Candidate Experiences Should Be More Important to Everyone!

There has been a great deal of negative social media about recruiters and how they work, I thought it would be a great time to bring together a couple of recruiters to talk about our industry and what we do. Join us for a great conversation about the world of candidates, recruitment, and how the industry continues to change and evolve.  

 

Contact -

 

Morgan Sbabo - https://www.linkedin.com/in/morgan-sbabo-387a3b185/

 

Chenae Erkerd - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chenae-erkerd-j-d-racr-%E2%80%94-out-of-office-798b2389/

 

Leighann Lovely  00:20

HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely. Let's get this conversation started.  I have a special treat for you today. On today's episode, I am bringing together two additional recruiters to talk alongside me who's also got the 20 years of experience in recruiting one way or another and I'm extremely excited about this conversation. I've got Chenae Erkerd, who earned her bachelor's degree from St. Augustine University, and juris doctorate degree from North Carolina Central University School of Law. After graduating Chenae decided to pivot into human resources to become a recruiter. She has recruiting experience in higher education, healthcare and big tech. along her journey. She has picked up tips and tricks that will help job seekers make their search easier. Chenae is committed to helping the community learn networking techniques to catch the eye of recruiters and hiring managers. Her goal is for everyone to win. She is originally from Camden, New Jersey, but currently resides in Durham, North Carolina with her husband, Terrence Erkerd, and their two dogs, Bain and Kodak. I'm also joined by Morgan suavo. She is a direct hire recruiter with 16 years of agency recruiting experience. She has filled entry level to C suite positions across every industry you can think of. She has dedicated her time to helping not only her clients to have the best experience but to make sure that her candidates become partners in creating their own success. She currently lives in California with her family but is looking to relocate to the Wisconsin area soon. She's a military spouse, mom of three and dog mom, welcome ladies, I am so excited to have this amazing conversation today. This has been a hot topic that you're seeing all over LinkedIn, Facebook, wherever you go, you see comments about recruiters comments about ghosting comments about my resume didn't get through because it got blocked by an AI bot that kicked me out. And I am so excited to welcome Morgan and Shinae to the conversation today. So why don't you start out by giving me a little bit about your background? Morgan, why don't you go first? Tell me a little bit about yourself.

 

Morgan Sbabo  03:34

Morgan Sbabo so I've been doing recruiting for about 16 years all agency. I didn't have a break where I did about six months of corporate recruiting and it just wasn't for me. So I do direct hire placement across the board. All industries right now I specialize in manufacturing. And I've done everything from skilled all the way up to the C suite level.

 

Leighann Lovely  03:58

Awesome. Chenae, why don't you tell me a little bit about our audience a little bit about, you know what you do?

 

Chenae Erkerd  04:05

Yeah, so my name is Chenae Erkerd, I been recruiting Now it's interesting, because when people say they've been in recruiting for like, 16 year old like a baby. So I've been in recruiting, I'm a recruiting baby. And I've officially been in recruiting now for four years, one month in about a week or so I'm not counting but you know, whatever. So I started in so I originally wanted to be an attorney, I pivoted from legal into higher education into recruiting pivoted again into healthcare, recruiting and now officially pivoted into big tech. Happy to be here.

 

Leighann Lovely  04:41

Awesome. And you are a baby because you know when you hit that 10 year mark, and you're still recruiting, you're you're you're a lifer. I think I've tried to leave recruiting. I've tried to leave the industry if Morgan's making a face at me But once you've made it a certain, a certain point, you know that you're going to become a lifer. It's one of those things that you just keep. And I've talked to many, many of my counterparts in the industry who have said, Oh, I'm leaving the industry. And then a year later they're back. It's it's just right, Morgan.

 

Morgan Sbabo  05:23

Yeah, I think for me, I was talking to my kids this morning, too. Sometimes it becomes like, recruiting is like an addiction, basically, like, you have your highs and your lows. And it's like, you know what I mean, it's an adrenaline rush. Sometimes when you got those candidates go in, and you're going through the whole process. So for me, it's kind of like I'm, I personally am addicted to recruiting like, I couldn't do anything else. I don't want to.

