Recruitment Storytelling: Secrets Every Hiring Manager Must Know | Denise Chaffin

Recruitment Storytelling: Secrets Every Hiring Manager Must Know  | Denise Chaffin #recruitmentstrategy #talentacquisition #hiringtips

Hiring is not only about filling roles. It is about telling the right story to the right candidate at the right time. Please visit our website to get more information: https://swangroup.net/ 

In this episode, I sit down with Denise Chaffin, founder of Top Source Talent, to break down what separates average recruiters from top performers. With decades of experience, she shares how recruiting has changed and what still works today.

We talk about how storytelling helps attract better candidates, why candidate experience matters more than ever, and what companies often get wrong in hiring. Denise also explains the real challenges behind negotiation, retention, and building strong hiring strategies.

You will learn:

• What makes a great recruiter
• How to improve your hiring process
• Why storytelling is key in recruitment
• How to attract and retain top talent

If you want to improve your recruitment strategy and hire smarter, this conversation will give you practical insights you can apply right away.

Links from this episode:

• Get to know more about Steven Swan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/swangroup 
• Get to know more about Denise Chaffin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denisechaffin 
• Check out Denise’s podcast: https://topsourcetalentllc.com/podcast 

🔔𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐮𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬.

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-swan-group/ 

Website:  https://swangroup.net/   

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#recruitmentstrategy #talentacquisition #hiringtips #recruitmentmarketing #careeradvice #hrinsights

Transcript

Steve Swan [00:00:00]:
Up next, join me for a brief conversation with Denise Chaffin, owner and operator of Topsource Talent out of Arizona. We discuss what makes a great internal recruiter at one of our organizations. We also discuss what makes a great internal recruiter at corporations which are the best to work with. Join us. Thank you. Welcome to Biotech Bytes. I'm your host, Steve Swan. This is a podcast where we chat with leaders, typically in the biotech industry that focus on technology.

Steve Swan [00:00:35]:
But today we're taking a little bit of a turn. I'm joined by Denise Chaffin, owner operator of TopSource Talent in Arizona, and she also runs a podcast called Talking ta. Talking ta. So today we're actually going to talk about what we do, right. The. The process of recruitment, what we're seeing as. Because people always ask me, what are the trends, what are the things that are out there, what make good candidates, what make good recruiters? So we're going to try and sort through some of that, Denise and I. So, Denise, thank you.

Steve Swan [00:01:09]:
Thank you. Thank you for showing up.

Denise Chaffin [00:01:11]:
Oh, thank you, Steve. I. I am so excited to speak with you.

Steve Swan [00:01:15]:
Yeah, no, this is great. And this is some of the stuff that the folks that I. I work with really don't get to see. Sort of, I don't know, maybe how the sausage is made or what's behind the curtain. So we can talk a little bit about that. How's that?

Denise Chaffin [00:01:27]:
So I love it.

Steve Swan [00:01:29]:
So let me. Let's. So I always start out with giving. Give me a quick, you know, biography, autobiography on yourself. You know, just a real quick minute or two on. Yeah. Where you came from and how you got to where you are.

Denise Chaffin [00:01:41]:
You know, I was recruited into this business at a funeral. And. Yeah. And I, Yeah, I was sitting next to a guy who asked me what I was doing. I was working for the newspaper. This is 1988. And I liked the job, but it was kind of mundane and boring. And so, you know, he.

Denise Chaffin [00:01:57]:
And I asked him what he was doing. He said, recruiting. And so right away, I thought it was for the military. I don't know. I. I think back then, you know, that's. That's where my head went. Anyway, he contacted me a few days later and said, hey, I was thinking about you more and more over the weekend after the.

Denise Chaffin [00:02:12]:
After Carl's funeral. And I'd like to, you know, have you come in and talk to us about recruiting. And I had no idea what I was myself into.

Steve Swan [00:02:20]:
Nobody does anyway. Nobody does anyway.

Denise Chaffin [00:02:23]:
I know, I know. But that was in 1988. It was, I mean, a whole different time. And so I came in and got introduced and two of the big clients at the time were Motorola and IBM. So I. That I found very. So I got to support the two people who had brought that business into TSS Consulting was the name of the company I was working for. And as a side note, John McDonald, who hired me at TSS Consulting in 1988, he and I still work together.

Steve Swan [00:02:54]:
Awesome.

Denise Chaffin [00:02:55]:
Yeah, we are still affiliates, as he likes to call us, with each other's business. Yeah, we're working on some projects currently right now. So here we are, 37, 38 years later, we're still working together. So I guess it's hard to leave the nest sometimes. But I mean, you know, John has been an incredible person to work with. It surprises me that he wants to stay in this business to this day. But he goes, what else am I going to do? And I guess that's my answer. You know, people have asked me all the time, how come you haven't retired? What else am I going to do? I don't play golf anymore, you know, And I mean, I can only go to so many, you know, classes to learn how to do new things.

Denise Chaffin [00:03:36]:
I do like the business. I've always loved this business. I've always found it very exciting. There are times I've hated it, you know. You know, but I think that, you know, working with both Motorola's, it was their government electronics group and also IBM had a number of different business units that we were supporting at the time. So I got an opportunity to work as kind of an agnostic, if you would, recruiter. At the time, they had. We had Phelps Dodge mining company that is now called Freeport McMoRan here in Arizona, where we were supporting them.

Denise Chaffin [00:04:10]:
We were supporting Circle K, which was a convenience store company, recruiting for their IT positions and also for their executive roles. So we had just an array of different companies that we are supporting. So when I came in this business, I was not niched into any one industry or business segment. Now, that said, at the time, there were a lot of IT roles that we were supporting. We weren't calling that IT back then, though. I don't remember what we called. Called data processing, data processing, commuter computing, things like that. So, you know, we were looking for programmer analysts.

