April 21, 2021
Our first Jobcast episode was so popular that we were encouraged to create this sequel. In this episode we discuss the duties, projects and benefits of being an on demand recruiter at Proactive Talent. Tune in to hear about a great opportunity and perhaps, learn about your next career move.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Jim Stroud (1s):
Hello, dear listeners. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. A thousand times, thank you. And a really big thank you to all of those who have given us feedback on our Jobcast episode. It was very much appreciated, so much so, we decided to do another Jobcast episode. That is what you are listening to today. This Jobcast episode will focus on our ODRs, on-demand recruiters. You will understand from this podcast, the type of on-demand recruiters that we look to hire. The benefits of being an on-demand recruiter, and so much more. Tune in for another very special Jobcast episode, right after this.
Jim Stroud (50s):
You are listening to TribePod, a podcast series of interviews of interest to the HR community. It is hosted by Courtney Lane, produced by Jim Stroud, sponsored by Proactive Talent, and enjoyed by you. Today's episode begins right after this.
Female Commercial (1m 9s):
On-demand recruiting is an hourly service that we offer where our recruiters work as an extension of your business, hoping to fill your positions by finding top talent. On-demand recruiting is there to address issues in hiring when a company is experiencing a lot of growth or when they're having some seasonality changes where they may temporarily need to expand their recruiting team. You maybe have a new line of business or a space for expanding your business and you need to bring in specialty expertise to help fill those niche roles that your internal team may not yet be ramped up on.
Male Commercial (1m 47s):
Proactive talents on-demand recruits is quite different from a lot of the other models that you're going to see in the workplace. Whereas, you're going to pay a contingency recruiting firm typically on average, around 20%, sometimes up to 30% of the first-year salary of the person that you hired. In that same period of time, you will spend less than a quarter of that with Proactive Talent managed on-demand. For more information on Proactive Talent, visit us online at proactivetalent.com or click the link in the podcast description.
Jim Stroud (2m 25s):
Hello, everyone.
Courtney Lane (2m 27s):
Hello.
Jim Stroud (2m 28s):
Hey, hey.
Brittany King (2m 30s):
Hi.
Jim Stroud (2m 31s):
The Proactive Talent tribe is back at it again for another Jobcast.
Will Staney (2m 38s):
By popular demand, I hear.
Jim Stroud (2m 40s):
Popular demand, yes. Everyone liked that first one. They said, “Do another one. Do another one.” I said, “Okay.”
Will Staney (2m 46s):
They like us. They really like us.
Jim Stroud (2m 50s):
Indeed, they do. On the Jobcast this round, we have a slightly different cast this time. You have me as always, Jim Stroud, VP of Marketing. You have Will. Will, tell us who you are.
Will Staney (3m 3s):
I am founder and CEO.
Jim Stroud (3m 7s):
Brittany, who are you?
Brittany King (3m 8s):
I am the resident hope dealer and People and Talent Manager here at Proactive Talent.
Jim Stroud (3m 13s):
Spoken like a true Mom Boss. Megan, you weren’t on the last one. Tell us who you are.
Megan Arnold (3m 20s):
Hey. Yes, I'm the lead consultant for the hiring services division.
Will Staney (3m 26s):
Hey, happy three-year anniversary this week.
Megan Arnold (3m 29s):
Thank you.
Jim Stroud (3m 29s):
That’s right.
Megan Arnold (3m 30s):
Thank you very much.
Will Staney (3m 31s):
Three amazing years. You started as an on-demand recruiter.
Megan Arnold (3m 36s):
I did.
Will Staney (3m 36s):
You worked your way up as a full-time lead consultant.
Megan Arnold (3m 39s):
Yes.
Jim Stroud (3m 40s):
Yes. They grew so fast.
Megan Arnold (3m 42s):
I know. <inaudible>.
Jim Stroud (3m 48s):
Courtney, tell us who you are.
Courtney Lane (3m 50s):
I am the principal consultant over the hiring services division. I get to hang out and run all the craziness that is on-demand, recruiting, and hiring.
Jim Stroud (4m 2s):
The glamorous life, the glamorous life. So many things I want to cover. Let’s do eni-mini-mo. Brittany, if you would, could you tell us a little bit about the HR perspective of working here at Proactive Talent? All the good stuff.
Brittany King (4m 17s):
I absolutely would. I think Will hit the nail on the head calling out and Megan, we are a better tribe because she's here, but it's such a beautiful picture of the opportunity. I know. It's such a good picture of the opportunity you have starting as an on-demand recruiter here and really owning your own business here. Entrepreneurs, welcome. I'm also another picture of someone who started as an on-demand recruiter, sliding in Will Staney’s DM. “Dude, I want to know who you are. Who are you? I want to work for you.” A few of the other amazing things about being a part of the team here at Proactive Talent is not only are you a part of the amazing tribe of people from all backgrounds and experiences, but you get to be connected to some of the greatest leaders in TA and HR that you would find anywhere.
