[Podcast] The Changing Face of Recruiting: Discoveries from the Staffing World Show Floor

In this episode of The Full Desk Experience, Kortney Harmon comes to us from the Staffing World exhibition show floor. She dives into the challenges faced by offices in the staffing and recruiting industry through interviewing several industry professionals at the recent Staffing World conference.

Joining her are guests Wanda Smith, Tammy Turner, John Nossaman, Tirrany Nettles, Cody Cope, Carrie Buffington, and Blake Babcock, who share their experiences and the biggest challenges their offices are currently facing.

From the struggle of finding the right talent to the need for streamlined systems and the impact of AI on recruiting, this episode uncovers the issues that recruiters and staffing firms are grappling with.

Kortney Harmon [00:00:00]:

So obviously, working with offices, you’ve seen challenges that they’re facing. Talk to me about the biggest one. That’s top of mind for you here at this conference.

John Nossaman [00:00:07]:

You know, I think it’s recruiting and, you know, finding the right talent to fit those open jobs that we have. It’s kind of the ebb and flow, and right now we need talent.

Kortney Harmon [00:00:19]:

Hi, I’m Kortney Harmon, staffing and recruiting industry principal at Curly. Over the past decade, I’ve trained thousands of frontline recruiters and I’ve worked with hundreds of business owners and executives to help their firms and agencies grow. This is the full desk experience where we will be talking about growth blockers across your people, processes and technologies. I recently attended Staffing World with Crelate and talked to several recruiters and operation directors on the show floor to see what the biggest challenges are that they’re facing. Come alongside of me to hear what’s going on in our industry right from people just like you. All right, I am here with Tyranny on the show floor. Tyranny, give me your lowdown, give me your name, your title, and what office you’re from. Yes.

Tirrany Nettles [00:01:14]:

My name is Tyranny Nettles. I am the national Director recruitment over at UPRO Placement, and we are a nationwide professional staffing firm.

Kortney Harmon [00:01:22]:

I love that. Okay, so you’re here at Staffing World. As you were thinking about these things before you came here, what was the biggest challenge your office was facing as you’re coming here and then starting to think about what you should be implementing and doing? Yes.

Tirrany Nettles [00:01:34]:

Staffing World has been amazing because it really gives you an opportunity to hone in with the exhibitors and ask those tough questions to help solve some issues. So at my company, one of the biggest problems we faced was operating out of two different systems, SCRM system and an ATS system. So our sales team is on one end and recruitment is on another. And as everyone who’s in recruiting or staffing may know, that means that there’s a manual process in between that cancels out continuity. It really messes up metrics. You really don’t know what’s going on because there’s access and opportunity for human error. So Staffing World has given us the opportunity to come in and dig into other full house models. That would be a good solution, a good one stop shop to help us cancel out all those other issues.

Kortney Harmon [00:02:20]:

I love that. I love that. That is amazing. And not only are you going to save time, you’re going to save money. It’s definitely going to be a game.

Tirrany Nettles [00:02:26]:

Changer for you guys and a great experience for our recruiters, our sales team, the entire enterprise, and more importantly, a better experience for our talent because they kind of got stuck in the shuffle there when information is not correct.

Kortney Harmon [00:02:38]:

Absolutely. I can get that. Any other AHA moments as you were attending sessions walking through the show floor, any other AHA moments or things that you’re going to take back to your offices? Yes.

Tirrany Nettles [00:02:47]:

I think for me, one of the big AHA moments as a recruiting leader is the importance of building a social media strategy and really and truly pushing our team to be trained on that strategy and creating checkpoints to make sure that it’s happening in between. I mean, when I joined recruiting, it was really that smile and dial mentality, and things have changed so quickly, so I have to also move forward with the industry.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:12]:

I love that. Tierney, thank you so much for joining us.

Tirrany Nettles [00:03:14]:

Thank you so much for having me.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:15]:

I hope you enjoy the rest of the conference.

Tirrany Nettles [00:03:16]:

Absolutely. Thank you.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:19]:

Okay, here on the show floor with Blake. Blake, give me your name, your title, what office you’re from.

Blake Babcock [00:03:24]:

Blake Babcock from Cleveland, Ohio. I’m the director of client engagement for Staffing Solutions Enterprises.

Kortney Harmon [00:03:31]:

Amazing. So coming to Staffing World this year, what challenge problem issue did you have in your office that maybe was top of mind as you came to the show this year?

Blake Babcock [00:03:39]:

Yes.

Blake Babcock [00:03:40]:

We’re always looking at our tech stack, right? And everyone’s talking about AI. Super fun buzzwords, but what are the gaps that we have right now? What are the solutions that are out there? And then what do we want to consider, what do we want to demo? And what’s the change management of all of that going to be for our staff? So things that integrate with our ATS are obviously a huge leg up there. But the other thing for me, too, is just connecting with others in the industry across the country to ask them, hey, what’s working? What’s not working? That part’s really valuable as well.

