Sourcing School: What Every Community Marketer Needs to Know with Shannon Pritchett

Music  00:05:

School’s in session. This is Recruiting Daily’s Sourcing School Podcast. Real talk about recruiting, sourcing, and cyber sleuthing. Hot tanks on sourcing tools, recruiting tech, and anything we want to talk about with no filter. It’s time to level up and put your sourcing pants on. Here’s your dudes, Ryan Leary and Brian Fink.

Brian Fink  00:34:

All right ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends of all ages. Welcome back to another episode of Recruiting Daily’s Sourcing School Podcast. We are joined today by the one, the only, the builder of community, the Sourceress Supreme. I don’t think anybody calls her that, but I call her that. The Sourceress Supreme, Shannon Pritchett. Wait a minute. Hold on. Welcome to Ryan Leary. I’m joined by Ryan Leary. [crosstalk 00:00:59] Ryan’s here. I almost forgot about you. But I am-

Ryan Leary  01:06:

You forget about me?

Brian Fink  01:07:

Don’t you forget about me. No, no, no, no, no.

Ryan Leary  01:10:

Usually he kicks off with this song. So this is a little delayed. I’m a little sad. We’re doing it backwards. I don’t even get an intro and he just skips me. But I guess it’s worth it.

Brian Fink  01:21:

Don’t you?

Ryan Leary  01:24:

It makes sense. Go ahead.

 Brian Fink  01:26:

I’m not going to continue to sing the song, right? It is what it is. So, well, Shannon, Sourceress Supreme, do you want us to call you Shannon or Sourceress Supreme? Which title would you rather go by?

Shannon Pritchett 01:38:

You know, I prefer Shannon, but I’m kind of digging this Sourceress Supreme. But all the Ss, it’s great.

Ryan Leary  01:45:

It’s super excellent. I hear Supreme, and I want to go to Taco Bell and get me a taco. So I’m all about it.

Shannon Pritchett 01:56:

My mind went there as well.

Ryan Leary  01:57:

Let’s do it. Taco Bell it is. See you guys later.

 Brian Fink  02:01:

Ding.

Ryan Leary  02:02:

We’re talking sourcing trends. We’re talking community with none other than Ms. Shannon Pritchett, because who else can better talk about it? Right? I mean, you have built some serious communities across this industry over how long has it been now?

Shannon Pritchett  02:18:

We’ll just say 10 plus years. Ryan you’re [inaudible 00:02:23], right?

Ryan Leary  02:24:

So like 18 years. You seriously have built some of the biggest and baddest communities since the start of, I’ll say, social in this industry. So I’m so excited to have you on.

 Brian Fink  02:38:

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Back up. Back up. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for Shannon, because Shannon was one of my AIRS instructors way back in the day when AIRS… Yeah, when AIRS [crosstalk 00:02:49] used to bring it. Yeah, totally like [crosstalk 00:02:52] Shannon, you graded my ECRE exam. Yeah. I totally remember it because it locked me out and I kind of spaced out and I was like, “[inaudible 00:03:01].” You and Gary typing furiously on what was going on. So yeah. So kudos to you. I’m your progeny. Thank you. Yeah.

Ryan Leary  03:11:

I have completely forgot that you were at AIRS. Wow. You are old. Good Lord. [crosstalk 00:03:18] 30 years now.

Shannon Pritchett  03:20:

It’s so funny. I love coming in contact with people that I’ve trained over the years and it’s even better when you see them on stage. And it’s so funny to think that… That kind of really is what built my career, actually was training and coming up with a new sourcing solutions. And Ryan, do you remember? Because you and I grew up exactly the same way within the industry, right? I remember your Boolean builder toolbar that you had.

Ryan Leary  03:49:

Oh my goodness. Yeah. That was like years ago. That was way too [crosstalk 00:03:54].

Shannon  03:55:

Yeah. The little extension you put and anyways. But that’s how we grew up. If you weren’t hacking a website, or you weren’t manipulating some UR, or going through the back door or anything like that, then you kind of weren’t really relevant. And teaching those secrets is really how we had to survive. And if you didn’t know simple Boolean logic, or if you weren’t some kind of a entry level programmer or could download TOR or anything like that, then you really weren’t up with the times. You’re probably living on job boards. And it’s so funny because all the stuff that we lived, breathed and died by 10 years ago is so irrelevant nowadays. [crosstalk 00:04:37]-

Ryan Leary  04:36:

Well, [crosstalk 00:04:37] it is, but it’s not. Right. Fink, you’re still doing… You just gave an HRTX. We just went through sessions and sessions of people doing the same thing manually.

Shannon Pritchett  04:49:

Yeah, [crosstalk 00:04:50] until we got up there, show you how to do it with AI.

Ryan Leary  04:55:

Yeah. Then it’s like, well you can do [crosstalk 00:04:56]-

Brian Fink  04:56:

Exactly, right? Like that was… Well, it’s like… Shannon, have you seen Clay yet? C-L-A-Y.

Shannon Pritchett 05:05:

No. 

