Hiring Trends: A 2024 Snapshot (Part 2)

Krissy: Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Talent GTM podcast. If you’re joining us today, We’re finishing our two part series with Jaycie bruder, founder of Monarch Search, around all things hiring. Our first episode was hiring trends, a snapshot of 2024, and today, the last and second part of our series is optimizing your recruiter partnerships in 2024 and how to use that to your advantage to be on top. So Jaycie, welcome again.

Jaycie: Hi Krissy, good to see you again. I am so excited about this episode. This is something that I am just like crazy passionate about, of educating founders on how to get the most out of your recruiters. So, super excited. As Krissy mentioned, I am the founder here at Monarch Search, an early stage recruiting firm, helping founders of seed through series B companies hire for sales marketing, CS leadership, as well as founding IC roles.

Jaycie: So all, all very much in the wheelhouse here.

Krissy: I’m excited to talk about the best ways that people can work with us or just work with their current teams and kind of following, you know, some of the trends just in what we’re seeing, but to kick it off, what would you, you know, start off with as far as some, some tips or best practices here?

Jaycie: Yeah, I think we touched on this a bit in our last episode, so go there if you’re just catching up, here, but I think the, the big thing that I am seeing and hearing. First off is just like working with a specialty recruiter. We talked, like I said, a bit about this in our last episode, but I just continue to hammer at home for folks that the, the old school approach of work with the firm that covers Everything is not the right strategy anymore.

Jaycie: Finding folks who do one or two things really well is just going to give you more confidence in the hire because that person’s going to be allowed to act as a consultant for you on what they’ve seen that works, what they’ve seen that don’t, how to run an effective process. They have a strong network. I mean, the benefits are just endless there of working with somebody in your space who knows exactly what you need.

Krissy: Yep. Okay. What are your thoughts on databases? Because I know that’s been a selling point in the past for a lot of recruiting firms. I’ve got this massive database. We’ve been in business for years.

Jaycie: Yeah. This is so funny. I, I said this to somebody else the other day of like, recruiters who sell their huge network and the database of candidates and all the folks that they could intro tomorrow, like give me the ick. I, I think that, Early stage companies specifically should not be relying exclusively on a recruiting firm that says, Oh yeah, I have the perfect candidate for you.

Jaycie: I talked to them, you know, three months ago or whatever it may be the perfect recruiting firm that partners with early stage companies are the ones that have a hunter mentality. Truthfully, they are in a way salespeople for your brand. They are doing the market mapping. They are doing net new engaging of candidates because so often startups need That purple unicorn that is, you know, in their space has been a first hire has done X, Y, Z is in New York City, whatever it may be, and I’m always a little bit skeptical that those people exist specifically in their database of candidates.

Jaycie: Make sure your recruiters are going to be able to hunt and find you what you need. Mm

Krissy: Yeah, a hundred percent. So, I mean, it’s if you. If you can’t, you know, if you don’t have it, that goes back to process, right? If you don’t have a process to acquire and find talent. Then why would you pay an astronomical fee for someone’s database, right? And also too, if it was that easy, like everyone would be doing it.

Krissy: It’s never been that easy. And that’s, that’s recruiting would have a really good name, by the way, if it, if that actually worked, because there’s a lot of people have databases, right?

Krissy: it wouldn’t be like, why do they throw all these people at me?

Jaycie: Totally. And I appreciate that we’re talking about this because I think so often recruiters get looked at as these like magic wands that come in and, you know, give them a couple weeks and they’ll have the perfect candidate for you. But. The reality is, is like, we can’t create talent where talent doesn’t exist.

Jaycie: And so it’s really our job to be that, kind of, what’s the word I’m, I’m looking for, like consult consultant or like sharer of reality with companies around what, yeah. Expert. Yeah. Share of reality. Ha ha. and I think that, you know, digging into just like the perseverance of your recruiting firm of like, are you going to give up when it gets hard, is, is critical. Cause nine times out of 10, these early, early, early stage companies that are hiring, things change ups and downs. Like you need somebody who’s going to be in it with you for the long haul.

Krissy: Yeah, for sure. And the only thing I’d add to that is, I think all this applies even to companies that are mature and are large, right?

Jaycie: That is so true. In a way it’s almost maybe more applicable for them.

Krissy: Yeah, 100%. So what are some other, I would say tips or things that people should be looking at to have more solid collaborative relationships with their recruiting partners in 2024?

