Why IT Projects Stall. Talent Decisions That Quietly Derail Delivery with Limitless Staffing’s Clayton Dinger

If your IT initiatives keep stalling even with the right strategy, this episode pulls back the curtain on what’s really happening underneath and why talent decisions, not technology, are often the root cause.

In this conversation, Tonya sits down with Clayton Dinger, a specialist in enterprise IT staffing who works behind the scenes with leaders navigating high-stakes delivery gaps. Drawing from years of experience sourcing niche, high-demand talent, Clayton unpacks why even well-funded, well-planned initiatives can quietly derail when the wrong people are in the wrong roles at the wrong time. 

Together, they explore the hidden pressures IT leaders are carrying right now, from navigating a talent market full of “on-paper” performers to managing the risk of disengaged contractors who won’t stay through delivery. They break down the early warning signs of project drift, why stretching internal teams often creates compounding delays, and how the difference between the best available talent and the right talent ultimately determines outcomes.

Clayton also introduces a more strategic way to think about talent in today’s environment, moving beyond traditional hiring into a matrix model that blends a strong internal team with targeted external expertise. This conversation reframes staffing as a proactive leadership decision, one that reduces risk, accelerates delivery, and ensures teams have the right support at the right time to actually get across the finish line.

In this episode, they explore:

• Why IT projects stall even with the right strategy and executive buy-in
• The two biggest hiring risks: lack of transparency and lack of commitment
• How “imposters on paper” create real delivery risk
• The hidden cost of stretching internal teams too far
• Early warning signs a project is slipping before failure is visible
• Why working harder stops solving talent gaps
• The difference between the best available talent vs. the right talent
• When internal hiring works and when it quietly creates bigger gaps
• The real cost of waiting too long to bring in external expertise
• How to access the passive talent market for high-impact roles
• Why a matrix staffing model is replacing traditional hiring approaches
• How external experts accelerate delivery and transfer critical knowledge
• The leadership shift from endurance to strategic support design

Important Links:

https://app.technologymatch.com/solutions/staffing-options

https://www.linkedin.com/in/clayton-dinger-76a41aa1/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to Between Fires and Futures, a podcast about the real work of tech leadership, managing today's chaos while building tomorrow's business. I'm Tanya Tyrrell, a three-time founder with two successful exits, and the founder and CEO of TechnologyMatch.com. Each week, in this podcast, I talk with the leaders doing the real work, solving for now, building for what's next, and leading through pressure, not perfection. This is the podcast for tech leaders fighting fires today and daring to build the future anyway. Welcome back to Between Fires and Futures. I'm your host, Tanya Terrell, and today we're talking about something every IT leader knows in their bones. You can have the right strategy, you can have executive buy-in, you can even have the budget and still the project stalls. Not because the initiative was wrong, but because the talent decisions underneath just didn't hold. And what's hard is most IT leaders aren't just dealing with a capacity problem. They're dealing with a trust problem because in a market full of resumes, certifications, and people who look incredible on paper, you don't find out who can really deliver until you're already deep into the project. And then there's a second issue no one talks about enough, and that's commitment. Even when someone is highly qualified, will they stay engaged long enough to actually get you across the finish line? Or will they disappear the minute the next shiny opportunity shows up? So that's what this episode is about the hidden reasons IT initiatives slow down, drift, or quietly derail and how leaders can protect delivery by getting the right expertise at the right time with the right level of certainty. My guest today is Clayton Dinger. Clay has spent the last eight years working in the enterprise IT staffing market, sourcing niche, high-demand technology talent, and partnering with IT leaders to bridge complex delivery gaps. He operates in the world most IT leaders only meet when it when timelines are collapsing, where quality matters, speed matters, and the wrong hire doesn't just waste time. It creates real risk. So today we're gonna talk to Clayton about what he sees behind the scenes, how leaders get exposed, the red flags that signal someone's not going to deliver, the difference between muscling through and actually stabilizing a project and the moment you stop stretching your team thinner and bring in outside expertise before the cost gets expensive. So if you're running lean right now, if you've got critical initiatives on the calendar this year, or if you've ever found yourself thinking we should be further along than this, then this episode's for you. Clayton, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Tanya, thank you so much for inviting me to this discussion today. I mean, I know we've been planning this for some time, and I've already, I guess, introduced you at a high level to a lot of the challenges that I find myself helping IT leaders navigate. But it's just so great to finally sit down and get the opportunity to get into the weeds on all of that. You know, staffing and recruiting. Staffing and recruiting is just it's something I'm so passionate about, right? And just to kind of preface this discussion, you know, I was hoping, you know, I know we do have some important topics to cover here, but I wanted to just share a little bit of background just on how I got into staffing and recruiting and what's kept me around all these years. So I hope that's all right. Yeah, perfect. Okay, great. Okay, so I mean, for the last eight years, I have really lived and breathed staffing recruiting. And even though it feels like by now I should have experienced all this industry has to offer, I find myself learning new things every day. You know, new things about technology, new things about industry trends, and new things about people. And in that vein, I would probably say it's pretty simple. The main reason why I love being in this line of work, it's people helping people, right? I've always really had a proclivity towards sales just because, you know, sales roles are the most socially centric roles you can have, regardless of what industry you're in. And I'm sure you've realized by now that I'm not one to shy away from a conversation. But the beauty to me about staffing is that it takes the social aspect of sales sales a step further because I get to connect people who have business challenges to people who can help them deliver business solutions. And facilitating those relationships for me, anyways, is very rewarding. And it's how I built a trusted network of clients and candidates, and it's all really predicated on that underlying principle of people helping people. So with that said, I mean, I'm ready to get right into this and and chat about some of the most dynamic challenges that I'm seeing today across across my client base, all the IT leaders that I work with, what they, you know, have issues with and meeting their deliverables and and why, to me, having the right supporting cast of talent is just as important as having the right technology solutions. Um Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

