The Inside Scoop

Ever wonder what a recruiter is actually thinking when they open your resume? Talent acquisition pro AJ Russell joins Dr. Quinta to pull back the curtain — starting with the reframe every job seeker needs to hear: recruiters aren't hunting for reasons to say no, they're hunting for the yes. From there, they rapid-fire through the resume myths that won't die (photo on your resume? Graphics and columns? Full home address?) and get real about what actually gets you noticed, what LinkedIn outreach really needs to look like, and why applying even when you don't check every box might still be worth it. If you're job hunting right now, this is the insider scoop you've been missing. New episodes weekly — subscribe so you don't miss one.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Tell me uh about Dean of Reality because you know I I don't know if you know this, but I love a good book. Um immediately, Dean of Reality is still in my Amazon cart. I just gotta press click, but tell us about the book.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

I can't wait to press click to purchase. Um okay, so I I started this book back in 2024. Um, so I guess if you think about it, bringing it all in perspective. Writing a book, going to law school, studying for the bar was all in that together. So I needed some type of relief or outlet. I was I went through something and I was typing it out and I was kind of journaling, if you will. And I was like, you know, let me write a little bit more about how I'm feeling currently. So I'm typing it out, and I was like, I mean, what if I created this character? Um, and I wrote about this particular person, but using some of my personal feelings in it, but also, you know, bring some fiction into. And that's what I did. So it was it was a little bit of therapy for me, you know, how we journal. So this book is it's kind of like a journal adjacent, like it's fiction, um, but a lot of it has to do with something that I was dealing with or I was experiencing uh on the front end. Um so then in reality, it's about a 35-year-old black man who is the youngest dean of a law school. And he's dealing with this identity crisis of he knows who he is externally. Like all the colleagues and people, friends, he knows exactly who he is and how he shows up. But internally, it's a question of who am I? Um, what do I want to do? Like what am I doing here? So when the crowd is, you know, oh hoorah, hoorah. But when the crowd goes away and he goes home, who is he? So is it his work? It's consuming him and his identity, is his work? Does he have a out of work life? I don't know. Um, so that's how it's it starts with this celebration. And then we get into childhood and you know, you know, all the different turns he's going through. But that's kind of what it's about, just understanding from a leadership perspective who you are and then who you are at work and then who you are personally at home. And he's trying to figure that out.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Welcome to the quintessential pod where career conversations get real. Come on, sit down and let's talk about it. On top of the greatness that you have going on, AJ, I have you here because I want the inside scoop today. With you working in the talent acquisition and recruiting space, you were the perfect person for me to come. Like I'm gonna treat you like a lemon today because I'm gonna squeeze all of it out of you. And so uh we're gonna go ahead and just dive in and let's talk about it. So officially, welcome to the Quintess Central Pod where career conversations get real with AJ Russell today.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

I like that.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Quick heads up. Um, it may seem like I'm asking you one question after the next. We may go a little bit over time today, but that's how committed I am to trying to get all these questions from you. And I think before we dive in, um I want to make sure I situate this conversation in um the fact that yes, you are a talent acquisitions professional, but you don't speak for all recruiters. You do not speak for one employer or the other in this space today. And so um, while I know you're gonna give us some gems and nuggets and things to reflect on, I don't want anybody to take this as law from AJ today, and then they'll be coming for you and saying, I need to stop because of AJ. So that's right. We'll just sit you like that um for today. So when people think about recruiting in the job search, they think about maybe you all are just sifting through so many resumes and with the intent of saying no, right? That's that's maybe what we internalize in our head. But tell me, what's the reality of what's really going on behind the scenes?

SPEAKER_03 4:44

I would say less about hunting the no, uh, more about hunting the yes, about what makes you the candidate for this particular role? Like what you know, how you stand out versus everybody else. Like what's like like that eye catcher? So as a recruiter, we don't go toward, well, let me just sift through these and I know none of these are gonna work. We're hoping that the first or second or third or fourth is the one because we have a time to fill rate that we have to like there, there's metrics behind how long does it take AJ to fill a role? And our jobs is to get them filled, but with the best candidate. So we are hoping and praying that this one resume that we're gonna look at first is the one. So we're hunting for the yes instead of the no.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Okay. So you thinking about the first resume or the first one through five, where does that leave the person that may be sitting at number 8910? And in this uh this uh landscape, we're hearing roles that usually would only get 50 applications are getting 500. So where do the people that are sitting at number 357, how are they fitting into that landscape?