 

Chenae Erkerd  05:45

I love it.

 

Leighann Lovely  05:46

Yeah. It's, there's, there's one, the rush that goes with, yep, I'm going to fill this. And then the, the candidate that comes back at the end of the processes and says, Wow, this is, I love this job. Like, thank you so much for helping me. And a lot of people and I want I wanted to state that because some people think, Oh, well, why are you addicted? Is it the money? Is it the, but at the end of the day, for me personally, it's been the letters that people have written me, it's been the candidates who have come back and said, Wow, this is like my dream job. Thanks for hanging in there and helping me find a job. And, you know, that's personally why I've, why I've stayed in it.

 

Chenae Erkerd  06:36

Yeah, for me, it's been like, if you, when you make an offer it you can literally see the person's life change, like, right in that moment, you can see like, they have literally been on their last or they've had enough. And then you say, I want to make you an offer of this. And you completely see like, it changing, you can see the hope that they have in their future at that point is for me, as if nothing better.

 

Morgan Sbabo  07:05

One of my moments was I had a gentleman who I called and offered a position to him. And he said to his son, while he was on the phone, he was a single father. And he said, Go get your shoes on. I'm going, we're going to go buy you that toy. And it was like, that was that moment. Like, I wanted to cry, because I was just like, You know what I mean, that was that life changing moment. And I think for me, like I mean, as most recruiters who are in this for so long, that's just that's why we do it. Because we get to make that difference. Right?

 

Leighann Lovely  07:36

Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. So unfortunately, in the, you know, especially because of social media, and over the last couple of years, recruiters have been getting just kind of a bad rap and getting, you know, bombarded with this negativity around the idea that we don't either care, or that we're, you know, ghosting people or so I wanted to bring, you know, we all come from different kinds of different industries, right, you know, Morgan, you, you're in the staffing realm Shinae, your your corporate recruiter, myself, I'm more of an independent recruiter. So taking these three different points of view, and some of the media that's out there, some of the posts that you see people just slamming our industry, I'd love the opportunity to just, let's talk about it.

 

Chenae Erkerd  08:40

Yeah, I'll start. So I think one of the things that I always tell people, is that accountability has to be taken somewhere, right? I, from time to time, I've ruffled some feathers. And I'll say something to the effect of candidates will also go so to like, we talked about this right before, you know, we hit record, so it can, this will also ghost us. I've also, I've also will say something, I'll also say something to the effect of give us grace, because we're only one person. And so people will say, Oh, I've been ghosted, people, recruiters will set up, you know, meetings with me, and they won't show up to the meeting. Now, there are recruiters who who just don't do a good job at the communication part that they need to do in order for candidates to understand why they did not show it to me and I think a candidate is Oh, that. I also think on the other hand, though, that I asked I think candidates should also and I also ask quite a bit that Kenyans do devote give us grace for recruiters like us who genuinely want to help who literally I myself Whoo hoo dedicate her personal time, more personal time at this point for my community than it is for myself, who dedicates her personal time to wanting to make sure people when it is difficult to change the narrative or the mindset of the candidate who was traumatized by the recruiter before me. And so I understand the weight that a candidate holds. I was talking about this yesterday, the candidate urgency is different than our urgency at times, because it's the kin that that needs to job. I also charged the candidates, though, to understand that our urgency is also going to have to be elevated or heightened in a way because dependent depending on the kind of recruiter you are, will depend upon it, that recruiter will get commissioned based off of your salary. So I charge accountability mutually on both ends, because recruiters do get a bad rap. But from the recruiter community, so two candidates, and there there are times when candidates don't know that, depending on how you talk to a recruiter at times, can depend upon whether that recruiter goes to Morgan and Leanne and Sarah and Jake and James and Stephanie, and Monique and whoever, there are times when our community will talk to each other and say, so I have the same experience with him or her or I have the same experience with him or her and your name, will follow that to a point where it'll be difficult for you to break down the barrier of getting the job. So while recruiters are not always professional, and always give you the best experience, I charged the candidate to do their best is not always really perfect, but do their best to stay as professional as possible. If if recruiters if you don't have a good relationship with a recruiter go to go find a recruiter and keep searching recruiters and shopping around with recruiters. And so you find land one who gives you the best experience and the best relationship that you need for your job search. But we are getting a bad rap and it does suck. But at the same time, I have to agree with the candidate pool to an extent that not all recruiters are perfect. Right. And in mutual respect, though, in the recruiting community, we also have experience with candidates and not all candidates are perfect. So it's expecting us expecting everybody?

