We teamed up with Katrina Kibben from Three Ears Media for this episode of The Hire Talent Podcast.
Katrina is the Founder and CEO of Three Ears Media, a firm dedicated to teaching recruiters to be better communicators and writers. For most of Katrina’s career, she has been a marketer living in a recruiter’s world – listening to both sides of the talent equation to understand the real issues and find solutions. Today, she uses her technical marketing know-how and way with words to help both established and emerging brands develop and deliver creative, strategic recruitment marketing that makes the right people apply. Katrina has also spoken at events around the world and written for Fortune, The Chicago Tribune and many other digital publications.
You can check out Three Ears Media here at www.threeearsmedia.com. Also be sure to find and follow Katrina on Twitter here @KatrinaKibben for the best tips
Transcript
Fletcher:
Welcome to “The Hire Talent’s Podcast.” Great hiring and recruiting advice for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs. I’m Fletcher, and I’m looking forward to a great new episode today.
Fletcher:
I’d like to welcome Katrina Kibben. She’s the founder and CEO of Three Ears Media, a firm dedicated to teaching recruiters to be better communicators and writers. For most of Katrina’s career, she’s been a marketer living in a recruiter’s world, listening to both sides of the talent equation, understanding the real issues, and trying to find real solutions for both sides. Today, she uses her technical marketing know how and her way with words to help companies develop and deliver creative, strategic, recruitment marketing messages to make the right people apply.
Fletcher:
Katrina’s also spoken-
Katrina:
That sure sounds nice.
Fletcher:
I know. I really want to know more about that one. Not only is she a great recruiter, marketer, but she’s spoken at major events all around the world for business leaders and HR leaders and written for Fortune Magazine and the Chicago Tribune. You got a lot of great credentials there, Katrina, and I think your career path is super fascinating, coming from a marketing perspective or marketing background into the recruitment world, I always tell recruiters, “You’re marketers, actually.” I’d love to hear your story. How did all that happen?
Katrina:
Yeah. It’s funny you said that, because I always tell people I think recruiters have the hardest marketing job in the world.
Fletcher:
Yeah, I agree.
Katrina:
Because, as compared to marketers, marketers have the benefit of having a very, very wide net. Most marketers. A traditional marketing setting is, get as many leads as you possibly can, filter them down, we’ll convert 20% of those buyers, great. In recruiting, we do not have the benefit of converting 20% in most scenarios. Recruiting is in the game of marketing to one, which is such a nuance and something that I really fell in love with when I started in the industry. I’m going to age myself. Actually, over 10 years ago, now, probably almost 15, I started working at a startup called Visuals T.V. We did online resumes.
Fletcher:
Helping candidates build a resume?
Katrina:
Exactly.
Fletcher:
Got you.
Katrina:
Exactly. Basically, we were LinkedIn without the network component.
Fletcher:
Interesting.
Katrina:
My job was to call employers and have them consider using that as their ATF, essentially.
Fletcher:
Interesting.
Katrina:
I knew nothing about the ATF. I knew nothing about hiring. But I knew that it was really nuanced in that there was something really, really challenging in a good way there, because you can make such an incredible impact on people. From there, I’ve stayed in the industry, whether it be on the marketing side, running social media for vendors like Monster.com, or on the other side, the in-house side, writing employer brands copy, and now I do that for my own firm.
Fletcher:
Great. You help firms as a consultant, either the vendors, like you said, and then the in-house folks in general, improve their whole employer brand, and all of the copy that goes along with that, then?
Katrina:
Exactly.
Fletcher:
You get to touch a lot of different people in that space?
Katrina:
Oh, yeah.
Fletcher:
All right, good. You said something that’s really interesting. It’s about marketing to one, as opposed to many. That resonated with me, because a lot of times when we’re recruiting, you’re just trying to fill one job, right?
