By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
Corporate recruiters are often a mystery in the recruiting process. Who are they? What are they looking for when they screen talent? On this show, I speak with corporate and former agency recruiter Lucas Schoolfield about what he looks for when he is recruiting people.
The “How Would You Do This” Interview . . . PLUS
Episode 1564,of no BS, job search, advice Radio, I’m your host. Jeff Altman, the big game hunter, and welcome to Sunday, yay. We’ve got some house guests in from the New York area who are visiting with us, and it’s been a fun weekend so far. And I’ll just simply say, folks, you know, if you aren’t celebrating a little bit, if you aren’t having a little bit of fun in your life, you’re making a mistake, because a lifetime is not a long time. I digress. Today’s show is another one from my job search radio archives. It was an interview that I did with a corporate recruiter who spoke about what it was like from his seat to be doing recruiting. It’s good information. Now, again, at this time, I was not using digital ways of recording. We were recording over phone lines. Ooh, so audio quality is imperfect, completely understandable, but not as clean as the rest of my shows. Hope you find it helpful and give it a great review, and it’s about 30 ish minutes. And with that, let’s get going.
So my guest is Lucas schoolfield, a healthcare recruiter with organizations in the mid Atlantic area. Lucas, welcome to Job Search radio. Great to have you on board. Yeah. Jeff, thanks. I’m happy to be
here. Terrific. So experience tells me, when little boys and little girls are growing up, no one says to their parents, Mommy, I want to be a recruiter. You know, there are other things that they’re thinking of doing. How did you wind up entering the field?
Well, it’s kind of what I think most recruiters you talk to, especially with those of us that come from staffing, would sell into it, fell into it. Nobody like you’re saying, nobody really studies recruitment in college, or grows up thinking they’re going to be a recruiter someday for an organization, for a staffing company. I kind of just came by it by referral, which ironic being a recruiter. But I got in to recruitment through a staffing agency. Was there for about two years, and then kind of after that, I realized I want to make the transition into corporate recruitment, which I’ve been doing for the last almost four years now, three to four years,
terrific. And when you were working for the staffing agency, what kind of positions were you trying to fill?
Originally, I was more in the steel trades, in the construction industry, so that meant working with local general contractors, you know, whether it be plumbers, electricians, pipe fitters, carpenters. Then that briefly transitioned over into more of an engineering recruit. So I’d work with a lot of civil engineers or design engineers for small or large commercial contract. I did that for probably nine months to a year, between the two steel trades and the engineer recruitment, it was a good way to, kind of cut my teeth into recruitment, and then also to the construction industry, to the skill trades, because they are higher volume lower level recruits. You know more about reading resumes, matching skill sets, and then kind of plug and play, getting them to the right spots where then that trains you for the people skills and kind of the analytical skills needed to evaluate higher level talent positions, like people have master’s degrees or engineering degrees that you don’t really know much about, because obviously, I’m not an engineer, but I still need to, still need to be able to talk to people and evaluate if they can do what their resume says, which is a skill actually it’s harder to find than you Think. I tell people all the time as a recruiter, I can never do the positions I’m recruiting for, but I need to be able to evaluate if somebody can or not, so I need to know a little bit about them. But absolutely, I’m the same way. I’m not an expert in it accounting and finance or Wall Street operations, but I’ve learned over the years because my clients have taught me how to evaluate people for specific jobs, so that when I refer someone to them, there’s a reasonable probability that there’s a good match. Yep, I’m sure the same you can probably attest to one of the best ways to do that is just talking to people. But if that’s a linking about getting to that further in the interview if needed, so You betcha. And from working for the staffing firm, you transitioned into corporate. And what kind of positions have you worked on since moving into corporate?
Well, I’ve been fortunate. I’ve worked for two different health systems now in the area. The first one I was with, I was focused mainly on administrative skills within some high level sourcing. So when I say administrative, we really ranges from anything. It could be customer service reps in a call center all the way up to, you know, public accountants or directors of strategic business development. It was just pretty much.
Why Do Recruiters Ask About Things They Can Find Out in Your Resume?