 

Leighann Lovely  12:31

Well. And to add to that, you know, if if if a candidate, if you ask a candidate, you need to check in with me as equally as I'm going to check in with you. And they choose not to eat there. I mean, you can you can lead a horse to water, you can't make them drink. I mean, there is you're talking about accountability, right? You know, if you want the job if you want me to work for you. And I'll say this to the candidates that I work with, I'm not going to chase you down. You have to take accountability and responsibility for your own search. And, Morgan, how many candidates do you work with? On any given day? How many candidates how many balls are in the air that you're juggling? And it same with you Shinae how many candidates are you trying to juggle? And because I think that candidates forget that you're not the only person that I'm working with. There could be 15 that I talked to in a day, there could be two, there could be 20 people applying for the same job. I mean, today there's 150 applying for the same job.

 

Chenae Erkerd  13:49

And there were in the recruiters are also talking to the hiring managers, there is a heightened like, yeah, stakeholders that we have to do we have to juggle

 

Morgan Sbabo  13:57

and coming from an agency side. So we are working with not just one hiring manager for one single company. I currently am coordinating interviews for next week for six candidates with six different companies working with HR people who are checking in with six or seven different people. So you know, we have juggling communications for all of them. I tell candidates from the first time I talk with them. Look, I'm a mom of four. I'm married to someone in the military. I've got four dogs last I made prop the ball if I don't respond in a time that you want me to call me, text me this is my child email me however, just say hey, Morgan, you were supposed to send me that email. You didn't you're slipping however you want to say it to me. Say to me that way. And I'm okay with it. You're not going to bug me because guess what if I want to find you, I'm going to find you do the same thing to me.

 

Leighann Lovely  15:00

Yeah, you don't want Morgan hunting you down? Well, I'm kidding. So and it's, it's funny because you can tell. I have told candidates check in with me weekly. And then I will, I'll talk to them. And then in two weeks from two weeks go by, and I'm like, Okay, let me call them. Are they still available? What's going on in their world? And I call them and they're like, oh, yeah, I'm still looking. And I'm like, Why haven't you checked in with me? Like, you need to advocate for you need, you need to be your number one, advocate for yourself, right? If you're still looking for a job, and I'm out here trying to market you, or trying to get you in front of a hiring manager, but I don't hear from you, you're going to drop to the bottom of the list. If you're a candidate who's calling me twice a week, then I know that you are absolutely hungry to find that job. And you're going to be the one that constantly comes to mind when opportunities come up.

 

Chenae Erkerd  16:11

That's confirmation. I say that on LinkedIn all the time. So there are candidates who will reach out to me and asked me, so how do I how do I get on a recruiting radar? How do I stand out like we all get those kind of like generic run of the mill type of questions. I tell candidates all the time. If you're on LinkedIn, and you comment under a post that I write, you are in my DM, you come to my virtual events and you comment, you react to posts there, you're going, I'm gonna say, Oh, I see him or her all the time. And then once they send me a DM, and they go shut down, need some help. It's almost like a second nature that I go, Oh, what's up, I see you all the time. What can I help you with? Or if I'm doing like a one off event on a Saturday, and they come all the time, if I can, at that point, say your name, even though I've never met you in person, and you have gotten to a point where you stood out. So being like literally bugging us and being on our radar, you suppose a bug that's that's our that's our job to receive it? Right?