Brian Fink  05:06:

Okay. So I like to think that Clay is a new version of Zapinfo, but it was built for sales prospecting. What it does is it scrapes lists and then it enriches them. It’s free right now. I don’t know when they’re going to charge you for it, but you talk about tools and versus the old way of doing things, there’s convergence, right? One is not better than the other. One just saves you more time over the other so you can enjoy being awesome in other aspects of your life.

Shannon Pritchett  05:41:

Right. That’s what really it’s about. I’m so glad that there’s another alternative solutions app [inaudible 00:05:47]. That was one of my favorite tools that like… I really had a heart burn that day when they announced their acquisition with Indeed, and congratulations to Doug and everything. But man, I just saw that being our… The next thing that we just had to have. So I’m glad we’re trying to find a replacement because that is so important to be able to scrape that information off the open web nowadays. I always find it interesting that people typically launch as a sales tool are, in the case of like Lusha, start as a recruiting tool and realized, there’s more money in the sales [inaudible 00:06:24].

Ryan Leary  06:25:

Yeah. They made a huge pivot. They went to sales and market and all these other… And actually, I don’t know if you guys are getting it now, and I guess they’re having a resurgence in recruiting, but I’ve been getting hit with Facebook ads to meet Lusha. Like reintroducing themself as something new. And I was like, “Wait, you guys aren’t new.” But yeah, they’re doing something. So I got to take a look and see what they’re doing. But a lot of tools do that. A lot of tools will find recruiting is fantastic, but sales, marketing people, BI people, way more profitability there.

Shannon Pritchett 06:57:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Especially on the marketing side. Now that I’m in a marketing role, I have never been hit up by so many different vendors. Every tool that you can think of, there’s probably five dozen companies that do the same thing all with the same pricing point. And I’ve always been told that marketing spends all the money and you typically don’t know where it went… I can totally see that because everything is so expensive. But the tools that we get hit with are left and right are just unbelievable. And maybe about two of them are actually good, but that the marketing side is, I would say, probably the… We call MarTech which I that [crosstalk 00:07:40]. Yes. But that’s what it’s known as. That side is so much more robust in terms of the competitive landscape [inaudible 00:07:49] technology than I’ve seen before in any other job I’ve ever worked.

Ryan Leary  07:55:

I thought this year, and Fink, I was actually going to see if wanted to do it. I wanted to go to the [crosstalk 00:08:01]-

 Brian Fink  08:01:

You were going to call me to see if I could get you a discount on a [inaudible 00:08:03].

Ryan Leary  08:05:

[inaudible 00:08:05] Okay. Okay. So we got to [inaudible 00:08:07]. Fink uses Perkspot, right? And so funny, so I’ve never heard of Perkspot until we actually did some work with Perkspot. And that’s when I learned about them. I’m like, “Well, this is kind of weird.” Who would use something like this? And then he sent me a link, and said, no, no, I get a discount. I was like, “Whoa. Look at that. That’s huge.”

Brian Fink  08:22:

Yeah. I buy shit all the time.

Ryan Leary  08:25:

Yeah. It was a steep like… It was like 20% off. And I’m like, “Wow. That’s significant cash off of this.” Because it was a high dollar amount purchase. And I was like, “Wow, it’s pretty good.” So kudos, a Perkspot.

Shannon Pritchett  08:38:

Yeah. No, [crosstalk 00:08:40] the contract negotiations are so funny. They’ll come in at like, “Oh. It’s a $100,000 per year and you need a three year commitment.” I’ll be like, “How about 20 for a one year commitment?” And they’re like, “Sold.” I was like, “Can we do a [inaudible 00:08:55] 20?” They’re like, “Absolutely.”

Ryan Leary  08:59:

So we had a topic we were going to talk about Fink, right? I heard you [inaudible 00:09:03] trying [crosstalk 00:09:03]-

Brian Fink  09:03:

We had two topics we were going to talk about. Not just one, but two, because we’re working with the Sourceress Supreme.

Ryan Leary  09:09:

Yeah. Well, we touched on AIRS. Which is… Are they even still around?

Brian Fink  09:14:

Yeah. AIRS is totally still around.

Shannon Pritchett  09:17:

[crosstalk 00:09:17] It’s the same team, believe it or not, as when I left it. I don’t know if they ever replaced me, but it’s still the same team, which I find absolutely wonderful. I ran into one of the trainers at SHRM in Las Vegas and it blew my mind. He stopped by our booth and I was like, “Kevin Cruz, is that you?” Last time I saw him was, I think it was like 10 years ago. Laura Stoker and I are still great friends. But yeah, they still do a lot of training.

Shannon Pritchett  09:44:

And you got to think now that they’re a part of the ADP empire, a lot of what you do… You don’t see them do is all the work with ADP and on that side. So I don’t think it’s like as dominant, you had to have your CIR back in the day, right? That was like the ultimate certification. You weren’t anyone unless you had it. I don’t think they carry the weight, but they, in terms of volume and work, they still do a lot of stuff. So I’d actually be interested to sit through a course. Not an eight hour course, but maybe a 30 minute one just to see what it’s like.