SPEAKER_03 6:10

Great question. So it depends on you know what systems you have and the filters you have on. So how we do it or I'll do it is I start from number one. So there's there's a way you can filter, you know, who applied first. And there are moments where you may have applied first, but you didn't complete your application, you didn't hit a button or you didn't fill out this particular thing or that particular thing, and then we have to move on. So while we want multiple candidates and we we do, we we screen you know hundreds of them, but as far as looking at the resumes and seeing what we have, we're not we're not gonna go through, or I'm not gonna go through you know all 500. If I have, you know, the first five candidates who meet the qualifications, who have stood out to me, um, who has you know met everything that I'm looking for, those five are going to the hiring managers. And number six, if none of these five work, or let's say three doesn't work, okay, here comes six, or that you know, four doesn't work, here comes seven. So it just depends on the how they flow. But from our perspective, started with one and then just work our way up.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Gotcha. And that's good context. So, and what I'm hearing is people probably should prioritize the applications that they see that were posted within the day or posted within six hours. And I don't know if you have this data or not, but on average, if a job is posted today at maybe 1 p.m., how soon do you see applications start to triple in?

SPEAKER_03 7:59

101 p.m. So it depends on the role and depends on um how sought out this particular position is. So, you know, in a supply chain space, you know, it may be a packer, let's say. Yeah, you know, people are gonna apply for a packer. It may not get us much traction, but let's say it's a lead or a supervisor type role, it's gonna get a lot of traction because that's a high, high value, high value position. So it depends on the role.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

And um, this is a reminder, and I'll say it out loud, uh, stay ready so you don't have to get ready. That's right. Because there are, depending on the industry, there are going to be roles where you're submitting, not only are you submitting the cover letter and the resume, but they need a portfolio and they want this and they want that. And then, of course, we're encouraged to, you know, make adjustments to our resumes and you know, tailor them for that position. And so I think in this conversation already, we're bringing out some of the subtle nuances of even when it may say quick apply, it's not always that quick because of course you have to put your best foot forward through your materials, but also you're racing against this clock to kind of be in that first applicant pool. So um good context. And so from a recruiting perspective, maybe you know a role is getting ready to come online, or you know um you're having this role and you're not um finding the person yet that you need. Where do you go out and seek that talent? And then how do you use platforms like LinkedIn to help determine who's that good fit for maybe the role you're hoping to fill?

SPEAKER_03 9:56

Yeah, so referrals are probably, and well, I'm sure we'll touch on this, but are probably the biggest driver of and we we can't find a candidate. Um not not we're seeking, all right. Let me go ask Quenta. Do you know anybody? And sometimes, sometimes that works. Um, but referrals are helpful, uh, but also indeed LinkedIn. There there are ways on LinkedIn that we can search for different things um that's not like live. You like you wouldn't be able to see what what we could see. So we are searching keywords or um you know key roles that they people have held that we could just search and then they come up. And we're like, okay, let me reach out to this person. Uh almost like a headhunter. Uh and sometimes, you know, we we look at it like, oh, maybe we have to because we're not getting the candidates we we're looking for. Um, sometimes we have to reach out to people that are currently active in other roles at other organizations because we're not getting the candidate. Uh so there are different ways that we as recruiters go out and seek talent. Uh, but indeed, the LinkedIn is probably, depending on the role, it's probably the biggest one because that's a more technical, that's a more site that people have most of the job information on. Whether indeed is, you may have a resume there, uh, but it's not as sophisticated as LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Can you kind of tell us maybe ways or maybe one big way or one good way for people to maybe optimize their LinkedIn account? So when y'all are kind of doing your reverse search to kind of get um, you know, your eyes in front of them per se.

SPEAKER_03 11:51

So what I've what I've found and is in my experience, not only doing it, but being reached out to is whatever role you're seeking, somewhere on your LinkedIn, that needs to be a role or keywords that fit the role. So let's say I'm I'm seeking an HR director role. Somewhere on my resume or my LinkedIn profile, I'm gonna somehow put um even it maybe in a tagline uh at the top, you know, director of people. Now you may not be a title director, but you're doing director-like duties or a people culture leader. Leader constitutes director. Like we we put those two together. So so if you're leading in some form of fashion, you need to put that in your resume, or you know, if your role is like HR generalist, uh you can do you can change it to, I mean, in my opinion, you can change it to like HR business partner. Because essentially you're probably doing that role technically, but you just don't have the title for it. And your description needs to match it. But there are ways you can change a change a role or a title that fits the work that you're doing. Now, the company that you work for may not recognize or have those titles in the pipeline, or that's not their structure, but if you're doing the job effectively, I don't see anything wrong with changing your title for the purposes of you know being more um available, more approachable, more um, you know, people recruiters like us want to see it more want to see you. And we can that comes up on our search. Business partners are a very um unique role in HR that we seek uh because they're strategic partners. So you want strategic thinking people around. So that's that's a very good role to have uh on your resume or in your experience. So highly recommend that just for an example.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. And speaking of LinkedIn, sometimes we'll see this maybe from a recruiter or someone that works for the company, and they're like, our team is growing, come work with us here. Message me if you're interested. And then you may message them and you never hear back. What's going on with that agent? Why why do you sometimes not hear back when you know people are soliciting for people to reach out if they're interested?