Katrina:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Fletcher:
Or one position. Sometimes there’s many positions of the same type. How do you go about creating that message for the perfect person? We want to hire the very best person, and there’s lots and lots of people out there. How does that differ from your traditional marketing message?
Katrina:
Yeah. I think a traditional marketing message, we really rely on features to sell products, and this is not a product. This is someone’s life. You’re selling them a change in their life. Where I see most companies struggle, is that they end up making it all about them. If you’ve ever read a job posting that started with-
Fletcher:
You must have these-
Katrina:
“We are a Fortune 500 company that …” Who gives a shit? Pardon my language. But honestly, as a candidate, as a human, that doesn’t impact my bottom line. That doesn’t change my life. Ultimately, the real shift is that when we start to create copy, when we start to create recruiting strategy, we need to start by thinking of a human, not a job.
Fletcher:
Yeah.
Katrina:
And making everything about the human.
Fletcher:
Think about it from the candidate or the person that’s going to become our team member. Think about their world, their perspective. Put ourselves in their shoes. What’s important to them in their life?
Katrina:
Exactly. The best way you can do that is by talking to people like them, or doing research with people like them.
Fletcher:
In marketing, you would call that a persona, right? A buyer persona?
Katrina:
Yeah.
Fletcher:
You’re talking about creating a candidate persona, right?
Katrina:
Right. But here’s the nuance. We don’t have time to do that level of research for every single role.
Fletcher:
Yeah, each job.
Katrina:
Unless you have the flexibility of having less than maybe 10 roles on your desk at a time. But I don’t think that’s the scenario for most people. I think there are really three scenarios where personas work really well, and can be really effective and can be worth the investment. We do this kind of work, so I’ve seen it fail, frankly, and I’ve seen it work.
Katrina:
This is where it works best. Number one, high volume, low-retention roles. Roles that are always on your desk, that you’re always filling, that can be really tough. The second is, if you’re creating a new division or changing a division to include new people or ideas, specialties. In that scenario, you’re really looking at the culture of a team, and trying to figure out how new ideas will fit in the context of that team, and those personas can help attract people who will fit with that group.
Fletcher:
Can you create-
Katrina:
While still challenging them.
Fletcher:
Create mini-personas, though? I went through this recently in a marketing exercise, and they tell you, “Describe the person. It’s a middle-age woman who has children who’s reentering the workforce, and that they’re interested in home and garden television.” That could be a buyer persona for a particular product that you’re trying to sell.
Katrina:
If you do that in recruiting, you’re breaking the law.
Fletcher:
Okay, yeah. You got to watch that. Okay.
Katrina:
Right. If I were hiring one role, and I needed to understand the persona better, I’m going to do some really light research, and I would hesitate to ever call it a persona, because it is so small. Unless it’s a really hard to fill role, I wouldn’t take the time to build the persona. But the way that I would build my light persona … There’s a tool called Answer the Public. It is a free SEO tool. Basically, you can enter a job title, for example, and it will show you every related search to that job title in alphabetical order. It will also show you every related search, as in a path. What do they search first? What do they search next? What’s the third thing?
Katrina:
Now, the reason I think that’s so fascinating, is because that tailors your conversation, and that’s where you can make the most possible impact with data, is tailoring the conversation.
Fletcher:
Somebody types in “sales person”, and then next they type in “sales manager” or “director of sales”. That’s a clue that they’re looking for growth, maybe?
Katrina:
I can give you a perfect example with that one. Traditionally, what I see is, if someone searches “sales manager job”, do you know what they search next?
Fletcher:
No.
Katrina:
“Sales manager job salary.” Right? Am I tapping into the persona?
Fletcher:
Yeah.
Katrina:
The next thing they search is, “sales manager promotion”. There are tools like Google Trends where you can dig down to the region and pull this kind of data. When I send that email, when I create that template that I send to 10 different people that I’m going to slightly tailor to each one, you better believe I’m going to talk about salary and promotion, because I know that search has told me that is what is of the most interest to people who search for sales jobs. That’s what will make you change.