Ryan Leary  10:17:

All right. So, the three of us are going to sign up and we’re going to go through it together. How about it? You want to do it [inaudible 00:10:23]?

Shannon Pritchett  10:24:

Yes. [crosstalk 00:10:24] And we’re going to take certification.

Ryan Leary  10:29:

We’re going to do it. We’re going to do it. The three of us are going to sign [crosstalk 00:10:31].

Brian Fink  10:32:

I got an email from them. And since we’re talking about the fact that Brian always finds a deal. Two things, one, I got an email from AIRS about two for one to their recruiter academy. So we could definitely pass that license around. I will try to get it approved by my wife, the CFO of the family. Number two-

Ryan Leary  10:54:

Should we cut the passing around part out the recording? So they don’t know we’re doing that.

Shannon Pritchett  11:02:

They know. [inaudible 00:11:02].

Brian Fink  11:02:

They know. They know. They know. All right. So that’s one. And then two, Shannon was talking about always peeling back the URL and trying to see what’s hiding in the URL. I did that this week on a travel website, which I will not mention, but I’m happy to share the credentials with everyone that’s on this call or anyone who might be listening is that I found the back door to… We’ll just say a company like Travelocity’s booking website for travel agents. So that you can find out what the pricing is for all these excursions before you book them.

Shannon Pritchett  11:41:

Oh man. That’s awesome. I’m pretty sure Laura Stoker was the one who really, I learned that trick from. I don’t know if she’s the one who invented it. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was. Peel back is what we called it. But I wouldn’t be surprised if she uncovered that from doing the same thing. More personal use, right?

Brian Fink  12:01:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, setting up Google alerts to find the best shoes that are out there for sneaker heads, right? Gary Conway taught me how to do that. Yeah.

Shannon Pritchett  12:12:

That’s Gary.

Ryan Leary  12:16:

Wow. It’s funny you. I promise we’ll jump into community, but you mentioned Google alerts, right? So I still have… So Shannon, you [inaudible 00:12:24] we grew up together in the RPO world, et cetera. [inaudible 00:12:26] But I still have Google alerts, and I will forward these to you as they come in, for when I was doing work at Beckman Coulter. This is back in 2007. I still get the Google alerts that come through. And I just don’t have the heart to delete them. [crosstalk 00:12:42] I still browse through them and say, “Wow. Oh look. It’s still relevant. Oh it still works. It’s good.” But Fink, I do the same thing. What you’re saying, right? So Gary, a long time ago, did they… I think it was Gary, showed me the same thing.

Ryan Leary  13:00:

I do it for fishing gear, but I do it where I get all the deals and stuff like that. But now if you do it the right way and I can share the actual process. But it’ll hit you back on Facebook and Insta with ads and discounts.

Brian Fink  13:11:

That’s what I want. More ads. More ads.

Ryan Leary  13:11:

Yeah. I love them. I love ads. I search stuff. And then I just close it out. Just so I get the ads to get the discount. I’m not going to lie. All my Christmas shopping this year, online. [inaudible 00:13:31] most people are. But all of it start… It literally, my entire feed is just everything I put into the cart and don’t buy, and they just hit you back with the discounts and come back and come back and come back. And if you wait it out long enough, you get the big deal. But sometimes you lose it. So you got to be careful. You got to play the game right.

Shannon Pritchett  13:49:

Genius.

Ryan Leary  13:49:

So anyhow, what’s this thing we call community. Let’s talk about it.

Brian Fink  13:52:

Yeah. Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about a topic.

Ryan Leary  13:58:

47 minutes in, what are we talking about?

Brian Fink  14:01:

Well, today, people, we’re talking about… Yeah. We’re talking about community.

Shannon Pritchett  14:09:

[crosstalk 00:14:09] Long pause. You just [crosstalk 00:14:11].

Brian Fink  14:10:

Long pause, but we’ll cut that out. We’re talking about community.

Ryan Leary  14:13:

That was dramatic.

Brian Fink  14:15:

That was dramatic. There was the drop. All right. So here’s the question about community. Shannon, how do you build a community? Or is it something that’s organic or how does it work?

Shannon Pritchett  14:24:

Well, yeah. Community growth needs to be organic, right? You’re not going to be able to pay for it. If you do, then it’s not a community, it’s a club. Anything you pay for, I would never call a community. I would, yeah, a hundred percent call that a club. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But when I look at… It’s like, you can be in a club and have that community relationship that you would typically with any other homegrown community. Communities are hard. They are very difficult to build. And they take a lot of money. I don’t think people realize that. Communities are not profitable. I know it’s like the ultimate buzz term and people think it’s the ultimate way to success and everything like that. But they’re extremely difficult to build. They’re easy to launch, obviously. But the good ones definitely stand out from the ones who aren’t good.