Brittany King (5m 4s):
We have an amazing suite of benefits, including our medical, dental, vision. A portion of that is employer-paid, a very nice portion, must I say. We also have a 401k plan we launched recently, where Proactive Talent will make a defined contribution to a 401k plan, regardless of whether or not an employee contributes. We have unlimited paid time off, unlimited paid sick time off. We also give each employee, what am I trying to say?
Will Staney (5m 33s):
A work-from-home stipend.
Brittany King (5m 34s):
A work-from-home stipend, but I was trying to say, we give them their birthday as a holiday.
Will Staney (5m 39s):
Yes.
Brittany King (5m 40s):
There are a lot of benefits here. When you think about on-demand recruiting, we do hire our on-demand recruiters as contractors, but I tell this story about our benefits and who we are because the opportunity is here. A lot of people always say opportunity awaits. It doesn't wait. It's here at Proactive Talent. This is a great place to get your foot in the door and really grow with an organization that is looking for the best of the best.
Will Staney (6m 2s):
Yes, I can add that. The majority of our on-demand recruiters are freelance but mostly because they prefer it that way. I think people who go into the line of freelance contract recruiting work, you've been in-house before. You’ve been successful at that. You did the in-house grind. You want to be more of a master of your own destiny but then the realities of solopreneurs will kick in. It can be isolating. Also, you're spending a large part of your time doing sales and marketing yourself and trying to find your next gig. You can't spend as much time on the billable hourly work that you love to do. I think that's the environment that we want to create.
Will Staney (6m 42s):
What we do for our ODR recruiting community is that you can hook in here. We really do see recruiters as consultants. The companies that we’re going into, we’re going into not because they are great at hiring all the time. It's because they need help. They need to augment. They're going through a change. They are going through a time of maybe experiencing huge growth that they need an extra set of helping hands. Also, a lot of times we're doing more than just recruiting with them. Maybe we're going by their employer brand, or we are doing some process design, but it’s for them to be able to focus on the long-term. We bring in one of our expert consultant recruiters to come in and handle the req load and start to implement those changes at the candidate level within the hiring process.
Will Staney (7m 31s):
I think it's a wonderful role to come in here and get to know Proactive Talent. A lot of people do grow into consultants from this, but you don't have two. You can stay freelance. If you don't need benefits because your spouse has them and you just love recruiting for lots of different companies who need that expertise, you can do that too. You really determine your destiny.
Brittany King (7m 53s):
That's one of the things that I love about Proactive. It’s that you can take ownership, full ownership of how far you go and where you go here. If you come in, your dope, and you do all this stuff, well, we recognize that. The other part of that I think Will mentioned, a lot of our ODR team has already been in-house. What I can say is being in-house here is very different than what it means to be in a house somewhere else. I think that's important to know because I was running out of the in-house door, and now I'm staying in this house. They're gonna have to kick me out. It's a beautiful place to be. As you can see, I love Proactive Talent.
Jim Stroud (8m 33s):
What would you say is different? I'm curious about the difference between being in-house here and then being in-house as an internal recruiter.
Brittany King (8m 40s):
Yes, absolutely. I would say one of the biggest differences is the culture. It is at different ends of the spectrum where you have a leader who really cares about the people at every level of the organization. The other difference to me is that I come from the RPO space. I've done RPO corporate in-house staffing, all the things. I think that a lot of other organizations have this propensity to over promise and under deliver. We all come in like secret agents and we just do our stuff. The ODR recruiters do their stuff.
Jim Stroud (9m 12s):
Matata.
Brittany King (9m 12s):
They do with excellence. We see contracts extend because we bring in high-level people. I also think being connected, even though we have different layers of our organization, it's not a, “I'm the principal consultant. I only talk to the other principal consultants.” It is like, “Let's talk with all people,” to my point about sliding Will’s DM. It's like, “You’re dope. I want to work for you.” He was like, “Yes, let's hop on a call and I'm better for it.” A lot of differences, but those are my top.
Will Staney (9m 44s):
Yes, I think it's really important to me. I have stayed office hours. It was like two hours a week at different times. I chat with our ODR workers. I want to hear from everyone. I want to know what's happening in those engagements and how we can continue to improve. Some of the best ideas, in fact, ODR as a concept itself, came from a contractor with us, working on a strategy engagement of a client who just could not focus on that long-term strategy because they were in the weeds. It was like, “Man, we should do some contract recruiting. We know some great experienced recruiters. Let's do it.” Now, five years later, it's one of the driving forces of how we support our clients and what drives our revenue. It's an important part of helping companies get away from these older models of contingent search, which is good for a single-point solution where you need that niche role.