Fletcher:
Yeah. Okay. That’s the way you really put yourself in the candidate’s shoes, then. In that case, taking some of these clues, using the tools to answer the public, right?
Katrina:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Fletcher:
Use a tool like that to gain some insight to make some inferences to what’s important to that person, based on the sequence of searches that people like this are typically making.
Katrina:
Exactly.
Fletcher:
That’s really good. I can answer their question in the ad about how much they’re going to make, how they’re going to make it, and where their career’s going to go and maybe how long it’s going to take them to get there, too, right?
Katrina:
Exactly. Then, if you shift to outreach, let’s say you’re not getting enough applies, you tailor your conversation to that during the first touch point, right? You talk about that on the first call.
Fletcher:
If I’m going to send an in-mail or phone call, maybe better cold call … If I got a cold call, sales managers in the manufacturing space, I can lead by saying, “Hey, I was calling you about this opportunity because we see our sales managers get to the next level within two years on the job, and that is often interesting to candidates like you.”
Katrina:
Yep. The way that I usually tailor it is, “Other people on my team have told me they really value how quickly we promote our best people.”
Fletcher:
Telling a little bit of a story.
Katrina:
“I thought that would be of interest to you.” Exactly. You contextualize it with other humans. It’s not what I think. It’s not what they company thinks. It’s what people like you and what you might care about.
Fletcher:
Interesting. Let’s take that a little bit further. How are you recommending people use employee or team member testimonials or stories? How are you recommending people even begin there? We don’t have any testimonials. We don’t have any stories. We don’t have any of that. Where do you begin, and what do you do with it?
Katrina:
You go talk to people. If you’re doing it at the job level, you go interview people who have that job. If you’re doing it at the division level, you go talk to the people that are in the division already. Company level, deal. You talk to people at the company. You talk to no less than five people. The reason I say that … And five probably doesn’t sound like a lot, right? It’s a small sample in a big company.
Fletcher:
You say no less. I’d say no less than 10.
Katrina:
Right. However, I have never spoken to less than five people and not had a trend of peer. The reason I say five, we need to get realistic. You don’t have 12 weeks to schedule interviews in most scenarios. You don’t have all of this luxury of time, because you have to figure out time to fill.
Fletcher:
Do you have a script?
Katrina:
I tell people, “Make it bite size.”
Fletcher:
Do you have a script that you recommend?
Katrina:
Yeah.
Fletcher:
If I’m a company, and I’m really trying to revamp my hiring process, and I want to collect some testimonials, I guess, for lack of a better word, but you want to guide that conversation a little bit, right? Are there two or three key questions that you ask these folks? I feel like, “Just tell me about your job and how you like working at ABC Trucking,” is kind of a lame question. But maybe it’s as simple as that.
Katrina:
Yep. I can’t give away all my questions, because this is a service that Three Ears Media offers. The first thing I would tell people is, “Go to ThreeEarsMedia.com. We can talk about this. We can give you a lot of context of how it works one on one that’s special to what’s going on at your company.” For example, one of the questions I really like to ask is, “What would you tell your best friend about your job?”
Fletcher:
Ah, way better than just, “Tell me about how you like working here.”
Katrina:
Exactly.
Fletcher:
Again, contextualizing it. Let’s put it in a real world scenario when you’re at a cocktail party on Friday. What are you telling people about where you work?
Katrina:
Yep. Because the most impactful thing that you can do to stand out in this market right now, is to actually understand how skills translate into success, and to put that in your content. What I mean by that is, I’m tired of your list of required skills, and it’s a laundry list of 30 things that you would really like to have, but you don’t need to have. Instead, I tell companies, “This is a classic example of how that persona’s going to translate. You take that skill list, you hide it, and you ask the hiring manager, ‘In six months, what will have happened that makes you so happy that you hired this person? You’re hiring this person because you want them to do something for you. Something needs to come off your plate. What is it? What are they going to do every day?'”
