Recruiting Post Pandemic, Not Getting Any Easier

This is an eye-opening conversation with Robbie Reck a seasoned recruiter and owner of a boutique executive recruiting firm. Things in the world of staffing are constantly changing but it never makes the job easier, conversation with hiring managers and businesses continue to get more complex as does navigating the ever-changing wage battles and so much more. Join us for another great episode!

 

Leighann Lovely  00:20

HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely, let's get this conversation started.

 

Leighann Lovely  01:09

I have a great guest joining me today, Robbie Reck. He is the founder of Kilbourn Marshall, a boutique executive recruiting firm right here in the Milwaukee market. His firm specializes in finance, sales and C-level searches nationwide, especially confidential ones, his primary client base is privately held, or private equity owned companies with either headquarters or a location here in the Wisconsin market. I'm really excited to talk with him today. You know, there's no one that knows the pains, that employers are feeling better than, you know, people who are in the thick of it. And I'm really excited to hear from him.

 

Leighann Lovely  01:54

Robbie, thank you so much for joining me today.

 

Robbie Reck  01:57

Thank you for having me.

 

Leighann Lovely  01:59

Why don't you start off by telling me a little bit about yourself.

 

Robbie Reck  02:03

Alright, so since the audience is business owners and HR professionals will skip to the part where I got into recruiting. So that would be January of 2011. So I am just about to hit 12 full years in recruiting. My degree was in finance. So automatic isn't. So I'm proud badger. But I only spent about a little less than four years doing finance itself. I was in a rotational program at Brady. So I did, I supported a sales and marketing team from finance standpoint, a distribution team tax, which was out of my ballpark. And then internal audit. So I finished the rotational program early that I supported an r&d team directly, or oversaw about $40 million in spend across the world, so that was that was the US, Europe and Asia. And then I also indirectly supported our mergers and acquisitions. I made it through the recession in 2008, without getting laid off. But really quickly saw how brutal It was to be on the other side of the desk. And, you know, the folks that were above the line or below the line on those layoffs, I mean, that that's those are bumbled decisions. And from one day to the next, those decisions change, depending on how we're looking at numbers. So I knew that I never wanted to be in that situation that I saw so many folks in and I've published articles on you know, about this, and how that really shaped how I got to, you know, be in the position I'm in today. But ended up I tried to start a company back in 2010. That failed miserably. I thought it'd be easy to run a landscaping business in when people did not have disposable income. That was a terrible decision. Learn from that. But I essentially had to tuck my tail between my legs, coming back to corporate America, where when you leave to start your own company, I really did feel like I was blacklisted. You know, I think everyone wants that entrepreneurial spirit. But when you actually are willing to leave and you show that there's so much fear in in hiring you back into a finance function. So I went to an executive recruiter sat down with them was looking for a finance job at the time. Like I said, tail tucked in between my legs, super modest, super humble at the time, and ended up being asked if I wanted to actually help people within finance and accounting find their next jobs and I had done sales as an internship and I was very successful at it. Top 15 in the country when I was in college for a really well known sales, internship, great training, you know, phenomenal training. But that was door to door business to business sales. That was That was brutal. But that's so I got into recruiting in January of 2011. When, at the time, we were still like a skeleton crew, there was not a lot of hiring, happening yet in 2011. And, you know, I was I was able to kind of ride that wave of the candidate market getting tighter and tighter and tighter. And honestly, it did that until the pandemic hit. Yep. That then 10 million people got laid off. And I had people crying on the phone, just saying, How do I get through this? You know, how do I keep my job safe? I think we all you know, instinctively know instinctively know what, what to do to keep our job safe, to the extent that we can. But then once we and I don't know if I would say we recovered from the pandemic, but I mean, that pendulum swung back incredibly hard to the candidate side. And there's so much leverage on the candidate side. Now, it just went back to what it was pre pandemic, and it's only continuing to get tighter. So, you know, I've just seen this, you know, continual contraction of the candidate market. And I'm based here, I'm based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. So most of my clients are here.

 

Leighann Lovely  06:33

So something that you said, first, you know, a recruiter, not 12 years in the industry. It's Bobby. Yeah, yeah. So most recruiters, you know, that know, you would say, your your life or you're never gonna get out. And even if you try, even if you try to get out, you will, you will somehow be sucked back in. And it's just, it's just the nature of the industry. Once you get sucked in, and you become successful at it. There's no turning back. There's no way to get out. I've tried to leave. I can't. Yeah, I always somehow end up back in where I started, and I started. Well, I would date myself, you know, I've gotten almost 20 year I started almost 20 years ago. So

 

Robbie Reck  07:16

So is it because it's lucrative? Is that why people say that?