Anything that wasn’t direct patient care or environmental services I was recruiting for in that hospital. So it was a
the it was the team of us in my scope, I had the fewest repeat positions, if that makes sense. Well, I like my time, but I had the most one off position, you know, because every secretary is different, or every customer service tech is different, depending on the unit or department they’re in. So it was kind of difficult to build a pipeline, but that’s that was my focus for that right now, I’m kind of the opposite. I now recruit mainly for dietary aids unit secretaries, which are nursing support staff, and then also some environmental service positions and sterile processing. I don’t know if anybody’s familiar with that, but that’s also a big thing. I’m recruiting now throughout our system, so I’ve covered a decent amount, I would say, still a lot to learn when it comes to direct patient care and health care, but that’s something you got to if you don’t come from a clinical background as a recruiter, it’s a good way to work your way up to it, just because the tech the terminology is much more advanced, and you really need to know the lingo before you start talking to people, just like when you recruit
for anything you bet. And as we talk going forward, I’m going to invite you to focus in on your time in corporate recruiting,
and a point later on, I may ask you to go back to your staffing services days, but you’ll see how I pose the questions as we go along. Right as I get off track, feel free to interrupt me so, oh, have no fear, it’s my job.
So as you’re looking for people now, are you reaching out to folks, or folks coming to you or your organization, I should say, I would say, on the average, just with the size of the organization I work for. Currently,
we don’t really necessarily have to look for people, unless it’s more of a specialty position. We are fortunate with a set of board in that we have a lot of people who desire to get into our system. So we, I don’t know the exact numbers of applicants. We get a year, but I would imagine substantial that we have a resume database on top of that. So the need to find, you know, my average day to day position, I don’t really struggle to find resumes. They usually are the system waiting for me from the night before.
Super. So that suggests that you have one of those legendary black holes,
those applicant tracking systems that people look down on. So askance. Now, I’ve got to work with the assumption you’re hiring lots of people over the course of a year. It’s not like you can you can read every resume that’s coming in, you’re using the systems in order to discern differences between candidates. Am I correct about that? Yeah, absolutely, and you would assume that the candidates are sorry. I’ll let you answer your next question. I probably might tie into my next answer.
So if I heard correctly, the system is implementing some judgments about the quality of the resumes that it’s seeing.
How long ago was it programmed? How is it programmed to do that? Do you have any idea? Well, I don’t know if it specifically
renders judgment on the resume quality itself. There has to be at least some text entered into the system when you are applying, otherwise it won’t really
evaluate it. However, it is very easy for the resume to be seen when you do apply, it’s probably the first thing you see in a candidate’s application. So it’ll it’ll two things really pop up, you see what jobs they’ve applied to, and then you see their resume, and you can also search in the system to see if there’s other previous applications and how they changed them or tweaked them, or vice versa. But the quality of the resume, it can’t really be evaluated by the system itself, but it’s very, very easy to assess as a recruiter, what it looks like, what they’re applying for, and just kind of be a good fit, right? You know, usually you can make pretty quickly, quick snap judgments on it.
How Long Should You Stay in a Job You Hate?
Sure is your system putting up the job and the resume next to one another, so you can see it quickly,
close enough. Yes. Thankfully, a lot of my positions right now are more repetitive. Like, for instance, you know, any nursing support position, you generally, for the most part, will have the same job description. So you kind of learn the job description first, which is housed internally and then posted online for the positions. But you can, you can evaluate pretty easily. It’s just a matter of one, you know, moving your mouth slightly in a different click,
gotcha, and I’m laughing, because in the work that I do where every job is unique and different, I have to put the job up and look at a resume and make the comparison, because my system isn’t doing any sort of analytics.
Six to determine proper fit based upon numbers of usages of particular keywords or the keywords exist in the document. Things along those lines, my system doesn’t do I know. Well, yeah, systems that do that, yeah, we do have the functionality to run like searches based on that. You know you can run boiling searches or just resume searches throughout the system. For instance, I did that for a sterile processing tech. We need some of those right now, so, but then I wasn’t generating generating applicants at the facility. I needed them, so I ran a resume search through a database and just to kind of just different terminology I was looking for. So we do have the capability to search that. But I would say just one general applicants apply. You can apply to any job you want. It’s just a matter of if you’re going to be even bother to be considered for it. You could not have a college education apply for the CEO job. It’s not going to stop you, not gonna turn you away. But you know, realistically, what are your chances here?