And we hear it all the time, right? So yeah, let's get into it. I I love that you set it up that way because it is people helping people and the pains that we hear. And I I want to talk about the pains first because that's where every IT leader lives right now. You know, they're understaffed, they're overloaded, they're still expected to deliver, the pressure is on. And every IT leader knows what it feels like to run a critical initiative while they're understaffed. So what would you say are the real unspoken pressure points you see leaders, IT leaders carrying right now?

SPEAKER_00 5:38

I'm I mean, this list of challenges that hiring leaders face is long and it's really unique to the individual. But if I had to narrow it down to just a couple like broader umbrella points, I would have to say there's really two main pressure points that I'm seeing across the board today. And the first one is transparency. And what does that mean, transparency? So it's just honestly, it's getting more and more difficult to navigate talent markets and flesh out impostors who can really make themselves look good on paper, but you know, in in reality, they they can't deliver. And the the leaders that I work with, why this is a challenge for them, is really because they just don't have the bandwidth to sort through a black hole of applicants from LinkedIn job postings, you know, full of people who might just be propping up their qualifications in order to get to the interview stage with, you know, I never really understand why they do this, if they're just trying to, you know, pull the wool over everyone's eyes. Right.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

They're gonna get found out at some stage. But people do it.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Exactly. People do it. It's right, you know, fake it till you make it.

unknown 6:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

But they usually don't make it very long. But here's the other thing, right? Salaried HR partners who just post jobs and pray that the right person falls into their lap run that process because they just aren't incentivized the same way that agency recruiters are. We actively seek out the best people for the role because more times than not, the candidates that my leaders are really after are not in these applicant pools. And the reason for that is pretty simple. Those people already have great jobs and they aren't looking. And if so, we don't, if if we don't actively look for the best people and count on whoever is available, we don't get placements and we don't have a business, right? So hiring leaders need to deliver the passive talent, need need someone who can deliver the passive talent market and someone who can recognize those red flags of shady consultants in order to weed out who can help versus you know who's gonna hurt them, right? And this is why having a trusted network of candidates, like I do, is so critical to recruiter success and why for hiring leaders, having a trusted staffing partner is such an important and valuable partnership. And and so transparency is is something that's plaguing everyone, and it's not something that you can really address on your own. And that's again, right? That's come comes down to why the partnership is so important.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

Yeah, yeah, it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

And another really important one is loyalty, and that's another big challenge. And and it's simply just because there's so much competition today, there's so much competition for good talent in today's markets. Everybody wants the best niche talent. And to be honest, the smaller the candidate pool of those people are, the more valuable the candidates are to the organizations. And the candidates know this. Everybody knows their value to the market, right? So really, when it comes down to loyalty, securing people for longer than, you know, until the next shiny opportunity comes across their desk, it's it takes a lot more than just a commitment on paper, a signed agreement, right? Hiring leaders really need to take things a step further in the evaluation process. And that's where we come in, right? They need a trusted staffing partner with recruiters who can accurately gauge engagement, who can accurately engage commitment levels from the candidates they connect with. And again, all comes down to that, to that trusted network of candidates, effective screening processes, engaging the right candidates, asking the right questions, that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

Okay. Yeah, makes sense. Great information. So transparency and loyalty.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

From a transparency standpoint, what what would you say are the biggest red flags that tell you someone looks great on paper, but they're not going to deliver in real life? Are there any? Can you spot them?