 

Leighann Lovely  07:19

I don't know. No, because when I started, it was not necessarily lucrative. I mean, if you think what, almost 18 years ago, I walked into a manpower with the same thought of can you help me find a job? And they said,

 

Robbie Reck  07:34

So you had, you had a similar like, start to how you got into recruiting how you volunteer? I was yes,

 

Leighann Lovely  07:39

I was actually going to school at that time for computer programming. And I walked in and they said, Well, why don't you come and work for us while you go to school? And I thought, okay, but this was, this was a light industrial manpower. Okay, so this was not a professional manpower. This was a out in middle of nowhere. You in a little tiny town. Well, you would know what it is. And, you know, most of my listeners are gonna die. Um, no, it was in Watertown. You know, Wisconsin, and, you know, not like it's by the big city or anything. It's right smack dab in between Milwaukee and Madison. So it's pretty much know, where, and they should

 

Robbie Reck  08:20

So hard to recruit they're,

 

Leighann Lovely  08:21

oh my God, it was horrible.

 

Robbie Reck  08:23

Because it's a it's in between two candidate pools. And no one was neither candidate pool wants to drive the 45 minutes to get there. Yeah, right. Like, there's that and then same thing in between Milwaukee, Chicago, pleasant prairie is incredibly tough to recruit for, right?

 

Leighann Lovely  08:37

So they come work for us and and I got my first taste of who I get to help these people. These people come in, desperate to find a job and I get to help them I get to, and then they get, they come back. And they're like, so grateful. And so it's in the beginning, it wasn't about it wasn't about the money, because what I think I was making, like, at that time, I mean, it was like $12 an hour, which was no, remember, this was 18 years ago. And I thought, Wow, I'm doing a pretty good job. You know, I'm making some decent, you know, I can pay, you know, my, my rent was 435 a month. I mean, like, Danny myself, yeah,

 

Robbie Reck  09:23

I remember having I remember having a one bedroom that was $500 a month and then when I started this business, I had to go so in 2018, I went from a one bedroom apartment down to a studio to make sure that I would have enough money so that I could actually stay you know, in a position where I didn't have to go back and work for someone again, because I just had no idea. Would my clients follow me after a one year non compete? But ya know, that's, oh, man. I lived on Prospect. Prospect Avenue for years in the like, $500 a month. You know, one bedroom Was that now there? I think they're right. You can't touch that.

 

Leighann Lovely  10:04

Right? No, you can't. Even my little tiny I mean, this apartment was was itty bitty. I mean, it was. But so no. But now it's now you get into recruiting. And I mean, you're talking about some of the salaries just for a professional recruiter. I mean, it's insane. So it is because everybody knows and understands the struggles now, they're starting to get some of those struggles to find hire. Because it's, and correct me if I'm wrong, but there was a time where, you know, you could apply online for a position and there was only five, maybe four people who applied. Now, there are hundreds of people applying to these positions electronically, that aren't qualified. And it takes, yeah, it takes that employer, they don't even have time to go through it. So instead of paying in stead of paying the cost of having that they just go to a recruiter and say, just do it for me, hand me somebody who meets the qualifications. Interview them. And you know, but there's also problems with that, that I'm sure we'll get into here in a second. But before we do, so you started with a company recruiting. And now, fast forward and how long has it been that you've been out on your own with Kilbourne martial.

 