Less Than Zero? Yeah, I would say. So hopefully that answers your question
perfectly, and folks, we’ll be back with more from Lucas in just a moment. But first, my job search insider tip for this show, which I think you’ll find is a quirky but useful tip. And this one is, I don’t know about you, but there are times where I’m not aware that there might be something in my teeth that might be embarrassing when I meet someone, and someone made a suggestion to me recently that I thought was absolutely wonderful, how to make sure that I’m not in one of those awkward moments where I’m talking to someone and they’re watching lunch go by in my mouth, and the simplest thing to do is
take out your phone, take a selfie. Focus in on your mouth. Take a look at the image. This way, you don’t have one of those embarrassing conversations with someone where they’re staring at your mouth and you’re noticing that they’re staring at your mouth, and there’s nothing you can do about it. So that’s my insider tip for this show. Let’s come back to Lucas and pick up where we left off. So
I also heard you say, and previous guest has made mention of this to me as well, that you’re looking for or identifying multiple instances of the same resume in the system to see how someone might have tweaked it. Did I catch that correctly? Yeah, absolutely.
So folks, you can’t BS the system because they’re checking for that
with both applicant tracking systems I’ve used, it’s been pretty easy to see how many jobs a candidate has applied to, and then what you know, what kind of trend those applications are going in. So that’s, I mean, that’s just another evaluation piece I’ll use for positions that get a high volume of applicants.
Sure, and I believe my my previous guest, who is Steve Levy, who raised that as a subject about serial application appliers, made mention that with certain numbers of
people are applying to too many jobs,
he automatically rejects them. Do you tend to do that as well?
I would say not automatically. But I mean, if you it also depends on the, like I said, the range of jobs you’ve applied to. If somebody has applied to 30 unit Secretary jobs over the last 10 years, at least, they’ve supplied the same job. So I know they really, really want a unit secretary job. Now, if somebody has applied to a registrar, a patient care tech unit secretary, a patient transport aide. All the last week, I’m going to be like, All right, what are you really looking for here? Is it even worth my time to consider you? So it is. It depends on kind of the scope of their applications, but it’s definitely something I will consider, because ultimately, you want somebody who’s going to want the job. You don’t want somebody who just wants a job. We all want a job. So, but why? What are you doing to set yourself apart for this job? If there’s, you know, you know, there’s competition, so I really want somebody who’s going to be very focused in their application and really have a purpose for getting that one
How Do You Create a Positive First Impression?
super so now you have the resume, and they somewhat appear to fit the role that’s involved. How do you figure out whether or not they’re a fit? What do you kind of look for in their background? What are your hiring managers to look for when they interview or when you interview? And again, we’re sticking with your current work as a corporate recruiter, right? Well, it definitely is job dependent. But for instance, administrative jobs are going to require high level detail, or high attention to detail, you know, because it’s pretty tactical application, but it still requires you to be very focused and very, very precise on what you’re doing, because you’re talking about patient care here. So you can’t, you can’t make a screw up by typing in the wrong.
A letter. It could be, it could have serious implications. So some way for that, I’m going to look for backgrounds that have similar work, even if that’s not necessarily health care related, if they’re coming from another hospital that obviously puts them, you know, a cut above, because they have very similar experience. But you know, somebody may be from a legal background, or from the banking industry, where you have to be extremely precise, that’s heavily regulated, heavily regulated industries, I would say, have success, you know, kind of across the board and other heavily regulated industries, if you have skill sets that transfer well, when it comes to, maybe, like, you know, more of a dietary position, you’re going to look for somebody who has a food service background. So once again, it’s not being more focused in what you’re trying to change into. And if you’re, if you realize in your resume, and until the question of your application, you’re applying to something that you’re kind of switching industries here, try to figure out a way to communicate that in your resume that, you know, yeah, I know, I come from an administrative background, but I really want to switch over to food service for this reason, you know, try to highlight or emphasize in the cover letter. Try to emphasize other skills in your resume that maybe would just apply directly to the opening you’re trying to consider for.