SPEAKER_00 9:46

No LinkedIn profile. That is a huge one. That's something that we that we almost always use as the basis for evaluating whether or not someone's a legitimate candidate, right? I mean, in most people today, if they're especially if they're in this, you know, candidate network, they're gonna have a LinkedIn profile. It's the it's the key to to their, you know, to them being able to get a job in the first place. So that's a big one.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Yeah, good. Good. And then what about the loyalty piece? Because that's real. Like, how do you gauge whether someone's gonna stay committed long enough to actually get you across the finish line?

SPEAKER_00 10:23

I mean, the thing is, we can only really control, you know, a candidate's actions so like we we well, we can't really control them at all, right? We can only trust that we've done a good enough job at evaluating the level of engagement that they have. And also a big part of it is just figuring out their motivation for for leaving their current role. And, you know, even more important to that, their motivation for joining a new team. Like, why are you so excited to join this team? What do you think you can do to make meaningful contributions? And, you know, if you ask questions like these enough, I feel like, you know, you can really start to flesh out who's invested versus who isn't, because you know, people, the truth comes out in people's answers when you talk to them long enough, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love those questions too. Yeah. So, you know, we we spoke at length about this, but IT leaders, God, especially now in the age of AI where everything's accelerating, they've got impossible mandates right now, right? Transform the business, adopt new tech, go figure out AI, ship faster, keep the lights on. So, and they have fewer resources. They're running leaner and expected to do so much more. So where are they most vulnerable right now when it comes to skills, capacity, bandwidth?

SPEAKER_00 11:49

I mean, you know, IT leaders, they have to be thorough when they select the team members that are going to be responsible for helping them meet their deliverables, right? But like I mentioned earlier, oftentimes they don't have the bandwidth to do the grunt work early on, right? So I think the key to really minimizing time spent on evaluating candidates so you can get the right people in sooner, that is all centered around managing quality control from the inception point, right? And that involves having detailed discussions right out of the gate. And these discussions are between the leadership and the recruiters that they've engaged, you know, to go to market to find these people, right? You have to clarify expectations around a couple of different aspects. And it can't just be the what's, right? You know, the required technical skills and capabilities expected of these resources. You also have to be able to qualify the whys and the hows of getting to that end delivery goal. And I'd say these are just as important as the technology as the technical skills. And and what I really mean by the whys and the hows, this is all project context, right? So what we like to do in those initial discussions is fleshing out the in-depth project details and the roadmaps, the team structure, the dynamics, the various types of stakeholder groups involved along the way. I mean, these are all critical factors in terms of finding someone who can be successful on your team. And for that reason, it's it's really important to identify candidates who, yes, they can perform the technical aspects of the role. But they also have the necessary delivery context that makes sense for your specific project, right? You want people to come on board who can leverage experience from a similar project that they were in success, that they that they completed successfully elsewhere. You know, someone that can help you or help lead your team down the path of least resistance. They know the pitfalls along the way, they know you know the the shortest distance between two points, right? But you know, you also have to have the right cultural fit, the right team fit. That's important as well. And, you know, candidates who have worked in similar environments in similar structures, team structures before, you know, past success is always an indicator of future success, right? So finding a lot of those synergies and and you know, just finding those people that have kind of been there and done that in a lot of those scenarios is really important. And so, with that in mind, working with familiar recruiters is is so important here because the folks who understand, and these recruiters I mean by the folks, the that understand the nuanced details of these hiring leaders' expectations is really what makes all the difference, right? At the end of the day, staffing is a lot more than just providing people whose resumes check the boxes on your job description.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Right? It's about it's it's about providing people who are willing and able to make meaningful contributions to your specific project.

