👋Hi - Thanks to all 647 of you that have subscribed! The first episode was a hit, can't wait to keep them coming.

I wanted to create a place to bring all my content together and dive deeper into the topics that I create content around. The People space is always full of surprises and trends and over the past decade, I have fallen in love with this industry.

I'm most known for viral content on Social media but there's so much more to what drives this content. Different content, same me! I'll be publishing this newsletter Every month

Chat GPT, Chat GPT, Chat GPT... I'm pretty sure all of us are sick of hearing about it. It's like the NFT of 2023. There have already been murmurings that it's going to replace Recruiters... Pretty sure Monster said the same thing, or that's what all the OG recruiters tell me.

Personal opinion it's early days with Chat GPT and AI within the recruitment space. This poll is clear, people want to have human interaction still, especially with recruiting (Most of my audience is the corporate type). It's hard to imagine making a massive life decision with no human contact. Job security for now.

Our team has been using Chat GPT on the backend, learning about new roles writing generic reports for projects, etc. I'm excited to see how AI can make our lives easier but I'm bullish on the need for human recruiters (obviously biased).

A few of my favorite comments on the subject:

So right now I think companies forcing people back to the office wins the day for me. 

If you follow me on social you'll know I'm a big fan of remote work. At least for myself, I've been remote since 2015 and loved every minute of it.

But what I am really a proponent of is people being able to decide what's best for themselves. I mean it's 2023 and we're all adults right? Surely we can be trusted to get results from wherever and whenever we want? In my last newsletter, I talked about how 60% of people in a recent poll I put out (roughly 6000 respondents) prefer remote work. 

As similar study here - said that out of 1000 respondents, 70% said they would leave their job if forced back to the office. The article then goes on to say that Flexibility is the key to all of these discussions.

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pages/will-employees-quit-if-they-are-forced-back-into-the-office.aspx

If you are doubting your employee's ability to work remotely due to results, I'm not convinced moving them back to the office will make a difference. If you are hiring people like this, hit me up, happy to find you some better employees.

I think the big challenge for companies is going to be creating environments that people want to be in. In the short term, fear of losing their job will keep them, but as soon as optimism builds in the market, it's going to be hard to keep them.

MY MOST TRENDING VIDEO ON TIKTOK 

With over half a million views in the first 12 hours - a lot of people agree that management isn't what it's cracked up to be. (notice there was a spelling mistake in the caption too... wish there was an editing tool for that so that millions of people wouldn't know how dumb I really am)

"Babysitting Lazy Adults", sounds like management at a lot of companies right now 😜

A lot of people made mentioned that when they had accepted a management job their stress levels went disproportionately to their pay. 

If you're bored this weekend, go read the comments. HILARIOUS!

TOP NEWS: The hourly labor market is still on FIRE 🔥🔥🔥

A good chunk of the tech market is getting hard with layoffs, most likely due to over-hiring and growth forecasts changing. I got to see this unfolding firsthand, starting in 2022 when our recruiter openings started to dip and recruiters that I had spent most of 2021 trying to recruit began reaching back out saying they were slowing down... Let's face it 12 months ago was the golden age of tech recruiting.

12 months later and the market is creating a different situation - it's now a blood bath for tech recruiters with 2 or 3 layoffs being announced daily and a bulk of the layoffs involving the once beloved TA team.

So where are all these "open to work" tech recruiters going to go?

Well according to this recent Linkedin article:

The hospitality industry... Duh 🤣

I mean it makes sense right... One day recruiting Software Engineer and DevOps, the next day front desk workers and dishwashers.

In all seriousness hospitality is one of the industries that are in desperate need of recruitment help, along with manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, construction, and of course everyone's favorite recruiting nightmare... healthcare. (Check out my latest episode of Recruiting is no Joke where David Jaramillo walks us through a masterclass of how to recruit in hospitality. More below)

A lot of these industries are going through digital transformations and we're going to see more and more of a need for IT and technical talent, but they are also in need of hourly labor. 

Depending on what we see over the next 3-6 months in the tech market, my prediction is a lot of tech recruiters may have to find homes in other industries and this may lead to an exit, particularly with those early in their career, from the recruitment industry in general.

Anyone that follows me on social media knows that I've been passionate for some time about how recruiters and talent teams can use social media to attract talent. In each newsletter, I want to share a strategy that you can use to attract candidates you are looking to hire. With almost 350,000 followers across 4 platforms (Linkedin, Tiktok, Twitter, Instagram) that have generated 100's of millions of impressions, new clients, and countless candidate conversations, It's something I know works

Vary up the type of content you produce. There are so many types of content:

Long form - Blog, Newsletter, Podcast audio and video, Youtube Video, Audio (spaces on twitter and Audio rooms on Linkedin.)

Shortform: Text, video, photo.

 I recommend trying 1 or 2 at first to see what you prefer. Some people love writing but loathe videos, then focus on platforms that require a lot of copy (Linkedin, Twitter, Reddit, blogs). Some people love video so focus on Instagram reels, TikTok, and youtube (shorts).

Some people love having more indepth conversations so potentially a podcast or audio chat might work best for them.

When you are starting out, go with what's easiest do gain consistency but eventually once you have been consistent for a few months start to move into other areas that don't feel as comfortable. 

For years I avoided video but over the last year, I've created over 1200 videos on Tiktok which I'm now repurposing over to Instagram and LinkedIn. Video creates a how new level of interaction with the audience and is the future. I believe that all creators need to be shooting for video even if "text or copy" is their preferred content medium.