 

Morgan Sbabo  17:14

I've done the same thing. I've had candidates who reach out to me connect with me talk to me on LinkedIn, and then I'll see a post that someone else has posted a job they're hiring for, and I kind of that person in the comments, because that candidates name come straight to my head because they're constantly in communication with me. They're constantly and communication wise, like Shinae said, is liking post it's comment saying it's, you know, making sure my DMs, like making sure that I know your name, because once I know your name, I'm not gonna forget it. That's one thing about recruiters, we don't forget that. We don't forget the

 

Chenae Erkerd  17:47

people who, especially people that like we were not going to relate to everyone. So let me start there. Because all of us come from different backgrounds, different walks of life. So we're not going to relate in every single facet. But there are times where there is something about a candidate that, like I can see myself in you that it helps it kind of our spidey senses go Oh, snap, like, let me pay a little bit more extra attention, doesn't mean we're going to take our attention off of everybody else. So I 100% agree with Morgan.

 

Leighann Lovely  18:17

And I like what you just said that we're human, we're not going to connect with everybody. Which is why when when the way that you need to be an advocate for yourself is that if you do do an interview with somebody, and you don't feel like there has been a connection made, go find a recruiter who you do have a connection with because an eminent and it's I was gonna say it's sad to say it's not sad to say it, you truly have to be a salesperson for yourself not. And let me clarify, just to your recruiter, because not everybody can be a salesperson. And that's why you're coming to a recruiter so that they can advocate for you advocate for you a different opportunities. And that's, you know, if a recruiter is reaching out to you, excellent. But you need to be open honest with that recruiter in order for them to help you. And if you're not if there's if you're not happy, you know, if they don't have anything for you, and you know, at that moment, and you're not making a connection with them, it's okay. Find somebody that you do, make a connection with, that somebody you feel comfortable with, that you feel like could assist you in finding your next opportunity. And so I love that you brought that up that not every recruiter and every candidate are going to jive together. I mean, it's it's that's just the way the world works right.

 

Chenae Erkerd  19:54

And the hardest part about that is people take their personnel and is it is not It's very much a thing of we want to help you. But there are times when this recruiter can't like. And it's not because we don't want to, it's what I my level of expertise, or what I recruit for does not fit your skill set. So I can't help you. I can give you tips and tricks on how to prepare for the next opportunity or how to approach the next recruiter. But personally, I'm unable to help you. So it's in from that level of honesty, I've learned that candidates appreciate. And that level of honesty recruiters should be able to have. And there are times when I've had to tell candidates there are so if you're ghosted, one of the reasons why you could be ghosted, and I've done this before, I've had to come back and check myself on it, where if we reach out to a candidate, and we didn't thoroughly investigate their skill, set their level of expertise for our particular role, we've gotten that candidate excited about this role, we've then literally realized, they're not going to be a good fit. So it's easier for me not to follow up, then to take it and admit that I was wrong and have to eat it. So I do my best not to do that and just say, hey, you know what, actually, I made a mistake. Or I've actually changed that to do to go to my hiring leaders and say, Hey, I have so and so I found them on LinkedIn, or wherever I was searching. Do you mind taking a look at their skill set real quick? Are they an ideal candidate for your role? If yes, then I reach out to the candidate, but it's recruiters sometimes can can get, we can get really excited. For those of us who absolutely love our jobs, we can get really excited when we felt when we feel like we have found that ideal candidate, and we were wrong. And if we're wrong, it's really hard to go back to that candidate who was probably desperate to then say, so by the way, I was wrong. You are not the right candidate. Like how do you tell a candidate that right? So it's easy for a recruiter to not say anything further to just go on about a business? That's although very wrong, it is very real. So I want candidates to understand that if you are ghosted, it is still wrong on behalf of the recruiter, but just go on to the next recruiter.