SPEAKER_03 15:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

And and and really the whys and the hows, these aren't searchable qualities like the what's are. The what's are technical skills that a lot of people are gonna list on their resume, but those those contextual things are a lot more difficult to search just looking at a resume. So those discussions to understand the deeper experience is uh they're so important, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Yeah. Yeah, I can see that, especially in in these critical projects. And I I read a stat that I thought was wild. I did not notate where where this came from, though. Shoot. Okay. I'll share it anyway. Hey, maybe I've heard it. Maybe I've heard it. It was a 2025 survey of global IT leaders found that skills shortages delayed, they're delaying digital transformations and causing product development delays in 54% of organizations across the US. Like that's that's more than half. It's huge.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Yeah, that's that is a huge number.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

Right. And it's it's not clearly not a motivation issue, it's a capability gap. And I think once that drag shows up early, it only compounds. Like you're not solving it with the same resources or talent. So that that drag shows up early, it's just gonna continue to compound and become frustrating and impact delivery.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

At some point, you need to know where to cut your losses, right? And and the way to not have to cut your losses in the first place is to do the heavy lifting out of the gate, right? And that's why I think it's so important to really go to market with a crystal clear idea of, you know, not just who the best person might be, but who the right person is, right? Because, you know, the best person based on some technical skills might not be the right person for your team. They might not be the right person because they've worked in, you know, on a they've used those technical skills in a completely different context, right? So so that's why I like to run very detailed intake calls with all of my clients at the very as soon as they tell me that they have a new requirement, they have a new opening on their team. I don't go to market until I've had a conversation with them to flesh out all those details and make sure that nobody's wasting their time in you know the early onset because you know it becomes a vicious cycle of you know back and forth. And, you know, again, the the time is is valuable.

SPEAKER_03 17:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

And a lot of people, they don't come to me with resource needs until the fires are already hitting the ceiling, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:46

So when they need them yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Exactly. Yes, we hear that all the time. Yeah, we hear that all the time.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

Yeah, I bet you do. I'm doing that right now.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

I bet. I bet.

SPEAKER_02 17:57

So yeah, I want to kind of get into the patterns you you've seen across industries when the right talent isn't brought in early enough. Because, yeah, I mean, like like you said, they're coming to you when the when the fire is already there. So from your vantage point, I'm sure you see the same story on repeat. What are the early patterns that show up when a project starts slowing down because the wrong talent decisions weren't made at the start? And and what can be done about it?

SPEAKER_00 18:23

I mean, you know, there's always an opportunity cost, an opportunity cost associated with not finding the right resource early enough. But oftentimes, this is not an issue around talent mismatch. You know, rather it's a timeline issue or a commitment issue. And I think we've kind of touched on both of those already, but just to kind of you know bring it full circle in this moment. Again, this is why you need a trusted staffing partner to properly qualify resources, gauge the team fit, the commitment levels, evaluate the candidate's motivation for joining. And you know, without that, you will either spend more time than you need going back and forth, you know, with too many candidates that are not relevant, and you know, spend way too much time looking at people who are not qualified or we're not gonna work out they're the wrong people, they shouldn't have been introduced to you in the first place. And you know, that is gonna what? Then you're gonna have to push back critical and project milestones because, you know, all because important context was missing in the early stages. On the other side, you know, rushing to hire someone who already has one foot out the door is another big issue, right? And I'd say the even bigger issue, the latter of those is is probably the greater of two evils here, because nobody can afford to waste their valuable time onboarding, training, passing on IP to someone only to have to do it all over again when that person doesn't work out. And again, the opportunity costs of of you know not finding the right resource early enough can be negated by having those deep contextual discussions that that really help clarify exactly what you're looking for.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Yeah, yeah, perfect. So I I want to talk about that gap that you know we've been alluding to specifically, because I think most leaders understandably try to solve resource gaps internally at first. And I think, you know, of course, leaders are trying to do the right thing here. They they want to develop their people, they want to use internal talent. They maybe don't want to throw outsiders into the mix unless they unless they have to. So when does solving it internally actually work? And when does it quietly set up the project to struggle? Like when is the right time to to work with a hiring partner?