So in your system, just working with that one example for someone who doesn’t quite have the right background but wants to enter into it, your system allows them to upload a cover letter or type in information to communicate that desire. Did I catch that correctly? Yeah, I think the cover letter would be the best way. I mean, personally, as a recruiter, I don’t think cover letters are absolutely necessary, but at this point, it’s still a formal part of the interview process, so you have to take it seriously, but it’s also about, you know, it goes back to when you’re applying for a job. You want to be specifically applying for that job. You don’t want to just spam your resumes out there. You want to cater each resume to the job you’re applying for. And I know that may sound tedious at times, but honestly, if you’re applying in mass quantities to jobs, you’re not taking your time and you’re probably don’t deserve to be considered if you can’t put it the necessary time and effort fill out the application, why should we consider you for the job? That’s my opinion,
and mine is the broken watch is right twice a day, and to expect that your generic resume is going to fit every position that someone’s applying for, even though all of those positions are different, is ridiculous. Resumes need to be tailored to communicate the fit. And the way I normally express it is pretend the reader is six years old with ADHD and how quickly and how easily for that hyperactive individual see that your background fits
on you, just like I do, especially the higher level position you get, Jeff, I would say that’s even more important to be very, very specific and intentional in your application than your resume. You’re not doing yourself any favors if you just said
the same thing out there all the time, you know, I mean employers that still employers market out there despite what the job.
We agree. We agree. So now that you have someone that you’re interested in, how do you figure out whether or not they’re worth pursuing? What is the assessment process like? How are you trying to figure out whether they might fit? How are your hiring managers trying to do it? And I know it’s different for every type of position, but I’m sure there’s some common threads. Yeah, for me,
my previous employer had a behavioral assessment, which we would send them prior to even any phone screen, which that’s complete pass, but we don’t necessarily that’s not across the board. So first and foremost, people need to make sure they’re checking their spam mail. Because I can’t tell you how many applicants I’ve reached out to, and I said, Hey, I emailed you a month ago. Why are you just getting back to me now? And they said, well, it was in my spam folder. I didn’t see it. So I mean that, you know it’s like, okay, you’re not paying attention your email and your personal life when you’re applying to jobs. What is that going to tell me about your email at work? You know that those trends tend to carry over. So first thing I prefer. I prefer to set all of my email, my interviews, off the email. Now I understand that’s not always the case. It’s just my preference, because what it shows some competency with technology, people’s ability to manage their inbox and manage their email and then also commute, their ability to communicate professionally. The emails I would send them would be professional, and I’d expect that return.
And I know I prefer by email as well, because most of the time I’m playing phone tag with people, right? And you can get locked all these a message call back. You might be away from your desk, it goes to voicemail. You know? If I can send an email with my availability, it’s just a lot easier, and you don’t have to play tag quite as much. At most, it’s three transactions.
Questions versus what could be a lot more. So I agree with you. Like email, you can talk to any corporate recruiter and they’ll tell you, think about how many calls you big a recruiter gets in a day, and triple it. That’s probably the realistic number. So you can see why email, I mean, the technology is great. It’s there for a reason. So utilize it. You know, take it to your advantage as a candidate, if somebody is emailing you, they really there’s some interest there. It’s the way to set yourself apart. You’ve got to do the first part, the first step in the process of just getting your application noticed.
Cool. So next thing that you do to figure out whether or not you’re interested in how does it progress from how they respond to your messages,
like I said, definitely the professional, professionalism and their and their response in email. I understand some people may be writing from their phones, and it’s not as easy, so I take it into account, depending on the type of position it is. That’s kind of what it is, what they what the response is, but it’s really expressing a specific time that you can meet, and then expressing your interest right away helps things too. You know, making sure the recruiter knows, as a recruiter, making sure I know that you’re interested, that always helps.