Jaycie: Yeah. Something else that comes to mind here is just like, the investment, both in time and money, that is required from a company to have a successful recruiting partnership. We all know about the fees. We all know how that works. We won’t, we won’t hammer the drum there, but I think something that You know, companies don’t always realize is again, like I said, recruiters aren’t your magic wand.

Jaycie: They aren’t going to solve all of your problems when it comes to talent. They are going to be that person that brings those to light and then demands your time. If a recruiter isn’t asking for, you know, 60 to 90, even two hours upfront before kicking off the search to download on your company to understand the ins and outs of what you need and how to be an extension of your brand. If they aren’t asking for, you know, a way to have continuous asynchronous collaboration with you, whether it’s on Slack or Telegram or other channels, if they aren’t asking to chat live with you on a weekly basis, like they’re not doing their job accurately, they’re, they’re hiding from the realities of the search, and it’s something that I do just naturally, but I, I advise my clients whether or not they work with me to ensure that the experience that they’re getting is going to be all encompassing, and the reality is that takes time.

Krissy: Yeah, no, 100%. And I just think there’s this been this disconnect where it’s going, okay, if I, I’ll, I’ll ask you all the time, how many recruiters that you’ve hired? tell you the value prop of your company and what you do really well. And they just kind of look a little, you know, there’s like blank stare, like probably none.

Krissy: It’s like, then why are you hiring them? Right. If so, it’s not this idea that like, I give them a job description and profile they’ve searched before. That’s enough with like a sentence or two to a link that goes, that’s not, if you don’t understand what a company is doing, what’s exciting about it, one, you’re not going to get it.

Krissy: You’re not going to be able to reach out and attract the right, the candidates that you really want. Right. And that’s what recruiters should be able to do really well. But two, there’s a very big, like. You know, and again, I’m using this on the sales side, but this applies to all engineering, marketing, whatever you’re, you’re looking at, there’s a very big difference in hiring an account executive for an early stage company, a mature stage company, and also companies in specific industries.

Krissy: And it’s not about the industry experience, but it’s about, Hey. This is a product that’s multifaceted and so you’re going to have to make sure that you look at AEs that have really deep understanding of discovery and finding pain versus someone that sold a product that was literally there’s one value prop one pain.

Krissy: Right. That’s a perfect example of how you have to know what type of AEs to find. Even if those two on paper have the same background and experience in quota hitting, how they sold was totally different. Right. And so it’s a part of what we talked about in our previous episode of making hiring predictable of just understanding what companies do.

Krissy: And actually you should care about that. So

Jaycie: Yeah. Yeah.

Krissy: A long winded way of piggybacking off what you said, but…

Jaycie: I, this reminded me of a, of a story from super early in my career. I was maybe six months into my time at the lions and my VP and my manager went on an onsite meeting, which feels like such a throwback. And the VP of sales of the company that they were working with had them pitch their company on the spot. And I remember my VP coming back into the office saying, I crushed that. I knew the pitch. He thought that I worked there because of how good I pitched the company. And that was the seed that was planted for me from so early in my career that you have. to be an extension of their company.

Jaycie: You cannot just be somebody who says this is a series a back to have 10 years of runway second time founders and hope that that is going to attract the right talent. The right recruiters for you are the ones who know the ins and outs. They know the good, the bad. They knew that you’re first hire didn’t work out and all of the drama that goes along with that and take it for what it’s worth and use that information to their advantage in helping you find great talent. A benchmark that I use for myself is if my clients aren’t trying to recruit me, I am not doing a good enough job.

Krissy: I love that. I love that. No, that’s the ultimate compliment when they say, how do we bring your business into ours? Like, are you for sale or whatever? Right? So it’s always a great, a great testament to what we’re doing. Right. Great. But also, I’d say something to really look out for and be thoughtful of, well, is like, being vulnerable with your recruiter, right?

Krissy: And looking for ones that have a solid process. But from the vulnerability side , you know, you talked about like being an extension of that team, right? I see so often people can hire recruiters. I think our clients, you know, we’re pretty specific on who we work with, just like they should be specific on who they work with.

Krissy: But so they do a good job, but I’ve seen from people that we’ve chosen not to work with, they want to hire recruiters as kind of like a backup. Right. and like, Hey, I, it’s great. Like their idea of success is really them finding the person, but they had a backup in place and that’s just not a, just not a good use of time.