Fletcher:
“I need to hit my sales quota. I got to develop that app. I got to improve my customer service ratings or something.”
Katrina:
You nailed it. Exactly. All that means something to the person who could do the job.
Fletcher:
Yeah. There’s a purpose, now, behind the position.
Katrina:
Yeah.
Fletcher:
“You guys have a problem with customer service ratings? I’m great with customer service. I want to come in and help you improve that.”
Katrina:
Exactly. And giving people the opportunity to see how they can thrive and what they have to do to thrive is basic human psychology. That is not recruiting magic.
Fletcher:
Yeah. Interesting. I think I know what your answer’s going to be or how you’re going to phrase this, but I got to ask you. I hang out with a bunch of entrepreneurs all the time. That’s like my gig. I like that theme. These people are great, but they’re also misguided in their own rites, sometimes. But we talk a lot about creating really great mission, visions, core value statements. I’m always thinking about, how does that relate to the hiring process? How do you recommend incorporating them? Or do you recommend incorporating them into the hiring process or the advertising, the marketing part of it?
Katrina:
Honestly … I’ll pause for a sec. You said you hang out with a bunch of start up type people. They’re all talking about this, right?
Fletcher:
Yeah.
Katrina:
Did any of them pick their job based on that information?
Fletcher:
Yeah. They’re all after the fact trying to figure it out. They’ll decide if they want to do what they’re passionate or good at something. A lot of entrepreneurs they’re either passionate about what they do or they’re really good at what they do, so they’ve turned it into a business. And then, a year down the road when they’re doing okay but trying to figure out how to get to the next level, everybody’s telling them, “You got to have these things because you go to have alignment with where you’re going.”
Katrina:
Well, here’s the thing. If you went back to those people and you asked them, “Have you ever chose a job or decided to apply to a job based on the mission or values of that company?”
Fletcher:
Yeah.
Katrina:
No.
Fletcher:
Nobody cares.
Katrina:
You might stay because of mission and values. I think there’s an extreme value in having them. But having them, you use that to set an expectation of what your culture is when people join. It’s what makes people stay. It’s your rally cry. It’s the thing that inspires you. I don’t necessarily think it’s part of the attraction. Because at the attraction point, you’re trying to persuade them to change their life. Unless your mission and values are a fricking home run and totally makes people feel good, like a deaf baby hearing their mother’s voice for the first time feel good, I say cut it.
Fletcher:
Yeah. Interesting. Okay. When we’re talking to candidates, and I’m thinking about a particular scenario. When you’ve got roles that maybe are less desirable, maybe are not as competitive compensation wise, or less desirable maybe because of the hours, it’s nights and weekends, 1099, those are all fast and going away. But just generally, naturally high turnover roles, it seems challenging to speak to the candidate now, because how do I speak to them? This opportunity maybe isn’t a job that I would ever want to do. How am I going to get other people to want to do it?
Katrina:
Right.
Fletcher:
And do it in the right way, too, without being deceiving. How do you deal with those situations?
Katrina:
I think we all have to take step back and realize, just because we wouldn’t do a job, doesn’t mean that the job isn’t great for some people. Maybe those hours are excellent for the current stay at home mom who wants to return to the workforce and can only work while her husband is home.
Fletcher:
Yeah.
Katrina:
Right.
Fletcher:
Thinking outside of our own world.
Katrina:
And that’s just one example.
Fletcher:
Try to identify the type of person-
Katrina:
What makes it good for the type of person who’s good for that job.
Fletcher:
Yeah. And present it in a more positive light. I’m thinking about a current scenario. I worked with a solar company, and they’ve got a lot of canvassers. They’re outside, they’re knocking on a lot of doors. They get doors slammed in their face and maybe dogs chasing them. Whatever, right? But obviously, there can be a lot of satisfaction in getting the win, in getting the appointment, being a top performer in that environment, the competitive nature of it. Maybe being outdoors every day and getting a lot of exercise is actually an interesting thing, as opposed to, “Well, I got to walk around all day.” Maybe that’s actually a positive thing as opposed to a negative thing.
