What is a Taboo Topic in Recruiting That No One Addresses Directly?

Matt Lewers: Hello, and welcome to the Blueprint Roundtable. I’m your host, Matt Lewers, joined by Krissy Micromanage-Manzano, and Chuck Hypeman Brotman. The Blueprint Roundtable is an ongoing series with our team and an occasional guest. And in each session we ask the team a simple question related to trends in recruiting talent, and go to market for discussion and debate.

Matt Lewers: This week’s question, and Chuck, we’re gonna go to you first. What is a taboo topic in recruiting that no one addresses directly? The clock starts now.

Chuck Brotman: Yeah, it’s a taboo topic. Well, I don’t know if this is taboo in the sense that nobody wants to, kind of touch the topic, in public settings per se. But it is something that I think can get a little shady. And I know we’ve certainly, as a firm, have tried to stay clear of this is a lot of recruiting firms, particularly in markets that are, more challenging spend a lot of cycles trying to kind of negotiate split deals with each other behind the scenes. And the notion is straightforward enough when someone has a relationship with , X talent per se and they feel that they are, they’re high quality. A lot of firms, look for opportunities to get these candidates referred into other firms that are working with other clients and to get compensation from that.

Chuck Brotman: I think it’s, I dunno if it’s how taboo it is, but I don’t think it’s a great practice for either hiring companies or for candidates. Right. That as a firm we’ve really sought to be clear that we recruit for the companies we have direct relationships with. Certainly if another firm shares with me, a deep candidate profile, and I have a relationship with someone like that.

Chuck Brotman: I’ll make a referral in general, we’re not gonna seek out referral fees, but if there’s fees off, we’re not gonna decline to get paid them. But, a lot of behind the scenes energy on kind of negotiating terms and splits around candidates, I don’t think it does a lot of good for candidates or for hiring managers and there’s a certain lack of transparency to it all that I’d say kind of might make it taboo or, again, something that just should be discouraged a little bit more in recruiting in general.

Krissy Manzano: Yeah, I mean, I have my own like topic of taboo, but just like piggybacking off that, I just think anytime you’re doing like partnership with someone or you’re trying to do things to source additional income, if it’s ever done in a way that comes across as you’re trying to be, lazy is not the right word, but like I’m trying to come along on your coattails and make your money without really doing anything in a way that’s not super valuable to you.

Krissy Manzano: It’s the inverse. It’s like, hey, I send I’m sending you something. It’s so easy this is why you should gimme such a large percentage. Right. It’s kind of insulting because it’s like, if it was that easy, then, we take those deals all day long. Right. But recruiting is very challenging.

Krissy Manzano: It’s not even just about like finding people, right, or even finding clients. It’s helping clients really establish their interview process and get the candidate and the client all the way to the end, right? To go through it systematically. And so when you look at these deals and whatnot, people are always wanting to go on it when it’s hot in recruiting, but they don’t always appreciate how challenging it can be.

Krissy Manzano: And so they try to ask for a lot more of a piece of that pie, which is unfair at best.

Chuck Brotman: I mean for me.

Krissy Manzano: Well, go ahead.

Chuck Brotman: Well, I was just gonna say, sometimes laugh when very infrequently, I’ve had, individuals and candidates, ask what kind of referral terms we have and sort of insinuate that, given our business, like it’s selfish to be asking for referrals without compensation. And it makes me laugh because, I mean, prior to getting in into recruiting, I spent the last 15 years. In my career, in various roles where I made referrals all the time, just as part of being a professional and it never remotely occurred to me to ask for anything back.

Chuck Brotman: Right. So it’s an interesting dynamic to me, both with other firms candidates that that there are a lot of folks who kind of think that way. And I just, again, I don’t think it’s. The best interest of team talent or of course hiring companies that are paying you to go do something very specific.

Chuck Brotman: And if you’re not doing that work either direct or with subcontractors who are really outrunning a search based on a spec you share, I’m just not sure how quality the work can be and ultimately whether those connections that made are going to yield the best experiences on both sides.

Krissy Manzano: When your intent is to make extra money or, a nice piece cash without really doing any work. And you want that model to be continuous. It shows in your pitch. And so not the best way to pitch those things. Because money’s not that easy to make. It can be, it doesn’t have to be as hard as we make it, but it’s not that easy.