Krissy: Like, and I think the thought is like, If it’s contingency, I’m not spending money, but. If, if you’re giving that impression to someone and they’re taking that job, their thought is I’m going to try a couple of things real quick. Cause I’m not putting in time when you’re not partnering with me.

Krissy: Right. And then you wonder why you don’t get those results, right? It’s just, even if you find them yourself, it’s, it’s so inefficient, right? So decide if you’re going to want to invest and be vulnerable with your recruiter site, how do I look at them as an expert, right? If you hired a consultant, I can’t like repeat this enough and restate it enough, you would look to them for advice because they’re the experts on what’s going on in that part of the industry with candidates like you’re the expert in your company, but they can help, you know, up level that for you and look to them to help make that better. Don’t look at it as a competition, especially with like TA teams. I always tell them, like just folks that I know that work in there. You should be looking to utilize recruiters to help you make look better.

Krissy: Right? And I not try to I’m hiring you all, but we want to make sure that you stay in a place where it doesn’t make us look like we’re not doing a good job. use the win of, you know, their successes to make you all look better, to show how you collaborate and solution. Right. So

Jaycie: yeah, totally. I think the vulnerability piece is huge. You know, we don’t know off the bat where you feel confident in your process and where you feel super shaky. And a lot of people, I think founders specifically, Are hesitant to show those areas of weakness. you know, we all put on a brave face, but really getting into the nuts and bolts of, Hey, Jaycie, I feel good about my ability to hype someone up on my company and tell them why they should join, share a product roadmap, all of these things where I don’t feel good is actually knowing what questions I should ask in the interview to suss out if the sales or marketing leader has.executed and was successful in their past roles.

Jaycie: And further than that, I have some scar tissue, you know, three years ago or whatever it may be we hired someone and they only lasted 90 days. And us knowing that is not a negative reflection on you at all. It’s like everyone makes mistakes. learnings that you can extract from that and then arm us with to be able to, you know, support you in making these hires, but also I think prepare candidates for the environment that they’re getting into and the, the real personality of the leader that they’re going to be working for.

Jaycie: So nothing is off the table. I get told all the time that this, my conversations with founders felt like therapy. We’re airing our dirty laundry. We’re working through it.

Krissy: A hundred percent. And I think just to add one thing in there, cause I think it’s an excellent point. People confuse, you can know, Hey, I’ve been a sales leader forever. I know what it takes and what’s needed for a sales rep at let’s say the mid market level to be successful in X industry. I know that I, and I’m saying that in general, right?

Krissy: But that doesn’t mean and that’s, this is okay. Hiring is a full time job. I always tell people that like, it’s a full time job. And if you, it could, if that’s all you had to focus on, could you be really good at that because you understand what’s going to be successful? Yes. But if you can’t focus the majority of your time on that, because you can’t cause you’ve got, you’re running a North American sales team or, or customer success, whatever it is.

Krissy: Right. Then hire someone to help with that that can be that extension to make sure that that stuff is covered for the right questions. Because when you don’t, you leave gaps where now it’s like, I just have a feeling because, or I’m asking questions that I hope I’ll be able to then, you know, watch when they’re onboarded and see if that’ll play out versus why don’t we remove that hope factor out of the way and go, Hey, we know that if these are the five competencies we need to interview for, let’s figure out what are the specific questions and how do we manage all of that to make sure that when we get somewhere, it’s a 97 to 99 percent chance this person’s going to not just work out, but like actually do really well.

Krissy: Right. And that’s the thing where people get confused on their understanding and ability to know what great talent is once they’re in seat versus like actually really the time that’s needed to assess them. Right.

Jaycie: Totally. It’s so cool when I talk to founders who have been doing founder led sales and they’re like, it’s time to pass off the baton. And it’s really cool to go through this exercise of, well, what you are doing. was working because you’re the founder. How do we replicate that and find somebody else who can be equally, if not more successful in selling your product that, you know, hasn’t been dreaming of it for the last three years and thinking about it 24 hours, you know, their entire life?

Jaycie: How do we replicate the competencies that make you successful? In a way, you know, to pass that baton off. So, I think that’s a really, a really fun one too, in making them kind of extract like, what is actually going to work here versus what was just working because I’ve been doing it and everybody’s going to buy from the founder.

Krissy: Yeah, no, I totally agree. And it just sets a roadmap for success. Do you do that work up front and it pays dividends? It is, it works long term and even if there are some hiccups, because that’s obviously just part of what happens, it’ll, it’ll fix itself very quickly. You can rectify it pretty quickly.