Denise Chaffin [00:04:50]:
My first. My first placement was a programmer analyst with Motorola and then kind of went to. We didn't really have software developers at the time. Software development, the term. And the role came up later on, I want to say closer to 2000, as we are rolling into Y2K. So over the years, I mean the roles that we see today, and you and I talked about it earlier, the roles have almost kind of pivoted back now with AI to some of those earlier titles. I mean, are we going to stick with software developers? Are we going to rename them now? But we've just seen the transition between industries and roles and having worked and supported so many different industries has been phenomenal. My team and I have supported, we've got a contract with the state of Arizona, so we're still doing stuff on the government side.

Denise Chaffin [00:05:42]:
Data center, renewable energy, cybersecurity. You talk about bioscience. We had a bioscience client in the, in the Bay Area. Unfortunately though, they didn't, they didn't survive through the last couple of years. But we also did med device, medical device companies as well as semiconductor. Semiconductor has been really big for us probably because I think with the semiconductor industry rolling into that in the, around the late 90s, a lot of people spread out and went to other companies and then the semiconductor industry started kind of going through this big transformation, if you would at the time. So for example, Motorola's businesses got sold off. So you had one part of their semiconductor industry became free, free scale and now it's nxp.

Denise Chaffin [00:06:36]:
Another group became on semiconductor for their components division. So kind of staying with these people and not burning bridges, still working hard, saying yes to everybody, you know, brought me back into the semiconductor industry. Probably a little more so that I would have expected. You know, I always made a joke, it's kind of like Harry Potter, you know, the wand picked me for semiconductor. I didn't pick the wand, but I mean there have been just a number of industries we've supported and it's been fabulous because it kind of gives you a bigger view of what our industry can look forward to. As, you know, we roll through different hard times and we've been through a

Steve Swan [00:07:19]:
lot of them, you know, the swan group. So we're, we're a little different, right? We, we don't say yes to everything. We only work in the bio. Right. It's just what we know and what we've done. And I started doing this, as I mentioned to you, my mom started doing this and she retired at 86 years ago and she says the same thing. I can't believe I retired. It was too young, right? Because she, she, she's not a golfer, a gardener or whatever.

Steve Swan [00:07:43]:
She walked about it. But what, what I'm thinking about as I'm listening to you Talk. Right. Is, you know, there's. There's two big sides to this business. And the, the, the. So what I want to ask you is two questions. One of them is from your perspective, where you sit inside your company.

Steve Swan [00:08:02]:
Right. What makes a good recruiter? Right there. Now, second part of the question. What makes a good recruitment. Recruitment partner inside a company? So as you're answering this one, you can be thinking about this one.

Denise Chaffin [00:08:16]:
Oh, that's a. That is a great, great question, Steve.

Steve Swan [00:08:20]:
I think, I think you're gonna get this one. This one's. But this one's we gotta think about for a second. So.

Denise Chaffin [00:08:26]:
Right.

Steve Swan [00:08:26]:
Give me your. Give me your thoughts first on the internal. Right. When you hire somebody that you could probably rattle off pretty quick, the next one you could think about for. And, and, and I'll. I'll answer that too. I'll go through my thoughts on that. But just wanted to get your thoughts first on the internal person.

Denise Chaffin [00:08:41]:
Sure. So on the internal person. I think a, A great recruiter is somebody who, first of all, can manage money. Well, I, and I have to say that up front, you know, because we've always made the joke we're either eating macaroni and cheese in this business or filet mignon. You know, I mean, because you do. You go through dips, especially if you're working on contingency. Now, one thing that I did when I started Top Swords Talent, because it was turning away work, is we started working hourly. We started doing contract work and project work where we were charging our clients hourly.

Denise Chaffin [00:09:10]:
It saved our clients. Oh, my gosh. With lamb research alone, we saved them millions of dollars over the years, you know, in, in fees. When we started.

Steve Swan [00:09:20]:
I have their stock. Thank you.

Denise Chaffin [00:09:23]:
Yeah. Well, and, and we started saving them a lot of money. And other companies have said the same thing. When they start looking at their ROI, you know, compared to paying 20 or 25% contingency fees or retainers or whatever, you know, now they're paying hourly. Couple things happen there. And, and I like to say it because I think that we might start seeing more of this model as we move forward. So what happens is we build pipelines for them. And, and I think the good recruiters, to answer your question, are people who could come in and work hard, and they have to be able to manage their money well, because even if you're working on contract projects hourly, you're getting an hourly pay.

Denise Chaffin [00:10:01]:
But you don't know once that contract ends or if it's put on hold for any reason or whatever, you've got to be able to say, okay, so am I going to move into another contract or am I going to be on hold for a while? We just don't know. So I think that people need to understand when they're making really good money. There could be some pauses, there could, could be some holds. So don't go out, you know, and buy yourself a brand new condo and, and a Mercedes, you know, yet. Right. Until you've been in this business a while and you can kind of see the flow, you know, hang in there, you know, stick with the flow. But you also, it's, it's a hard business. It's like real estate.

Denise Chaffin [00:10:37]:
I've always said it's analogous to real estate.

Steve Swan [00:10:39]:
I make the same analogy. I've never heard anybody else do that. Go ahead. Why do you say that?