Kortney Harmon [00:04:13]:

I love that change management is huge, and not too many think about that. So I love that you said that forefront of your mind. What are you taking back to your offices? What AHA moments? What best sessions did you go to?

Blake Babcock [00:04:22]:

I really like the opening keynote on AI, and he talked about AI plus. Is that right? Was it AI plus and then plus AI and starting with AI, because a lot of people, they have their process, and then they put AI on top of it. But starting with AI and then working your process in after that, I’ll have to review my notes to make sure I got all of that right. But no, that was very eye opening because the other part is using it intelligently, I guess you could say, because there’s some wrinkles in it too. And you could be one of the stats that he had was 26 million US. Workers were ruled out of a job by AI and should they have been? So obviously, you have to use it intelligently.

Kortney Harmon [00:05:03]:

He made a comment, and he said instead of saying artificial intelligence, we should say ambient intelligence. It’s kind of hanging over it’s always around. I love that. And I thought that was a very good insight and kind of related to what you’re saying. Yeah.

Blake Babcock [00:05:15]:

One of the other things he said was because people ask me all the time, oh, AI. You’re going to be out of business soon. Right. Where companies will just use AI to do the recruiting. And he said recruiters who embrace AI will replace recruiters that don’t embrace AI. So that’s what we’re trying to do and obviously a lot of work to do.

Kortney Harmon [00:05:36]:

Keep a human in the loop.

Blake Babcock [00:05:37]:

Exactly.

Kortney Harmon [00:05:37]:

Love it. Thanks for coming and enjoy the rest of the conference.

Blake Babcock [00:05:40]:

Thanks, Courtney.

Kortney Harmon [00:05:42]:

All right, I’m here with John on the show floor. John, give me your name, your title, what company you work for.

John Nossaman [00:05:47]:

All right. It’s John Nossiman. I am with at work group. We’re based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Franchise company. And I’m with the franchise or corporate? My title is vice president, field performance for the west region. So I’m working with all the franchise owners out west.

Kortney Harmon [00:06:03]:

Amazing. So obviously working with offices, you’ve seen challenges that they’re facing. Talk to me about the biggest one. That’s top of mind for you here at this conference.

John Nossaman [00:06:11]:

I think it’s recruiting and finding the right talent to fit those open jobs that we have. It’s kind of the ebb and flow, and right now we need talent.

Kortney Harmon [00:06:21]:

Amazing. So is there any AHA or takeaways to solve that problem? Going maybe back to those offices?

John Nossaman [00:06:28]:

Yeah, I’m still looking. Meeting vendors is great. I recently joined at Work, and so it’s fun to meet the vendors that we work with now, looking for new ones for that sort of thing. I just heard about Sense. It sounds like it’s kind of a good kind of like text them all and you can set up automated campaigns, that sort of thing. So it sounds good.

Kortney Harmon [00:06:45]:

Very cool. And that could be one amazing any other AHA moments that stick in your head?

John Nossaman [00:06:50]:

Coach K was, you know, I’m a leadership developer at heart at sales too, and so I just love what he had to say. You were there, and it was wonderful.

Kortney Harmon [00:07:00]:

Motivation at its finest.

John Nossaman [00:07:01]:

Yes, it was great.

Kortney Harmon [00:07:02]:

I love it. Well, thanks, Joe, for joining us. John.

John Nossaman [00:07:04]:

Anytime.

Kortney Harmon [00:07:05]:

Have a great rest of your show.

John Nossaman [00:07:06]:

Thanks.

Kortney Harmon [00:07:08]:

All right, I am here on the show floor with Cody. Cody, tell us a little bit about you, your name, your title, your office, where you’re from, and I see you’re a presenter.

Cody Cope [00:07:15]:

Yes. My name is Cody Cope. I’m a senior manager of talent acquisition and training development for account staff in Pittsburgh. We’re actually part of a topps family of companies, which is six different brands, pretty much every vertical outside of nursing and physician staffing. Yeah. I’m just excited to be here.

Kortney Harmon [00:07:31]:

I love it. So talk to me about what challenges your office may currently have that has brought you to this wonderful convention and what you’re kind of ears open about.

Cody Cope [00:07:39]:

The biggest challenge is finding quality candidates and where to find them, how to engage them, how to keep the staffing industry is very like a roller coaster, a roller coaster ride that I don’t want to get off of. But if you’re not equipped with all the right tools and finding the right candidates, you’re kind of dead in the water.

Kortney Harmon [00:07:57]:

I love that. So hopefully you’re hearing some stuff about that. Any AHA takeaway moments either around that or another topic that you’ve heard so far today?