Jaycie: Yeah.

Krissy: Anything else that you would recommend when it comes to working with your recruiting partners this year or things to be on the lookout for as you partner with outside firms?

Jaycie: I think. TBD, how this shakes out, honestly, I think we’re still kind of, at least I’m early and I’m kind of testing out some experiments here is, the, the very classic guarantee period that we see with recruiting agreements, you know, for many, many years for individual contributor hirings, it was that 90 day, one quarter, you if they leave or are fired, we’ll run a replacement search.

Jaycie: I, I want to see recruiters, myself included, get a little bit more confident in, in extending a longer guarantee period. Maybe it’s six months, maybe it’s a year for executive hiring. I think that really is the time where you see these people become impactful. But I almost want it to be from the side of I, as a recruiter, am so competent in the process that we’ve built, the process that we’ve taken candidates through, that I would put my name on them for, you know, longer than 90 days because I, I don’t see a world where they don’t work out. Of course it’s risky. There are so many factors here that impact, you know, whether or not candidates work out outside of their performance.

Jaycie: But I think that pushing your recruiters on you know, how much will you back this candidate, will encourage them to be pickier with the talent that they introduce, more rigorous with the process that they run, and ultimately help you get even better folks for your team.

Krissy: Yeah. It’s so funny because I’ve done a total 180 on this. So when we entered the recruiting world with Blueprint, I was very firm and would, would even get into quite a few, like, you know, back and forth with our team. I’m like, no, we’re holding firm at this replacement date because after this point we have no control like they, they’re the ones on, what if their culture’s bad?

Krissy: All of these things. And not to say that that stuff isn’t real, but it go, but, but now as we go through it, and I really put myself back in the seat that I sat in. Right. And go, okay. At the end of the day in responsible growth and respond, which is responsible buying, right? It’s not just with hiring.

Krissy: Everything that you buy is now got to have like some ROI. Right. And so it’s like, okay, I’m going to eat cause it’s, it’s more, you know, I think we’ve talked about this, the more successful you are in recruiting. At some point, it’s like, okay, now we’ve got to push you out for agency. Right. Because it gets really expensive.

Krissy: And, and so that’s how you actually, you know, one thing, you know, you’ve done a good job, right. But when I’ve looked at ways to try to extend that with people in the past, what I’ve realized is the money is not really like, it’s a symptom of the problem. It’s more of, I’ve spent so much and I don’t have really any type of firm ROI. I mean, I know you are great. You do a great job, but like if something doesn’t work out, I lost that whether it’s my fault or there was a mess on the candidate side. And so I couldn’t agree more because if we’re going to talk about better process, it has to be on both sides. And so we, we pulled some data last year and found like we had, when people followed our process, it was like a 97 percent candidate retention rate and they were top performers.

Krissy: And so to your point, it is risky. It’s nerve, but we’ve, we now this year are going to be, we’ve called it like ramp plus 60. But my thought is like, look at the end of the day, if you spend example, you know, 20 grand with me for a placement, right? I want you to know you’re going to get your 20 grand worth.

Krissy: Right. And if something crazy happens, because, and I, you know, we’re vetting you out too, right? If we’re going to go into this, we’re going to make sure that we get that person that’s good. Like you’re going to get your ROI from this person times three. Right. And so my 20 grand now is no longer an issue of would have been cheaper to be internal, right?

Krissy: It’s now. I got like a rockstar person. They stayed, they did well, and I got my return. Right. and so really looking at pushing that out so you know thatthey’re in it with you right to partner through. And I think when you have that, if you trust the recruiter, you’re not worried about are they gonna be motivated?

Krissy: Because that goes back to all the things we just talked about where if you’re not vetting people out and you have that question, then you’re prob you either haven’t discovered that or you’re looking at the wrong folks.

Jaycie: Yeah. You just made such an interesting and important point that I was going to circle back on of it’s, it’s making recruiters hold a higher bar for their clients as well. Of course. You know, when I, back in the day, would work contingent searches, I didn’t have a high bar for the types of businesses that I was working for.

Jaycie: And some of the red flags that emerged in the process weren’t as critical to my success. I look at everything through the lens of, Is this a company that I would want to work for? And if it’s not, why am I going to place talent there? Why am I going to go through the motions of, you know, crossing my fingers that somebody works out for the next six months and putting, you know, risk for myself as well.