 

Leighann Lovely  22:18

And you're right. It's it is very humbling. It is very, almost somewhat embarrassing when you go Oh, okay. Well, yeah, I totally missed the mark on that one. But we're human. That's, that's the reality of it. We're human beings that make mistakes.

 

Chenae Erkerd  22:44

Yeah, we're not forgiven often.

 

Morgan Sbabo  22:49

Still do it. You know, sometimes you see those things. And then the person you talk to somebody that you connect with, and then you're like, you go back, and as you're doing your write up, or you're reviewing it to max up. So what happened was, someone had to do it, and I go back to candidates, and I'll tell them, Look, you know, I've kind of been through your resume. And here's what I saw. And yeah, it's, it's kind of blowing to the ego, when we are sitting here going, like, Ah, now I gotta call him back and tell him it's not gonna work out. So what I tend tend to do is look at other roles that I have available with other clients and see where I can get him in, or will FYI, that person to a client that we have set up a profile and then send them out to our clients who have got the seller candidate, here's their experience, do you have something just so that person knows that I'm still trying and I'm still trying to push? Here's a different thought. And here's something I've been saying. For over the last year, a lot has happened, and especially the agency, part of the recruiting industry. In 2020, we had a very slow year, in 2021. It was one of the hottest years in recruiting. Everyone was hiring. Everyone was hiring recruiters, even recruiters without experience. And when you do that, and you hire in mass, you're not giving proper training. So I honestly feel that the candidate experience part wasn't in that training. And fortunately, that's where we started seeing a lot of problems. In my opinion, that's kind of

 

Chenae Erkerd  24:38

Yeah, I was trained in higher education. And my mentor taught me about the candidate experience even before I got to healthcare. So I agree with that. But to your point, Morgan, like, to your point, you're right, like, I wouldn't have known about the candidate experience for real when I started recruiting had I not good gotten under a senior recruiter who understood the candidate experience And who could teach me right from wrong? So, and there will be little things that I would do like it would be something to the effect of, if I if I disqualify a candidate, and and they got that disqualification email, my mentor would say, well, this actually was a good candidate. But now that you've disqualified them, don't put them back. Or, or I had done something when I had transitioned into healthcare. So I was working in patient transports, I was working on the patient transport positions. And I had made an offer to someone who did not even interview yet. But their names were the same. So what was hard was, their names, their first names were the same, and their last name was similar. So I went to the wrong name and made an A made a call and made an offer. So when I went back and looked at my sheet again, I was like, Oh, crap, I made an offer to the wrong candidate. And so I went back, and I said, So candidate, I made an offer to you without even thank you interview. Yeah, it was like, No, I was confused about the call, but I was gonna accept the offer and then went, and we just laughed. And so it was the good thing about that was he still he still interviewed, and I actually was still able to make him an offer eventually. But it was on me to go back to that candidate and say, You know what, I made you an offer. And I apologize, and I really hope this doesn't mess up your day. And I explained to him that you guys's names were similar. So it was my it was my mistake. And so he was like, No, I get it. I was gonna accept it. I won't go ask some questions. I said, if I was you open medical questions. And we just laughed about it. So just being able, just being able to have that honest conversation and to admit like I was wrong, I think candidates respect that a lot more.

 

Leighann Lovely  26:56

They, I, I completely agree. The the honesty and the humility, when we accept responsibility for making a mistake. But here's what I love about and here's where are your two roles differ. Morgan has the ability that if a candidate doesn't qualify for one role she's working on, she can then market that out. She now you come from the corporate environment, people are applying or you're sourcing? Unfortunately, you know, you can you only have so many places within your organization. And if they get disqualified, you know, it's kind of like, so at some point, you're going to have to let them know that, you know, they're not qualified for your organization, which is why you have a network of individuals, I'm just, I'm assuming that you probably work with like, Hey, this is a really great candidate, they're just not right for, you know, the company I represent.