SPEAKER_00 20:57

That is a great question because of course internal fulfillment is great if and when it's possible. Because the, you know, the importance of internal IP, you know, office politics and and cultural fits and just the way that organizations uniquely do things, right? It really can't be understated. And having that experience by working in the organization already is is is very valuable. But pulling someone internally from one part of your organization to another, it always leaves a gap, right? You it leaves a gap on the team you pulled the resource from. And then really the question becomes can you adequately and effectively organize to close that gap? As a hiring leader, can your team afford to share that resource's capacity? And does that resource really have the bandwidth to be spread thinner across multiple initiatives if you're gonna share them instead of just pulling them away? And and and really you have to be real with yourself about is there a bigger talent scarcity gap to address, right? And I think that really all comes down to what is the broader organizational opportunity cost of taking someone away from one team to join another or sharing them between multiple teams and whether or not that shared resources approach can deliver full capacity given the project landscape, right? I mean, can your deliverables be met with, you know, only half someone working half the time on one thing and half the time on the other, right? And so, you know, I work with a lot of enterprise organizations who cycle through contractors whose leaders and also their peers that work adjacently to them, then you know, in these high visibility organizations, very cross-functional projects scapes and and and deliverables, you know, they they cycle through contractors quite often. And they all a lot of the time, they want to get these contractors who have previous work experience in that organization re-engaged, you know, because they understand the benefit of minimizing the learning curve, not just on the technology side, but also on the organizational learning side, right? And and again, this this just comes back to highlight my point, which I keep coming back to about trusted networks, right? And the foundation of which are built on positive experiences. And I'm gonna throw a stat at you here. And one that I'm very, very proud of, Tanya. I have a 99% stick rate for my candidates working the full term of their contracts. And I think that speaks That's impressive. Yeah, right? It is. It's something I'm very proud about. It's something that I that I bring up to all my clients, new and old. And I think it really it just speaks volumes about the positivity inherent in those experiences. Yeah, uh experiences, rather. So, you know, you better believe I can get those folks re-engaged. I mean, I've got great relationships, and again, the trusted networks are are are you know critical in these types of situations? But another important question to consider, I think, in in you know, when it comes to internal fulfillment versus external support, is really do you have the right resources internally to deliver the project at all? Right? Are you venturing into uncharted territory trying to cut corners by putting a square peg in a round hole? Yeah, the third. Right? It is. And a lot of people will look for the go ahead. No, sorry, go ahead. Okay. I was gonna say a lot of people will look for the easiest solution, you know, by just bring instead of instead of going out to market and finding finding someone who's done that, okay. Maybe we go with someone who has a little bit of exposure to that or who we think has the ability to do it. But, you know, those decisions can, like you said, compound over time. And, you know, if that learning curve, if that learning curve takes longer than you expected, or you know, it turns out that those people don't have the skills that you imagined that they would, that's a huge opportunity cost, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there is a cost. I mean, there's a cost either way, but there's definitely a cost trying to build everything internally while the world moves faster than your internal learning curve potentially. IDC estimates tech talent shortages will cost organizations$5.5 trillion in 2026, mostly from delays and the inability to compete. So hiring internally with maybe not the most aligned talent for the project, that that waiting is expensive.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

And you know what else? That's not a positive experience for everyone, for anyone, exactly, right? Because that that that creates a lot of internal pressure, right? I mean, you know, whether it's on the resource that was, you know, had given these these, you know, super impossible deliverables based on their skill set or you know, the expectations that leaders had for this for this person, because you know, some hiring manager said, Oh, yeah, we'll bring on so and so and they can do it. It you know, it causes a lot of problems, more problems than solutions whenever uh the delays come in, right? Because who's on the chopping block at that point?

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Someone is well, and I think every IT leader's been there, right? There's a gap, they know it, they know bringing in help, it's gonna take effort and time, so they stretch. We hear it all the time. They stretch, they muscle through, they ask their team to do more, everybody's pulling their hair out. So from what you've seen, because I'm sure you've seen a lot with your clients, what's the difference between a team that tries to muscle through a skills gap and a team that brings in the right expertise at the right time? Do you have examples that you could share with your actual clients where that was like something that you had to save them from?

SPEAKER_00 27:09

I mean, I will I can I'm sure I can think of a specific example, but I I think really that defining the type of skill gap is everything when it comes to making a decision like this, right? And it all comes down to one thing, and that's your level of resistance or your or tolerance of the learning curve, right? What are you looking for? Do you need someone who can hit the ground running, who can be independent, maybe someone who can even like coach your team and again like lead them down the path of least resistance, right? Do you want someone to take a lot of ownership on that deliverable? Or do you have a knowledgeable team already? Someone that's you know, a team that's very capable, right? And maybe you prefer to bring on someone who's a little bit more malleable, someone who you're willing to invest in, and you know, who can learn from your team and grow with your team. And, you know, this is why so many of my clients will be on one side of the fence or the other. We need an SME, someone who has been there, done that several times because the the the you know the flames are hitting the ceiling. Yeah. Or, you know what? We're gonna we're gonna scale our budget back a bit. We want, you know, someone who's a little bit more green, someone who can come in and you know, is committed to the long-term, you know, the long-term vision, who's gonna be with our team for some time, learn and grow, and is looking for like a career branding opportunity. And I mean, I see going one direction or the other like every day. I mean, I can think of a million examples of this, right? Yeah. It's just it really depends on your tolerance for the learning curve or or your resistance to it, right? That's that's really what it comes down to. Yeah. And and and what you have to do, I think, is look at your current state and the gap to the desired state, and then decide. Do you have time to bring on someone who's a little bit more green and malleable, or do you need someone who's gonna come in and take ownership and you know, lead you across the finish line?