Will Staney (10m 37s):
When you just need those extra helping hands to get ahead of the workload, ODR is really the best model out there. We've written extensively about this. You can see on our website, if you just Google on-demand recruiting model, you're going to see our blog that compares it. I would suggest, definitely reading it if you want to know more about how we do contract recruiting. It is pretty unique.
Jim Stroud (10m 60s):
I'll be sure to add that in the podcast description for those listening. Just look into the description and the link is there, like magic. It also led to that conversation just from what I’m hearing. You don't get that feeling of isolation when you're in a tribe too. A lot of times when you're an independent recruiter, you're out there just struggling and running in the hamster wheel. It feels like you’re getting nowhere fast, but here you have little angels to help you. I will try the numbers.
Courtney Lane (11m 26s):
Well, it's definitely one of the spaces where there is a lot of room to be the kind of recruiter that you are comfortable and want to be, both on the projects that we're doing, because we do have a ton of different variety of customers that we work with, our clients that we work with and types of projects that we're working on. Even how you are engaging with the tribe. If you're one of those that you are like, “I'm a lone Wolf. I like to be heads down and get my work done, but every once in a while, I'm going to peak my head up and be like, man, I'm stuck. I just want to like chat with somebody for a little bit, or I want to hear about what's going on,” you've got a space for that here. If you're somebody who just likes to be all in, wants to know every single person, chat, talk, and know what's going on, and provide your input at every opportunity that's given to you, we've got a place for you here.
Courtney Lane (12m 18s):
It’s one of those things that I think everybody gets to show up as the person they're most comfortable being in this space. There's no expectation that you have to engage and interact in this certain way. No, it’s engaging and interacting in a way that feels authentic to you and we're going to give that right back. It allows it to become a really comfortable space for somebody to be in and be able to be as engaged as they want to with this collaborative space, or just have it be a good connection and really be focused more heads down in their space and that's okay too.
Will Staney (12m 52s):
When we know that about you too, it helps us put you at the right clients. There are certain times that I really need someone who is a heavy source or that really likes the research part of it, but can do a full life pickle. Well, that's John or that's Sue. We know that they really like that element of it. If you're a good farmer, and you're helping create efficiencies in that inbound hiring flow. Whatever recruiter you are, we're going to actually use that as a way to target the right clients for you. You're not out there having to find them or kiss a few of the wrong frogs. We are going to be there to help you.
Will Staney (13m 32s):
Jim always has sound effects. I love it. That brings up another thing like with Jim. Here's the thing. If you are a curious recruiter who wants to be always honing your craft, you have the sourcing researcher extraordinaire, Jim Stroud here, that gives training every once in a while to our ODR recruiters. There's just a wealth of 200 years of recruiting knowledge sitting on our leadership team alone that wants to pour into you and help you.
Will Staney (14m 13s):
Our industry is evolving fast. AI is coming in, all of this stuff, but AI can’t replace a recruiter. What we give skill sets that we give our recruiters when they're a part of us are the ones that you bring on into other things because you may not stay with us. You may eventually want to go in-house. We've had recruiters that ended up falling in love with a client that they work with and go full-time with them. They’re there and at that caliber of the employer because one, they were part of Proactive Talent and we were able to work and show themselves worthy of being at a company like that. Two, they developed the skill sets by doing various projects and becoming a unicorn recruiter.
Courtney Lane (14m 49s):
Yes, I think that's a really good point because we have such a great variety of clients that are coming through our door. From tech startups to large enterprise organizations, those that are supporting a very specific region of the country to global organizations. If you're a recruiter that you're just, at your core, a recruiter. Yes, you may have spent more time in one industry or on one type of role but at your core, you're a recruiter, you're going to have opportunities to just continue to broaden what your personal portfolio looks like, of the types of roles that you've worked on. We are seeing so much in the tech recruiting space right now.
Courtney Lane (15m 33s):
All tech recruiters, please, come talk to us. We would love to talk to you.
Jim Stroud (15m 36s):
I know you have some open positions. Brittany has more open positions. How many people would you like to hire magically, like right now?
Brittany King (15m 44s):
All of them.
Will Staney (15m 46s):
We’ll take every recruiter that exists.
Brittany King (15m 51s):
On the planet.
Will Staney (15m 53s):
Yes. All the ones with 10 years of experience that are awesome, that know how to work with high tech.