 

Chenae Erkerd  27:57

Or, for me, it would be the position that I'm recruiting for or so for me is always is always I have, I have colleagues who I can shop that can around and hand them off. But there are times when I'm just like, I don't think they're going to be a good fit for this particular role. I've also had candidates that may not be may not have gotten into the company that may, I may know another recruiter that can help them better than me. And so, I mean, I just tried to build a network that us as recruiters can get together in see where the candidate can land.

 

Leighann Lovely  28:34

Yep. And that's awesome. And I was talking to Morgan about that yesterday to be able to have a community because a lot of people think for recruiters, especially recruiters who are on commission. A lot of people have gotten the idea that for recruiters, it's all about just the money. And for me, of course, you know, I work for money. I don't know anybody in the world who doesn't go to work in order to get paid. I mean, that's just that's why we work right. But we choose our industry. And we choose what we do. And those recruiters who are great at what they do care about the people that they work with. I've met I mean, I've met hundreds, hundreds of recruiters throughout my career. I've been in it nearly 20 years so I got some time on on Morgan even

 

Morgan Sbabo  29:31

Started earlier than mean we're the same age

 

Leighann Lovely  29:36

but I've met hundreds of recruiters and the ones that are great at their job. And this is not a this is not a boast. This is not a hey, that a girl that a boy that uh this is not a but they have a tendency to be the ones that are still taking calls from their candidates at seven o'clock at night. They're still taking you know, calls or answering texts on the weekends? Because they actually care. And they're like, oh, you know, I just want to let this person know what's going on. And again, I'm not I'm not advocating for working 24 hours a day. But they're the ones that seem to always be there for their candidates. And the ones that actually get involved and get to know these people beyond just what do you do for a living Morgan smiling, because she can probably tell you everything about the some of the people's lives that she works with, I know she can. There's been times where I've told Morgan, you need to cut this person off, she thinks you're her mom. She becomes a life counselor to everybody she works with no, I'm kidding. But I mean, and then there's recruiters who are transactional, and they do the interview. And that's the way I was in the beginning. Because years ago, that's the way it was. All I want to know about is, but we also have to remember that there is a fine line between what we can ask and what we can't ask. And as Morgan was saying, recruiters were being hired with no training. And we have to be careful to make sure that we're not imposing, you know, on their life or crossing over any lines. And if that individual chooses, to get to know us, all the better.

 

Morgan Sbabo  31:35

I mean, recruiting is all about building a personal relationship with these people. And it's, I mean, it's all professional, but still, they want to know they can trust you. They want to know you're a human, they don't want there's this whole thing about these bots out here. And they want to make sure that you know, one of those, you know, and like you said, making a transactional call, like, I will tell you, I'm not a used car salesman, plain and simple. If I'm a candidate, I just recently had a candidate who just kind of, there were some red flags, and a lot of them had to do with attitude. I just told them that I didn't think it was going to be a good fit with my client, I'd let my client know, they're no longer interested, because of the way they were behaving like, I'm not going to put you out of my clients business. And know that in three, four weeks, there's going to be issues, whether it be personality, whether it be attendance, whatever it may be, I'm just not going to do it because I am about the candidate experience, but I have to be about my client experience as well. And I'm here to build long lasting relationships. With both my clients and my candidates, I've had candidates who have started, they've had issues going on at the business that they're at, because I do direct hire placement, they've had seen some issues came to me. And I facilitated that conversation between them and HR, so they felt comfortable because a lot of people when you start a new company, you don't feel comfortable, you don't want to be the quote unquote, problem child. But I facilitated that and been able to make sure that there's that communication and make sure it's established. And they've said it and things have been fixed. So it's knowing you have to build a rapport with them so they know they can trust you.

 

Leighann Lovely  33:24

Absolutely. Now that you brought up something that let's let's put this to rest, because I just I I love this question or I love this and it and I giggle every time it gets brought up

 

Chenae Erkerd  33:39

Can you guess is it the applicant tracking system? Oh gosh, yes

 

Leighann Lovely  33:42

it is. So I'm the candidate well I applied to the position and I know that you know the applicant tracking system must have just like disqualified or it didn't put me through or so do a eyes applicant tracking systems or any artificial intelligence disqualify applicants so that they are never seen? Is there a big black hole when resumes gets sent that that you know disqualify people or make their resumes you know, disappear into a black hole?