Jaycie: And so I think on both sides, the level of accountability to success is going to create just a such such a more healthy relationship with companies and recruiters and as a byproduct of the talent that is being placed there. So I’m really interested to see how this changes this year. Especially given how, you know, barren recruiters were last year.

Jaycie: I think there is just a lot of excitement to, to work again, of course. And this is maybe my word of caution for recruiters of hold, hold a firm line, you know, make, make sure this is something that you feel really good about, you know, putting your brand and your name on, before partnering with them. So TBD, I think that part will be really interesting.

Krissy: Now I totally agree. if you’re listening to this, we’re telling you, you know, as hiring manager companies, ask your recruiters that you can push and you should for long guarantees. Now, with that said. Recruiters, you should make sure that they have their stuff together and that they’re willing to partner with you and listen, right?

Krissy: So if they’ve got these awful glass door ratings and they have these gut feel approaches and these egos and they look at their people as replaceable, that’s not the type of partnerships guarantees aside or replacements aside that you need to be entering into. So companies go and ask that, but make sure, you know, you’re showing what you’re willing to, you know, that’s the risk that they’re taking on, if they’re partnering with you.

Krissy: And so there needs to be mutually beneficial things there of how you’re going to partner and work together. Not a one side. This is what it looks like. Right. But I do think that’s, that really is going to connect the recruiting to feel accountable and go, Hey, it’s not, I really feel like I’m going to get my money’s worth and that makes all the difference. So I’m really excited about that. And my team is, you know, just continues to highlight how like firm I was in the beginning. And Hey, look, I’ve changed. And I, I think I’ve come full circle of going. I think that as the future. And I think it’s really important. And look, we, we know who we partner with.

Krissy: We know our processes work. So we’re going to double down and say, we’re going to ride this out with you. Even if it’s stuff that you did wrong, we’ll help you because we know that if we do this together, it’s going to be successful more times than not.

Jaycie: Yeah, totally. I think you make another good point of just like firms being really adaptable to where the market is, what clients are asking, how clients work. It’s like, you know, nobody, nobody’s doing anything purely over email anymore. It’s all instant slack, move fast, you know, adapt to the way that they communicate.

Jaycie: It’s almost like, okay. You know, you spend the first couple weeks of the search just figuring out like, how do I best fit this and how do I remain adaptable to my clients need today, tomorrow, six months from now? And, I, I see that being something that clients can really poke into of like, are you stuck in the stone age days of recruiting or have you kept up with the times and what’s important both for companies and their processes, but also just what talent is attracted to right now and therefore, you know, be able to get access to the best people.

Jaycie: So, there, you probably are. Change it up.

Krissy: We’re in this transformative time. If you went to the GTM Summit Pavilion last year, they talked about this. We’re out of this golden era of buying and that’s not to be scary. It’s just, it’s so different. And that has a trickle effect. And a very, a strong correlation with hiring.

Krissy: And so when we’re in this transformative place of how we hire and how we buy, how we did things before are not going to apply to where they are in the future. So how we, so I’m excited because I think it, again, it’s just really, it’s where we should have always been, but it’s where we need to be now and how we look at things.

Krissy: And so. I think it’s going to be a great year and I think there’s a lot of companies that are really open to that, but they’re going to see the benefits of that everyone is of both sides. And I think, I think recruiting in general is going to look be a totally different world come 2025. but for this year, I think like that change is happening, from the specialization to, the guarantees to how they partner.

Krissy: What they want, what they don’t want, et cetera. So, it’s going to make everyone have to level up a little bit, probably some growth gains, but all good things to come.

Jaycie: Totally agree. Totally.

Krissy: that’s all that we have today. I hope this was valuable for everyone. I feel like even coming on here for me, just. You know, hearing you chat about some things was, was awesome. And, I hope people can take, you know, the, this episode and our, you know, two part series here and really put it into action.

Krissy: Right. Even if you never hire a recruiter and it’s really with your TAT and these are all things, that you can use without using outside resources. If you don’t have to, right. But also to don’t try to be an expert with everything. Right. And. In conclusion, bad business is always bad business, whether it’s a good market or a bad market.

Krissy: It always wastes your time. So we need to make smarter choices and how we buy, how we partner across the board. So hopefully some of these trends and tips and tricks will be valuable for you this year. and wishing everyone a great 2024. Awesome. Well, thanks for joining Jaycie until next time.

Krissy: We’ll talk to you later.

Jaycie: Thanks, Krissy. See you everyone.

Krissy: Bye.