Mastering Recruitment w/ Gerry Crispin – The Shaker Green Room at RecFest USA, Ep. 15

[Music] all right let’s start with uh who are you and why are you here today so I’m Jer krisen for those that don’t know me and I’m a a lifelong student of recruiting I have been in this business for 53 years uh in various ways you know in in uh Career Services in college in an executive Search at Johnson and Johnson at Shaker advertising all right that’s that’s the only only thing we’re both 53 if that makes you feel any older you’re welcome you were you were around when when uh after I graduated from college but when I was in graduate it was a good time it was a good time and I care about how we treat all the stakeholders in recruiting that’s kind of been my interest for a life’s work uh in h more in hindsight than you know foresight you know first you try to make a living and do stuff and then they ask you to do stuff and you go no no I don’t think I want to do that you know and I was pretty obnoxious about that at J&J and fortunately my boss has had my back we had a CR and if we weren’t treating employees right if we weren’t treating candidates right I could step up and protect that and it was okay now I left J&J thinking I was going to change the world and lo and behold uh found a company that didn’t believe quite that in that K and um and that gave me an opportunity to become a a contract recruiter uh with uh working for a executive Search firm a boutique executive Search firm and I learned something in every one of those so I have no regrets on all of the the changes the journey the journey the journey included you know 10 years with with Jer Journey yeah Jerry’s Journey so wait give us give us this what is your Sage advice for any listeners or any any viewers that are out there one thing one nugget that you think is incredibly important for everybody in our space to know I think you have to master the elements of what you have decided to make a living on so if you’re in a job and and your job for however you fell into it is recruiting you better be curious about all the things that impact that so if if you find what is going on in rewards that they’re they’re telling me I can only offer this much money you better start learning something about compensation in compensation Theory you need to be able to talk to that person in rewards and argue your case for how they their language is marketing versus you know how we look at structurally about this and our philosophy of broadband or we bring people in in the first qu tile or whatever the hell it is you need to learn that if benefits are something that is amazing for some part of the audience that you’re trying to recruit but you could give a [ __ ] about it you better learn a a lot about those benefits and why they’re important to them you better give a [ __ ] about Jer Jerry what you’re talking about sounds like a lot of work it is so that BRS Jo work well to my question uh we have some people we’ve talked to that are optimistic about the recruiting profession I am others that are not you you are tell me why tell me why you’ve just laid out all this extra work for a recruiter now tell me why you’re bullish extra work tell I’ll give you one more that I that I always did when in every job that I went to every time I got promoted or went to a different job I job shadowed the people who are going to be my clients so if it was marketing I went out on the road with salespeople and I I made that as a negotiable deal un you know you could not you could not deny me the ability to do that I used to go out on on third shift and sit and watch assembly while I’m workers in the middle of the freaking night and then get yelled at by the Vice President of manufacturing what are you doing spying on my people in the middle of the night when I going no I need to learn enough to be able to do my job you know which is HR which at that time was HR and recruiting but optimism I got to tell you it’s been waves of you know three three steps forward two steps back you know that you’ve gone through enough of them and I’ve gone through many of them and I don’t know if we’re in the two steps back at the moment uh some folks depends on the topic depends on on the topic and where it is you know if we talk about the promise of AI you know it’s tomorrow it’s not today so you know you shouldn’t be sitting here getting rid of your recruiters waiting for AI to suddenly replace them off that’s [ __ ] but but long term technology will help us um capture and uh more reliably collect information from the people who are interested in our company if there’s 500 of them we should be able to get 500 of them to be able to compete in how they reliably talk to us maybe not humans at that point at the top of the funnel but in a in a way that’s fully transparent where we can say to them look you’re talking to a nonhuman here but but I am friendly I will ask every one of the 500 people the same questions I know how to probe in appropriate ways and I’m going to organize the data in a way that humans can make a better decision in the future with more reliable data about who goes forward and if you want I’ll come back and talk to you about what you could do to be more competitive in the future for this job or other jobs you might want to apply for now but it’s up to you now if we had something that could do that and there ain’t nothing doing it right now but but