Robbie Reck  11:45

So I started Kilbourn Marshall in October of 2018. So, we've, we've passed the four year mark. And we're working on our fifth year, but you know, it was 2019 was a noncompete. Year, so didn't do didn't do much business 2019 2020 ended up being a banner year 2021 was a little bit slower, but then 2022, blue 2020 out of the water. So it's one of those things where, like, you just don't know what the market is going to hold. Because I like going into the pandemic I had closed, I think I closed a deal in January a deal in February, and I had like, 50 grand in Billings, through two months. I was like, Alright, this is it's a decent start. You know, I'm on track for you know, what, 300 that year? And I was like, Okay, I'm, I'm happy with where I'm at. And then the pandemic hit, essentially, like, well, I'm talking, like, I called my clients on St. Patrick's Day, and said, Hey, are we still good? Every single client said, Yes, we're good. This is not going to impact anything. And within a week, I had no more searches, I was worried they just the faucet turned off in a week. And luckily, it turned back on six weeks later, for me, at least for what I do. But But I had to pivot. So we talked about how my degree was in finance from 2011 to 2018. I did nothing other than finance and accounting searches in the Wisconsin market. So that was that was the only those are the only searches that I could do. I had done some sales searches, but it was really like internal. So I had I had placed a rookie of the year for us when I was at one company, and then I placed another guy who is now if he's not the top sales recruiter, at my last firm in the country, he's top three. And he's bringing in over a million dollars a year. And he had never, you know, these folks hadn't recruited in the past. But I never wanted to put my name on folks in sales, because I was so worried because I knew from my finance background, that 40% of salespeople get fired every year. And as a as an executive recruiter. So the way that I do business, I want 95 to 100% of my placements to be there five years. Right. So I'm not looking for, you know, 90 days, you know, getting through the guarantee period. I want candidates and clients going into every relationship, eyes wide open, knowing good, bad and ugly about each other. Right. And if one of them walked, if either party wants to walk away, I just want to walk away. And I like I'm very, very clear with candidates and say, Hey, like if this is not the right fit for you. My job is then to go find someone else that feels like it's the right fit. So I tell candidates, I'm not going to sell you sell the company to you, and I'm not going to sell the candidate to the company either. I'd like my job, in my opinion, is to make introductions, and if there's not a good fit there, I need to go out and find more introductions to me. ache, I don't want to. I don't want to force anything, because that's when you start getting folks that don't make it to their five year anniversary.

 

Leighann Lovely  15:11

Well, and that's the recruiter, that's the kind of firm that you want to work with. But it's got to be, you've got to find the right marriage on both ends, right? You've got to you got to make sure that one you're working with a company that gives a shit about the, by the people that they're hiring, otherwise, they're just going to continue to spit out employees, because employees are going to start there.

 

Robbie Reck  15:32

Yeah, And we're super low volume. So as a boutique firm, or I'm not doing I won't take on more than 10 searches at a time. So we, we will never be spread too thin. You know, I've been on teams where we've had so many job orders, and I've talked to recruiting leaders at not even competitive firms, but other you know, outside recruiting firms. I've got, I've got a buddy that had 15 recruiters made 1000 job orders. You just there was there's no way to be able, you know, those 15 recruiters to be assigned to? I don't, I think that comes out to you know, 60, 70 some, oh, I've ordered, you can't

 

Leighann Lovely  16:16

During my my heyday and you know when I was doing at one time I was with, and it's not it doesn't even exist anymore. I was with HR first it was a division of Kelly Services that I carried the highest rec load of I think I anywhere from 65, up to up to 75 racks at any given time. Yeah. And that

 

Robbie Reck  16:44

When did you feel like paralyzed like you didn't know what to work on first?

 

Leighann Lovely  16:47

No, but I was also the Energizer Bunny at this time. I, I was one of those people, because after I've, you know, I fell into recruiting, I switched my degree from computer program. And this was so I should have just finished it because I one class short of my associate's degree in computer programming, and I'm like, I'm not going to do it, I should have. But I so I switched my degree to my, you know, my bachelor's degree in business with an emphasis in human resource management. gunho, I took my work home, I went through all of my, you know, applicants at home. And then I knew the next day had come in Call, call call call set up interview, interview, interview interview. And, you know, I was actually recruiting for GE. And at that time, I didn't have to do a whole lot of sourcing at that time. So it was just interviewing and qualifying. And everybody wanted to work for GE and this was sensing FANTIC. These were all high level, you know, highly technical, you know, type roles. And my number one and this is the funny thing. My number one thing that I like to recruit for was salespeople.

 

Robbie Reck  17:54

Hmm, yeah. So that's where I was, that's where I was going with this is once the pandemic hit. My clients said, Hey, I don't care that you're my finance recruiter. We don't need people to cut costs. Right now, we've already done that. That was the that was the easy part. They're like, but I just lost 25% of my revenue 35, 45% my revenue, I need salespeople. And in my mind goes, like I said, I made that like those that 50, 50 grand in Billings going into COVID. In the first couple months, I thought I was going to have to kind of pivot to like outplacement helping executives that got laid off, like I thought that was going to be a possible pivot or at least an avenue. And then I ended up getting pulled into all of the sales searches, sales and leadership were the two things that that were needed. And, you know, during the pandemic, and you know, ended up having to work, you know, nights and weekends, I was probably putting in close to 80 hours a week, and, you know, for three straight months. And, you know, it was I was grateful just to have the business, to be honest. Because I just did there was so much uncertainty still, like early in, you know, 2020, like mid 2020, early in the pandemic just didn't know, when the music was going to stop. And you know, it really hasn't. I mean, I've seen you have such a tight labor market. I'm sure that's something that you want to know, a little bit. Well, what does that look like for employers?