Shannon Pritchett  15:15:

I think the biggest challenge that communities have faced these past two years, and of course next year as well, is the fact that the best way for us to interact is in person. And that’s the best way you get that communal type feel, right? When you combine people with similar interest that care about each other that have the same goals, the same purposes, right? That’s the best way to start a community. So for us in the TA space, obviously, our main mission is going to be our passion for our job and filling positions and stuff like that. But of course, [inaudible 00:15:47] a million other communities out there as well. The gaming community is one I’ve always been obsessed with. I’m not a gamer at all. I- 

Brian Fink  15:56:

This is new.

Shannon Pritchett  15:58:

I’m not at all… You might hear some noise. I think my husband’s upstairs playing Grand Theft Auto, but in terms of myself, I just, I don’t have the time and not for me. I digress. Anyways, but they are the ultimate pillar for any single successful community that’s ever launched. Everyone models it off of the gaming community. They’ll do things first. They’ll spend money. People spend money on games. If you ever want to make a community profitable, they have that whole model. Gamification that, where did that come from? Obviously the gaming world. So that’s something I’ve always studied and learned. I’m so passionate about communities because communities have given so much back to me. And I think we could all sit here and talk about how much communities have meant to us and what we’ve learned from communities and stuff like that. I mean, that would take 24 hours worth of a podcast, but that is my passion is to keep those going.

Shannon Pritchett  16:53:

Obviously Source Con was a huge community that was so fun to run. I am really, really absolutely loving the HRTX community, by the way, Ryan. I’m just digging the events. I’m digging what you guys are doing. I love the energy in that. That’s something that I just absolutely love to be a part of. And it’s a huge part of our strategy actually on the marketing side for next year. And then we, of course, we started Everyone. And Everyone has a different mission than the typical communities we see right now. At Everyone, we want to focus on not so much the job per se. That’s what brings us together, the common interest, but we want to more focus on the actual individual. So when we have events, when we have conferences, when we have meetups, and stuff like that, a sourcing presentation. Maybe there will be, but that’s not the point of us.

Shannon Pritchett 17:46:

We’re not gathering to learn here. We’re gathering just to simply talk, to better ourselves, to talk about career progression, to talk about mental health, physical health, general wellbeing. We want everyone to be that community that kind of is friends with everyone and the kumbaya type feel where people really want to come to us just to feel good about themselves. And sure you can do that in any kind of community where you want to learn stuff, but that’s the niche that we’re going to be pursuing. And so I think going back to your question, how do you build it? Of course, you first have to identify the common interests and the common goals and create the mission around that. The next thing that I think that is so important to actually maintaining a successful community beyond engagement is you have to give up some ownership, right?

Shannon Pritchett  18:35:

No one can be the pillar. No one can be at the top. You have to give ownership. So for example, like Brian, Ryan, when you guys are a part of a community, you want to feel like that community success depends on your involvement in it, right?

Brian Fink  18:49:

100%.

Shannon Pritchett  18:50:

Yeah. It’s that responsibility that you have. And I think that was what has worked so well at a conference like Source Con or a community like Source Con, sorry, is that people really felt like, “Okay, the conference is only going to be successful if I’m there.” The conference is only going to be successful if I present. The conference is only going to be successful if I bring in certain people. Same with the group and stuff like that. It’s that responsibility and that ownership that people feel and they feel powerful to align themselves with that brand, with that community to determine the overall success of it. So the more you can relinquish control and give back to the community members itself, the better overall success is going to be.

Ryan Leary  19:33:

But don’t underestimate the power of Shannon because Source Con and I love… I mean, I was there the very first… We were all there. Right. And I mean, back then, it was incredibly cool, right? It was the sourcing after dark. You had to be there, right. You wanted to be there. And then it became a conference, but then you came in. And people wanted to be there. When you walked up on stage to introduce people, you would get bigger cheers than the speaker. Right? So, and it just [crosstalk 00:20:06]-

Shannon Pritchett  20:06:

Well that was because we played hand clapping audio in the back that nobody saw.

Ryan Leary  20:11:

Yeah. But you built a community. You were… And I know you don’t want to be the pillar, but you put something special there that was big and it brought it back. And that was amazing to see.

Shannon Pritchett  20:24:

Thank you so much. I think that just showed my passion for that brand and my passion for what we were doing at the time and what we were trying to build. And you’ll see the same thing, same energy with that Everyone community. And I kind of bring that energy where I go. But so yes, you do. I see, you have to have that person that kind of overarches [inaudible 00:20:46] it, but it doesn’t have to be somebody like necessarily with my personality, right? Or my charisma, my energy or anything like that too. You can take someone who’s like the exact opposite of me. Like, let’s say Glen Cathey, for example. Glen Cathey gets on stage, right? What are we all going to do? We’re all going to get down to our knees and bow and we’re [crosstalk 00:21:04]

Brian Fink  21:04:

Pull out the book and start taking notes.

