The recruiting industry has undergone significant changes in recent years, with the COVID-19 pandemic further accelerating existing trends in the workforce. As a result, talent acquisition strategies have been dramatically altered, and companies must adapt to stay competitive.
But how should employers navigate the changing recruitment landscape?
In this month’s episode, our host Matt Sutorius speaks with Marcie Glenn, CEO and Chief Talent Strategist at Another Source, on the future of talent acquisition.
The recruiting industry has undergone significant changes in recent years, with the COVID-19 pandemic further accelerating existing trends in the workforce. As a result, talent acquisition strategies have been dramatically altered, and companies must adapt to stay competitive.
But how should employers navigate the changing recruitment landscape?
In this month’s episode, our host Matt Sutorius speaks with Marcie Glenn, CEO and Chief Talent Strategist at Another Source, on the future of talent acquisition.
Matt Sutorius 0:10
Welcome to Making Change, the CPA podcast that has nothing to do with accounting and everything to do with innovation. I'm your host, Matt Sutorious. And today we're speaking with Marcie Glenn, CEO and Chief Talent Strategist at Another Source.
To start out Marcie, why don't you tell us a little bit about your company, Another Source? What is it that you do? And what do you think sets you apart from the other recruiting agencies?
Marcie Glenn 0:44
Yeah, my name is Marcie Glenn. I'm the Chief Talent Strategist and CEO at Another Source. We are a recruitment services firm, we focus primarily in higher ed recruitment about 85% of our business. And then the other 15% of our business is down the west coast with both for profit and not-for-profit. We do the same thing most other search firms do. We identify, engage, and qualify great talent for our clients. How we do it is the difference. We have a go to market model that is time based, we operate in either a 21, or a 30 day engagement model. Those time periods are magical because they're short enough to have an impact to the organization, but they're long enough for us to be able to work our magic process and engage, educate, and identify talent. The second thing that is a little bit different in our go to market strategy is that our fees are adjusted to what we can control, which is the front end of the recruitment. So our fees, they're built upfront at the start of an engagement, and if we fail to do what we said we do, we refund 80% of that. So we have a stake in the game from the beginning, rather than the carrot at the end if we make a placement.
Matt Sutorius 1:53
Obviously Marcie, thinking about the recruiting industry, and I'm sure you've seen this over the past couple of years, it's changed radically. What are the biggest things that have changed, or, you know, in general, in a post COVID world, what is what's different than how you used to go about this.
Marcie Glenn 2:08
And I think, you know, we went through one of the strongest employment markets in the last year that we've been to, and when there's an up market, there tends to be a lot of individuals that like to get into that game. So the market got really crowded really quickly. The other thing that I think changed in a post COVID world is the amount of noise that professionals had coming at them, both personally and professionally, forced us as a professional services organization to really get clarity around how we were going to grab someone's attention. Coming out of a pandemic, I think professionals were fatigued at a level that we've never experienced before, and to be able to cut through that fatigue and create interest that requires action, really forced us to up our game and get really clear on what the value proposition was that we were bringing towards them. That in turn focused our conversations with our clients very much on "What do you have to offer?" And you better know what you have to offer.
You know, sort of on that topic, when you talk to candidates coming out of the pandemic and post COVID, what are they asking for? What desires do they have if they're a future employer that's different now than five years ago?
I think there's two big buckets if I really had to think about that question. I think the first thing is choice. COVID taught us that we can work differently, and successfully manage other parts of our lives as professionals, and I think whether you're in a remote organization, a hybrid, or on a fully on site, which we know is a conversation in its own, I think candidates want choice. They want to be able to fulfill all of the roles in their life, not just their professional life, and there's enough opportunities out there that they can have the if you're not willing to give that to them. And then I think the second thing is, COVID gave all of us a glimpse of mortality, and when faced with concepts that we haven't considered, it's natural for us to question things, to question Is this the house that I want to live in? Am I living in the state that I want to live in? Am I working where I want to be working? I think people have recognized that life's too short not to try and make changes, no pun intended, in those areas, and I was thinking through something that seemed to really hit home for me and Patrick Lencioni said it best when he said, "When you're leading a team, people need to know their gifts. You need to know their gifts and you need to know them. Second, irrelevance is a job killer. Does your team, does your employees know the importance of their job? And three, give employees a way to assess if they're doing a good job." You know, that's what employers need to be focusing on in order to allow people to evaluate, "Is this where I want to be? Is this is this the job that I want to stay in?"