SPEAKER_03 14:48

Yeah. Um so I have a grievance with that. I I don't like to message me thing. One because realistically, depending the people are looking for jobs, right? Especially now, looking for jobs. And especially if your job is a very high value job, you're gonna get hundreds of messages. Realistically, you're not gonna go through all those messages, in my opinion. So I'm not a fan of the message thing. Now there are moments where and I've experienced this personally, that I messaged somebody and they got back to me. What really stands out the most would be like showing personality in the message. I mean, being respectful, you know, not misspelling their name. Please don't do that. Like hi, AJ, put like J A like that. You lost me already. So, but showing personality, but reality is recruiters are not going through every single message. They put that for like traction. They want they want to know and see and maybe have potential to have somebody. But going through each message, like I just I'm not a fan of it. I don't know why we do that. Um, I don't do that. Uh one, because I don't want my message box flooded. Because I'm I may be missing other things. So what I would probably recommend or prefer is put putting a link there and maybe put an email. Hey, send me your resume. I think that's a little bit more reasonable where we can sift through. And if there's a if there's a email that comes with a resume, I click it. Oh, okay. Let me look up to see if they've applied. They applied, let's let's get them in. Um, so yeah, the message me. So what's happening behind the scenes is they can't get to all those messages. There's not enough time.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

So it's two things with I think about it like this. Um, if you get, you know, hundreds of emails a day at work, or you get a team's message or whatever, either in the middle of doing something. So you may read the message, like, okay, I'm gonna respond to AJ in a minute. So then a minute passes, and then something else has happened. You get up from your desk, and then you're like, oh crap, I never responded back to that person on LinkedIn. And you don't even know who it is. Like, wait, who was I even gonna respond to anyway? Right. So that could be happening. But then also the other thing that I thought about this happened to me a couple of years ago. I don't even remember how long, but someone, a recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn and they said, like, hey, based on your experience, your profile, you are who we would want to look for in this position. Can you set up some time to chat this week? I messaged a recruiter back because I'm just like, at the time I wasn't looking for a role, but I'm like, okay, let me let me just see, right? And so I messaged back, told them my availability, also went ahead and applied for the role on their website just so to get some things going and even to show my level of seriousness that I would have taken the opportunity. AJ, I ain't heard from that lady today. And this was a couple years ago.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

This was a couple years ago. And so, and I'm not looking for you to give an explanation for that, but I bring that up to say with recruiters being so busy, if I could give a piece of advice, and this is coming from my research lens because I do um job seeking research, um, the people want closure. So don't ask them to message you if you know you just don't have the bandwidth or the capacity to get back to them. And also if you're reaching out to people, make sure you do your due diligence to close that loop. Because I, you know, still wonder about that. Like, was she just trying to meet a quota? Like, I don't know what y'all's quotas are, but does she have like a little metric that says I need to reach out to 15 people on LinkedIn a day? And that was just her hitting that mark. And so again, the people need closure. And so I thought about that as as you were you were talking.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Yeah. So I will say though, you mentioned, you know, maybe you would prefer someone to put their email down or something like that. But if someone does want to show their interest in a role, what would you say your preferred way is if they were wanting to do some type of code outreach?

SPEAKER_03 20:00

I would say reach out via email. Uh again, we we are slammed, we have you know hundreds of roles we need to fill sometimes. And LinkedIn is only one source that we we use to source candidates. There's our applicant tracking system that is embedded in our organization. There's indeed, there's, you know, some people still use zip recruiter. So there are a few different ways that we're sourcing candidates. Um but if you have an email, I would highly recommend the email because that way it comes, we see it, there's a resume attached, there's a message, like explaining, you know, letting us know who you are. And from there, we have a little bit more insight than LinkedIn. Now we can look at your profile, but the reality is again, I don't know if there's enough time in the day to do that. So if you're reaching out to me personally, there's a better chance that you'll get through. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Based on your experience, let's say a person reaches out to you, and maybe there's 10 recruiters on your team, right? And so you're only responsible maybe for corporate positions, but then your counterpart, they may be responsible for the production positions. If someone reaches out to you for a role that you are not affiliated with, in your experience, how welcoming are recruiters to saying this landed in my inbox and I'm just going to pass it on to the next person? Are they deleting it most times, or do you think they're sharing self and passing it on to the appropriate person?