Denise Chaffin [00:10:43]:
Because we kind of work in the same fashion. You know, a lot of times people are working on commission or if they were, are working hourly. You're still, again, you know, working through projects, you know, that might have a start and an end date. So you need to be smart with money. You need to understand that you're going to be working hard. Don't complain about the hours you're putting in if you're making really good commissions or if you're, or if you're making good project fees. But there, because there's going to be pauses and that's when you take your breaks. This is not a corporate job.

Denise Chaffin [00:11:14]:
This is not a. Now. Now, if you're working in corporate America and you're working internally, that's all well and good, but you still have to work hard. Your performance is going to be, or your, I should say your success is going to be based on your performance and judged on your performance. So you need to constantly be looking for the next opportunity, even internally, you know, to support the business units that do have a need for your services. Also now we're looking at rolling into these talent advisement roles. So our roles are constantly changing. When I started in this business, I think people were still using the word personnel to describe their staffing departments.

Denise Chaffin [00:11:55]:
Seriously, they were starting to transition from personnel to staffing and then staffing later transitioned into talent acquisition, which is where we are now. But that could change again. Who knows? I mean, now that we have AI and people's roles in this industry are changing, we're going to be looking again to, at probably another transition. So I. And as far as who makes a good partner internally.

Steve Swan [00:12:20]:
Yeah, external. Yeah, external.

Denise Chaffin [00:12:22]:
External. I mean, external partner. You mean, like if you're working for a corporation. Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:12:26]:
So let's say you're sitting in your company, right. Who, who are the best external recruiters that work at Motorola or IBM or whatever that, that you can be most productive with that. That. That you help the most. What are some of their traits?

Denise Chaffin [00:12:45]:
Some of their traits? Transparency. I think some of the recruiters that I'm seeing now are very territorial.

Steve Swan [00:12:56]:
Yep, yep, yep.

Denise Chaffin [00:12:57]:
Because they're afraid of losing their jobs. You can't be that way and expect to be successful.

Steve Swan [00:13:02]:
Right.

Denise Chaffin [00:13:03]:
I mean, you have to be transparent. You have to be a really good team player. You have to be honest. Honesty, honesty. Transparency is going to get you really far, I think. Also remaining humble. You know, there's a lot to be said about humility. And I've seen some of the recruiters, postings on LinkedIn who have a bit of an ego and an edge, and I don't know how well that's working for them or how well that will continue to work for them.

Denise Chaffin [00:13:31]:
And again, too, if you're in a bubble where you're being very successful, that's great. But remain humble because bubbles burst. Yeah, bubbles. Bubbles burst and then new bubbles start forming. Right. So you have to remember that this is a very bubbly well.

Steve Swan [00:13:46]:
And that's why I think, going back to your first comment, managing your money, same thing. You know, if you're not managing your money, it's gonna. And when it does this, you know, you make it up. You just made a hundred thousand dollars in January. You think you're now gonna make 1.2 million this year. So you spend like you're making 1.2. You guess what, you don't make anything till June, you know, you make $10,000 or whatever, you know, so, yeah, it is what it is. So then.

Steve Swan [00:14:08]:
And this business will teach you to be humble because it is very.

Denise Chaffin [00:14:14]:
Oh, yeah, it can be brutal. It can be a brutal business, but so can real estate, you know?

Steve Swan [00:14:19]:
Yeah. Well, so the difference between real estate and our business, the only difference is that your end product in real estate can't talk their way out of the sale, you know, so.

Denise Chaffin [00:14:30]:
Oh, yeah, that's true. That's true, huh? Maybe we should go into real estate.

Steve Swan [00:14:35]:
Right, right, exactly.

Denise Chaffin [00:14:36]:
We don't have those kind of guarantees in this business. Right. Yeah. In fact, it's funny because when you're working on contingency and you place somebody and you get the fee for it, you know, I mean, how many people that you've placed over the years since you've been Doing this a while too have walked away from the job after you placed them and you had to replaced them.

Steve Swan [00:14:56]:
Well, I don't need one hand to count that. I would say two, maybe, maybe three, you know, ditto. If I had to really be pushed, maybe I'd say three. But yeah, not many.

Denise Chaffin [00:15:08]:
Most people stay in their jobs. I had one guy one time, we were working for a mining company here, a different mining company. And this guy calls me one week, he started on Monday. He was from Kansas. He had worked for a paper company if I recall correctly. And he calls me on Friday after work and says, I'm on my way back home to Kansas. He goes, I can't do this. And so he was one.

Denise Chaffin [00:15:35]:
And I'm trying to think of who else. I had one in California, I think there's been two, maybe that have walked away now. The other piece of it too though, when you're working on commission, is the company can let somebody go. And I had one company that let somebody go on the 89th day of a 90 day guarantee.

Steve Swan [00:15:52]:
Oh boy, I've never had that. I've always. The, the two that I can think of, they left on their own. They were like one actually, no, both. One was due to the manager, right? So they were like, I, I just can't work for this guy, you know, and in hindsight, maybe that's why they were having such trouble filling that role. And then another one was in the middle of COVID This guy joined the company and he was just hating the onboarding. He said, you know, it's not, it's all remote, it's not working for me. They got the wrong onboarding buddy with me, this guy, I have to ask questions and I'll call him on a Friday morning and he's out golfing.

Steve Swan [00:16:33]:
He says he'll call me later or I call him on a Wednesday, it's at 2 o'. Clock. And he said he's already been drinking all day or whatever. So this guy just left the company and he left inside 90 days. And I was like, okay, I get it, you know, what are you going to do?

Denise Chaffin [00:16:46]:
Yeah, I know. Well, when the client though fires him at 89 days, you start wondering why did you wait until the 89th day? You know, how come you didn't fire him sooner? So we had to do some, some fancy footwork around the financing on that one because they didn't want to replace the position or the candidate.