Cody Cope [00:08:04]:

Actually just got out of a breakout session that was focused on marketing your job postings a little bit better and just a few things I already got to put into place just to make it more appealing, more attractive to candidates, and just already some really good takeaways. So I’m excited.

Kortney Harmon [00:08:20]:

So more about the descriptions on the job boards. Yes. I love that.

Cody Cope [00:08:23]:

And it’s just something making a minor change can change everything and get a lot more candidates. So even just that was my first session. Got here late last night and already just a great start.

Kortney Harmon [00:08:33]:

Already takeaways. I love that. Thank you so much for being on the show floor, and I hope you have a great rest of your conference.

Cody Cope [00:08:38]:

Thank you.

Kortney Harmon [00:08:39]:

Thank you. All right, here on the show floor, I have Carrie beside me. Carrie, give me your name, your title, and your office.

Wanda Smith [00:08:47]:

My name is Carrie Buffington. I am owner and partner of Capstone Employment Services.

Kortney Harmon [00:08:51]:

I love it. Now, what is the biggest problem your office is facing that may have brought you here to Staffing World that maybe you’re kind of ears open to hear about?

Wanda Smith [00:08:59]:

I think for myself and my business partner, the biggest thing would be for us to understand how to better scale our business.

Kortney Harmon [00:09:05]:

That’s great. Have you had any AHA moments, something that you’ve taken away that you’re like, I need to implement this. Talk to me about those.

Wanda Smith [00:09:12]:

There was an EOS seminar that we attended for staffing owners yesterday from nine to 02:00 p.m.. Amazing. And it was really awesome with the information. A lot of it was basics, but sometimes we’re so busy in our business that we need to get back to the basics.

Kortney Harmon [00:09:26]:

Absolutely.

Wanda Smith [00:09:26]:

But it was also a lot of advanced information that we need to really, like I said, scale our business and get to where we really want to be in the next five years.

Kortney Harmon [00:09:34]:

I love that. Any other takeaways? EOS. It’s huge. I use it at my last office. I think it was very impactful when running your organization.

Tammy Turner [00:09:41]:

My name is Tammy Turner with Capstone Employment Services as well. I’m partner and owner. We’re based in Detroit, Michigan. Another large takeaway for us is the technology, the use and integration of AI into the way we recruit. And it is definitely the wave of the future. And so I was just telling Carrie that as partners, I am planning to take on that responsibility of learning that tool and that technology and to be able to roll that out to our team so that we can stay ahead of the curve. That’s going to be we’re actually kind of behind the curve now, but it’s the way of the future.

Kortney Harmon [00:10:20]:

It’s the buzzword for sure that we’re hearing so far. Keynote this morning and probably many more things to come. Yes. Thank you, ladies. I hope you guys have enjoyed the conference. Thank you.

Wanda Smith [00:10:29]:

Certainly have. Thank you so much.

Kortney Harmon [00:10:32]:

I am here on the show floor with Wanda. Wanda, tell us who you are, what office you’re from, what your title is, and what brought you here.

Wanda Smith [00:10:37]:

My name is Wanda Smith. I’m the founder and owner of Symphony placements. We are a full service staffing company located in Maryland. And what brought us here? Well, COVID’s over so we could finally get back to doing what we did. This is like our 17th staffing world.

Kortney Harmon [00:10:56]:

Wow. Congratulations. That’s awesome.

Wanda Smith [00:10:58]:

Well, we’ve been around for a long while.

Kortney Harmon [00:11:00]:

Hey, that’s amazing, though. Yes.

Wanda Smith [00:11:02]:

So we got to come and see all these new vendors, and of course, the magic words are AI, AI, AI. What is it? How does it affect us? How’s it going to affect us? And please explain to me how I can use it.

Kortney Harmon [00:11:20]:

It’s a great question. It’s the million dollar question, right? As of today’s keynote this morning, yes. So any other AHA moments? I know, that’s the challenge. Maybe. How are we using that? Any AHA moments that you’re taking away from this conference?

Wanda Smith [00:11:32]:

Thus far, there have been quite a few, but too trivial, really. They’re more personal oriented than publicly oriented.

Kortney Harmon [00:11:42]:

Fair.

Wanda Smith [00:11:42]:

I know I have gone into semiretirement, so I’ve been having AHA moments like, oh, my God, where have I been for five years? And who are these people? I’ve never seen so many new vendors.

Tammy Turner [00:11:54]:

All at one time.

Kortney Harmon [00:11:56]:

Well, congratulations on your semi retirement. I’m a bit jealous. I love your bright colors, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the conference.

Wanda Smith [00:12:03]:

I expect to.

Kortney Harmon [00:12:04]:

Thank you, Wanda. Thank you. I’m kortney harmon with Crelate. Thanks for joining the full desk experience. Please feel free to submit any questions for next session to [email protected] or ask us live next session. If you enjoyed our show, be sure to subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen and sign up to attend future events that happen once a month.