Katrina:
Yeah. Maybe, and this is a classic … I’ve seen this happen. Maybe they were a former Mormon missionary and they’re really looking to improve their sales chops.
Fletcher:
Yeah. Take some of the experiences that they’ve had in life and expand on those so that they could maybe move onto another role that is going to help them achieve their broader career goals. Maybe canvassing is a place to start and hone their sales skills. It may not be the permanent place for them forever. Maybe even me as a company, I don’t need these people to stay forever in that role, so I should be positioning it as an opportunity for somebody to come and stay for three or six or twelve months and learn a lot, maybe grow with us, but we would even encourage you to move onto another organization where you could use those skills if they’re not available for us. That should be somebody that should accept.
Katrina:
Yeah. That’s reality. It’s okay to say, “I know this isn’t a forever job for people.” If we go into everything treating jobs like that, I think we’re setting up everyone for failure. It’s like when you have data that shows you it’s a problem already, right?
Fletcher:
Yeah. Don’t fool yourself. We know this isn’t a forever job, and so let’s call a spade, a spade and let’s turn that into a positive. Let’s use that to our advantage instead of as a disadvantage.
Katrina:
Exactly.
Fletcher:
You get a lot of candidates who ask, “What’s the turnover like?” That’s maybe a clue that they’re looking for something more stable. Or, at least if you’re going to present to them what the opportunity is, then they know what they’re getting into before they make that decision. If they do decide to move into a high turnover environment, they’re doing it for the right reasons, maybe, like personal development.
Katrina:
Yeah. Here’s the thing. If a candidate comes in and asked you about turnover, they already know.
Fletcher:
They’re suspicious already.
Katrina:
They are suspicious already. They’ve already found information that makes them think one way or another. Know that. I would just asterisk that comment with, a lot of times when candidates come to you with questions, it’s because they already know the answer or they think they know the answer. That’s the whole candidate experience. That’s the whole digital element of that. They do research. Over 60% of candidates do extensive research before they will ever come in for an interview, and 90% said that there could be data that actually influences their final decision, that they find in that first research phase. This is all from Glass Door.
Fletcher:
Yeah. I wonder how often they actually ask about the information they find.
Katrina:
Yeah. Most of them are too scared.
Fletcher:
Yeah. I would imagine most of them just don’t say anything at all and they formulate their own opinion. What is your … I was thinking about this right before you said it. But what is your relationship with Glass Door? Tell me your thoughts on the Glass Door? Indeed does a lot of this, too, and there’s a couple other sites that are big on candidate, employee reviews and information. How do you feel about these, and what do you think you should do with this?
Katrina:
Yeah. I think review sites should be treated as a mirror for companies. They should use the information as a reflection point, not necessarily as an action point. What I mean by that, I think there’s a natural space in the digital universe now for reviews. Yelp! set the tone. I don’t think any category does not have a reviews element, now. If we looked across automotive, computers. Anything you can by or do.
Fletcher:
Yeah. Even doctors.
Katrina:
Yeah.
Fletcher:
Dentists.
Katrina:
I’ve seen reviews of vets. Okay. Great. Lots of detail.
Fletcher:
Not taking my dog there.
Katrina:
Right. But we look to reviews to understand who we can trust now. If we can’t ask someone else, which was the old way, that was the way that we used to figure out who to call.
Fletcher:
You got referrals from your friends and colleagues.
Katrina:
Yeah. I think companies have to accept that reviews are part of the status quo. By they can’t blow them off and be like, “Only angry people write reviews,” because that’s what I hear a lot. It’s not like that. It is a place where you can look for trends, and it’s the first moment … I think it’s something that puts things on your radar, and you should be interacting with people, and you should be responding to them. The biggest picture and the thing that I think is most important is that you actually make sure that you’re using that information to do good by your people.