Steve Swan [00:17:03]:
Okay, okay, I get it.

Denise Chaffin [00:17:04]:
So, yeah, as, as it turned out, they didn't wind up giving back the fee because they were too close and it got kind of, kind of sticky and the company didn't even stay in business anyway, so. And that's the other thing too. You know, if you're, if you're going to come into this business, you know, you can't support just everybody. You can't say yes to every company that comes along unless you know who they are. You know, if they're big, larger companies, enterprise level, that's one thing. But there's a lot of people I've heard in this business that have kind of focused on startups and that's kind of gone south for a few people. So you have to be careful. There, there's a lot and there's a lot of startups right now in this and especially in our industry.

Steve Swan [00:17:43]:
Yeah, there is, there's a lot, there's a ton, a lot of people leaving our industry right now too because they

Denise Chaffin [00:17:48]:
just, there are a lot of people leaving our industry and so when you

Steve Swan [00:17:51]:
talk about good external partners, too long

Denise Chaffin [00:17:54]:
for them, you know, there, it's what

Steve Swan [00:17:56]:
the bust has been too long for them.

Denise Chaffin [00:17:58]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The bubble bust. Yeah, yeah. This has been the longest bubble bust that we've seen.

Steve Swan [00:18:04]:
Well, we had a big run up, you know, I mean we pulled a lot of demand forward, you know, and so to your point, if you manage your money well, you've, you've gotten to the backside of this, no problem. It's starting to pick up now, but you know, you've been able to sit on that, you know, that cash and, and yeah, pay your rent and your employees, that kind of thing and ride it out. I mean obviously everything comes to an end. So it's only a finite pool of capital that you have. But you know, it's turning and, and you know, we, we'll be fine coming out the backside of this. But it was tough, you know, last year was tough but it's, it's turned around in my opinion. So you know, it's been, it was a good run. Very humbling.

Steve Swan [00:18:43]:
But yeah, like you said.

Denise Chaffin [00:18:46]:
Okay, I'll tell you a humbling story. So I think it was in 92, 93 time from, I don't know what was causing our bubble back then, but we, we had a, a downturn and, and we were waiting for business to pick back up again. And so I got a part time job and so people can't be opposed to doing other things besides recruiting during the slopey periods. And I also remember after, after 9, 11, having to get another job. I Was putting pop rivets on an airplane. Okay, so that's a whole different story. But Anyway, back in 92, 93, I had a job teaching. It was working for the small business development center here in Phoenix.

Denise Chaffin [00:19:27]:
And it was a class that I was giving, teaching new business owners how to hire employees or how to find good employees. And it was really fun. And I was working. Next door to me was this guy named Ron, and he was teaching a marketing class. So one day after our classes, we were talking. I said, I got to do something else. This business is my recruiting business just is down right now. And he said, well, he goes, how much money do you have to invest in in another business? And I said, $20.

Denise Chaffin [00:19:54]:
And he goes, well, I bet you you could start a business with $20. I said, you think so? Really? And he starts giving me ideas. And one of the ideas that he proposed was a. A pastry route. And because we had a lot of, like, small business groupings around here, you know, that had, like, you know, a number of different businesses, you know, like little business parks.

Steve Swan [00:20:13]:
Sure, sure.

Denise Chaffin [00:20:16]:
So I said, okay, I'll take you up on it. So I went and bought some bagels and some cream cheese, and I put them in a cute little basket with a little gingham cloth, and I went to. Around to these different businesses. And I said, hey, would you guys be open to pastries every morning? Oh, yeah. Bring them around. Hopping down on Fridays, though, because we all go out to lunch. And I said, oh, yeah, that's a good point. So, long story.

Denise Chaffin [00:20:35]:
Boring. I. I started this pastry route, and pretty soon I'm buying stuff from Shamrock. I had to buy a freezer for my garage to store some of the stuff I had pastries. I got so busy so fast, I wound up hiring the guy who had been my landscaper, who was working doing landscaping, Bless his heart. He wasn't getting much business out of me. But anyway, I knew him well, and I had his wife help me. So pretty soon we were getting calls from, like, credit unions in the area.

Denise Chaffin [00:21:02]:
Hey, I heard you guys have a patient route. We've got teller training next week. Can you come by? And, you know, and then pretty soon there was an engineering firm that wanted us to stop by every morning. So Monday through Thursday, from 8 until, like, 10:30, 11, we were delivering pastries. And it got so big so fast. And then all of a sudden, the recruiting business starts picking up. So instead of selling my little pastry route, I bartered with my landscaper and gave it. And he gave me free landscaping for a few years in exchange for his wife to take over the pastry route.

Denise Chaffin [00:21:35]:
So it all worked out. But here's, here's the best part of that story. So I was working on site as a contract recruiter for Motorola and we were having a big hiring event and all these people were coming in for, to interview for some of the jobs. One of the guys that came in goes, there's the bagel girl. He recognized me from when we were doing bagels.

Steve Swan [00:21:57]:
That is funny. Bagel girl.

Denise Chaffin [00:21:59]:
Oh, that's, there's the bagel girl. I said, yeah. I go, well, that was kind of a, that was kind of a side hustle. And I bring that up now because I hear people talking about side hustles. Side hustles are okay people during downturns

Steve Swan [00:22:11]:
and, and I, you know, when I have a candidate call me. They say, well, you know, I'm used to doing X, Y and z full time. I, I can't find anything right now. I have a consulting role on the table. What do you think? Take that all day long, you know, because, yeah, I always say to them, and I say exactly this. When you do a consultant gig, they're not marrying you, you're not marrying them. If you were getting married, it'd be a full time gig. So everybody's got two weeks on either side.