And in terms of the actual assessment, when you’re actually interviewing someone. What do you actually look for when you’re talking to
well, I’ll usually first clarify that the job they apply for is definitely the one they want, you know. You’ll go over the responsibilities, the hours, the shift, you know, everything that you really would expect somebody who has applied for a job that they’re definitely interested in it after that, you know, I’ll dig into their resume. And usually you have standard interview questions. You have to ask what you’re looking for. But I would say the biggest thing is, when somebody is really interviewed for position, you know, they went well, they’re providing you examples to all of their answers. They’re not just saying the generic, like, one of the one of the best ones you get generic answers to is, why should I hire you? Everybody says I’m a good team player. You know, I’m dedicated. I show up on time. It’s like, okay, but tell me you’re a good team player. By your goodbye. You’re a good team player, you know, talk about what you had you see more to your advantage in a professional situation. Or talk about a time where you showed up on time, even in a snowstorm, or, you know, something like that. Don’t just say, Hey, I’m a really nice person, you should hire me, which hopefully everybody’s a nice person. You’re getting the benefit of the doubt, but come up with something original to you.
I agree. I did a YouTube video a while back called stories are not just for bedtime,
as a way of encouraging people to tell stories to demonstrate their successes, how they overcame adversity, a whole bunch of other things to demonstrate how they would perform within affirmative and their culture.
How to Negotiate Salary Through a Recruiter
Any recruiter should be asking questions that prevent the yes or no answers. They should be asking questions that require you to get an explanation. That’s what we’re looking for. So take that as a hint that, hey, give me some context the background here. This is Bob. Asked me,
cool. Now, so far I heard you talk about standardized questions that you ask, so let’s assist the basic name, rank and serial number questions,
confirming name, where they live,
talking with them about the position, what the requirements of it are, how to invite them to talk about how their background fits, which of those now you mentioned the team
player question, I believe, what sort of
more difficult interview questions Do you tend to use in your interviews?
Well, I really like behavioral ones. I would say I try to save the more difficult questions for the hiring manager interviews when the candidates get past me and get to the hiring manager, because it’s really the hiring managers opinion that you’re going to have to influence or express that you can do the job. But I mean, there you can choose from a lot of different questions that really want to cater those specific to the department, so it’s hard to narrow down to something specifically. I think the teamwork question you referenced was more of an answer that candidates usually give me when I asked them. You know, in your work, why should we hire you for this position? That’s kind of how I like the phone. Like phone calls, just to get a sense for the person, because, you know, by the end, they’re usually a little relaxed, a little bit more open with their answers. So I like to hear what really comes out when you know things that settle down in their mind that they’re not as nervous,
great. So from you, they go on to a hiring manager who does the skills assessment.
Do you get the types of feedback for why someone is rejected and or why they’re turned on by someone?
A lot of times you got the culture of the department they’re interviewing for hiring manager. Hiring managers want people who are going to click with them and then click with their team. Any Well, anyways, any good manager wants that. So you know, that’s definitely one of those positive feedback. People think they will fit right in. They’ll take a shot on just because, personality wise, no fashion. They figure they can teach them the other thing.
But, yeah, I mean, it’s really the feedback also can be negative on the other side, where it’s just like, there’s no way this person, without fail, to handle this job. Well, find somebody else, you know kind of they can flip both ways just as strongly.
Gotcha. So
they’re interested in hiring them. How do you guys construct the offer in a way that is good for the applicant and good for the organization?
Well, I think that process can vary pretty greatly.
I mean, all all offers should be done with a conversation. I think it’s better to give candidates life a think about it. But some organizations will probably have you send the offer letter first and then call them, or send, you know, call them
then don’t send an offer letter until they accept. There’s really a variety. I think you can go there, but either way, I think the best way is to go about it is definitely a conversation from the recruiter to the candidate, and it should always, always come from HR, because HR expresses things that you know the hiring managers in the organization may not know because they’re running departments they’re not actually working in HR, handling stuff on a day to day basis.
Gotcha. So person accepts an offer and they go through an onboarding process. It’s easy. Now, I’m curious,
comparing what you do now in corporate with what you did working for a staffing firm, do you notice differences in how you assess for talent when you were a staffing services person, versus now?