SPEAKER_03 21:52

My experience, we're definitely passing it. Uh we don't want to miss a candidate. Um, we're all we all working. Together as a team. Thankfully, we don't have an org this organization. There's no quotas or you know, commission per se. Um, so we're trying to fill as many roles as we can, as fast as we can, with the right candidates. So if there's somebody in production that's like, you know, looks stellar and like, oh, this will fit for Quintus's role. I'm gonna, if not, print it out or email it, be like, hey, you should get this person in to have a conversation. Um, because I've looked at the resume, I know what I'm looking for, as well as the other recruiters. So they'll look at it and normally they they say, okay, yeah, we'll get them in. Or we'll, you know, do a screen.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

And I mentioned that because if you are emailing people, you know, especially if it's a private company, emails are not always readily available. And so sometimes you have to be a sleuth and you're like, is it aj.russell? Is it a russell? Is it this, this, this? And then, you know, even some organizations have multiple variations of their handle, you know, of this whatever.com. And so to me, if I'm thinking about it, if I'm a recruiter, if someone's email reaches my inbox and I'm not the appropriate person, I would be thinking, golly, they even at least they found the email that didn't even bounce back. So I'm gonna do my diligence to pass it on. So okay, thank you. Yeah, so switching gears a little bit. This one comes up a lot. Do we cover letter or not cover letter when it's not required? So um, what's the value of cover letters today? Are you reading these cover letters, AJ? Tell us.

SPEAKER_03 23:57

Um, so I I think it's situational. Um different sector like government, it's usually required. Cover letters is required. In my world, uh, we don't need a cover letter. Please don't send it. It's not it's not helping or hurting you. It's just another piece of a document that we have to read. Uh, and some recruiters may not read it, they may look at the resume. Okay, this is good. I'm gonna send it over to your hiring manager, and then they they may read it. So I think if you feel in your heart that this cover letter may help your chances by all means. Uh but the recruiters, we're probably not reading the cover letter. We're probably reading the resume first for experience and say if you're see if you're a good fit or you meet the qualifications based on what you've written on your resume. Then anything else attached to, we'll just send it to the higher man is to review. But we would recommend, okay, we recommend AJ for this. Uh, here are the documents he provided. And then they look at it. And so I think there's there could be benefit if this cover letter is gonna, you think the cover letter is gonna really help you land this role. And there may be some good data in there that would. So if you feel like it's necessary, do it. Um, but if you don't have a cover letter, it's not hurting you either.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Gotcha. I am pro-cover letter. Um, but for me though, it's because I know I have so much experience in various places, and I always have this thought of like, why is the girl that worked in the apartment industry trying to be a public relations professional in government? So I know for me, I want to tell that story, but also I've been a hiring manager in the past, and to your point, when those applications come through, there's the link of all the things that somebody has submitted. And the first thing we're clicking on is the apple or is the um the resume. And then from there, if I do see someone submit a cover letter, like you said, it's not gonna harm you if you don't, but like it is quite a surprise when someone sees one, sends one, and I'm like, oh yeah, I'm gonna read her cover letter just because she took the time to put it on there. So um I think it's very unique. Thank you for that, for that clarity. And so another thing that I wanted to drill into is career pivots, because you know, this could be a whole other conversation because there's this debate about how long your resident may needs to be, what exactly needs to go on it. But if we're situating that where we're talking about career pivots, um how do you think or what advice would you give to a job seeker as they're trying to navigate pivoting from one industry to the next and effectively telling that story clearly but also very concisely?