Matt Sutorius 4:53
I think it's good that people are able to do that now. It didn't feel like you could do that before. And one of the the positive consequences or outcomes is that it does feel like you can be more honest with your employers if something isn't working, if you're not the right fit for whatever role you're in in your organization, and that, to me, shifts the dynamic between employee and employer in a lot of ways. You don't have to pretend like this is your dream job if it's not. You can get a new job, you can get a new position. Do you feel like that's been the case?
Marcie Glenn 5:23
Absolutely. Rarely, in our daily conversations with applicants and candidates, do they say they're leaving for money? It's rare. It's part of the equation, but it's not the driving factor. It's typically one of those things. My gifts aren't being used. I don't know how I'm making an impact, so they feel irrelevant. And they don't know if they're being successful.
Matt Sutorius 5:41
Right. Are the successful employers and companies, are they pitching on those things in the hiring process? Talking about purpose and what the employee can bring and how they can utilize their gifts? Does it start that early?
Marcie Glenn 5:54
It should start that early. I always liken interviewing in recruiting a lot to dating. So you know, they should be pitching that they should be telling that candidate what's in it for them. But I also think that it's early on for employers and hiring teams to be able to articulate that very well. They have been forced to over the last, you know, two years and so it's still new to them, especially dependent on how often they hire and have those conversations. Like we just talked about too, I think the other thing is, is that employees will hold them to what they were told in the interview process and the recruitment process. And so that's a big differentiator now that it's not so much a power, it's, it's, it's the willingness to say, "Hey, this isn't maybe what you mentioned", or "Hey, I'm not getting what I thought I was gonna get out of this."
Matt Sutorius 6:41
And it does, it makes a difference if you're in recruiting or marketing, the message that you're sending out to the pool of possible candidates, that has to be an honest one, because your your new hires will hold you accountable, and if if you sold them something that doesn't exist, that's not going to put you in a good light, or good position.
Marcie Glenn 6:57
Yeah, absolutely.
Matt Sutorius 6:59
What are some of the more innovative ways you're seeing companies approach hiring and retention these days?
Marcie Glenn 7:06
You know, I gave this question a lot of thought, and I was continually getting hung up on the word innovative. And the reason that I was getting hung up on it is, as you heard me say earlier, successful recruiting is about consistency. So when I think about what are people doing differently that may be getting different results. One is I'm seeing a lot of organizations tie their customer marketing to employee or recruitment marketing, no longer separating the two. We started to see this last year in the Superbowl. You saw a couple of organizations do fantastic creative commercials, and they somehow tied the employee experience to that. So it was it was almost like a twofer-one, which tells me that employers are starting to recognize that we do need to market to potential employees. The other thing that I think we'll continue to build is social media with real employee experiences, sharing it in ways that people like you and I can relate to. Something that's believable, something that feels real and achievable. I think the other thing that I'm hoping will stick around is that some of the barriers have been removed to the application process. An easy one, just to address, is a cover letter. Cover letters are a barrier to people applying, especially individuals that have a day job, so to say. Could you imagine tonight at 9:30, after you wrap up all of your personal responsibilities and professional obligations, and you decide you have to sit down and write a cover letter before you can apply for this job. It's a barrier. That doesn't mean I'm not a believer in that you may need some sort of writing sample for certain jobs, but let's get that later once candidates are engaged. It's also a barrier in the sense of not everyone has the same access to be able to apply for that job. So, super pleased to see some of those barriers changing mobile applications, shorter applications, really anything to help get individuals into that funnel a little earlier on. Just kind of on the cusp, I'm starting to hear about internships for those returning to the workforce. You know, whether people want to admit it or not, there is definitely bias around individuals that have taken time off work. So I think if we can do anything to address some of that bias out there and provide internships or anything to that nature to help make it easier for individuals to come back to the workforce, that could be great.
Matt Sutorius 9:35
This is a big question, and probably more than a couple hour conversation at minimal, but in general - hybrid work. I did not work remotely for the first 12 years of my career, other than going to different audit sites I suppose, but you know, working from home that just never happened. Now I do it all the time. Everybody does. I talked to colleagues in Alabama and Mississippi and they went back to the office two months after the pandemic started. Where do you think we'll land here as a society? What's the balance gonna look like?
Marcie Glenn 10:07
Well, I think some of the balance is starting to take place. I think the pendulum which went, you know, so far one way of stay at home as long as you need, we're not sure about our policy yet. I think, you know, all of that is coming back into balance. For employers, it's challenging as leaders, it's challenging to maintain two cultures, right? Now think of having to maintain a remote culture and an on site culture. It's hard to do, and so I think that's why it's pushing the pendulum back towards some balance of, we're going to be more on sites than we are remote. Because we we need help maintaining that culture, and whatever those values are in that culture, people believe that they can do it better when they're together at some point. And that's what I think is going to drive that. The organizations that maybe you worked for, didn't start out as remote and so they're not used to managing and building that culture and to do it simultaneously is really challenging.
