj8uzf I hope you will have as much fun listening to this discussion as we did recording it!  -- James mentions a link to his blog article "Solving the work problem". To read the actual article, click here (and discover James' blog). To follow James on Linkedin, it’s here.  To follow me on Linkedin, click here.   And finally to learn more about what we do at HireSweet, just click here.
In this episode, we talk with Mike Cohen, CEO at Wayne Tech, about employee retention.   And you’ll see that Mike is brutally honest. Mike talks a lot about it’s own company culture, and why he thinks that strong, unique, and no-bullshit values are the key to employee retention.  Here are some of the topics Mike developed:  -The Start-Stop-Continue rule -What Gen Z is seeking in its job -What does Church teach you about employee retention -Why employee hours is bullshit -Why being truly vulnerable is a game-changer  To follow Mike on Linkedin, it’s here. To follow me on Linkedin, click here. And finally to learn more about what we do at HireSweet, just click here.
Talent acquisition is hard: you get overwhelmed with tons of notifications, open hundreds of Chrome tabs, send dozen of outreach messages.   And sometimes get no reply at the end of the day. That candidate who was sure a sure hire suddenly declines the job offer. You lose purpose.  A purpose and intrinsic motivation are so important in recruiting - much more than targets and metrics. That's why a lot of Talent Acquisition Managers wonder: “how can I inspire my team, give them an inner sense of purpose, so they always stay positive and go the extra mile for the candidate and the team?”  That's why we tried to answer this question with Mawulom Nenonene in this episode.    We also talked about some other broader topics. Here are some points we discussed:  1/ Why recruiters should first aim to become strategic advisors to the hiring managers.   2/ When should you split between full-cycle recruiters and sources?  3/ What are the activity standards in recruiting teams?   4/ Why recruiters should do a 6 month-checking after the person was hired  Don’t hesitate to follow Mawulom, by clicking here. To follow me on Linkedin, click here. Finally, check what we do at HireSweet, by clicking here.
I get questions about employee referral programs all the time:  -What’s a good target for our referral program? 15% of hires? 25%? 35%? 55%? -What should be the reward? If it’s money, how much? -How can I communicate with my team efficiently?  So here's a podcast to finally answer those questions!  Mostly people understand the value of hires coming from referral (they close faster, perform better and stay longer on average), but don’t know how to drive more referrals.  I went on the hunt to find the best expert on the topic - found Nasser (who founded Intrro, a company focused on referral) and invited him to talk.   Together we addressed:  1/ The 5 pillars of improving referrals: Building the culture, Setting the right incentives, Build the right process, Optimize and Track, Improve the candidate experience.  2/ A few market average numbers  3/ The concept of ELTV (Employee Lifetime Value)  4/ The “Recruiter Shakedown”, a recruiting technique used by Facebook and Google when new employees are onboarded, and when to execute it (after ~60 days)  5/ That most employee referral programs follow a Pareto rule: 20% of employees will make 80% of referrals. And how to empower “power-referrers”  And sooo much more.  Here’s the article on the memory palace Nasser mention in the episode : https://articles.sequoiacap.com/3x-referral-rates Don’t hesitate to follow Nasser on Linkedin, by clicking here. To follow me on Linkedin, click here. Finally, check what we do at HireSweet, by clicking here.
For episode 6 of my podcast “A-players”, I received Shannon Toomey, who explained to me how to be a good first recruiter in a startup.  Shannon was a Senior Tech Recruiter at Dropbox, and was also most recently the first recruiter at Descript, where she had to hire 50 people in 1 year.Here’s what we discussed (among many other things):  -What are the 3 key questions to ask to be sure a candidate is a good fit? -Why you it’s not always efficient to use scorecards to assess candidates? -What are the advantages of being the first recruiter in a startup, and is it for everyone?  Feel free to follow Shannon on LinkedIn, by clicking here. To follow me, it’s here. And to know more about what we do at HireSweet, click here.
Having Hung on my podcast was a dream come true. I'm a personal big fan of all his content, from Recruiting Brainfood to This Week in Recruiting (links below). For our discussion together, we tried to address a topic that we felt was not enough covered in the HR world, almost a taboo: How to deal with politics at work. Should you take a stance as a company? Should you ban all discussions related to politics or social issues? We see that there is no easy solution - but we can take some inspiration from what companies have already tried: Coinbase, Gitlab etc.About Hung:- Connect with Hung here on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunglee/- Subscribe to Recruiting Brainfood here: https://www.recruitingbrainfood.com/- Subscribe to This week in Recruiting here: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/this-week-in-recruiting-6779688850651414530/About myself:- Connect with me here on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rbchoy/- Learn more about what we do at HireSweet: https://hiresweet.com/
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