S4 E117 | CXR Podcast: Joe Shaker Jr. talks Recruitment Marketing

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Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:21
Welcome, everybody to another CXR Podcast. I’m super excited today to bring to you another quick chat that you can do on your treadmill will probably be done before you’re done with your run or your walk. Or if you’re like me, maybe when the podcast is over, you just turn off the treadmill. But today, we’re excited to have with us Joe Shaker Jr. He is our guest for this week’s podcast. He is the president of Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Joe, welcome. Welcome to the podcast. Welcome to the show.

Joe Shaker Jr., Shaker Recruitment Marketing 0:46
How are ya good to be here.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:48
Always good to see you. So, interestingly enough, we had a podcast last week, where we sat down and talked about the impact of the George George Floyd tragedy with the impact of the pandemic and on college recruiting, right? And how that actually did it change things for good? Are we just seeing sort of the pendulum is, is swinging sort of staying high for a little while until we expect it to come back and things to return to new normal, or regular normal, the old normal or whatever the normal is going to be? So we thought we’d shake it up a little bit, no pun intended. And ask you what are you seeing from a recruitment marketing standpoint with with those same things, but before we jump in, I want to ask you what I asked every one of our guests, I’m asking you for the escalator pitch of who the hell is Joe Shaker? And why do we care what you have to say?

Joe Shaker Jr., Shaker Recruitment Marketing 1:34
Chris, I gotta tell you, I don’t get out that often anymore, especially nowadays. So the chance to be able to just even talk. uninterrupted, I’ll go as quick as I possibly can. I’m excited to be here today. And thanks, everyone for joining in on your jog as you’re listening to this podcast today. President Shaker Recruitment Marketing. I’ve been doing recruitment marketing my whole entire life. So I won’t tell you how many years because you’ll know the exact age but I can tell you from being a young lad growing up in this business, circling newspaper ads and getting paid and jellybeans, to obviously running the organization today, all that I’ve ever done is recruitment marketing position. So excited to be here today. I’m also the proud father of three amazing children, Lillian, Marian, and Joey the third. So two beautiful girls and my son, seven, five and three.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 2:27
Wow, good stuff. Well, Joe, I get paid in jelly beans kind of threw me for a loop wondering if there’s gonna be some sort of investigation. But let me ask you, let’s jump in. Tell me about tell me about what you’re seeing what your organization is seeing and why everybody should care with regards to the impact of the last year or so on recruitment marketing?

Joe Shaker Jr., Shaker Recruitment Marketing 2:46
Sure. So clearly, right. I mean, like every, all businesses right, had been impacted in some way shape or form positively Right? Or negatively from COVID. I’ve been arguing right for a long time, right? This war for talent and the shift in emphasis, and how hard it is to find talent across the board, right across all industries, across all locations has been emphasized due to COVID. Pre COVID, we always remember talking about this war for talent that was coming. Right, you had this baby boomer generation that was going to be retiring, not enough people to replace it. And personally, I think kind of one of the impacts that COVID had was it forced a group out of out of the workforce faster, and all at once. And what we’re seeing and what we’re feeling now is organizations are starting to come back online. In this mass hiring and surges. There’s just clearly not enough people to fill those jobs. I will tell you too Chris, interesting statistic we had Glassdoor gave a presentation to all the agencies just last week from an economy perspective. And they showed this statistic that I thought was alarming was if everyone got it. Everyone that was unemployed got a job today. And the amount of job postings stayed consistent. There’s still a two to 3 million shortage. And one of the other things to think about, right? If companies start hiring, they’re going to probably produce more jobs, right? Because they’re going to start to be more productive. So I even think right in there even kind of extrapolating that out if businesses could get to full functioning status, right, they’re producing more products, filling more jobs. So that number could even grow significantly. And so what are some positives though, I’m seeing from COVID is that there’s now an emphasis on top attraction, we for so long have been talking about right clients need an appropriate budget, I’ll say similar to right, like their friends and counterparts in the marketing departments. They’re finally now getting attention from the C suite from the CEOs from CMOS, saying we have to not just put a little bit of dollars here towards town attraction like we have to make a significant budget here. And looking at what we’re doing to drive applications, and then how we are we converting them? And I don’t have to sync I think a word that is very known to yourself. And of course, Gerry right candidate experience is so important. It was before it was, it was a nice to have this is a must have. And if you don’t treat your candidates well, and get back to them quickly, you can spend all the money in a world on marketing, they’re not going