SPEAKER_03 27:15

Yeah, um, don't hide it, don't shy away from um telling the story. I think it's very insightful when someone, you know, let's say goes from HR to operations or vice versa. Um because that's totally two different worlds that that really never agree on anything. So it I think it's a very interesting dynamic. I think you embrace it. Um, but what is helpful is you tell the story well. Like you and like don't make up anything. I mean, I think you need to be honest. Um, you know, example. Let's say I am HR, you know, kind of burnt out. I want to go into operations. Why would I want to do that? I want to be more hands-on. I want to be, I want to feel what the associate is feeling that's on the floor every day. I want to be truly on the front line. And while I'm making an impact in HR, I think I can make a greater impact in on the floor with the associate because I'm with them, I'm working with them. Uh, they're reporting directly to me, so I feel them. Like I have a better understanding. Like that's that's a pretty decent reason. So you want to share that with them and be genuine about it. Um, but don't hide it, don't like try to make up some bogus. Oh, I just I just wanted to for more money. I mean, I guess it that could that could be the reason, but frame it in a way that's appealing and it catches the readers or the listeners' ear or eye, um, that will help.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Yeah. And I think too, when you think about career pivots and in this landscape, I'll just be honest with you, AJ. I hope people are not holding on to that too much, to the point they're saying, well, I'm not gonna pivot, I'm just gonna stay where I'm at. And I hope from hiring perspectives, they're not, they're not like, oh my gosh, this girl is trying to go from this to this. We don't want to hire her, because people are getting degrees more than ever, they're getting certificates and things more than ever. But then also just taking into account people are also getting laid off. They are also, you know, they have family things going on. So maybe my role at HR, I'm tired of dealing with other folks' mess at HR because I also have to go home and deal with my own mess. So let me pivot into operations because when I clock out, I clock out. And so hopefully we're not docking people too much and not giving them a chance because they're looking to pivot.

SPEAKER_03 30:05

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, about to take my personal story. Um, now I wasn't necessarily working yet, but I pivoted from I was I was a pharmacy major when I first got Detroit. Uh I was I was gonna be a pharmacist, I thought. Um, but I was like, I don't want to, and I became a pharmacy technician and I was like, well, let me just see what it's about. And I was like, absolutely not. Like, I don't want to do this. I don't wanna, I don't, I can't even pronounce the medicine. So I I how do you expect me to help somebody? So I I pivoted. Uh my mentor was like, hey, I'm doing HR, you know, blah, blah, blah. Um, Chuck and Cheese got into that. Like, I, you know, so it anyway, the the point is like pivot. If if you think like that's that's that's what you should do, your heart is not eating anymore, or you feel like you need to do something else, I highly recommend just doing that. Um, so I've thought about it as well. I mean, with my law degree, do I want to go in-house and as a as a company attorney? I don't know, but it's a thought.

unknown 31:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

So switching gears a little bit, because I told you I got question after question, and I want to all of them. So I want to talk about social media quickly.

unknown 31:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Um, I come from Aaron, you're probably in this too. When social media was coming up and coming, it was be mindful of what you're putting on social media, don't show your nightlife, don't get on there drinking, be mindful of the posts you share. Uh, you know, I to this day I don't share a post with cursing in it and things like that. Um, when recruiters are checking social media spaces, what are you all looking for? And from a positive aspect, but also what are some things that make it detour you from a candidate?

SPEAKER_03 31:59

Yeah, I was definitely in that era of, you know, watch what you post, uh, people are watching. And still to this day, I still live by that. Uh, I don't um post anything crazy because that just doesn't represent me. But from a police perspective, um are we going on social media looking and lurking? No, I from our perspective, no. There's not a lot of time to do that. Um now if you think about from resume to screen, there's not a lot of window room to say, oh, let me go on socials to check this person out before I send them to the hiring manager. Like there's not a lot of time to do that. But if we if we are um they're looking for your your values, like do they align with um with the company values, maybe. Um and I guess from a native perspective, holistically, it's do you have good judgment? Um and judgment can be subjective depending on who you ask. But I think are you uh using terms that could be deemed as vulgar? Are you making um very cruel comments? Are you sharing posts that doesn't align with the culture or the core values of the organization? That could deter you for sure. Um but we're just not going on there just trying to look and see randomly, but if we do lurk, we're just making sure there's no red flags. And organizations, especially in your and if you're in those high-paying um roles or very very high value roles that you're leading people and you are a company representation of whatever it is, whatever role you're in. Like let's take marketing, advertising. Well, you don't want to be on there bashing and cursing and because your your face may be the face of the organization in some regard. Um, so that would be probably a role that social media is heavily watched because it matters what you post. Um, because you're potentially selling the product or you're trying to advertise this, or whatever it is. Um, but yeah, good judgment. Uh, we're looking for, you know, your character. Um, you know, make sure there's no nothing in there that would could cause company harm, essentially. So there's a comment you make or there's a post you share, and it's like, oh, that's not good. And we may decide not to go with you because of that.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