Krissy Manzano: I think the other thing is like this concept of paying candidates to interview is, I understand that, as a society, we have not done a good job at treating candidates well when it comes to hiring. And I think the market has definitely done a 180 where it is a candidate market. And even with a challenging time don’t think that’s ever personally gonna change for a really long time.

Krissy Manzano: It’s because of Covid and because of how important mental health has been and because everyone realized like, I actually can live off a lot less and see how much happier I am. And not being in a toxic environment or like a stressful environment that’s unnecessary, right? And with remote work, there’s so many more options.

Krissy Manzano: So I think we’re gonna have that for a really long time, which is not a bad thing, right? But it’s forcing old archaic behaviors to change. But I don’t think paying candidates to interview drives the reins, like I don’t really know what the outcome is. If someone’s genuinely interested in a job, If they’re gonna interview, if they’re not, if you have to pay them to be interested.

Krissy Manzano: I, sorry if this is like crass, but that’s dumb. Like what? Who wants a candidate to be interviewing with, I’m already in 10 meetings a day. I don’t wanna be interviewing someone that I had to pay to get here. Right? Like that’s, I understand the intent, but it does not align with the outcome that you’re trying to get.

Krissy Manzano: And so I think that’s just, it’s not the right way to get to that desired state. Right? Like change your messaging and how you’re representing the company and qualifying candidates to help have them, go through interest, but I don’t think paying them.

Chuck Brotman: If a firm is doing that, I mean, if you’re paying candidates to take interviews with your clients, you should certainly share that with your client, right? If they wanna take conversations under those grounds because they think that somebody has such a stellar track record.

Chuck Brotman: That’s fine, I suppose. I wouldn’t have interviews lined up with me knowing that.

Krissy Manzano: Yeah.

Chuck Brotman: Candidates were being paid to talk to me.

Krissy Manzano: Yeah.

Matt Lewers: Those are those are both really good. I, Krissy, I agree with that sentiment. Do you have something else before? I was gonna add one thing that before we conclude.

Krissy Manzano: Oh, I was just gonna say, I just think in order to fix things in hiring, recruiting, we just keep adding things like that make it more challenging and ridiculous. Like why not just have a conversation with someone and ask them where they’re at and see what they’re interested in. Like the simplest things like people refuse to do.

Krissy Manzano: It’s like mind blowing to me. And if you don’t wanna have those conversations, don’t have time. I don’t know why you’re in recruiting. Like, for real.

Matt Lewers: Yeah. The other thing I was gonna say, I think it’s not a taboo topic. And we certainly don’t do it, thankfully. But it’s, I think it gives re recruiters a bad name in certain cases. But I, in a former life, did work with a firm to make some placements and it turns out that firm on those employees’ one year anniversary was calling them, trying to pitch them on new opportunities.

Matt Lewers: And for me, the fact that that firm was setting a reminder. This is their one year anniversary start date. And I saw these emails, but they, because they went to two candidates that were on my team that, they were basically like, “Hey, congrats on your one year. By the way, if you or anybody, were open to new opportunities, here’s some new roles we took on.”

Matt Lewers: I just found that to be a schmuck move, for lack of a better term. I think it’s I think it’s very underhanded, and I think it’s part of the reason that some recruiting firms have bad reputations out there. Again, thankfully, we don’t.

Krissy Manzano: Yep.

Matt Lewers: that was seven years ago and it still rubs me the wrong way today.

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. And look that that those types of firms are the ones that will advertise their candidate database. Y’all, I’ve got some news for you. Candidate databases don’t matter. Because everyone’s changing jobs. They don’t matter. And so if you’re hiring a recruiting firm that’s like, I’ve got 10,000 candidates in here, like half of those are outdated.

Krissy Manzano: They’re not going through and updating all that stuff. They haven’t talked to some of those people in years. So if you don’t know, like what’s your tech and what’s your strategy to reaching out to people today, every single time I have a new search, that’s what you should be looking at. Like candidate databases are just, they get outdated. I mean, even, we obviously keep our resumes for people we manage, but like we have to be really strategic in how we use that because those things don’t stay updated. Right. So, all that kind of a sign of what that looks taboo.

Matt Lewers: All right, perfect. Well, I, we’re at time. I appreciate both of the insights from both of you. As always, great conversation. Look forward to following up maybe a year from now on this one later.

Krissy Manzano: All right, until next time.

Matt Lewers: See you all.

Krissy Manzano: Bye.

Chuck Brotman: Bye.