SPEAKER_02 29:15

Yeah, yeah. And yes, I mean, so what I hear you saying is bringing in expertise is when you don't bring expertise, there's there's all there's a delivery risk, right? And I think the smartest leaders don't wait until there's damage and that they need help. They I think strong IT leadership now is is less about heroics and more about designing the right support system early. Because once you're behind, we talked about that compounding effect that you know you're compounding the cost. And it isn't just schedule, it's thrust and quality and burnout and you know, uh the negative experiences that you were talking about.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Absolutely. And in one instance, and just this specific role, like I've seen so many times with a project manager who maybe a project manager has has not lived up to the expectations of what they were brought on to do. And, you know, I have an arsenal of very senior project managers that I reach out to for specific groups, whether it be in, you know, my banking clients, my insurance clients, you know, my retail clients, whatever the case may be, they have experience specifically in saving projects and bringing them out of the red and into the green. And those people are very expensive, as you can imagine. Yeah. And so if you think about it, had they had brought that person on initially, or maybe paid a little bit more attention to what the context of the project was and what those needs were, you know, they wouldn't have taken the risk of hiring someone that wasn't proven yet and wouldn't have to let that person go and bring in someone who, you know, is very expensive to fix problems. You know, there's that's that's the opportunity cost, and that that's a real cost.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So when an IT leader brings in a staffing partner, recruiting partner outside help, what should they look for in a partner who who's actually going to reduce the friction instead of adding to it?

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Well, I mean, that's that's what we're here to do is reduce the friction, right? Staffing partners are meant to make hiring light leaders' lives easier. We're here to cut through the noise, and we're here to take an active approach to solving your problems. And and I want to highlight that active approach, and I think I mentioned it kind of at the beginning of our discussion, why staffing agencies are different compared to, you know, maybe an internal HR team, right? If you're okay with a passive approach, and you know, passive approach being like posting your job description and hoping the right person applies, you know, what's gonna happen is you're gonna be spending the majority of your time filtering through hundreds of unqualified applicants rather than you know engaging a staffing firm who's gonna go to market with that clear identity of who you're looking for and actively seek them out, whether they're looking or not. Because, like I said, the people who are typically applying to jobs are people who need jobs. And the people who might be the best resource for whatever your deliverable is, whatever your project is, they have a job already because they're great, right? So you gotta you gotta have someone who is going to give you access to the passive market, who's gonna go after people that aren't necessarily available and sell them the dream of coming to work for your organization and support your project. And, you know, that all comes down to project context, you know, understanding how to ask the right questions, you know, leverage the right selling points and and you know, knowing your organization and knowing your project and knowing your team and all those nuanced details that come into play, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:10

Yeah, yeah, no, that's so helpful. And I don't think I've ever heard it framed that way. So what I'm hearing is, you know, it's so much more than recruiting or staffing or posting a job or interviewing and placing what you're really talking about.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

If you want agility, I was gonna say if you want agility, if you want quality control, and if you want access to the best talent in the market, not just the best available, the best period, right? You know, those those people aren't applying for roles and right, and and that's why people work with me, right? We don't headhunt. We don't uh so that that's what we do, sorry. We do headhunt. We don't spray and pray, right? We're not posting job descriptions and hoping someone falls into our lap. We go after the people.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

Yeah, I love that. So you're accessing that that passive market and really filtering risk.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Absolutely, a hundred percent. Because, you know, what did I say at the that one of the biggest issues in in you know, plaguing IT leaders today is transparency, right? Yeah, someone might look great on paper, but if you're just going to, you know, bring them in for an interview, or even if you're not bringing them in for an interview, just do a screening call with someone who looks really good on paper, you're gonna find out that they're not good. Why wouldn't you let me, you know, maybe I come across that person, likely I won't because I'm I'm not going to market. But if their resume is you know propped up well enough, maybe I will come across them. But I'll be able to flesh out if they're, you know, if they're legit or if they are pretty quickly, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:44

No, this is good stuff. So I want to zoom out a little bit because the way IT teams build talent is changing. I mean, gosh, even internally, you know, we had a hiring plan that we put together in December. And because of what AI can do, it's just changing so fast. So the way teams build talent is changing, will likely continue to change. And, you know, I don't think it looks as things traditionally looked in the past, right? It's not full-time headcount anymore. And it's always a mix now. I mean, there's you know, remote contractors, we've got contractors, consultants, fractional specialists, niche experts, full-time partner time. How should IT leaders be thinking about the right mix of internal and external skills going forward?