Yeah. Um, AJ, I think I need to invite you back for an entire episode um dealing with social media. So many things um I thought about while you were talking. And you mentioned values. Values is so complex. Values are so complex and so nuanced because even if you think about it like this, AJ, every company has their values and what they believe in and their mission statement. The company itself may have that, right? And we know they do, but the employees, whether it's the frontlines, the hiring managers, the recruiters, may not have those values, right? And so that in itself could be misalignment. Or, and I think too, when you think about um, we don't know the context behind someone's post. So if you do this little, you know, five-minute lurking session, something that may be funny to me but off-putting to you, it may be off-putting to you because you don't have the context.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

And so I and I said this earlier that I was a hiring manager. And I know me personally, I don't snoop on someone's social media because of those things, right? And also too, because I'm a hiring manager, I don't friend my employees on social media as well when I was a hiring manager. So, with that, for me, it's layers to it, right? Um, but not everyone has those safeguards that they put up. And so the way that I, because you don't want to hire a bad person, you don't want to regret that hire because just like a recruiter has metrics, as a hiring manager, you don't want to be labeled as dang, every person quinta hires, they every person quinta hires, they have to uh we have to fire them, right? Right, and so for me, I have adopted this mindset that if social media is an issue, whatever that issue is on social media, it's gonna come out somewhere else. And if that means that I'm gonna have to terminate this person or they're gonna have to, you know, get some corrective coaching, I'm just not going to let social media be the thing that qualifies them out because I know so much goes into social media and it only tells a small glimpse of the story. But it's very refreshing to hear the context that recruiters personally, y'all are so busy trying to get the wrong feel that you're not trying to uh look at someone's uh social media and go through all the tasks.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

No, if I could just comment, you you hit on a good point. You know, values are nuanced, and some people have different values and and uh outlook on things. Looking at someone on social media is creates a bias. Uh in immediately judgment. You you haven't even, I mean, you may have looked at the resume, but again, you don't have the context um for uh for the reason they posted that. Or, you know, we could argue from a legal perspective, well, how do you know how do you know they posted, how do you know they shared it? Why is there, but what if it's somebody else, whether there's one of their kids or their spouse, you know, their partner, whatever it is. So it's it's I would stay away from that as much as you can. Now there are moments where, and I've had this experience where um a customer shared one of our employees' posts with us and said, Is this what you stand for? And we had to take action. Um, but that's when they've already been hired. You understand that these are our values, and we uphold these. There's a there's a code of conduct, there are social media policies in place for situations like that. Um so customers see it. Now that's you know, people who are buying our product or whatever it is, and they're concerned. So now we have to, as a public company, you know, take action in some form or fashion. Now we don't tell the customer what we do, but at least they know we've taken action. So there's ways and nuances to it. But yeah, I would stay away from any social media lurking unless you think it's absolutely necessary. Um, but it's hard to be unbiased when you do that.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

And especially for hiring managers, which you aren't, so I want to make that separation. Sometimes, because I've witnessed it in others, they just be nosy.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

And so they want to know, they want to know, like, is this girl married and what she do on the weekends? And it's like, is that away from the person doing the job? And so I so if you're out there and you're a hiring manager, hopefully you're taking some of that into consideration of maybe you don't need to hang your head on social media because it creates that bias. And that is what I was gonna talk about next, AJ. Um, how do recruiters or what does bias checking look like in recruiting?

SPEAKER_03 40:24

I think having the structure, there needs to be some type of structure in you know, recruiting, interviewing, screening. There needs to be some structure questions um in your process. The process needs to be followed exactly the same. Um, from a legal perspective, there's already if if something changes and you skip a step for somebody, why is the question? Why did you treat this person differently from this person? Well, now let's talk about their race and their gender and their age. So it's uh important that we have good structure, good process in place, and follow them. That alumniates, any bias. We're treating everyone the same. Here's the results, here's the data to show. Everyone went through a screening, everyone did an interview, everyone had the exact same questions. Now, with the questions, there will be times where we add a question or two, depending on the role. But there's a set energy guide, the do's and don'ts, and how you should approach the person. We give you all the tools, you just have to use them. But I think having a good process and a structure eliminates any bias from an external point of view.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

And I think we do need more checks and balances with that. Um, speaking on some previous personal things that I have witnessed, recruiting HR, of course, you all have policies and you're following the rules, but sometimes that doesn't always trickle down. And I know, and of course, if this is a specialized role and you only have that one position, it may be a newly created position. There may not be an interview guide for that. And I have hired for roles like that in the past, but what I do is I create an interview guide and then I send it up to my manager and I ask, like, do we need HR to look at this or are you good with this? But that comes from a very privileged place of study this academically. And so everybody that's a hiring manager doesn't have that insight that I do. And so I don't know if I'm going to be able to solve this debacle, but Quinza is on a mission to make sure with some side projects that I'm doing. Quinza is on a mission to make sure that what we're doing in recruiting at HR is trickling down through the entire organization. So if you are the custodial manager and you're hiring other custodians, they're getting the same interview every single time. And it's just not one of those, hey, do you know the proper way to mix chemicals? And then you're asking the other priority to say, do you have night shift availability? And we don't care if you mix you can mix chemicals.