Shannon Pritchett  21:06:

Right. Now, that should’ve been a community. The Boolean Black Belt Community. Right. That was [inaudible 00:21:11]. That’s a lost opportunity for…

Ryan Leary  21:13:

I was going to say that is a huge miss, but and he has other ambitions, right? But yeah, he had a… Yeah. Great example, he did it through content. He did it through education and he built a… And part of it, I think, is his look too. He looked the part for some reason-

Shannon Pritchett  21:33:

Hundred percent.

Ryan Leary  21:33:

… And the name was [inaudible 00:21:34]. But yeah. He built almost a cult following for [crosstalk 00:21:38]

Shannon Pritchett  21:38:

Still has a cult following. Yeah.

Ryan Leary  21:40:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. And it’s just, yeah. It’s one of those things that’ll just linger there.

Brian Fink  21:46:

I was teaching a class at Twitter, full disclosure. Brian works for Twitter. I was teaching a class at Twitter. Yeah. Get on Twitter. It’s cool. Is that I was teaching a class and I was like, “Has anybody ever seen Boolean Black Belt?” And they were like, “Why?” I was like, “Because that’s what taught me to fundamentally recruit on Twitter.” And they were like, “Is it relevant?” I was like, “Oh yeah.”

Ryan Leary  22:11:

Do you want to [crosstalk 00:22:12]-

Shannon Pritchett  22:12:

Was that [crosstalk 00:22:12] You’re like, “Booleanblackbelt.com. See you guys later.”

Ryan Leary  22:18:

Yeah. Yeah. I can remember when everyone would say, yeah, Glen’s speaking, Glen’s speaking. [inaudible 00:22:24]. He just totally would mind you. Like, no matter what you did-

Shannon Pritchett  22:27:

Still does, yeah.

Ryan Leary  22:27:

… when you listen to him, it’s just, I can never be that guy. I might understand everything he’s doing and in my mind, I know how to [crosstalk 00:22:38] I can never [crosstalk 00:22:38]- 

Brian Fink  22:38:

Wait. Wait. Wait. You understand everything he’s doing? Tell me more. Tell me more.

Ryan Leary  22:40:

No. No. Not at all. No, not at all. I said I could be. I definitely do not. He’s got a way of thinking and talking that just blows my mind. Unbelievable. We should probably bring him back and get him on here. I don’t know if I can hold that conversation though. That [inaudible 00:22:57] handle that.

Shannon Pritchett  22:56:

I’ll tell you right now. He would love that. He would love that. Yeah. I feel like he is somebody who is the most underutilized person in our space. Him and I have actually grown to be really close friends. Not to name drop, but we have a very good bond and a very good friendship. And I’m always surprised and he might be killing me for saying some of this stuff, but when he tells me, I’m like, “Hey, what presentations have you done the last couple months?” And he’ll maybe say one and it’s like something that’s outside the industry, right?

Shannon Pritchett  23:30:

I’m like, how is nobody taking advantage of Glen? He’s like the smartest person. The diversity of topics that he presents on, right. From first off, sourcing to recruiting, to hiring, to leadership, to candidate experience, engagement, neurodiversity, right? It’s just unparalleled. And he’s always the first to volunteer his time absolutely free. And I’m just amazed that nobody says, “Hey, can you speak this? Can you speak that?” Because he absolutely still loves to do that. And of course we could all use more Glen Cathey in our lives.

Ryan Leary  24:07:

That’s it. Glen Cathey, Fink, we got to get them on HRTX. That’s it. Done. 

Brian Fink  24:11:

Do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to go on Twitter right now and I’m going to send him a message.

Ryan Leary  24:16:

We’re just going to hashtag him. 

Brian Fink  24:17:

I’m going to send them a tweet and say, “Hey, you should come on my podcast.” Yeah.

Ryan Leary  24:27:

We’re just, everyone’s going to start tagging him, tagging him, and tagging him. He’s going to have no choice but to come. So Shannon talk about 2022. I know we’ve been here forever now, but this is a good conversation. 2022. I know you don’t have a crystal ball, but what are you seeing? What’s out there? What’s high? What are recruiters, sourcers, TA people, what do they need to know or be on the look at to be relevant in the coming year?

Shannon Pritchett  24:54:

I like how you phrase that question, right? Like what do they need to know? What do they need to be in the lookout for? Because I think that’s really what matters. Well, what the warning I’m going to give is the economy’s going to get worse. It’s not going to get better. I read a lot of that high level political conversation, the labor reports and stuff like that, the trends and stuff. And when you work for a startup, it’s really important to do [inaudible 00:25:21] technology side and next year’s going to be a lot worse and a lot more competitive than this year. Right? And we called this, two years ago. You see the migration with the recruitment industry. The recruitment industry is always the first to do things. So when we start switching jobs and we start making moves and stuff like that, and demand gets high, right? The rest of the industry will follow. That has always been the trend.

Shannon Pritchett  25:46:

2008, last time we saw a big cluster F when it comes to hiring. Who was the first ones to get let go and the last to get brought back on? Recruiters. And so the huge demand that you’re seeing right now from recruiters and the amount of time is taken to fill those positions, double that. That will be your requisition load next year. Healthcare is already there, right? It’s ridiculous. And unfortunately this stuff is going to be out of recruiter’s control, right? Everyone’s going to need to increase their salary cap right now at least 25%, right? If you don’t make a job change this year, or next year, you’re doing something wrong because you can easily change a job right now and get 20 or $30,000 more and with less experience needed.