 

Chenae Erkerd  34:28

Here's an interesting thing and my experience in my experience, I have never heard of an AI take like doing our job. That's that's actually the recruiters job so so when when people apply into a position in any company, they're going to be most of the time required questions you have to answer. If you answer no to any of those required questions, more Most likely the recruiter got those required questions from the job description that was written by the hiring managers. If you answer no, the system says you don't meet the minimum qualifications for that role. So you're going to be automatically disqualified. That is not the same thing as saying, Did I beat the applicant tracking system? Because it's how you answered the question based on how you completed your application. If you say yes to those required questions, and you make it to the recruit recruiters view, the recruiter will manually go through your resume and the job description and the notes that we'd have taken after we have met with the hiring manager before the position is even posted. We go through all of that we review all of that against your resume, to make sure that you actually do meet those minimum qualifications. Because what candidates will also do is they won't answer yes to those questions. And they typically don't meet the minimum qualifications. So we have to make sure that we do another check, to ensure that we can actually send you over to the hiring managers. We also this is LeighAnn. Going back to your first question about the bad rep that recruiters get, we also get a bad rep if if you say you meet the minimum qualifications, but on paper, your resume says you do not or how you wrote your resume says you do not. We will if we if we ended up sending you over to the hiring manager just for quote unquote, I wish I could see my air quotes, but quote unquote, for a chance to sit in front of a hiring manager to explain your experience. There is a legal ramification to that. So we send you over and you don't meet those minimum qualifications. This is the part where all of the candidates disagree with me. So I'm completely It's okay. And this is the part where I get bashed, but it's okay. So there are times when if we send you over, and there is a candidate in it amongst the 1000s of people that have applied for this role, all it takes is one candidate for them to reach out to the legal part of the companies we work for or for them to retain an attorney, to go through that job description, go through that resume and literally compare them, and then say, this company discriminated against me. If that then happens, every single person that is in line, and had had a chance to touch that application of the person who was hired, we are all on the hook to understand why this person was hired over the person who is now suing the company. If the person that was hired, technically didn't meet all those minimum qualifications, but the hiring manager just felt like they wanted to give them a chance, then that means we did something wrong. Right? So I've had people say, Oh, that's not gonna hold up in court, but it's a reality that we have to deal with. And so, so, so long is long answer to answering the question of is there a such thing as applicant tracking system? In a way? Yes, because you have to answer required questions, but how you answer those required questions is going to depend on how far you get in that bucket. Right.

 

Leighann Lovely  38:21

And people who think that they can beat that is sorry, I'm gonna let Morgan dive in here real quick.

 

Morgan Sbabo  38:29

So on top of that, it's like, those questions are set up manually by the recruiter. So it's not like something that's pre formulated by some applicant tracking system, your recruitment recruiter has actually gone in and set those up. I have worked with five different ATS systems over my career, and not a single one of them has ever disqualified a candidate. I get every resume for anyone who has ever applied to through our own company's website. Any company I've ever worked for, as well as any job board I've ever posted jobs on. I've had candidate two. Oh, yeah. Mark. Yes. And they're qualified and when I call them oh, well, I don't see plastics in your in your resume. Oh, I misunderstood the question. So when you answered you had six years of plastics manufacturing experience, you don't? Well, no. Okay. Then we're not qualified.