Chris Hoyt, CXR 5:20
to convert. Well, and I agree, Joe, I think that what we said Gerry, and I said this when when all of this work at home was starting. And, you know, we saw sort of what was happening about a year or so ago, we said, if it wasn’t obvious before that you had to have invested in candidate experience, it now is the time to double down because how the employees are treated and how the candidates are treated during this period of time is going to determine how you come out of this. What employees are treated, how you get to come out of it. Are you seeing anybody? If you don’t want to out them, that’s okay. But are you seeing anybody who’s actually kind of done that they sort of doubled down and they’re and they’re beginning to come out of this in a more favorable way than a lot of the others that we’re seeing are struggling?

Joe Shaker Jr., Shaker Recruitment Marketing 6:00
So you’re seeing I think the wall, the ones that are doing it well, right are lucky, I think them naming names, but are automating the candidate process. And so looking at using technology right for a lot of times, people whose excuse, we can’t get back to candidates within an SLA of within an hour. And we can’t hire enough recruiters. And sure that was valid in terms of you can’t just have enough recruiters to personally respond to every single candidate, right, that submits an application. But you can now with technology, there’s a lot of smart companies, right, that have come out and that have innovated in the space. And so if you invest in the right solutions, those candidates can get in real time right notification of whether or not we should move them through the process or not. And then automatically schedule, right? Why should they sit there and wait in a queue, if you got a nurse that has the certifications, while you’re letting he or she sit any longer than 30 minutes, get them in there? Right? Get them into the hospital, and at least get them through an interview process. So I think the candidates that invest in that, and we’ve had some clients right that did it even I’ll say thru COVID are benefiting right, from being able to just from expediency perspective, and get back to those candidates in real time. And so they’re getting paid dividends on that, because they’re not losing people in the shuffle. And then I think, you know, the other part, though, too, it is not just technology, it’s being authentic, what is truly right, when you talk about Employer Branding, what is your employment value proposition is who you are. And if you spent the time either pre COVID, or in current state, to say, this is what it’s like to work here, you’re not only going to obviously bring in the right candidates and the right fit. But I mean, the key to this whole thing is retention. And that’s kind of setting the stage in the stage of the that defining that employment value proposition. And in the journey,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 7:47
Joe did as a as a solution provider, right, as a services provider was, was your organization, your company, your business hit the same as say, you know, any of our member companies, right, with the same issue of employment, and then the struggle for talent. And then did you have the same challenges?

Joe Shaker Jr., Shaker Recruitment Marketing 8:06
Yeah, I mean, I jokingly always say like, right, I’m my own worst client. So we’ve we’ve grown, I’m very proud of the fact that year over year, we’ve grown over 60%, so I’m doing a good job. So it’s good to see that I can recruit myself as well. Bringing in the right fit employees to help obviously respond to our client’s needs. But yeah, I’m not immune to the own difficulties that our own clients face, in bringing in obviously, talent to be able to respond to the need that’s going on the industry.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 8:36
Yeah, the solution space is kind of an interesting different animal. Like, as you know, Gerry, and I work mostly, obviously, with the practitioners and the leaders that are on actually the talent side of that corporate. And we just recently, a couple of weeks ago, we were out at HR tech. And the phenomenal difference between the number of employers that said, yes, my team can go, and the number of vendors or solution providers that said, yes, my team will go was very, very different. It was I mean, there was a very, very obvious difference between how many employers were there normally, versus how many the ratio of employer to vendor, for sure. So it’s kind of an interesting shift,