Shannon Pritchett  26:34:

And so that’s going to be the trend. And so I think HR departments need to get their shit together to realize like, “Oh shit. We really need to start increasing the compensation package and actually having some solid benefits that we can lead with.” But that’s another thing too. I think the recruiting game is… It needs to reflect that, right? Needs to lead with honesty, needs to lead with transparency. That is the ultimate candidate experience, right? Sure. Yeah. It’s how you treat candidates and blah, blah, blah, blah. But recruiters are going to need to be very transparent. Listen, this is how much the position pays. I could care less what you make. We pay this. These are the benefits we offer. Here’s where we suck. Here’s where we’re going. And this is what you can do. And I think if recruiters and recruitment teams can kind of get with HR and craft that kind of a message, they’re going to really decrease their time to fill.

Shannon Pritchett  27:23:

That’s one aspect. The second thing is you have to have automation. If you do not have any sorts of automation right now, just good luck. Right? Sure, job boards are going to be busy and recruitment marketing. And all that kind of stuff. You got to be active. Proactive, if you weren’t proactive two years ago, then it’s not going to set you up for a successful 2022. You need to be active, right? And you need to get some help with automation. Whether it’s like scheduling automation, AI, sourcing automation, any kind of automation you can get through is really, really going to make a difference in that competitive landscape. And then the last thing I think it’s going to be a trend. I think organizations are finally at the point where they realize the power of the API, which, oh my God, all right. Here, talk about automation. Right. That’s always a trend every year.

Shannon Pritchett  28:14:

And API, right? I’m bringing that back from like 2015. It’s sink or swim when it comes to integrations and automation now, right? If your tech stack does not talk to each other and they are all over the place, right? That’s not going to be an accurate measurement of the success that your organization is bringing. And I think organizations are going to start holding their TA teams, the heads of TA, a lot of responsibility to make sure that their data is going to be accurate. And that’s going to go all the way, not only from like the recruitment data, but the people data as well.

Shannon Pritchett  28:48:

Speaking of transparent, if the HR teams aren’t being transparent with the data that they have on the personnel or their company size, then there’s no way those recruiters are going to hit those goals when it comes to the integrations and automations. So that’s just what I see. It’s more like a warning. It’s going to get worse. It’s going to get a lot competitive. There’s stuff that’s out of our control, right? We don’t hire people. We don’t train people. We don’t set the salaries. We don’t do anything like that, but we can control transparency. We can control automation. We can control efficiency. And I think those are the three things that you really need to capitalize on today are, it’s going to be a rough two to three years for you.

Brian Fink  29:33:

Shannon. I want to follow up with something that you said about the… Yeah. That was awesome. Mic drop. I got lots of notes here. First question is, you mentioned a 25% bump in salary for people who are changing jobs or are not changing jobs. Do you think that people are so desperate for recruiters that they’re willing to hire anybody who says they’re a recruiter?

Shannon Pritchett  29:55:

A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And you’re going to start seeing… Like the entry bar is so much lower and Brian, it has nothing to do with skills, years of experience or anything like that, right? Because how I got into the recruitment industry, right? My first job pays $5,000 for the entire of year. That’s a different podcast. Right. But I remember, even when I worked at the large RPO when I was [inaudible 00:30:21] global sourcing, we still brought on people at $12 an hour. Yeah, which that doesn’t work anymore. Recruiters are coming on now at $30 an hour, $60,000 pay raise. And that’s like the industry average. Now we’ve done a competitive salary analysis at Hiretual and stuff like that. And we found that that data is… or salaries are a lot higher than they were two years ago.

Shannon Pritchett  30:45:

But however, you have to think. If you’re using a product like Hiretual, right? A junior recruiter is just as good as a senior recruiter. Now, obviously there’s a big difference in terms of like identification, sourcing, selection, efficiency, processes, how you interact with candidates. But in terms of like identifying talent, the technology is there, and that, which lowers the entry bar, right? If you have a good strong automation tool that can easily select and identify talent, that really brings a skillset level down on the recruiter and the sourcer side. Now I say that because that’s the entry bar. However, the ones who actually utilize it good and do a good job with it are the experienced senior ones that have 10 to 20 years of experience. And they know IT like the back of their hands. But, I mean, think about it. You’ve used sourcing automation. You really can use any of these tools with limited amount of experience and still produce great results.

Brian Fink  31:43:

That worries me. That worries me.

Shannon Pritchett  31:45:

That’s good.