Fletcher:
Yeah. Not hide from the fact that this is a high turnover, tough job that probably isn’t a career job. Let’s stop pretending that it is, turn it around and then reposition what it is so that people are no longer left with a bad taste in their mouth, right? Maybe all the reviews are like, “There’s terrible turnover. It’s a tough job. No one should ever do it.” Well, now I can maybe get ahead of that in my ad, and I can say, “Hey, this is a great job for people to learn and develop skills. Generally, people stay 3, 6, 12 months and move on to greater careers.”
Katrina:
You could say, “This job is a launch pad. This is where you build your sales [inaudible 00:27:02], and you can change how you fundamentally sell to be successful through your whole career. You can do that in as little as three months.”
Fletcher:
I love that.
Katrina:
Right.
Fletcher:
I love that.
Katrina:
That’s why I’m the writer.
Fletcher:
Yeah. Exactly. You said that so much better than I could. What about incorporating or getting your marketing teams involved in your recruitment efforts? Is that something you’ve seen a lot? Do you have any tips for doing that or not doing it?
Katrina:
Yeah. I think that’s the ideal, when you have marketing expertise and resources, because your customers, your business customers theoretically could be candidates, unless you do something super niche like software for call centers. But I think there’s an opportunity there to work with people who have great ideas about how to get many people to pay attention to your company and to use that for recruiting and understanding the nuances from a marketer’s perspective. A lot of times, the recruiters, they are very smart and they understand how to take a marketing and translate it into something for 15 people.
Fletcher:
Yeah. For a recruitment campaign. Yeah. I like that. I’ve always told my clients that. “Hey, you’ve got a marketing person? Maybe you should run it by them.” There’s a lot of new mediums out there, videos being one of the biggest ones that pops into my mind. How do you feel about video? Any tips on how you should use video differently than the written advertisement?
Katrina:
Yeah. I love video. I think video’s a great opportunity and one that most people are undervaluing right now.
Fletcher:
Yeah. In the recruitment space in particular, right?
Katrina:
Absolutely. YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. I cannot say that enough. They’re the second largest search engine in the world. That’s where the future candidate, that’s where they’re going to start their search.
Fletcher:
On YouTube?
Katrina:
Yeah. You need to be there now and doing really strategic videos. Instead of doing culture videos, which sometimes come off really cheesy-
Fletcher:
Sometimes they try to make the place look too fun and interesting?
Katrina:
Yes, exactly. Or, it’s a bunch of people and you feel like someone got paid to say nice things. You’re like, “There’s a script somewhere.”
Fletcher:
Definitely got a $25 gift certificate to Starbucks, that’s for sure.
Katrina:
Exactly. I think it’s hard for the average person to trust that. But instead, I like to see job specific videos. The idea actually came from my friends over at Skill Scout. They do job videos. I think they do job videos best, because they put it in the context of work. They go in and if you’re going to-
Fletcher:
What is that? Actually filming somebody do they job? Or snit bits of it, right?
Katrina:
Yes. Exactly. If they’re hiring line workers, example.
Fletcher:
Yeah. Like packaging something up on a line?
Katrina:
Yeah. Exactly.
Fletcher:
Or assembling something?
Katrina:
They’ll go into the factory and film the parts of the job that really suck. They’ll put the clock on the camera and show the hours. They’ll show the floors. They’ll show the movement and the lifting and all of that. Suddenly, a list of requirements becomes real for someone, and then they can decide if they like it or not.
Fletcher:
Yeah. I think you’re a creative, extroverted type of person, it sounds like. I definitely am. I hate doing mundane things, so it always shocks me. But there are people out there that actually thrive on that. They really like the process and the repetitiveness because they want to get it perfect, so they like to practice it and do it over and over again and refine their every move, and think about that.