SPEAKER_03 43:31

So questions on a well, Quenta, if you need some help on that mission, I'll be glad to help you. But I think if you create a standard interview guide that has that you can use for every role, you know, with standard questions. And then if you need to add additionals for specifics in that particular role, you can do that. But I think what helps is organizational wide, here's the guide. Here are the questions that you should ask for every single person. And if you need additional questions for that role, please by all means ask. But having the standard for every role, every everyone uses this one guide for hourly versus salary, I think is it's very helpful. And it could um help your quest to uh solve this this problem.

unknown 44:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

And another thing to is um and maybe I need to put this on my list of things to also try to solve is I think we have to teach our hiring managers how to be hiring. We have to teach them how to you know be in the interview and conduct interviews and things like that. 100% AJ I have more coming up we're almost done so I'll go ahead and jump to the next thing um what's one piece of job search um or career advice that's been repeated for years that you think is a little outdated now?

SPEAKER_03 45:05

Like don't job hop or at least stay in a role for two years. I I think those are kind of outdated. I mean I have a a recruiter that we connect uh personally and I'm sorry I'm a personal recruiter and we we we were having this conversation about this topic. Reality is the world is changing people are needing roles and people need more money and they need more flexibility. They're doing better work at home. You know and it's not true for all but the flexibility of being able to work from anywhere that morale alone has increased. I mean people are happier in their roles if you know they have a meeting at 8 30 they roll out of bed at 828 or the brush of teeth and they jump on their meeting and it's all good, right? So um that's that has created a lot of job satisfaction happiness. But sometimes people need that flexibility and if the organization is not willing then they move on uh so job hopping is a part of life. I mean my mother she's been a labor delivery nurse for over 30 years and she was at the same hospital for over 30 years and they eliminated the labor delivery floor. So now she's like oh what do I do now? Right. So it's like but she was at that same hospital for over 30 years. And back then that's what they were told like you stay at this one job don't go looking because it's look bad but that's not the reality we're in now. Like people will look for other roles. Recruiters reach out to people for better opportunities. And sometimes it's not a hesitation.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

They just be like okay let's go yeah and speaking of COVID even for those who are still going in the office that shift and mindset of like if someone you mentioned the dentist example or brushing your teeth so I'll stay with that. If somebody has a dentist appointment at eight o'clock in the morning the office is not going to burn down until they get there at 9 30 and I think COVID will usher us into that it is it is not going to burn down if somebody says my kid needs me today at four o'clock and I just have to leave that one hour is not going to mess anybody up and honestly people are going to be more satisfied when they say I told my employer I needed to leave one hour early today and they let me do it no questions asked. So yes I absolutely about COVID. And then I would say too one other question is what is something that candidates maybe obsess over because they want to get it just right and y'all not really even checking for that but then on the other end what is something that candidates are getting a little bit too lax with and you think they should come back up to a standard yeah um let's do overthink first.

SPEAKER_03 48:39

Listen you need a you need a freshly looking resume like I that's 100% true. But the margins what we're not measuring the margins we we don't know is it 1.5 or one or zero we don't know about that. As long as it looks presentable and fresh looking and it's not all over the place don't overstress about the margins okay um at Troy Dr. Finley's class I don't know you ever took him we we had a whole project uh about resumes a whole section about resumes and how you should write them and what you should look for and what you should do and how this this line should be this way left or right. Look as long as it's fresh it's it looks presentable it's not all over the place words are not you know dates and all that's fine. Now I think what people don't do enough is explaining the impact of their role so example if you reduce turnover by 21% that's amazing. How would you do that? Like explain that to me like be give more details um because we love to see data because that's the hiring manager wants to see they want to see how much you've saved and cost and how much cost savings um reducing turnover time to fill uh they want to see these metrics that clearly define and make an impact on organization. So I think we overthink the format and the template of the resume just make sure it looks clean and fresh and I don't think we do a a good job at explaining the impact you've made since you've been in the role that you're in and how you can bring that impact to the current role that you're seeking.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

That's good. That's good. So too much time on the layout but we're falling short on the meat of what's on the page. Yep okay okay all right so if you could give a job seeker any one piece of advice before they submit their application what would it be?