Yeah,
I would say
what I wasn’t staffing. It’s a very sales oriented industry. I’m sure as you as you know, you’ve been in, you know, a head hunting role or, you know, recruiting role for a long time. I mean recruitment sales, no matter what. But when you’re in staffing, I say it’s more hard sales, because you’re really selling the candidate on you, especially passive candidates, people who aren’t actively looking for jobs, but they may be open to switching if the right opportunity comes up, that’s when you’re really selling the trust telling you know what, you bring it to the table. Where on the flip side of corporate recruiting. I expect candidates to be selling me. I don’t you know, my job is to evaluate talent for the organization. I’m not trying to sell you into a role, like I said earlier, like I’m looking for people who are really interested in coming to the organization I work for. That’s really going to be the biggest thing. If you communicate your passion for the job you apply for and why you want to be there, I think that will give you a better shot.
Super Lucas, we’re coming up on the end of our time with one another today. Is there any particular advice you’d like to share with job hunters that will help them with the process of applying for a job, interviewing any aspects of the hiring process from their vantage point? Yeah, it’s probably, it’s a multi step process, in my opinion. I know I’ve done it. I’ve switched jobs several times in my career, and it’s never easy to get your foot out the door on it. I get to get there, get started on it, but you really have to start internally by assessing what you’re qualified for and what you want to do, because if you don’t know what you’re qualified for or what you want to do, you’re going to have no idea what to apply for. It’s just going to overwhelm you, because there are, there are lots of jobs out there, but there are also lots of people looking for jobs. So
that’s why it started. Then build your resume from there. You know, even if it requires you to look at jobs, see if you have an idea, just look at the job description. There’s some postings, but don’t apply to a job until you really are 100% sure you want it, because what if you get an offer for it? Are you going to turn it down or you can take it? You know, don’t. Don’t put yourself in that position unless you’re committed
to it. And not only that, if you haven’t figured out what you want to be doing and you’re just interviewing for jobs willy nilly, you’re wasting a lot of people’s time, if at the end of the day, you wouldn’t wind up taking the offer you just your time
two or three people within a department interviewing someone that becomes an expensive proposition at the end of the day, turn down an offer that you never would have accepted anyway. It’s crazy. That’s a great point, and I can tell you, there’s nothing more frustrating as a recruiter, when you talk to people and they you ask them, Hey, why’d you apply this to?
Up. Well, you know, I just want to get my foot the door. I actually opened the parts full time. So it’s like, okay, you know, this fall the waste, it can be very frustrating.
We agree. Hey, Lucas, thank you so much for making time today. So that’s today’s show. I hope you found it helpful, and if you did, here were a few more ways to get more from me. First of all, visit my website, which is the big game hunter.us.
I have more than 6000 blog posts there that you can watch, listen to or read that will help you find your next job if you want the best of my advice, join job search coaching. Hq.com
where I’ve curated information with a focus on interviewing. Be great.
An Agency Called Me About a Job I Was Previously Rejected For
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. His work involves career coaching, all as well as executive job search coaching, job coaching, and interview coaching. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 2000 episodes, and is a member of The Forbes Coaches Council.
Are you interested in 1:1 coaching, interview coaching, advice about networking more effectively, how to negotiate your offer or leadership coaching? Schedule a free Discovery call.
If you want to learn how to interview like a pro, order “The Ultimate Job Interview Framework” from udemy.com www.TheBigGameHunter.us/interviews The Kindle and print versions are available on Amazon.
Connect with me on LinkedIn. Like me on Facebook.
You can order a copy of “Diagnosing Your Job Search Problems” for Kindle on Amazon and receive free Kindle versions of “No BS Resume Advice” and “Interview Preparation.” If you are starting your search, order, “Get Ready for the Job Jungle.”
Don’t forget to give the show 5 stars and a good review in iTunes. It helps other people discover the show like you did.
Jeff Altman owns the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of No BS Job Search Advice Radio podcast, Job Search Radio Podcast, The No BS Coaching Advice podcast, JobSearchTV.com ,and other content with all rights reserved, as well as his right of publicity.