SPEAKER_00 35:33

Everybody is going to have their own preference on what percentage of their team is their full-time skeleton team, what percentage of their team are contractors used that they use to scale up, scale down, or bring in, you know, special skill sets, right? So a matrix approach to staffing is is is imperative in today's today's world, today's landscape of of you know projects that that have all of these niche technologies involved and have these crazy deliverable timelines, you know, nothing's ever fast enough, right? You you want you gotta be moving, you gotta be moving faster than your competitors, they get you're you're gonna get left behind, right? And and the reason a matrix approach is so important is because your skeleton team will always have some limitations, right? Whether it's capacity related or whether it's capability related, you know, the latter is is especially applicable when you know venturing into uncharted territory, as I was mentioning before, right? You know, if you're looking to introduce new technology, if you're looking to integrate with uh with a new vendor product that's you know maybe the the people on your internal team don't really are familiar with, right? You know, uh consulting firms and implementation partners, right? They are branded as specialists in a lot of these types of project delivery scenarios, right? But they have a bench of internal resources that are specialized in, you know, that specific niche. And they have limitations as well. They can only deploy the best available resources on their bench. And as I've said before, the best person that's available might not be the best person for the role. So a lot of these big consulting firms, they might have the most relevant talent already deployed at another client. And they're just giving you, you know, whoever's available, the next best person available, right? And you know, you don't want to have the second tier, right? I think you'll always need a mechanism in place to access the open market because the people who have those niche skills know they have those niche skills and they know they're gonna make more money contracting than they will by working for a big consulting firm or going to work full-time somewhere. And also bringing those folk, those types of folks in for let's say it's a year-long initiative, right? They stack up, you know, three or four of those back to back. All of a sudden, they look like a rock star in the industry. So those the best people, in my opinion, for a lot of those niche technologies, never find a permanent home. They like to move from one project to the next because it helps with their personal branding and it helps, you know, with their their earning potential, right? And and my talent networks are full of those people. They're serial contractors that that you know spend a year or two at one organization. They leverage all of that experience that they gain at these top-tier enterprise organizations. And when another one inevitably follows, you know, looking to adopt that technology to compete with, you know, this is big across the big banks. We work with a lot of them, right? I mean, and they they all time try to follow each other. So in that industry specifically, the contractors will hop from one to the other because those skills are so in demand, but they're just in demand at different times, right? So, you know, that's that's that's why you need access to the open market. And yeah, no, that's what that's that's what my networks are built of.

SPEAKER_02 39:14

Yes, makes complete sense, right? Like I think the old model was hire permanent teams and hope they can adapt to everything. We don't live in that world anymore. And the the new model is, and this is what I hear you saying, keep your core strong and then bring in expertise intentionally when the terrain changes. And we are in an era where that terrain is constantly shifting.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Couldn't agree with you more, Tanya. No, that's that's exactly what I'm saying. You got it. And that's exactly what I'm seeing. It's it's it's a new way of working, right?

SPEAKER_02 39:45

Yeah, so it's strategic design. And it's it's getting me to think about staffing differently. It's more strategic design and keeping a strong skeleton team that holds the business and the institutional knowledge and you know the culture carriers, and then bring in outside expertise to accelerate outcomes, especially when there's new tech infrastructure, new demand, new delivery timelines.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

And one of the benefits to someone like you, for example, in bringing on those expert resources internally, there's a lot of knowledge transfer, right? So what used to be foreign concepts and foreign technology to your skeleton team, you know, become a lot more familiar. And there's a there's a lot of value in not just the immediate deliverable by bringing in an expert resource like that, but you know, the long-term vision. Because, you know, like I said, these these people are not coming in for a long-term goal. They're coming in to put their head down and and help you meet your deliverable, but just collaboration within that environment with your existing skeleton team, there's gonna be knowledge transfer. And that's that's you know, that's that's benefit to your your your skeleton team and you know, in the long run, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 40:58

Yeah. So I mean, you know, our team talks to IT leaders every day, and we are hearing you know, they're stretched thin, their teams are stretched thin, they're they're largely under resourced, and yet they keep pushing through because I guess it feels like that's what leadership is, is just to continue to push through. That's what we hear over and over. So so for the IT leader listening right now, what's the moment they should stop pushing their team further and bring in outside expertise instead? Like what's the what are the three triggers leaders can look for? Like practical signals that say stop stretching, bring help.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