Brian Fink  31:46:

Okay. So not a tool like Hiretual… Because I look at Hiretual for me… Full disclosure, Brian uses Hiretual, is that I look at a tool like Hiretual that it helps me to become more personal with the candidate and to build a more personal relationship [crosstalk 00:32:03] as opposed to being… That’s the goal, right? Is that we are dealing with people’s lives here and their livelihood. Let them not just respond to us because I found a thousand matches on LinkedIn and sent them a blast there. And no discredit to LinkedIn, full disclosure, I also use LinkedIn. But I think that there’s… I just wonder, how do you teach humanity to recruiters? Like maybe that’s… You know what? I said I was going to bring it up in the pre-call. Maybe that’s a good point for us to bring up our dear friend, Derek Zeller, who’s passed away, who I think did a great job of bringing humanity into the equation. I know. I’m sorry. I just thought about it and I said humanity, kind of immediately thought about him. Shannon, how do you bring humanity [crosstalk 00:32:48]-

Shannon Pritchett  32:49:

And you know he’s smiling right now because you said that.

Brian Fink  32:51:

I hope he’s laughing. I love his laugh.

Shannon Pritchett  32:54:

Yes. [inaudible 00:32:55]. No, but you’re absolutely right. It should scare us, right? Because we know what happens when a junior recruiter gets in front of a senior candidate. It is never a recipe for success. It’s always a learning experience at the candidate’s expense, right? But if I’m head of TA, and I’m struggling and I have aging requisitions and I have four or five open positions, my staff, this is the greatest [inaudible 00:33:22]-

Brian Fink  33:22:

What are we going to do?

Shannon Pritchett  33:23:

Exactly, exactly. Right. And I think TA departments are still finally doing a… Or finally, I’m sorry, not still. Finally doing a great job of trying to bring in the humanity aspect too, to everything. And there’s a lot of great people doing a lot of great things out there. I have Glen Cathey… Speaking of Glen Cathey, Glen Cathey’s education and training around engagement, Katrina Collier, Katrina Kidman, Mike [inaudible 00:33:49], just four names off the top of my head that I know do a brilliant job at this stuff. By the way, if you haven’t taken one of those courses, then just, just, I don’t care what your budget is next year, double it, higher them, train your staff. But that is where the sourcing and recruitment industry needs to start focusing because let the tools be tools, right. But don’t be a fool because you relied on a tool when there’s certain aspects of this job, dealing with people, channeling my inner Darek here, right. Where you need to realize that’s at the other end of what we’re doing.

Brian Fink  34:28:

Okay. All right. So we have covered the full gamut of to, how to build a community, what it takes to be successful in recruiting today, and what the recipe for success is going to be in 2022 and 2023? Look at that. Ryan got you a bonus. Ryan got you a bonus. He gave you 2023 with Shannon. So we’d have to come back and do this again. Shannon, is there anything that you wish that I’d asked you that I didn’t ask you today that you want to bring up?

Shannon Pritchett  34:57:

Oh man. That’s a good question. No. Diversity, actually and gender parity. Those are like actually topics I’m really excited about. And I just will say this. We don’t have to have a huge talk about this. I think that’s something that has taken a backseat with TA teams. At Hiretual, it’s one of the top reasons why people purchase our product, is our diversity search filter and stuff like that. And diversity search is up 250 times than it was last year at this time, but it only has like a 10 to 20% adoption. So which means that people who are using it are using it a lot and often and are doing it well. And I tell the recruiters that work on my open marketing positions, if that candidate isn’t in a diversity filter on our site, then I don’t want to talk to them.

Shannon Pritchett  35:46:

And so we use it internally as well. Before the pandemic, we were on such a powerful role with gender parity and being transparent when it comes to pay. And that was like a good movement. And then of course, with the whole Black Lives Matter thing and all that information coming to light, I think organizations were finally starting to get it. And then we all got busy and it just got sidetrack. So my wish also…

Shannon Pritchett  36:11:

My real wish is that we get back to those initiatives, like back to [inaudible 00:36:15] importance. Because we sure talk about it all the freaking time, but I’m not seeing the data and I’m not seeing the action and there’s people out there like Madison Butler… Just, if you’re not following Madison on Twitter, then get to it. You can see, there’s so many people out there that just still don’t get it. And that’s a frustration for me because it’s… To me, it was like, when we didn’t execute on what our mission was a year and a half ago, then it became a buzz term and diversity, equity, most importantly, and inclusion should never be a buzz term.

Brian Fink  36:52:

I just want to add belonging to that because I think that you also have to make it a… Thank you. Yeah, you bowed. Is that I think that we’re name dropping a lot of influential people, but I think that Torn Ellis took me to school and I’m really glad that he did when he was like, “Brian, it’s great that you can build all these diversity filters, but are you focusing on making sure that people feel like they belong in an organization?” And I got to give props to him and to Jackie Clayton. They’ve both been my mentors on that subject. I think that this has been a great conversation today, Shannon, sourcing… Sourceress Supreme, I’m super glad that you decided to come hang out with Ryan and I.

Shannon Pritchett  37:34:

I love you guys. I just can’t wait to do it in person again, you know?

Ryan Leary  37:38:

Yes.

Brian Fink  37:40:

Sooner rather than later. Sooner rather than later.