Katrina:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Fletcher:
It could be exciting for people to see that. They could see, “I could really get into that.”
Katrina:
Yeah. Or maybe they didn’t apply to the job because they weren’t sure of X, Y, Z. But once they see it, they’re like, “Oh, yeah. I could totally do that.”
Fletcher:
Or, like I think you said earlier, too, opt out, right? “Oops, maybe I applied to the wrong job.”
Katrina:
Yeah.
Fletcher:
Interesting. Okay. I like that. That’s a really interesting use of video, I think. Actually showing people the job, literally showing it to them. Interesting. I never thought of that.\
Katrina:
Show versus tell, right?
Fletcher:
Exactly.
Katrina:
People get that.
Fletcher:
Yeah, exactly. When you tell people things, there’s always that bit of skepticism that the receiving party has, or somebody’s telling you something. You’re always like, “Is that true?” Interesting. Good. I know I have a couple of other topics I would like … This has been really good. This is my biggest pet peeve. Maybe I’m crazy. But I think there’s a distinct difference between a job advertisement and a job description. I think mostly what people use to advertise their jobs are job descriptions. Therefore, they made mistake number one. I don’t know. You’re the marketer. Am I crazy?
Katrina:
No. You’re absolutely right. There’s actually three phases, in my opinion.
Fletcher:
Okay.
Katrina:
Nobody has written the science on this, but this is my official definition as it stands with me right this second.
Fletcher:
Okay.
Katrina:
Step one is a job description. That is a legal document that outlines the things that this person has to be able to do. This is what you could go back to in a legal case-
Fletcher:
Details.
Katrina:
To say, “They said they could do this, and they don’t do that.”
Fletcher:
Yeah. Okay.
Katrina:
Yes.
Fletcher:
Detailed and boring.
Katrina:
It is a legal document. Yeah. Detailed, very boring, lots of lists, and it has a signature at the bottom.
Fletcher:
Okay. Step one, got to have that.
Katrina:
A job posting … Yes. Because you can’t hire anyone without knowing what they’re actually going to do, what they need to do.
Fletcher:
Let me just stop you right there. What percentage of your clients come to you, say, “I really need help hiring and just fixing our hiring process or our messaging.” And you go to them and you say, “Okay, can you please send me your job description.” What percentage of them have one?
Katrina:
Well, what’s funny is I ask people for the job positing, the marketing document. They send me the job description. Signature line and everything. I’m like, “Compliance is not sexy, guys. Compliance is not going to …”
Fletcher:
Okay. They’re missing the posting. They send you the boring JD, job description. Go on. Step two is what?
Katrina:
Step two is a job posting. This is what you see on Indeed. What you read right before you apply that helps you decide if you should apply to that job. Many people, like you said, intermix. They just use the job description as the job posting and call it good. No. The job posting should be something that’s nice to read, that just gets someone to go, “Yeah, I think I could do it.” They don’t need to know everything. They don’t need to know everything about the company and need to know everything about the job. Minimum requirements go in that. That is a marketing conversation. It’s a good, written something that makes them go, “Yeah. All right. I’m in.”
Fletcher:
Okay.
Katrina:
Then, the last phase is a job ad. A job ad is what you do to market that. This could be a tweet, an email blast. Whatever you do to push that job posting out to people besides job boards.
Fletcher:
Besides job boards.
Katrina:
Besides job boards.
Fletcher:
The job boards are a form of advertising, though?
Katrina:
They are a form of advertising. However, I would not call taking your job posting and sitting it on Monster transforming it into a job ad. There’s not much transformation that happens there.
Fletcher:
Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. That’s always been a pet peeve of mine, so I always try to make sure we use the right language there. I’ve got one last question. I’ll just put these two major scenarios. I was going to talk about this earlier, but I think we’ve covered so many awesome things. This is a good way to probably wrap things up.