Steve Swan [00:22:35]:
So take the consulting role. Put bagels on the table. I usually say bread, but put bagels on the table and you can still keep looking for a full time role. You know, that's, that's what it's about. It's America. We can do that kind of stuff.

Denise Chaffin [00:22:48]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:22:48]:
Now let me ask you.

Denise Chaffin [00:22:49]:
Think of yourself as an entrepreneur. I think that people in this business need to think of themselves regardless if you're working corporate America. Because I mean there's, there's the bubbles even in corporate America. And, and, and what would you call it? The scaling. If you would. Scaling up. Scaling down in our industry. So just because you're working for a company doesn't mean your, your position is safe for any long period of time.

Denise Chaffin [00:23:12]:
It might be, but not everybody can say that. So you have to almost think of yourself as an entrepreneur when you get into oh, 100. Regardless of.

Steve Swan [00:23:20]:
Let me ask you a question specifically to recruiting. I just thought of this again. As I talk to people, things just pop into my head, Right.

Denise Chaffin [00:23:26]:
Oh, that's good. Yeah, that's good.

Steve Swan [00:23:27]:
So, so our recruitment, just like the real estate agent process, has a process, right. You, you identify well. First you talk to the, the company about what they need. And that whole thing, right? Then you're starting to work with candidates. So I'm talking on the candidate side right now. So you have, you identify a candidate, you qualify a candidate, you figure out what their drivers are, you present the candidate. Then the interview process starts. Right.

Steve Swan [00:23:51]:
So then you have different parts of the interview process. Then you have the negotiation process, then you have the closing process. Then you sure. Onboarding and onboarding for you in your mind over the years, what part of that process has been the most difficult? Right. Number one. And number two, I like asking people this too. I like thinking about this when I talk to folks. And I can't tell you.

Steve Swan [00:24:20]:
I got an idea of how you're gonna answer this. What is your, what's your superpower as a, as a recruiter? Why does Motorola say we gotta get Denise? Because she does this part of the process great. Or this great?

Denise Chaffin [00:24:32]:
Well, doing a good job, selling the company. I think that closing is an important part, being a good closer. But I also think that you can be a good closer if you are a good opener. And what happens is, is when you speak with a candidate, you want to know as much about not just the company, but the team they're going to be working for. Like the other day, I have a candidate who's going to be interviewing with one of our aerospace clients. And he, and I told him, I said, so here's, here's some of the information that I want you to know about the company, what they're doing right now, you know, what's making them successful, why they have this role open, know all of that, but also know about the team they're going to be working for because that's their new family. So I sent him over a profile of the guy who runs the department and the people who are in the department, as far as I know, who are okay with having their profile shared, because that's who he's going to be. He or she is going to be speaking with.

Denise Chaffin [00:25:29]:
Right. So you want to know a lot about the team that they're going to be working with. The. Who's the hiring manager? How long has he or she been there? Where were they before? Like, the hiring manager for this role has only been with the company for a couple years. You know, he was with a big semiconductor business first. And here's the correlation between that. The guy that I that's going to be interviewing, he's with a semiconductor company right now, moving into aerospace. So was the guy that he's going to be interviewing with, boom.

Denise Chaffin [00:25:58]:
They have a connection. So if you're a good opener with a candidate on, on not only who the company is and what they do, you know, what's making them successful, what are their products and services, what made the company get started, you know, who are some of their clients, I mean, even if you can't get the names of the clients, what types of clients are they supporting and working with? And then also the team, you have to sell the team.

Steve Swan [00:26:27]:
So what. What I just heard there is that the companies that use you, that go to Denise, they know Denise is a good storyteller. They know Denise is going to tell the story accurately and get both sides updated or understanding the other side before the presentation is made or even after. Right before. At least before the interview, right?

Denise Chaffin [00:26:48]:
That's right.

Steve Swan [00:26:49]:
Yeah. And so, and, and so you would also consider that, like I. Like I just said, your superpower. But what part of the process, of our entire process, have you found most difficult over the years?

Denise Chaffin [00:27:04]:
What part of our process?

Steve Swan [00:27:07]:
Closing, negotiating, finding people.

Denise Chaffin [00:27:10]:
Probably negotiating. Okay, there was a. There's a. I was working for Atmel. They're now owned by Microchip. For years I worked for them. And there is a guy named Tim Mueller. I love Tim.

Denise Chaffin [00:27:22]:
Hi, Tim. If you watch this. Anyway, he's now retired, but he was the HR manager that I'd have to go to every time I wanted to give an offer or every time they wanted to give an offer to a candidate and the offer was too low. It was always too low. And so I'd always have to negotiate, you know, with hr. And he told me one time, he said, God, Denise, when I see your number come up on my phone, he goes, it makes me sweat because I know what you're going to be asking me. But here's what I told him. I said, tim, we're the benchmark set.

Denise Chaffin [00:27:50]:
A new benchmark. If your current employees are not making what you want to bring this candidate in at because you need to hire this person, then you need to look at what you're going to do for your existing employees to bring, bring them up to reset the benchmark on, on negotiations with candidates. Because we keep going through this over and over again. And so you guys are bringing people in at higher levels than the people on your own teams. That's up to you. That's your role. Here was the great part about that, though, he left Atmel and went to another company called Form Factor. And he called me and brought me over.

Denise Chaffin [00:28:22]:
Oh, good.

Steve Swan [00:28:23]:
So he liked what you do. You were thorough. Yeah.