 

Leighann Lovely  19:29

Yeah, it's I mean, and the question, I'm sure that you get you. I get anybody who's in the HR, the hiring the where are all the people, where are all the people? You know, I am, I've gotten to the point where I'm like, somebody asked me that question, especially if my husband's around. I'm like, somehow, I don't know, have an emergency and pull me away. I'm so tired of answering that

 

Robbie Reck  19:54

Well, it's somewhat of an easy answer to the demographics in the US. We just don't don't have, like everyone wants to continue to make the profits that were made when we had baby boomers. And millennials in the, in the job market, we just we don't we're losing, you know, pre pandemic, we were losing 10,000 Baby Boomers to retirement a day, right? And then a bunch of them took early retirement. So now, you know, and for every, every three, that three baby boomers that were retiring or leaving the job market, we only have one millennial, or Gen Z to replace them,

 

Leighann Lovely  20:35

Right? And they were expecting, they were expecting that we were going to have a baby boom, another baby boom. And we we didn't know. So you know, my girlfriend said it to me boss, she says Leanne, either the pandemic is going to create a whole lot of babies, or a whole lot of divorces. And I laughed at her and I said that. Right? I laughed at her. I said, Oh, no. And then I went, That's Oh, that that is probably really true, people are going to be stuck in their houses together. Yeah. And they're going to have to find a way to pass the time. So either they're going to have babies or cover your cover your kids ears, any parents who are listening. So either they're going to have babies, or they're going to end up really, really, really disliking each other in some way or another because you're stuck in your house. Like, what, you know, I can't wait to have my girl time and I love my family. But man after, you know, two straight days with them, I'm like, I want to go to work. I want you to go to work and I want you to go to school,

 

Robbie Reck  21:43

Absence, absence definitely makes the heart grow fonder. Yes. No, I'm, I'm a firm believer in space, and so in, in intentionally creating that space to make sure that you don't, you know, fizzle out,

 

Leighann Lovely  21:57

Right? It's about it's about mental health, and everybody needs to have an outlet that is only for themselves. It's, I mean, well, maybe maybe a five year old doesn't, but I'm sorry. I digress. Okay, so that question the Where did all the people go? It drove me crazy for so long, which leads me into, you know, this next kind of, you know, little tidbit or discussion, you know, employers, you know, come to have come to me have, I'm sure come to you and they want to be able to hire somebody, after somebody has left. They want to be able to hire somebody that is as qualified as the person who just left that position. And it does happen. But it is becoming more and more of a rarity to be able to hire somebody in those high level, those even sometimes mid level positions. Because during the pandemic, and even still, after the pandemic, we continue to have the highly skilled individuals because of age, often, many of them retired. I also saw many people become entrepreneur entrepreneurs, they had no other option of well, I've got to find a way to make money, I'm going to become an entrepreneur, I'm going to do my own thing. So we've seen all of these highly skilled individuals leave the market go out on their own. And so in now, employers are going well, no, no, no. I want to hire somebody who's got the same skill set as the person who just exited my company. Okay. Can you train somebody? Well, no, I don't have time for training. Yeah.

 

Robbie Reck  23:59

So I, I'll give you one. So just this week, I had a kickoff call. So we take anywhere from probably in a normal week, anywhere between one and three new searches on is a pretty average week for us. So we had one this week. And early early on in the call, I just shut it down. Because the the hiring manager described, yeah, I always asked, you know, what are the three things you need to see on a resume? And the first thing he wanted was direct experience from a competitor was like, Alright, no problem. How many direct competitors do you have within 50 miles? Oh, there's one. Okay. All right. I'm gonna do you have within 100 miles, there's two more. So there's a total of three companies. And I said, let me let me just stop this here. And I said, I'm, in the 12 years I've been doing this. I just don't. I stopped going out beyond 50 miles in terms of like a driving radius. was just not interesting.

 

Leighann Lovely  24:58

Was he willing to pay relocation?

 