Matt Sutorius 11:02
It's even difficult to talk about. We can do the work, and we can do training, and there's a lot of things we can do remotely from anywhere. But it is this idea of our culture and you have to be around other people for that to exist, some of which is probably accurate, and some that's not. You can create a good culture being an entirely remote workforce. I've worked with plenty of companies who don't have any offices anymore, and they have a great work culture. But I do agree that if you can get people in for the right type of things, whether it's team building, or you're getting the whole firm together for a social event or something, it does contribute to culture in a way that's it's difficult to replicate that online, not a Zoom meeting.
Marcie Glenn 11:43
And I think, you know, we talked about this at the beginning of our conversation too is, employees still need choice. You know, if we're going to have them come into the office three or four days a week after working primarily remotely for the last two years, how do we help them evolve with the responsibilities that they have outside of work? And how do we address that?
Matt Sutorius 12:02
Right. But anyone who has kids has dealt with the fact that school hours and work hours are not exactly in line. You don't need a babysitter for an hour, but you really can't have your kids come home alone if they're of a certain age, and that's one thing that working from home has fixed for a lot of parents. There's a lot of easy things like that that are, that you can do now in a hybrid workforce.
Marcie Glenn 12:24
Yep, absolutely. I think that's where I'm hopeful that as we see this return to the office at a certain number of days, etc, which we're kind of syncing and seeing right now that those conversations continue.
Matt Sutorius 12:37
Is there a wrong approach to hybrid work if you're a company?
Marcie Glenn 12:41
The feedback that I've received is not including the employees in the conversation. So maybe it was just leadership making those decisions instead of having, you know, select employees as part of that, or different parts of the organization involved in that conversation, and I think part of what creates that negativity is it's not an inclusive conversation, but yet it impacts everyone.
Matt Sutorius 13:00
We've done a couple of things in the time I've been a partner at Clark Nuber, where we'll have our leadership team sit down and think about, what do we think the most important issues are for our employees. Whether it be where they're working, how they're compensated, what 401k plans look like, other benefits, and then we'll survey the employees and basically ask the same questions and see how well those things line up. And if there are things that come up on one but not the other, it's illuminating. Maybe something we wouldn't have even thought was important to them and putting together an entire either recruiting plan or retention plan based on those assumptions, that might be the wrong thing to do if you don't know what your employees care about.
Marcie Glenn 13:38
Right. Yep, absolutely.
Matt Sutorius 13:40
What's the best way to engage with employees on that topic? Do you just ask them what's most important to you?
Marcie Glenn 13:46
Yeah, I think there's, you know, depending on the size of the organization or where the policy or you know, approach is being solidified. It's, yeah, surveying them, asking them, getting them involved in the conversation and inviting them to a coffee and conversation, so to say. Letting them know this decision is going to be made and inviting feedback. Doing that routinely. My life over the last two years is significantly changed, as I'm sure a lot of the individuals listening to this, so my answer two years ago might be different than it is now.
Matt Sutorius 14:17
Every company I've talked to wants to hire more people and would be happier if they could hire more recruits out of school, more experienced hires. Any advice for companies listening, or people in those positions listening, for how you get more people in the door?
Marcie Glenn 14:31
You know, again, how can you open up the funnel? And I tend to think about, am I eliminating barriers so that more individuals can get in that funnel? Am I taking advantage of individuals experience that has worked with us? You know, I think there's a term out there, the silver tsunami. Right now we're thinking about how can we create mentorship programs with individuals that have left our firm and retired in order to bring some of that knowledge back and allow us to maybe bring on a less experienced work force and marry the two together to build that knowledge that we need. I think looking at your customer base as potential employees is a significant way to do that, and then I also think staying in touch with individuals that have expressed interest in your organization in the past. That alone removes a barrier, just like we know in the sales process. So if we can stay in touch with those individuals, you know, they are then in turn to share with their communities as well.
Matt Sutorius 15:28
Marcie, it's been a pleasure having you on the show today.
Marcie Glenn 15:30
Thank you.
Matt Sutorius 15:31
And that's our show. Thanks again to Marcie for speaking with us and to you for listening in. Join us next month as we discuss the Future of Learning with Odessa Jenkins, President at Emtrain.