Fletcher:
Two biggest problems that people always say to me is … They complain, they say, “I’m not getting enough applicants.” Just the quantity of applicants, especially qualified ones. Or, they say, “I’m getting way too many applicants, and most of them are completely irrelevant.”
Katrina:
Yeah.
Fletcher:
Do you experience the same thing? Is there another big issue that you see that I’m missing?
Katrina:
Those are the big use cases.
Fletcher:
The common ones, right?
Katrina:
Yeah. I think the other one is, “I used to get a lot of volume on my job, and now I’m not getting any.”
Fletcher:
Oh, yeah. Especially these days with unemployment being records lows. Especially a lot of metros. There are certain metros that are below two percent, or below two and a half percent. There are certain areas.
Katrina:
Right.
Fletcher:
Okay. Those three. How do we solve those problems?
Katrina:
Man, if I knew that I would be a millionaire somewhere. I have been trying to solve that problem. I swear, I have been trying to figure that out since 2000 and something.
Fletcher:
Yeah.
Katrina:
Hiring is and always will be hard. It just is what is it is. But I think from here out, it’s how we manage the variables.
Fletcher:
What do you say to these people who say, “Just solve that problem, make it go away.” Obviously, it’s not something that I think anybody can solve. I don’t know. You do a lot of research in the HR tech space, and know a lot of the players. You haven’t found anybody that you think has obviously completely eliminated that problem, right?
Katrina:
I wish. Yeah.
Fletcher:
In any way, shape, or form. Obviously, there’s lots of ways to manage it and to maybe help and assist. How do you get people, then, to come back to earth on that in these matters, then?
Katrina:
Yeah. I think it’s about understanding what good looks like and working backwards from there, instead of trying to shoot from the hip and address a lot of little issues at once. I always tell people, “If we were sitting here …” Just like we were talking about the candidates, “Six months down the road, and we just had the best time, you wanted to tell everyone you know about how awesome our work was. What happened?” People can do that for themselves. In six months, what has to happen for me to go, “Man, I did it. Pat, pat. Toot my own horn. I rocked this.” Work backwards from that.
Fletcher:
Maybe set metrics, then, essentially, right? If I’m not getting enough, then how many more would I like to get, realistically? Or measure my improvement if I’m getting 30 candidates. If I got to 45 in a month, I could say I made a 50% improvement, even though 45 is not a whole lot more than 30, at least we made a difference.
Katrina:
Totally.
Fletcher:
All right. Last thing. One two three key takeaways that we could use tomorrow to improve our hiring efforts.
Katrina:
Yep. Number one, always have a goal in mind before you do a project.
Fletcher:
Okay. Goal in mind.
Katrina:
Know where you want to end up.
Fletcher:
Got to do that.
Katrina:
Number two, don’t write a thing without a person in mind. Always think of someone when you’re writing, because when you start to think of a human and not a company, things start to sound better. Because my company is “Three Ears”, I have to give you at least three things, right?
Katrina:
I’ll say the third thing is, if you haven’t figured out video yet, you need to start figuring it out because that is the way that the audience of the future will consume information.
Fletcher:
I love it. You really do endorse video. I was really curious your opinion on that. I love it. Yeah. Have a goal in mind. Metrics go a long way. I love number two. I think that’s the one we all forget the most. Have a person in mind. You’re talking to other human beings, not to robots. And yeah, video is probably a great way of doing that, humanizing it better.
Fletcher:
Katrina, this has been awesome. I really, really appreciate your insight. You do fantastic work. When I came across some of the stuff you’ve done, I’ve never seen anybody do anything like it out there in the marketplace. I highly encourage anybody who’s in HR, in recruitment, who’s trying to do a better job of communicating to their candidates and to other people in their universe that … Reach out to Katrina. She has got it. She understands it. It’s a very unique perspective we don’t hear enough of in this HR space. I really appreciate it. Thank you for your time today, Katrina.
Katrina:
I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.
Fletcher:
Have a good one. Bye-bye.
Katrina:
You too.
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