Robbie Reck  25:02

Um, yeah, I think so. The other thing, but the other thing like I, I also don't relocate candidates, right? So that's, it just adds so much risk to the placement where like now it's not okay if, if that employee is doing they could be doing phenomenally well at their job. They love it, the employer loves it. But then now you have Okay, now, did that spouse not acclimate to the community? Did the kids not acclimate to the schools? And does that employee now have, you know, a spouse and kids in their ear saying, I just don't want to be here anymore, I want to move back to where our family is, I want to move back to our old community, because we all know, especially in this environment, when someone takes a new job, they're there, they're definitely going to get a counteroffer when when they put in their notice, if they're worth their salt, at all right, right, which is the people that I'm posting, right, right, I'm only working with passive candidates for the most part, I would say, as an executive recruiter, at five or more percent of our candidates are currently employed, we, we definitely have candidates who are in between jobs, but it's, it's the exception, not the rule. So they're gonna get a counteroffer from their current employer, and then once they start in their new job, that could that previous employer, as long as that job is still open, they are going to plant seeds in that old co workers head. And they're going to try to get them to come back. So I don't, I don't like to take the risk of relocating. So our ideal would be, you know, if we can find someone within 10 Miles Great. here in Milwaukee, like if it's a bigger candidate pool, people aren't going to go like, we typically don't go beyond 25 miles because it's about a 30 minute commute. But rural, this was a rural search. So I was willing to go up to 50 miles, and had to just shut this, you know, the conversation down really, really quickly. Because I said, I just don't think we can, we're gonna be able to deliver, if you only want to see candidates coming out of one company within 50 miles of you, I said, that's, you know, we'll grab enough calm enough information here. So that we can find the few folks that are at that direct competitor. And we will we'll go after them for the next three weeks. But can I get a commitment from you that three weeks from now, you answer my next question, which is, like if we can't find someone from our direct competitor that has that really niche experience, because this was a leadership role. This is, you know, six figure role. I think they were a number, probably a number two, or number three, you know, in the line in terms of, you know, highest level at that plant. And I said, I want to have a comment, I want a commitment from you for three weeks from now, to give me what I expect we're going to need is if we can't find someone from a direct competitor, what is that next person look like? Right? What can you work with? And what what does that profile look like, of someone who has potential that you would train? And he knows what that is? He wasn't willing to share it with me this week. So we'll you know, we'll we'll circle back in three weeks, because I just don't expect when we can only call on, you know, one company within 50 miles. I mean, I've done I've done jobs, I've done searches in Milwaukee, where there were legitimately 10 Total candidates that were qualified to do that job. And I was able to get three of those individuals to interview and placed one of them. But that those are those stories that you tell because they're exceptions like that. That is, I mean, you can't expect that to happen. Normally, so I try to be a realist and just say, hey, you know, if we can't deliver for you, I don't want you setting expectations that you you're going to see a lot of resumes from us because even in a normal search, my goal right now is one, two, and I'm probably a maximum of three candidates for an entire search. Because our filter is just so high we we go after such a targeted skill set and we we know how to ask the right questions, to know how you know how to target the right candidate and find that right mix of this is going to get us the right candidate, but it's not too it's not the parameters aren't too tight where we're not going to have any candidates that we can talk to. But, you know, even even when we get what we feel is a comfortable parameter for a search. You know, right now we're delivering usually two resumes, maybe a third. That's that's kind of what it looks like today in 2015, I would have been able to deliver a candidate slate of five in a week with ease, and I could commit to that.

 

Leighann Lovely  30:18

And what is your what is your response to that employer? When they say, when you've delivered this amazing candidate? They've interviewed, they come back. Yeah, I loved them. They were great. But we're not we're not ready to make that decision. Yeah, we're not we want to see more. Yeah, we want to see just maybe one or two more. Yeah. And you're relying

 

Robbie Reck  30:41

And you kown what? For the most part, I don't fight it too much. Because like I said, I don't I don't sell candidates to employers, and I don't sell employers to candidates. So if they are not ready to pull the trigger. I want I tried to respect that as long as I can. Right. But I do. I'm very clear with them that hey, if you want to wait, the risk is the candidate is going to move on? Right? The candidates have so many opportunities in the market today. Correct? Right? We're as as employers, everyone is fighting over scraps, right? We're, we're, we are the eight candidates today. We were calling the candidates three years ago. Right? Right. But we have to pay them like they're eight players.

 

Leighann Lovely  31:32

And it's and it's wildly frustrating when you know, because I I've been in your situation where I'm the salesperson going, No, you don't get it. This is the best candidate, I'm not holding back on you. I'm not keeping a better one in my back pocket. So that I can wow, you at the end. This is the best candidates. And they're like, Yeah, boss.

