Smarter Hiring and Stronger Retention w/ Joe Shaker Jr. – The Shaker Green Room at RecFest USA, Ep. 14

[Music] all right uh thanks for hanging out who are you and why are you here today thanks for coming uh Joe Shaker president of Shaker recruitment marketing and why are you here I’m told to be here okay what I the calendar like a good I’m still trying to figure out G says when Gina says something Joe shows up when I show up trying to figure out how you guys got here so let’s get to clue when I say you here let’s let’s expand it I’ve known you for a long time you’ve known us for a long time uh at events you guys have been let’s say not not aggressive you’ve been you you’ve been classy haven’t gone over board uh you’ve been you pulled back I guess in what you could have done yeah this is the first event in a long time that you guys have really I don’t want to say go all out but you have taken it to another level I assume that was by Design but why was that I’ve heard the word chic chic that’s cuz we’re here but yeah Chic so I have to give um my hats off to the team my team that put this on and I joking aside I appreciate all that you guys are doing p as well as present and helping us today to answer your question Joel we’re trying to show the industry how we can be a true partner and adviser to our clients why this event also have to congratulate Jamie for I believe putting on an event that creates not just a conference but a community of bringing in some of the world’s best talent leaders I was I was able to spend yesterday at RL 100 with and Chad was there as well um but also bringing in some amazing Partners so outside of the organizations that are here around even I’ve learned some great pieces of information from many of the vendors in an environment that allows really a community and a culture to be built and that’s something that Shaker’s always had for 70 years so it just seemed like a logical fit for us if we were going to do exactly as you said come bigger come Bolder this was the event to do it so one piece of advice in today’s landscape what would that piece of advice be to any listener or viewer in our space find good partners and whether it be me whether it be some of my competition or whether it be some of the various different companies that are out there I think our industry has gotten very complicated um there’s a lot of different pieces that move on a constant basis now is that is that is that complexity really necessary yeah because it’s not just where do I run my ads yeah right it’s we talked about yesterday how do I authentically build a message what should that message be is also going to differ depending upon the platform or the tools that you’re utilizing to deploy that message so then even looking at conversion so doing this by yourself right is a very difficult task um I know I am biased is I’m one of those advisers but I’m truly saying like my piece of advice is find that true partner that can help you navigate through that creative landscape through the media landscape and through the conversion you talk about the right partner but you obviously have a lot of the right employees and one of the things that’s always impressed me over the years is your ability to retain talent to get some of the best talent what’s the secret sauce my father gave me a great line player people smarter than yourself and get out of their way my joy of my job one of the things that I am really most appreciative of is that I get to work with some of the best in the space past as well as present um I get to partner with some of the best and biggest organizations out there and truly I partner with some of the best organizations and so when I look at my job I get to work with some of my best employees I get to talk to some of the best clients and I get to talk to some of the best partners and that’s why too one of the things you’re seeing today is when we look at even just like our logo like the three heads and changing our navigation of like without my employees without my clients and without my partners there is no Shak of recruitment markting so looking back at 2024 we still got a little time to go but still looking back at 2024 a lot that’s happened what surprised you the most surprised me the most is that in the state of economy as well as politically there’s a lot of uncertainty and organizations are still hiring they may not be hiring at the levels that any of us would wish for um and companies still are trying to open up more Recs but we are still in uncertainty and in an election year it is they’re still hiring and I believe they are still hiring not just because current need but everyone knows what we got a little taste of in 2020 2021 2022 is the war for talent is here and it’s only going to get harder and they know how hard it’s going to be this year next year and the years to come so let’s talk about next year uh bears are going to win the Super Bowl we going to go there one and0 baby one and0 God pretty sure I won our last bet on the over under of bears victories so I won’t looking now joeling I won’t bring the Bears uh into this uh 2025 more the same more hiring greater uh elev I mean the geopolitical challenges that we have now are not going to go away but you see a much sunnier um road ahead I am optimistic um and I also think you have to prepare so the organizations as you look for the years ahead continuing to invest in your employment brand to find ways to differentiate yourself to increase retention continue to Market to either current clients where we spent a lot of time again yesterday on future employees that are going to work for the firm and then literally look at the data and don’t lock yourself don’t be marri to anyone and move to where the data dictates the money should move to so Shaker was a firm of colum inches for a very long time newspaper how many people know what that is column inches right yeah if you don’t know look it up what is what is tomorrow look like the the velocity of technology is dizzying in some cases y so for for you in an organization like yours to stay up with it number one not easy let alone all the the the heads of ta trying to do it themselves what does it look like moving into 2025 so here one thing I was what I’ve been said before so much has changed yet so much has stayed the same yeah so you know from the days of running to your point inch ads we still ran them in multiple newspapers right across the us and then you read trains journals and you ran obviously even into radio and cable it was a diversified media strategy yeah then it went it got real simple right you used one two maybe three sources yeah we’re back now to running a diversified strategy and pulling levers the difference now though is you can be flexible so you don’t just set it and forget it and so as long as you build out a diversified plan put it out to as many places as you possibly can and then let the data dictate where it should go and also create that good experience and that’s why I believe you can use technology coupled with people right in terms of making out what’s going to be best to deliver and convert those applicants you sit in front of a metaphoric dashboard every day about those data points what’s performing well what’s trending what’s declining give us a broad picture of what is working what you see on the horizon and what do you see fading well answer that three different scenarios you’re going to answer it from a creative perspective you should see a retention right so if you did the brand and we did it right or your partner did it right you should see an uptick and retention and that’s not something you’re going to see in 3 months 6 months or 12 months right it’s going to take some time but that data should dictate did my message that I developed in my employment brand that I went to Market with increased retention short term to where I think you are going CPC CPAs throw them out the window we want quality applicants my opinion of quality applicant is interview schedule and our job should be filling out as many of those interviews as you possibly can and then time to fill it right but at the end of the day it still is go back to when we were running pal inch ads cost for hires but to judge your cost for hire and to drive it down it’s looking at the messaging it’s looking at the media and it’s making sure we convert from what you can remember what was the most expensive full page newspaper New York Times New York Times what was it $440,000 $40,000 for a Sunday for and that’s one category one category I mean remember like and you couldn’t run an ad for multiple categories so if you were hiring Engineers as well as running um you know sales managers two ads 40,000 40,000 and then if you wanted to run it run a paper right outside of the classified section then you’re paying on a CPM basis W all right I’m going to bring us back to the present day because you seem to be stuck in the uh olden times got to make people remember so you talked about I agree I want to know more more about what you see the where’s the disruption going to be what do you see sort of on the upswing in terms of oh we need to watch that whether it’s Tik Tok or some social media or hear a lot about AI what is what are we going to be looking for in 2025 to be like I saw that coming conversion I think personally you know applicant tracking systems are not going to go away but I think they’re going to continue to get back pushed further and further back I mean walk outside this lovely tent bias but lovely tent that we have today and you’re going to see a lot of great technology that is helping us convert leads and helping us make those leads then become applicants ultimately become ties so I think you’re going to continue to see disruption in the mtech sector in terms of other technology that just helps us create a better experience but then also lets recruiters be more effective it’s a win-win for not just the candidates but also for the companies themselves through that disruption through that noise you can always go to Joe Shaker Joe Joe if somebody wants to connect with you or or part of your team where would you send it come come to shaker.com we just launched it on Monday or feel free to hit me up LinkedIn beautiful wealth a wealth of information shaker.com Joe thanks for hanging out man enjoy the rest of the show Good to see yep [Music]