is that that far away and if it is what what is really going to change it may not be the quality of your decision but we might improve the quality of the candidate’s decision we’re certainly going to improve the perception of the candidate about recruiting as a profession that actually offers something that’s fair and reasonable as opposed to the doubts that many job Seekers have now about how they’re being treated by so many companies and that what that’s what makes me optimistic next question looking back in 2024 what has surprised you the most in 2024 yeah it’s how slow ta leaders are are in doing what they have to do to continue to learn to upskill themselves ta leaders should be at the Forefront of upskilling themselves so they can help help deal with that whole issue and when I talk to TA leaders about what’s going on with you and AI you know how confusing is it they go it’s it’s it’s to still too confusing and our leaders don’t want us to use it so we’re just waiting and I’m going you’re killing yourself I said you you have to you have to be fully engaging on your own on your own computer on your own phone and learning so that when we are able to do something you know what’s coming you have some sense of this you’re willing to you know get to the next level so I think we’re slow we’re slow to adop sted out of uncertainty fear that we’re going to be in trouble and that’s not in my opinion it’s just not a great way to live I I think we should be embracing risk and enjoying it you deal with some of the biggest companies uh in the world I think it’s fair to say and you more than not most can talk to the question of uh having a seat at the table that we’ve talked about for decades what is your what is your take on the current state of HR having a seat at the table the the folks in HR who don’t pay attention to that they just step up and do it they already have a seat they already have a seat when I when I started with Johnson and Johnson I I sent them a note when they made me an offer and said thanks but the only thing that’s really a problem for me is I really asked if I could get access to the computer the computer in those day that’s a long long time ago there was a computer Building 25 miles away and there was a guy in charge of that and he wouldn’t let anybody like me coming out of grad school have access to the dumb terminal the one dumb terminal in the building that I was in unless the president of the company authorized it and my boss president of J and the president J J so the so the the the pre the the my boss said oh we have accountants who come every every single week and you can tell them what you want and in a week or a month you’ll have a report and I go no that’s not the same thing I want to be able to go play and do whatever long story short and back to the relevance of this I said I said I’m not sure I can come but I I’m waiting for another offer uh but I’ll let you know in the next in the promise in the next week two days later I’m told that that I have access and you know please you know make a decision and I said absolutely I’m I’m there so it took two years for me to find out that he went to his boss his boss went to his boss and so on and somebody VP of HR whatever went to the president J&J and said we’d like to get access for this kid who just coming out of graduate school we think he’s going to do some interesting things in in learning you know how we can make better choices and so on and the president goes let me see let me make sure I understand you’re an HR and you’re telling me there’s somebody deep in your organization who wants access to a computer our computer and and they go yeah and he goes give him access but I want to know what he does now I did do some cool [ __ ] but that gave me enormous power and what I’m telling all leaders is you got to decide where where you’re going to take risks and step up and do the right thing there are principles that your company should be living by and if not why are you there you know it’s not just about the money that stockholders make it’s also about how we treat employees it’s how we treat our clients and customers and the candidates that come in so if you’re not working for an organization that doesn’t value those things at least aspirationally then you should get yourself out period find another job find another career I’m here because I care about this and because it’s the crle on every door you know in relation to this and that was a 1932 employ employer brand J&J kle which I’d love anybody to look up it’s incredible you heard it here first kids if you can’t do it you can’t step up it’s not additional work Joel then get the hell out that’s Jerry follow or get theis friends Jerry somebody wants to find out more about you connect with you where would you send them um they could they got to be able to Google my name and spell it right so it’s Jerry with a g g e r o y crisen c r i s p i n and I founded career Crossroads uh 20 some odd years ago almost 30 years ago now uh dedicated really to understanding how and sharing how we evolve recruiting into something that is a world we would like to be in ourselves there’s no sense in in Doom and Gloom there’s no sense in in pessimism that’s not the world I want to be in so I’ve got to be able to look at the world I want to be in Jerry thanks for hanging out with us as always enjoy the rest of enjoy the rest than for having me [Music]