 

Robbie Reck  31:59

Yeah, most of my contracts are contingent base intentionally. So we'll do we'll do some money upfront, depending on the level of search, right? If it's going to be, you know, 150. and above, in terms of base salary, I'm probably gonna want some money down on that. But I try to stay away from pure retained searches, because it just adds stress. But I don't think needs to be there. Because I want clients to be able to walk away from us, and I want us to be able to offer from clients if, if it's not the right fit. So I, the majority of what I'm doing is contingent based, and partly so that I don't have to worry so much like if they, if they want to walk away from a candidate or let them die on the vine. Like that's, that's really their choice. And all I can do for the most part is say, hey, you know, I will let you know, as soon as that candidate has other opportunities, but even if they don't have other opportunities, you know, we've got a candidate right now where the candidate is truly the front runner in the search. But they interviewed, let's say, probably 45 days ago, they did their first kind of first and second interviews. And now they're going back in for their third, they're, you know, kind of like the onsite next step in the process. But we waited. And, you know, the client wanted to wait 3045 days to see what else was out there in the market as benchmarks. So now this candidate is still the front runner, but those 30 to 45 days turn into doubt. Right, so corral. Now we've got someone who's, you know, worried about, were they really not excited about me, because it seems like, you know, they were waiting for someone else, when in fact that the candidate has been the front runner the entire time. But you just never trust that. So, as recruiters, we can't even, we can't even say that because we know we're not going to be trusted. We just have to say, you know, hey, they are excited about you. You will we'll get you on the phone with them. So you can hear that's the other thing that we try to do is is not deliver any news ourselves. I want a candidate to hear from that hiring manager. how confident they are in them, right? So because hearing it from third party just does I mean, it just does nothing I wouldn't trust getting feedback through a third party. I want to hear it firsthand cuz I want to know, did their sound did their voice sound confident when they're saying what they said? Or was it trembling and were they struggling to like deliver and they believe what they're saying,

 

Leighann Lovely  34:44

well, and recruiters get a bad rap, because the managers one we have a certain recruiters and the salespeople the account managers have a certain amount of confidentiality that they have to hold on behalf of that company. They can't run back to the candidate and say A Well, they're just they're going to interview all of these other people so that they can match you up and see if they really like you and and make sure that you're still the front row. I mean, you can't you can't tell the candidate that you have to really be.

 

Robbie Reck  35:11

We try to be as transparent as possible. I, you know, we share with candidates way more than I think most people would be comfortable with and we share with with clients or with hiring managers, way more than most people would be comfortable with. What you're saying about confidentiality, we do a ton of confidential searches. And part of that is

 

Leighann Lovely  35:31

I was going to ask you that

 

Robbie Reck  35:33

We've got to, we've got a process where we feel comfortable. So even with despite how difficult it is to find candidates today, we feel confident going to the market without being able to say, this is exactly where it's located. This is the exact name of the client, or this is the exact sector that they're in and, and still deliver a candidate slate of that two to three candidates that are are all higher. So when I say two to three candidates, I mean, two to three candidates who deserve that job and are qualified and worth, you know, a 30% fee. Right, right, not not just a warm body. I would rather send zero resumes, than send someone who's off target for what we're going for

 

Leighann Lovely  36:23

Right, No. And I think that the majority of people who take pride in the work that they do, would rather send nobody, then send somebody who is going to, okay, yeah, you're lose me a client or lose a client, right?

 

Robbie Reck  36:39

Absolutely unwilling to violate the trust of a hiring manager by by not listening to what they said, Now, I will push as much as I can, during that conversation to say, hey, I don't what you're describing, I don't think exists. So we need to loosen those parameters, I will be very assertive at that point. But once we've come to an agreement as a hiring manager, and then us as the outside recruiting firm, once we've taken on that search, I am unwilling to say, you know, hey, we're, I'm just going to send this over. I know, it's I know, the candidate just does not have really good tenure. But you know, trust me, I just, I don't really, I'm not going to violate the trust of the hiring manager. If they've told me, Hey, I need a, b and c and a candidate only has D. And that's it, I would not be doing my job, right. And I would just get I would be fired, I wouldn't be able to represent that company, and open the doors for the candidates moving forward.

 

Leighann Lovely  37:44

But that's also a conversation that you have to have up front with. And I've had that conversation with multiple clients before of Look, you're saying that you absolutely need a, b and c. Now let me ask you a question. If I presented a case, or if I came up with a candidate that had a B, but was missing C? Are you telling me that that's 100%? off the table? And if they say Well, no, then it's like, okay, wait a second, we need to go back to square one. Yeah. So often, so often, all of a sudden, when you go, Yeah, they'll have a, b, and c, but what if they don't have the master's degree? They have the bachelor's degree with a certification, and then they go, Well, that would be enough. Okay, well, then we need to get clear on what you really want.