I think, I mean, I'm sure we've gone over these before, but if I can bring it home, I think once you recognize that your existing team doesn't have the capacity, doesn't have the you know, the capacity or the bandwidth, or doesn't have the skills that you need, you also realize at that point, or at least you should, a light bulb should go off, that the path of least of least resistance in terms of meeting your deliverables, it resides solely in external support because that external support can empower you, it can bridge knowledge gaps, as I was saying, can transfer critical skills. Yeah, it can make your entire team better in the process. And all you have to do, and it's not just about bringing someone in externally to get the job done, you know, and and paying whatever that that resource costs. Right. There's so many, there's so many tangible benefits beyond that, that I was just explaining before, right? So I guess No, this is helpful.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

So I what I hear you saying is external expertise isn't shouldn't be treated like a last resort. It's a strategic lever, right? Absolutely. So and I think the trap leaders can is that leaders confuse endurance, like being able to just push through, confusing endurance with leadership, because real leadership is clarity, right? It's knowing when the cost of pushing is higher than the cost of getting support. And so what I hear you saying is like it in so many ways, beyond beyond recruiting and staffing, it is a strategic lever in so many ways that it reduces risks, it compresses timeline, it protects the team. You're bringing the get that knowledge transfer that you were talking about.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

Yeah, absolutely. And if you if you are willing to come to terms with that, and and you know, exactly what you said, real leadership is is is not necessarily muscling through. It's understanding how to tackle problems efficiently and effectively and improve your your current state and your your existing team. If you show me the path where there's you know a gap, I'll help you find the people that have walked in, right? And and those are the people that are gonna add a lot of value to your team. And if Course, you know, there's there's an expense associated with that, but there's an opportunity cost with not doing it. So you have to decide at what point does one the the opportunity cost outweigh the actual cost of you know leveling up.

SPEAKER_02 44:18

Yeah, perfect. Clayton, this was so good.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

Tanya, I agreed. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

I mean, this is not a subject that we've covered, and yet it's something that my team hears day in and day out. So I'm so glad that you were able to share this wealth of information. And, you know, I really hope that our audience starts to think about staffing a little differently because they don't have to push through. There are resources, so they don't have to push through the pain and endure. Um, and and I think the real takeaway here is simple like IT projects don't stall because the strategy is bad, they stall because talent decisions underneath them don't hold. And you know what we're seeing is IT leaders are stretched so thin, and their tendency is just to push harder, but it to protect delivery, it really is about finding the right expertise.

SPEAKER_00 45:10

Absolutely. And because they're so busy with these projects, I know they don't have the bandwidth. And that's why people like myself exist. Right? Yeah. We're we're here, we're here to help you navigate those those those niche talent markets when you don't have maybe the familiarity with the the nicheness of it, the technology involved, or you just really you just don't have the uh the bandwidth because you're so busy with you know managing your team and trying to meet your deliverables.

SPEAKER_02 45:36

Yeah, yeah. So if you're listening and you're navigating a major initiative right now, or you've got a project on the calendar and just can't afford that drift or stalling, I wanted to make this easy for you. So you can go to technology match and head to go to technology match.com and there you can search. You could just type in the word staffing and Clayton and Limitless Staffing will will pop up for you. It should be at the top of the results. Perfect. Also, I'll link the link to those pages in the show notes. I will link Clay's LinkedIn profile in the show notes too. Anything else that we should link for the audience?

SPEAKER_00 46:16

No, I think that's great. My LinkedIn profile, you can put my email address in there. You know, I think that's that's typical, you know, kind of first step in the process of engagement, right? So Yeah, perfect.

SPEAKER_02 46:27

So I'll link all those resources for everyone. Thank you so much. This was such a great conversation, and I know, you know, I know I can think of a few people in our audience that I'm gonna send it to specifically because they're at battling with this right now.

SPEAKER_00 46:42

I look forward to meeting them. Tanya, thank you so much for having me. It's been it's been an incredible discussion. I love shining light on this industry, and like I said, it's people helping people, and I can't wait to continue doing it.

SPEAKER_02 46:54

Yes, I love that. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

My pleasure. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 46:59

Thank you for tuning in to Between Fires and Futures. We know the weight tech leaders carry, the pressure, the pace, the constant pull between keeping things running and building what's next. If no one said it lately, you're doing hard, important work. And we see you. If this episode sparks something for you, follow the show, leave a review, and share it with another tech leader who gets it. Thanks again for listening. Keep leading through the fires and daring to build the future anyway.