Denise Chaffin [00:28:25]:
Yeah, but you know, here's the thing though. It was going toe to toe, not being afraid to go toe to toe with the internal teams on getting what you needed for that candidate because it was their hire, it was going to make a difference in their business. On, on.

Steve Swan [00:28:40]:
I had a med device company once. I, I placed 30, 35 people with and there was somebody that was in HR talent acquisition that I worked with who then graduated, moved into compensation. So then it got to the point where whenever I got an offer, I'd call that person, say, we got to do this. You know, I had another company that I placed many dozens of folks with them over the years, over a 15 year period. And I was placing a couple of high level some directors that were pushing the limit on the salary. So right before this one offer was made, I guess this was probably 08 09. Anyway, right before this one offer was made, the CIO put a stop on the offer. It was right.

Steve Swan [00:29:20]:
It was about this time of year too. And he just went across and did a whole assessment of everybody's comp and raised everybody because he's like, that's why bring this person in here. That means I'm underpaying everybody here because if I can't get anybody for so. And I was actually bringing in four people at the time, quite frankly into the same level. So he knew he had to redo, so he did. He stopped the offers, took a couple weeks, but they went across the board and they had to raise him.

Denise Chaffin [00:29:43]:
You know, you bring up a good point. And, and what happens is if you don't raise the salaries, those people are going to leave eventually. Because now the bar has been reset, you know, for the entire industry. Because here's the thing, and I always tell companies this, we are the front line. We're the people who can get you your salary data quicker than if you go in and you look@salary.com, right? You look at, you know, some of the other salary I've had conversation with

Steve Swan [00:30:09]:
so many companies where they'll come to me, they'll say, well, what should I pay? X. No, we think we should pay this. Okay, so you called me to argue, right? And, and yeah, when I, when I do present somebody and I say, this is what this person's looking for, this is what they're worth. You know, you want to pay them what they're worth because you don't want the next Steve Swan or the next denise to call XYZ candidate and pull them out with $10,000 more in six months and say. Or 20, whatever the number is, and have. Have them even take the call. No, I'm good. Thank you very much.

Steve Swan [00:30:39]:
You know.

Denise Chaffin [00:30:39]:
Right.

Steve Swan [00:30:39]:
That's what you want now.

Denise Chaffin [00:30:40]:
And here's another. Here's another piece. Yeah. Another piece to that is when I was doing work for a very large semiconductor company. Night. And I don't want to say who they were because. Because of what I'm going to tell you.

Steve Swan [00:30:51]:
I get it.

Denise Chaffin [00:30:52]:
Anyway, so they had asked us to go out and find previous employees who had left the company, especially some of the female technologists that they. Because they had some diversity goals that they were trying to meet. Anyway, but when we were talking, going back out, and the same thing happened with a med device company we were supporting as well. Same exact story. So you go out and you contact these former employees because they want to bring them back, the good ones. Right. Because they should not have lost them to begin with. Anyway.

Denise Chaffin [00:31:25]:
So when you talk to those former employees and ask them, okay, so be honest with me. What made you leave the company? And why are you talking about the possibility of coming back? Two things, two answers. You get one salary. They got pulled away because another company in the bright, shiny, you know, dollar sign. Right. Pulled them out of the company. But why are you interested in talking to me again? Because I liked the culture of the company that I work for. So you.

Denise Chaffin [00:31:51]:
If you raise the salaries a bit and you meet, you know, what the current market demands are for salaries and you have a good company culture, you're not gonna lose your employees.

Steve Swan [00:32:01]:
No. Well, yeah. Right. And. And I always tell managers, too, that. I think I mentioned this to you the other day when we were talking. If they're, if they're learning something and they're having fun. Right.

Steve Swan [00:32:11]:
So that.

Denise Chaffin [00:32:12]:
And if there's a career path that

Steve Swan [00:32:13]:
speaks to the culture. Yeah. I have one CIO that I work with. She's the best. She. She sits down. She. She obviously recruits for.

Steve Swan [00:32:21]:
For the skills that they have. Right. But before each hire, we have a long conversations. Okay. How am I going to keep this person interested? What am I going to be doing with this person in three and four years from now?

Denise Chaffin [00:32:33]:
Sure.

Steve Swan [00:32:34]:
Let's talk about where they. Where I think they should be going and what I'm going to have for them. If she doesn't have anything, she's like, I don't. Stephen. She calls me Stephen. Stephen. I don't know if I'm going to be able to meet, you know, keep this person interested. They may not say it now, but in Two years, they're going to be wondering what's next for me.

Denise Chaffin [00:32:52]:
I do hear that from people about

Steve Swan [00:32:54]:
that, she says to me. And so we had long, long, long conversations.

Denise Chaffin [00:32:57]:
And here's the trick on that, though, for anybody who's listening, the people you want to go after, if you don't have a career path for them, go after people who are close to retirement. Those, those people will consider a role where they stay in the same position because, I mean, they're going to be looking to retire anyway. So that's where people are worried about ageism right now. You can totally blow that one up, you know, if you hire people who are closer to retirement when you know that, that those roles will not, will not grow.

Steve Swan [00:33:30]:
I have those conversations probably two or three a week with folks mid, late 50s, early 60s, whatever it is, you know, they're not a political risk because they've already been done that. They're not looking to climb the ladder and slit somebody's throat to get there. You don't need to overpay them, just pay a market rate. You can probably be a little bit, whatever. And to your point, they're going to be loyal. They work smarter, not harder. And they can teach, yeah, and they can teach the kids, the younger ones, how it's done, you know, great person to have around, great influence, no risk. You don't have to watch your back with that around, you know.