 

Robbie Reck  38:24

Yeah, and every search is dynamic, right? So I do think, you know, as, as candidates get into the process, and as hiring managers meet what the market bears, they can there, they might increase what they're looking for, right? They might say, Wow, I was really blown away by that candidate. Now, I want some of the things that they bring to the table that I wasn't even thinking of, and their list gets longer, unfortunately. Right. But, you know, and I guess now that I'm thinking of it, I don't really think that goes the other direction. But, you know, we do know

 

Leighann Lovely  39:02

No and that's missing. And that's not necessarily true, though. I've had I had a hiring manager telling me that for a customer service, position, customer service position, they were answering the phone and taking notes told me that this person had to have a bachelor's degree. Okay. And I'm like, and I mean, the salary, the salary was going to be like 45, or something like that, if that I mean, and it had to have a bachelor's degree, so 45,000 a year with a bachelor's degree. And I basically told them, it's never gonna happen. I'm not going to find a customer service person. Because if you look at the statistics on how many individuals nowadays have bachelor's degrees, that number is way below 50 percents and people coming out in the market right now. I mean, you know, you know that 50,000 years is like, it's like $25 an hour, people are demanding in $20 an hour to work at McDonald's or it's like 18 or something. So to say, 45,000 a year with a bachelor's degree. You can see my face, I'm making a face, but it's just not. It's just not feasible. So, you know, they're, you know, I had to go back and have a conversation and be like, sorry,

 

Robbie Reck  40:26

Yeah, well, we'll, we'll do that. But we will do that upfront, we're not going to do that by sending a candidate who's a stretch without saying, but like, I guess, if we're going to send a stretch candidate, we're going to say, right up front, hey, they don't have this thing that you mentioned. And save them the time of reading the resume, or the write up? If, if that is truly going to be a deal breaker. But usually, we're going to know what those deal breakers are, before we get out of it before we actually accept a search. And get out of that initial call. Yep.

 

Leighann Lovely  41:05

Yeah, no. And I, you know, my hope is that, obviously, I never want to put somebody in a job that they're not capable of doing. That is not my goal, as an interviewer, you know, as somebody who works in somebody who works to try to figure out how to help companies, hire, train, retain all of those things. However, I think that companies nowadays have to understand that we're not living in 2015 1617, eight. We're not in that world or in that market anymore. There has to be a new approach.

 

Robbie Reck  41:46

Yeah I haven't? I haven't seen that mindset really changed yet. So I think there is, I think there's lip service that it has changed, right, I think a lot of people will say that they understand how tight of a candidate market is and how the candidate has all the leverage. However, the behaviors that we still have, as hiring managers and companies, dates back to the 2008 recession, right? Where you had you truly had 500 people applying for jobs that were and you had 10 people that were highly qualified for what you wanted. And you just had, you could just pick one, right? So that that started getting tighter and tighter and tighter every single year since, with the exception of let's call it 12 monster in the pandemic. And then went right, you know, the rubber band snapped right back to where it was pre pandemic cracks. But yeah, we don't have we have not gotten to the point where employers have really said, you know, what, I can wrap my head around, that the B players that I used to consider as B players are now what the market is valuing as a players and I have to pay them at as such, that I hear them say that they understand it, but I don't really see that in terms of their behaviors and their attitudes yet. And it still could be coming out. You know, I've heard, I don't know if you've heard of the all in podcast, but a guy that I really respect by the name of Chamath talked through how inflation is was really like a three year cycle. So our first year was energy inflation. And we all saw that last year was the inflation of goods and services because of the energy inflation the year before right. Now, I think a lot of folks are thinking, Well, we do have a recession coming up. And you know, inflation is going to go away because of that. But his prediction is that we're going to have wage inflation as the third phase of the inflationary cycle. So energy inflation went down was replaced by goods and services, inflation. But now as goods and services start to decline in price, wages are going to just take up that vacuum in 2023. So I don't I'm interested to see how that plays out. Because I, you know, wages already went up on average 30, you know, from what I saw in the transactions we did last year 30 35%.

 

Leighann Lovely  44:36

And, and I felt like for a long time that there was going to be a balance on that. But since since, right, but since there is continually so many jobs open, and so few people quality, high quality, skilled people to fill those jobs. I'm now realizing it's not going to balance out because people are Still fighting to be extremely competitive and get, you know, those individuals to come and work for them. So I think now, now, I'm thinking No, there is not going to be a balance of wages right now. And I think that that prediction is right, that there's going to continue to be the inflation, you know, of wages. I mean, it's bizarre it is.

 

Robbie Reck  45:19

It's weird, because I started, like, I knew there was uncertainty in the stock market, at least starting almost 12 months ago, it was probably a March, April of last year, you know, I, there are enough people out, you know, speaking publicly that at something had to happen in the stock market and the economy. So, as a recruiter, I was kind of waiting for the the the other shoe to drop to drop in terms of layoffs hitting the Midwest, or the, you know, the US in general. And so far, a lot of those layoffs have really hit the tech sector, they've hit the coasts, they haven't hit the Midwest as hard yet. And that's really where, you know, the wage inflation pressure would be taken off is if if we have if we have layoffs, that'll take pressure off, because there's gonna be more candidates and the candidates won't have as much leverage. Correct and you never problem is in the Midwest. We're it's not a very service oriented workforce. It's a it's a manufacturing workforce. Right. And the, the need for those products, that demand is not really going anywhere yet.