Ryan Leary  37:42:

We’re getting there. 

Brian Fink  37:42:

And maybe Glen Cathey can join us.

Shannon Pritchett  37:45:

Yes, absolutely.

Ryan Leary  37:46:

I’ll tell you what, here’s what we’re going to… We have a couple of live events scheduled for next year. So we’re going to do that, but we can’t all go unless Glen comes with you.

Shannon Pritchett  37:56:

Hell yeah. Hell yeah. [crosstalk 00:37:58] we get Glen-

Ryan Leary  38:00:

We’re going to hold you hostage for Glen.

Shannon Pritchett  38:02:

Well, we love to sponsor the HRTX events, but we’d really love to sponsor if Glen was presenting.

Ryan Leary  38:07:

Come on, Glen. We’ll get him in. We’ll get him in. I think we’ve [crosstalk 00:38:12] talked about Glen.

Shannon Pritchett  38:13:

And can I [crosstalk 00:38:13] I just want to just to shout out, just what you guys are building with the HRTX stuff, because I think you continue to raise the bar in terms of content speakers and your events are… It’s like you understand what it’s like to be on the other… From the attendee perspective. And I’ve really enjoyed embracing myself in those events this past year. So just that’s my fan girl. Thank you so much. They’re awesome. They’re great. And then just keep it up because I can’t wait to see what you guys do next year.

Ryan Leary  38:42:

Thank you, too.

Brian Fink  38:43:

Well [crosstalk 00:38:44] speaking of fan girls, I want to give a quick shout out to somebody who’s not on this call, and that’s Erin Matthew. Is that Erin Matthew, whether… What… The best, right? Okay. So just to let you know, I am chatting with her right now because that’s what we do at work. We instant message on instant messenger, but Erin Matthew challenged Ryan and I two years ago to find new voices. So Shannon, your compliment, I got to pass along to Erin Matthew and say, Erin challenged us to find those new voices, bring them to the firmament. Can’t thank her enough for that challenge and dropping a mic on us to do that.

Shannon Pritchett  39:19:

It’s not easy. I’m glad she did that. She was one of the new voices that I easily found because, I mean, come on. She was a community member. She’s genius. But that is… Brian’s probably nodding his head. That is very, very tough to do. And I highly, highly encourage people to step up and start speaking a little bit more. If you need help, if you need guidance, speaking of community, the Everyone community will give you all the tools and all the resources and all the mentorship you need to be able to successfully come to Ryan Leary and present, or come to any conference out there and be [crosstalk 00:39:55]-

Brian Fink  39:55:

Any conference.

Shannon Pritchett  39:56:

… [crosstalk 00:39:56] speaker. So that is one thing that we want to help do is help lift people up and give people all the tools they need to shine on stage. And Ryan, thank you for giving them the platform.

Ryan Leary  40:07:

Yeah. Amen. Amen to that. And Fink, I think that was one of our first episodes, right? That was on our first recordings where she came on and said that.

Brian Fink  40:15:

That was.

Ryan Leary  40:16:

Yeah. It is a lot harder test than people think. We’ve brought people on who they’ve never spoken before and we said, “[inaudible 00:40:28] But you’re really good.” Like, “You’re really good at what you do.” And they were nervous as hell. And they would bomb. We’ve had webinars and people [inaudible 00:40:37] where they just bomb. And it’s totally fine. The audience picks them up. The audience says, “No, you’re good. You’re good. Don’t worry about it. Keep going.” And [crosstalk 00:40:45]-

Brian Fink  40:44:

Community brings them back, yeah.

Ryan Leary  40:46:

Yeah. Yeah. And I’m not going to let… A couple years ago, I’d have been like, “No. They need to go somewhere else and then come here.” But who are we? We’re not like the elite of the elite of the elite, right? But now since we recorded that, we brought on a lot of people who otherwise I probably would not have even thought of. Just not because we’re too good, but just because I’m like, “Is it really good for the audience?” And it turns out, it really is okay. It’s really okay, because even [crosstalk 00:41:16]-

Shannon Pritchett  41:15:

And that’s the power of community.

Ryan Leary  41:17:

… teach. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That presenter [crosstalk 00:41:19]-

Shannon Pritchett  41:19:

That’s a strong community right there. Mm-hmm  affirmative). Love it.

Ryan Leary  41:22:

Well, Shannon, this has been fantastic. I know we went on 38 tangents, but I had a great time. I [inaudible 00:41:29] think you had a great time. So thank you so much for giving us some of your time today.

Brian Fink  41:32:

I always learn something when I’m talking to Shannon. So, thank you [crosstalk 00:41:35]-

Shannon Pritchett  41:34:

Oh, right. [crosstalk 00:41:35].

Brian Fink  41:36:

I hope our listeners learned a lot today too, and have got a whole new CAVOK to people to follow on Twitter or LinkedIn [crosstalk 00:41:46] or in the Everyone community on Facebook. Let’s rock.

Ryan Leary  41:52:

Oh man. That means it’s over.

Music  41:55:

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