SPEAKER_03 50:53

Taylor your resume to the job you're applying for and I'm not saying makeup stuff. What I'm saying is obviously you think you are qualified or you want to you want to be qualified so your resume needs to look and read like a person in this particular role so let's give an example let's do an HR director again your resume can't read only talent acquisition like you haven't you don't have any direct reports you haven't developed anybody you're not leading a team like those things are important. Now let's say you are a talent acquisition specialist and you are trying to become a HR director and you feel you are qualified for this particular role tailor your resume to read that so for example you could say something like I was a part of a team of of four and we executed and um we executed let's say 50 roles and we filled in within you know a 10 day window and provided support to blah blah blah that's pretty decent. But it's it's about tailoring your resume to the extra job because if you don't and you just give a very generic resume that only applies to the role you're currently in it does it won't help you. So I would say tailor tailor your resume to the job you want I mean as long as it makes sense that you just can't make stuff up I guess people do that but don't do that. I'm telling you here on the Crusoe don't do that. But tailor it to the job you're seeking and you can use you can use the job description to help you with that. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:58

I have one more and I would be absolutely remiss if we didn't talk about this in the age of AI just tell me um how are you feeling or what advice would you give to people that are needing or wanting to use AI with their resume in their submission materials be careful.

SPEAKER_03 53:21

Review what AI puts out I think AI can be a very helpful tool it's very support but sometimes they misspell sometimes it doesn't make sense the sentence doesn't make complete sense sometimes these words that they're using are really large words that you can't even pronounce or there's something in here that doesn't even match the job that you're seeking or the job that you're in. So you need to review AI's um response to you and like line by line because there may be something as a recruiter if we see a misspelling like it's it's hard to like not see it. So be mindful but utilize AI to the best of your ability but just review it first and make sure before you submit it review what you're gonna submit.

SPEAKER_00 54:22

Okay. So AJ um I could ask you so many more questions I already need you back for another episode or two. So we'll talk about that later but for the sake of time today I don't want to keep drilling in all the questions. So what we're gonna do though is I'm going to put you in the hot seat for a rapid fire round okay okay and the only answer you can give me is yes or no I don't want you to elaborate and then also I'll just remind our listeners these are AJ's personal hot takes he is not speaking for all the recruiters and um HR people in the world this is just what's going to come to mind for him. So yes or no are you ready? I'm ready okay professional summary at the top of your resume yes cover letter when it's optional no resume longer than one page yes photo on your resume absolutely not follow up email after an interview yes message the recruiter after applying yes connect with the hiring manager on LinkedIn yes apply even if you don't meet every qualification I was gonna say be obedient AJ Include your full home address on your resume no list references on your resume no use a resume template with graphics or multiple columns no include hobbies or interests on your resume no apply to multiple roles at the same company reach back out after being rejected for another opportunity the first offer yes okay AJ your facial expressions was letting us know yeah so I'm gonna give you one pass I will let you explain your thinking on any of the ones that you struggle with okay um I I'll do the apply um even if you're not like you don't meet all the qualifications there there are times where you won't meet everything but the one you meet could supersede all the rest or you can be trained on the other qualifications.

SPEAKER_03 57:46

I think there are some times you have you have it whatever that is and it's hard not to pass um I I had that example we hired somebody that was not qualified to be a production supervisor they had never done before but the personality the way they interviewed their examples how they spoke and their leadership you know capabilities we we took a chance and you know we were right um so there were there are times where people may not meet all solidations it was hard to say no to that um but reality is sometimes if you don't meet it that the ATS will kick your resume immediately so the system may do it itself or we don't we may not even see it. So that's why I said no but there are times where you should meet if you don't meet it because you may just have what the organization is looking for.

SPEAKER_00 58:56

So now I need you for a third episode because ATS is such a buzzword and honestly I need to build an ATS myself so I can understand how it works because it's just such a thing. So um I'll be texting you to get you lined up for some more episodes. Love it. But AJ thank you so much for the care that you took and your responses and your thoughtfulness and giving us the inside scoop today. And so if you don't have anything else I'm gonna go ahead and sign this out for today.

SPEAKER_03 59:29

No I don't have anything else I appreciate your uh your willingness to you know have me on and share some insight I think this is very helpful um people interested the HR space they have this negative outlook on HR in general um and I you know on my HR podcast that I had dated with Abby it was very important that we let people in and really understood what happened. So I appreciate you for doing that um and having me on today. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:02

Yeah well of course you're always welcome all right well that's it this has been another episode of the Quintessential pod where career conversations get real bye y'all