 

Leighann Lovely  46:34

Right. You're right. I mean, we're we're majority of the manufacturing is still catching up to I mean,

 

Robbie Reck  46:46

There's untapped demand. You know, I've got clients that, you know, we'll sit down with and they'll say, I've got one to two years of backlog, correct. That I could take advantage of, if I can hire these enough folks to take advantage of it. But I can't even go after that business yet. Right. It's just, it's just built in demand. It's latent demand, potential demand, right? There's just so much business that could be done. And we don't have the workforce that can support.

 

Leighann Lovely  47:20

Think about the car industry. Think about the backlog on that. And I'd love to continue this conversation, because I'm, like, so intrigued in it. But I know that we are coming to time, and I want to respect that. So I have the question of the season. What would you change about your job or the practice that people have in your role?

 

Robbie Reck  47:38

Yeah, this is an easy one for me. So when I, when I started my own firm in 2018, I put in my contracts, and I thought this was going to be something that was going to be really impactful in the market was if I, if I take an employee, as a as an executive recruiter that you trust, I poached one of your employees after I play someone with you. Right, I thought that was a cardinal sin. And I still do. And we don't do that, as a firm, I don't do that. Personally, my, the people that work for me Don't do that. I thought putting it in a contract, I was going to be able to charge a premium for that. Because that's the biggest thing that I hear hiring managers complain about is, I have a relationship with a recruiter, and then eventually they violate that trust, and they steal someone from me. And when I when I put my money where my mouth was and said, Hey, if we ever do that, I'll just hand the fee that we earned to you to make sure that we're never incentivized. And that will never happen to you. And what I what, what shocked me in the market was our, our employers in the Wisconsin market here just didn't care enough. So they complain about it. But when it comes to, are you going to pay five or 10% more in terms of a fee? No, they're not going to do that. So that was that was an interesting test. But that would be the one thing that if we could take it away from the recruiting world, there'd be so much more trust in the recruiters that you use. And obviously, there's there's a lot of recruiters that are out there that have been doing this for, you know, 10 or 20 years that have that trust already built up, right. But the folks that are just getting into recruiting where they're, you know, three, six months in, they haven't built those relationships, yet. They have to deal with this stigma of some of the recruiters are bad actors. And because they weren't making them their numbers, they cut corners and took employees from their clients and violated that trust and loss or those accounts. But in some cases, they don't even lose the accounts. They just aren't trusted, and then they're, you know, now they don't have an exclusive relationship with that company anymore. Right? And then they don't have the trust. So that would be the biggest thing that I would change is Can we get some trust back into the, into the administration? Yeah, as a as an external recruiter, but, you know, all I can do is, you know, control that within our own firm and make sure that we never do that. But, you know, the more my the more my competitors do it, the easier it makes my job though,

 

Leighann Lovely  50:22

Right? Yep. Well, if somebody wanted.

 

Robbie Reck  50:24

Maybe I wouldn't want to change that.

 

Leighann Lovely  50:25

Right, more business for you. If somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?

 

Robbie Reck  50:34

Easiest thing. So Kilbournmarshall.com is easy. And then my email address is just Robert.reck@ Kilbournmarshall.com. And I owning the firm myself. You know, I respond on weekends, I respond, you know, very, very quickly. We've got an incredibly high sense of urgency when there's a need. So happy to help anyone out. That is, you know, maybe they don't trust the recruiter that they're using as much as they used to.

 

Leighann Lovely  51:08

Excellent. Well, hey, Robbie, I really appreciate the time that you took to talk with me. It's been a really awesome conversation. It could have continued talking for the next hour. But thank you so much.

 

Robbie Reck  51:19

Thank you. All right. Thank you so much.

 

Leighann Lovely  51:23

Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support. Without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us, like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.

 

Contact information

 

LinkedIN – linkedin.com/in/reckrobert

 

Website – kilbournmarshall.com

 

E-Mail – Robert.reck@ kilbournmarshall.com

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

candidate, people, pandemic, searches, recruiter, job, clients, employers, hiring, recruiting, market, year, finance, hiring manager, Milwaukee, trust, company, thought, executive recruiter, business

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/cruen/family-time License code: 2330NZD3BLNDKPYI

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