Denise Chaffin [00:34:05]:
And I had one hiring manager ask me one time, he was looking for an engineer. I can't remember what kind of engineer, but anyway, it was a semiconductor client. And so I was sitting in his office and he goes, okay, I'm going to be honest with you because I need somebody over 50 for this role. And I said, why is that? He said, well, because I need somebody who doesn't have to take off at 3 o' clock for soccer games or ballet lessons, you know. And I go, oh, that's, that's interesting. He was, no people ever 50, they're workhorses.

Steve Swan [00:34:31]:
Yeah.

Denise Chaffin [00:34:32]:
And he said, that's what I need for this role. I need a workhorse. And so, yeah, I go, well, obviously I can't ask people ages, but I can kind of get, you know, gauge from their resumes and what they've been doing, you know, where they are in their careers. But, you know, he made a good point. You know, people are, I mean, don't, don't turn away at the opportunity to hire people who are older or closer to retirement. We've, we've brought people out of retirement for Jobs that we thought they would find interesting and they didn't want full time roles. They were happy with contract and so you have to kind of negotiate that as well. But at the same time, sometimes bringing people out of retirement for, okay, look at analog engineers, all right? And I know you guys are more on the IT side, but analog engineers, I mean, they're like a diamond in the rough, you know, because people went from analog to digital and mixed signal back to doing some stuff with analog and finding those engineers, a lot of them were close to retirement or retired.

Denise Chaffin [00:35:30]:
And so, you know, if you want to, yeah. Find a really good engineer with those skills. You got to look at people who may have already left the industry who might be interested in, maybe they've been retired for a few years now and they're bored and they might be interested in coming back. So, I mean, we have to dispel ageism.

Steve Swan [00:35:45]:
Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, listen, it's a great set of the market right now and they're real smart and they are going to be retiring in the near future. And with all this remote work, you know, it's tough for the. I, I say to my daughters, I have a 25 and a 23 year old, get in the office as much as possible. I call it incidental information. You want to hear Steve Swan on the phone, you want to hear Denise talking to clients, you want to, hey, Denise, what would you do with this email? That kind of stuff. When you're working remote, you don't get that incidental information. Right.

Steve Swan [00:36:12]:
It's gone.

Denise Chaffin [00:36:12]:
You know, incidental information, I love that term. Yeah, I'm gonna steal that one from you.

Steve Swan [00:36:17]:
Yeah, steal, steal whatever you want. I'm fine with that. I'm good, you know.

Denise Chaffin [00:36:20]:
Oh my gosh. No, it's awesome. I think that for, for the I T industry like we had talked about previously, I think the IT industry opens up a lot of opportunity right now for people to come in at varying levels. So I think that people just need to be open minded. They, they need to not have tunnel vision about who they hire. They need to remove the whole age thing. They also, I think need to be open to looking at bringing people on as contractors. You know, I think the gig economy is going to stay strong because I do believe that there are people who are not interested in full time work.

Denise Chaffin [00:36:57]:
And I know some companies say, no, these are full time roles only. Okay. That's not a good attitude to have. Not if you want to bring in top talent. If you want to bring in top talent, for positions you need to be open to. Contracting.

Steve Swan [00:37:10]:
Sure. Yeah. A bunch of the folks I know at the CIO level and such that are senior level, they.

Denise Chaffin [00:37:17]:
Fractional.

Steve Swan [00:37:19]:
That's where I was going to go. They look for and would like to do fractional. And I thought, to your point, I thought it would be huge right now because all these companies, they're getting a little squeezed, you know, so maybe they hire their head of security for, I don't know, 10 hours a week or the head of commercial systems for 30 hours a month or whatever it is, but they're not there. It's kind of, it's weird that they're not doing that and there's a lot of folks out there looking for that kind of work because they do that. But the companies aren't there for. And I, I can't figure out why you know so well.

Denise Chaffin [00:37:51]:
And I think it goes back to who the, the decision makers are on these things. You know, if you have a recruiter who's, who is, who's been in the business a long time and, and wants to be a really good talent advisor, that person needs to go to the leadership team and say, why are we not doing contracting? We've got some really good talent here and we're pulling them out of retirement or they're close to retirement and they'll work for a few more years. Here's what they have to offer. Here are their profiles. Why are we not going forward with this? What made you make the decision that you have to have a full time employee for this position?

Steve Swan [00:38:27]:
Right, right, right. Question it.

Denise Chaffin [00:38:29]:
But you need recruiters who are strong. You need recruiters who are willing to go toe to toe with the business managers or just y decision.

Steve Swan [00:38:37]:
Challenge the decision and say, what are we doing? Why are we here? You know?

Denise Chaffin [00:38:41]:
Yeah. And if they give you a good reason, then fine, walk away and do what they're asking you to do. Right. But at the same time, don't be afraid to ask the questions because you are. We are the front line when it comes to hiring new talent into an organization. We are the front line.

Steve Swan [00:38:56]:
We're the face, we're the, we're the first impression. They get a candidate, get to the company. So. Well, anyway. Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. So I have one final question I ask everybody right at the end of my interviews. It's going to be different than what you think it is, but anything else you want to add before I ask you my final question?

Denise Chaffin [00:39:19]:
Gosh, you know, I'll think of it afterwards. There's always the meeting, after the meeting here, you know. Yeah, I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but yeah, just recruit smart. Yeah, be open minded, Be smart, be

Steve Swan [00:39:30]:
curious, be open minded, you know, the whole thing. So I, I usually ask folks a question about music and such, and you already know that. So. So I'm. I'm already going on to my repeat victims. Like I said, I had one CIO show up for a second podcast recently, so I changed my question. Favorite movie? What's your favorite movie?