Brittany King (15m 59s):
I was just going to say that. When I think about the fact that we have autonomy built into our culture code here, that's because we hire senior-level recruiters by design. No silos here. If you want to be the turtle with a bear in your head or whatever, it's fine. At the very same time, we are so connected as a tribe. As the hope dealer here, I feel like Oprah handing out cards. I'm like, “You get hope. You get hope. Everybody gets hope.
Jim Stroud (16m 29s):
Everybody gets the project.
Brittany King (16m 30s):
Everybody gets the project. I think this is just so beautiful. It's not something you see very often here. I just think it's such a unique experience.
Jim Stroud (16m 39s):
Yes. Megan, you started out this way, right? Like what was that experience? I know we've evolved quite a bit in three years when you first got on.
Megan Arnold (16m 49s):
Yes.
Jim Stroud (16m 50s):
We aren’t some of those early-stage tech companies that you did some tech recruiting on. What does that experience? Tell me about when did you know you were ready to move into consulting and how did that come about?
Megan Arnold (17m 5s):
Yes, similar story. I was an in-house corporate recruiter but I was the only recruiter on my team that was working from home. My previous lead in that company was a mutual connection of yours as well. He introduced me to Proactive Talent and told me that this would be a great opportunity to work with like-minded individuals that were also working from home. It was more collaboration, more ability to learn from other people that were in those similar situations. That's when I joined Proactive Talent as an on-demand recruiter, specifically working with a lot of tech clients.
Megan Arnold (17m 45s):
I did work on a few projects as a technical recruiter, a contractor working hourly. I had an opportunity to work on a greenhouse implementation as a consultant. That was my foot in the door to consulting. From there, it just grew. I realized the opportunity to expand my skillset and use what I had learned in leading teams prior to being at Proactive Talent, to really hone in on that, and work with some recruitment optimization projects as a consultant. It just grew and grew and grew until two years later, I joined the company as a full-time employee working as a lead consultant.
Jim Stroud (18m 27s):
Very cool.
Will Staney (18m 29s):
I would say it’s what we saw in you as well. I think what's so great about being in an agile workforce like we are, is that we get to challenge people. We can see things in front and have opportunities to put them in a place to really see that hypothesis come to reality. You were definitely one of those where we saw in that greenhouse implementation, just how quickly you grasp the concepts of how technology integrates into the process and then saw you on that engagement. You shadowed me on the position engagement very quickly. I didn't have to do a thing. You just really ran with it. It was like, “Okay, she is a full-on consultant.” It was just like, “Watch her grow.”
Megan Arnold (19m 14s):
Yes. That's been awesome. You have the ability to learn from a lot of great leaders here. That really helps you propel your career forward just by learning from those that you're working with, and the colleagues that are helping you along the way.
Jim Stroud (19m 30s):
Very cool. I want to steer about to those who are listening now to go over to our careers page. I'm going to add a link to that. Awesome job description, like magic. Look at the job description and it’s right there. Go there, check us out. Also check out the What is ODR link, which is all of a sudden in the podcast description. Hopefully soon, soon, and very soon, we will be talking to you about the great opportunities that we have today at Proactive Talent. Until we speak in person, dear listener, I will say, bye-bye. Everyone else, let’s say bye.
Everyone (20m 9s):
Bye.
Jim Stroud (20m 13s):
It’s kind of corny, but okay.
Courtney Lane (20m 21s):
We are kind of corny sometimes.
Will Staney (20m 23s):
We were supposed to be corny, right? Some of my best ones. The ones that make you smile a little bit.
Jim Stroud (20m 30s):
This is true.
Megan Arnold (20m 31s):
I feel like I need to upgrade my headset game. I wear one of these. I looked at the podcast page, and the first thing I noticed was the picture of everyone with their fancy headsets on. I’m like, “I’m going to have my Apple AirPods in.”
Will Staney (20m 45s):
Did we get a picture?
Jim Stroud (20m 47s):
You know what, I thought about it as soon as Brittany left. As soon as Brittany left, I thought about it.
Will Staney (20m 52s):
It's all right. You can use the last one.
Jim Stroud (20m 54s):
Yes, all right.
Megan Arnold (20m 56s):
It's good because I obviously need to have some headphones.
Will Staney (21m 1s):
Right, you didn’t get the memo.
Courtney Lane (21m 3s):
You can pass them along to me. I will share this headset with you back in so I don't. I didn't go out and purchase. This was a loaner gift.
Will Staney (21m 13s):
She was forced to wear those giant things on our heads, yes.
Jim Stroud (21m 20s):
Got it. All right, we’re stopping the recording and we are golden.
Transcript