I did a poll last week and overwhelmingly people wanted to hear about HR and recruiting tech. So here it is - HR Tech Corner. Each week I'm going to take a look and get info on a piece of recruitment/HR tech I think is interesting.

This month I wanted to cover a piece of tech that's close to home. Rainmakers - (Rainmakers.co) It's a recruitment company Hirewell acquired last year. 

It's a self serve Recruitment marketplace that's geared towards sales people hence the name 😜

I interviewed Mike Theron and Mike Ferguson the Co-founders and here's what they had to say. 

How did the idea for Rainmakers come about? Why did you guys build it?

Our CEO (Mike Ferguson) came from sales earlier in his career, and he’s experienced the struggle with hiring good reps. Along with that, I came from the agency recruiting world where I would help startups hire sales talent. We saw a lot of innovation in the developer and engineering hiring space, but very little was changing in the way companies sourced and hired top sales talent. As it was such a high-priority role for companies to grow, we decided to build a new platform to solve the headaches that companies and sales candidates were facing in the hiring proces\

What is Rainmakers? How does it work?

In a nutshell, Rainmakers is a community of the top sales professionals paired with a marketplace-style hiring platform to efficiently match the best candidates with the most relevant career opportunities. On top of that, we implement a lot of proprietary sales data to ensure the best match. 

What is the process for candidates to use the platform?

Candidates can apply to Rainmakers and build a sales profile for free. In the process, we gather important sales data about their career including products they’ve sold, buyers they’ve sold into, quotas, deal sizes, and most importantly - the candidate’s compensation requirements for their next role. Once they do, they’ll be paired with one of our Talent Managers who can help finalize their profile, and get their profile hosted on the platform for employers to reach out. Once they’re live on the platform, companies can can connect directly with candidates, but only if they meet the rep’s requirements. 

What is the benefit for Candidates?

There’s a few that come to mind:For one, candidates these days get inundated with InMails on LinkedIn from internal and external recruiters. The majority doesn’t meet their compensation requirements. On Rainmakers you set your requirements, and only qualified companies can connect with you. Secondly, because of all the data we collect, candidates are much more likely to be matched with opportunities where they can be successful. Finding a role with a familiar quota size or deal size, or a role where you sell to a familiar buyer, is a great way to hit the ground running in a new sales roleFinally, we’re big on privacy. Candidates are automatically blocked from any current or past employers, and they can add other manual blocks as well. 

Why should candidates use this instead of applying directly to companies?

It’s easy to get lost in a pile of applicants or weeded out due to an algorithm on a job board. With Rainmakers, candidates get direct access to hiring teams. 

What is the process for employers to use the platform? 

Employers can build a profile, and connect with a member of our team to pick the best pricing option and start the onboarding process.Once they’re on the platform, they get immediate access to vetted, qualified candidates, and have visibility on all the important sales data to know who’s the right fit. Rather than working through a third party, employers connect directly with candidates through the platform.Employers will also have a dedicated point of contact helping curate accurate matches, and our talent team will be working behind the scenes to maximize response rates and help move candidates through the process. 

What is the benefit for Employers?

It’s pretty simple:

Vetted, high quality sales talent

Deep sales data on every candidate to know who’s he right fit

Our average response rate from candidates is over 90%

An incredibly efficient platform that takes 10-15 minutes per week to get qualified sales reps into your interview process. Many of our customers even skip the screening candidates

How does the Rainmakers team assist in the process? 

Different from a lot of recruiting platforms out there that “scrape” candidate data from a public database, we build and maintain relationships with all the candidates on our platform via our Talent Team. The Talent Managers are working behind the scenes to onboard candidates, curate specific matches for companies, and help keep the process moving smoothly. Data is great, but we find that having humans in the process makes things more efficient. 

What does it cost? 

For candidates, it’s 100% free. For employers, we have a couple of different pricing options ranging from a “pay as you go” plan, to an ongoing subscription to significantly reduce cost per hire over multiple hires. 

Where do you see Rainmakers going in the future? 

Our goal is to really become the destination for sales professionals, and companies who are hiring them. We want to expand into new verticals, as well as new sales roles. One day we hope to even expand out of sales into other roles like Recruiters and HR professionals, Marketers, and maybe even engineers and developers. 

Want to try Rainmakers out?

Deanna Brousseau Director of TA at AltaML an AI startup based in Alberta. 

Deanna is an empathetic Talent Acquisition that advocates for an equitable, elevated, and fun recruitment experience in the candidate journey. She's dedicated to attracting, retaining, and elevating incredible humans that are excited about the AI industry.

Deanna has been in the space for the past decade and brings a wealth of knowledge.

David Jaramillo From agency to in-house corporate to RPO recruiting with experience in Hospitality, Retail Services, Financial Services, IT, Real Estate, and Healthcare--David has a rich background in TA!

David has been developing and evaluating strategies in the areas of sourcing, analytics, branding, and new technologies used by Talent Acquisition to source and recruit the best.

As Recruiting leader he has overseen teams recruiting in IT, HR, Finance, Accounting, Decision Science, Sales, Collections, Marketing, Internal Controls, Compliance, Physicians, Real Estate/Property Management, and University Relations.

If you want to be a guest in an upcoming episode reach out to [email protected] (only those in TA leadership roles will be considered, please no agencies)