Joe Shaker Jr., Shaker Recruitment Marketing 9:16
a great enemy. And you have to I think one of the things too, that’s coming out is means even how you treat your own employees, but we have to be flexible. Right. And it’s also I keep saying, it’s not what we want, it’s what they want. Right? And who it is that your target and who it is the candidate you are looking for. And responding to what they are looking for. Not necessarily right what what we are what my clients want. So we have to kind of switch I think the mindset, and again, I think that’s something that’s going to maintain for the foreseeable future. I don’t think it’s something that COVID brought on, but I don’t think it’s kind of going to change anytime soon.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 9:50
Yeah, but let me ask you, I’ll ask you one more question. And Gerry and I’ve kind of been talking about this and I think he started something one of our members forums with regards because of your exposure with regards to job boards. Yeah. Have you have you seen a different trend or uptick on that side of the house? Because of the pandemic or because of every just everybody just trying to scramble to get out of, you know, out of the trouble that they’re in trying to attract talent?

Joe Shaker Jr., Shaker Recruitment Marketing 10:13
Yeah. So I would tell you, right, I mean, clearly, I mean, job boards themselves, just like our employers, right? Traffic is not going up. Right. So people aren’t just flocking to the likes of Indeed and Glassdoor and sorry, Steven, I see a college recruiter, right. Yeah, the jet, the traffic to the sites, right is not increasing. It’s also not plummeting, right? If you can’t have what you call this great resignation, with everyone just saying, I’m going to leave an employer that’s also not looking for work. So in order for someone to leave, right, someone has to honestly say that they’re looking for opportunity. So there is obviously traffic, the job boards are producing applications, you just have to manage it efficiently and effectively. And I would also say you can’t just rely just on job sites, we also have to go fish, where other people aren’t fishing. And so I think one of the things too, that you’re starting to see is, there’s even just a bigger emphasis around talent attraction. It’s also bringing a lot of eyes to the likes of Facebook and Google and we see what everyone’s doing in terms of they’re getting their interest is obviously increasing. So as job boards are innovating, and coming up with new solutions, other media sites, right are also saying, hey, there’s ways in which we can drive applications. And it’s that balance of using Yes, the call it the traditional job sites, and efficiently and effectively and then also putting your ads out to other places outside of the job sites to bring in quote unquote, passive which will refer to as impulsive candidates that will bring in the quantity and as well as the quality of the applications that you’re looking for.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 11:47
Well, Joe, look, if you leave us with one parting thought on how we we do our best to sort of come out of this as employers, yeah. To our listeners, what would you tell them?

Joe Shaker Jr., Shaker Recruitment Marketing 11:58
I mean, something I always say it’s just you got to look at it from my gonna trifecta perspective, thing, develop the message, make your message authentic and truthful. So there is obviously you have to invest in employment brand, build the right strategy to bring in those applications. And then ultimately, right look at that conversion. And don’t just go all tech, don’t just go on media don’t just go all brand. It is a balance right between the t between the three that ultimately will allow you to think successfully when it comes to sport for talent. We got to have fun, right, Chris? I mean, you got to have fun with all

Chris Hoyt, CXR 12:34
What are we doing here? If we’re not having fun?

Joe Shaker Jr., Shaker Recruitment Marketing 12:36
100%. And I think it’s great to help companies succeed and help people find jobs. So we all know how special our industry is. And there’s no, I don’t think in my life is ever begun a bigger emphasis than it is right now.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 12:48
Good stuff. Well, thanks, Joe. We really appreciate the insight and your expertise, man. Thanks for being on the show.

Joe Shaker Jr., Shaker Recruitment Marketing 12:52
Hey, thanks for having me, Chris. Good seeing you.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 12:54
You got it. For those of us who are gonna dial in next week, you know, you want to, I think it’s November 2, we’re gonna have Chris Foreman on he is the CEO and founder of app cast. We’ve known that guy for awful long time. But he’s going to talk about hiring management platforms and job marketplaces and how they’re starting to sort of converge and what that might mean for you as an employer in the space. So until then, we’ll see everybody online in the community and thanks again Joe. We enjoyed having you.

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