Denise Chaffin [00:39:54]:
The Sound of Music. Really? No. The wizard of Oz.

Steve Swan [00:39:59]:
Okay.

Denise Chaffin [00:40:00]:
Both. Both of them. They're both. They both run equal. Depends on what mood I'm in.

Steve Swan [00:40:03]:
Okay.

Denise Chaffin [00:40:04]:
I know, I know. Those are really taking me back, showing my age, but yeah, they were just, they're just timeless. They're timeless movies.

Steve Swan [00:40:13]:
My. My daughter, who is 25 now. So I'd get up, I, I was one of these in that. On the weekends I felt guilty sleeping in past 7 o' clock with my girls running around the house. I'm like, I got so much stuff I got to teach them and my weekends are limited. They're. They're going to grow and they're going to be out of the nest, which now they are. And so I'd get up with them in the morning and just do stuff with them, you know, like somersaults.

Steve Swan [00:40:36]:
They wanted to learn how to do a somersault. I remember. You know, whatever. So one of my daughters, one morning, she. She was boy, maybe four, I don't remember. She's standing down in the living room and she looks at me, she goes, she. She called Daddy. She wasn't real great with the enunciation.

Steve Swan [00:40:50]:
Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. I want costume movie. And that was wizard of Oz. She would always want to watch the costume movie. Costume.

Denise Chaffin [00:40:57]:
There you go then costume. And what's your daughter's name?

Steve Swan [00:41:00]:
Maggie.

Denise Chaffin [00:41:01]:
Matt. Oh, I have a niece named Maggie. Well, tell Maggie that she and I are kindred spirits.

Steve Swan [00:41:06]:
She loved it.

Denise Chaffin [00:41:07]:
I love that.

Steve Swan [00:41:07]:
Yeah.

Denise Chaffin [00:41:08]:
What's your favorite movie on the other

Steve Swan [00:41:10]:
end of the spectrum? I'm going towards the Shining. Oh, yeah, Good movie. I just.

Denise Chaffin [00:41:16]:
Well, you gotta love Jack Nicholson. He's good in everything.

Steve Swan [00:41:18]:
Something came across my phone last night on Instagram where it was, they filmed him as he was getting ready for the scene where he came. If you've ever seen the movie.

Denise Chaffin [00:41:27]:
I have seen the movie where he

Steve Swan [00:41:28]:
takes the ax and comes through the, through the, the door and you know, they showed. I forgot her name. The female now walking into the bathroom with her Big dagger knife. And him, he's kind of jogging in the bedroom in circles. And the producers and the guys with the headphones are walking around, like. And he's bumping into him while he's carrying his ax and he's swinging his ax a little bit, and he's getting all psyched up for the scene, you know, it was funny. It was funny.

Denise Chaffin [00:41:50]:
Oh, wow.

Steve Swan [00:41:51]:
It was good.

Denise Chaffin [00:41:51]:
I don't see him in anything anymore. He. He's been. Oh, he's just one of. One of my favorites.

Steve Swan [00:41:56]:
Yeah, he's out of the loop. You know, I just saw a thing pop up on my screen as I was walking into here. Kevin Spacey said to defend himself in his, I don't know, assault case recently. He's now living out of hotels. He has no money left because he had to spend all his money. But, you know, you only have to defend yourself if something's pretty close to home. Right? Or.

Denise Chaffin [00:42:14]:
That was. That was a sad story. I saw the. I saw the documentary on one from one of his victims. Oh, that was.

Steve Swan [00:42:20]:
Yeah, I didn't see that.

Denise Chaffin [00:42:21]:
Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I don't have a. For these guys because he's such a great actor. Kevin Spacey is such a great actor. And I hate when I hear these stories about these guys. And again, you know, no humility.

Denise Chaffin [00:42:35]:
These guys think that they're invincible. They think that they are, you know, above the law, so to speak. And that's where I just.

Steve Swan [00:42:42]:
Yeah, one of them are, you know, O.J. i mean, nobody is Kevin Spacey. Kaiser Sose. And. And wasn't seven. Was seven deadly sins him. I can't remember now, anyway. I don't know.

Denise Chaffin [00:42:52]:
I don't remember. I remember him. I liked him in the house of cards until they kicked him out. He was great in that.

Steve Swan [00:43:01]:
He was.

Denise Chaffin [00:43:02]:
You know, But. Yeah. And right now, the. My favorite series. And in fact, we just finished watching the. The last episode is the Morning show with Jennifer Aniston and Jon Hamm, so. Oh, and Reese Witherspoon.

Steve Swan [00:43:15]:
Oh, I haven't seen it. I don't know.

Denise Chaffin [00:43:17]:
It's so good.

Steve Swan [00:43:18]:
I gotta check it out. I gotta check it out. Well, thank you very much for your time.

Denise Chaffin [00:43:21]:
Thank you, Steve. Oh, my gosh, it's so nice to know you.

Steve Swan [00:43:24]:
This is great. This is good stuff.

Denise Chaffin [00:43:25]:
Yeah. And let's work together. Yeah, let's do some business together.

Steve Swan [00:43:29]:
Denise Chafin from Top Top Source Talent. Source Talent with a podcast as well.

Denise Chaffin [00:43:35]:
Yeah, I was gonna say, I'm on LinkedIn and topsourcetalentllc.com is my website. And then Talking TA is our podcast.

Steve Swan [00:43:44]:
The podcast. Cool. Awesome. Thank you very much.

Denise Chaffin [00:43:46]:
Thank you, Steve. Hey, have a great Thanksgiving.

Steve Swan [00:43:49]:
And you as well. Thank you.