 

Leighann Lovely  39:33

Right. So and going back to what Janae said, the legal ramifications of the reason that companies put that requirement there and the reason that they will not budge on that expression, and they, what companies can choose to do is they can choose to repost the position with the new requirements. If they decide that they want to take a look at people who don't necessarily We meet the original requirements, but if that's what they are posting, and they're using an applicant tracking system, to prequalify them, and then they choose to hire somebody that does not meet that those qualifications just to clarify, they're basically saying, hey, everybody else that we disqualified prior to, you know, hiring this person, you basically were discriminating against, and we didn't give them a chance. So in order for them to, you know, decide that, let's say we're going to take out the five years of whatever experience, a company could choose to do that, but then they would have to repost the position and give the other applicants the opportunity to apply. And we've heard this, we've heard this before, where companies have, you know, with the whole AI thing, or whatever. And the reason companies are really being careful with this is because it was an error in the way that their AI was set up, and they got sued. So companies are really making sure that they're cracking down on, no, we will not accept anybody if they don't meet the specific qualifications. And if they choose to change those, it has to be reposted. It has to be re reviewed. And I think that a lot of candidates don't quite get that, especially if you're working in a very large company, or a company that would be a target for possibly being sued. Those are, those are real things that are happening in today's world. Not to mention, we're also living in a Sue world happy, right, or Sue, happy world, Sue world happy. Sue happy world. So I love the point that you brought up on that tonight. That's I mean, that's awesome.

 

Chenae Erkerd  42:01

Can I can I add a follow up question to that? Yeah. So what do you all think about? I saw that Morgan, what do you all think about recruiters telling candidates to if they don't meet 100% of the qualifications to apply anyway?

 

Morgan Sbabo  42:18

No. I mean, in all honesty, if you want to go shoot your shot, go ahead. But we're not swiping right and left here. Like it's tender. So basically, you shoot your shot, you're going to get your feelings hurt, plain and simple. Because you're going to get something saying, You're not qualified now. And we're talking like, minimum qualifications, like minimum experience, not looking at a job description, saying, Oh, I've done that before. Oh, I've done that. That's not what we're looking at. We're looking at minimum minimum qualifications. If you don't meet those don't apply,

 

Leighann Lovely  42:54

Ya know, if it's, if it's written, if it's hard, you know, pen to paper written that these are the minimum minimal qualifications? No, if it's one of those, like, nice to have. That's a different story. Right? So yeah, nice to have, you know, flex. But if it's an absolute minimum, minimum qualifications, you don't meet those, no, you don't apply. But if you're a little, like, on the, you know, what am I trying to come up with, if you're not quite as seasoned as they're looking for, but the job description is, you know, allowing for that, sure. You know, but again, Morgan's to Morgan's point, minimum minimum qualifications. It has to be, it has to be there, when I'm working with my clients, and they say, we absolutely need X, Y, and Z. I don't submit a candidate unless they have X, Y, and Z. Because my client is going to come back to me and go, What is this? They don't, why would I hire this person when they don't have X, Y and Z? I told you that I need that. Okay. It just makes me as the recruiter look incompetent. So if I'm, you know, interviewing candidates, it'd be like, Yeah, I think, yeah, I think we've covered that I think I go on.

 

Chenae Erkerd  44:28

And yeah, I got to ask, I asked a follow up question, because I've seen so many recruiters say, oh, apply anyway, if you meet 80% of the minimum qualifications. And while while and I've had I've also seen candidates where they've said, I've, I haven't met the 100% of the qualifications, and I got hired while and I've always said while that may be true, while you may have gotten hired anyway, one, again, I have a legal background. So we're gonna go back to the legal ramifications about that, but then to That's not true for everybody for a great majority. So it's, it's, it's misleading to tell a candidate, oh, apply anyway. Because like we're gonna say you won't get your photos are a great majority of people that if you tell them oh, if you meet 80% of the minimum qualifications, then go ahead and apply. A great majority of people in that pool are going to get their feelings hurt. I had a recruiter, I saw a recruiter almost be canceled on LinkedIn, because she posted the amount of people who apply for a role. And then she said, how many people she disqualify. And that sparked this conversation about minimum qualifications versus preferred qualifications versus well, maybe the hiring managers or even you, as a recruiter is incompetent with, with the job description that you wrote your skill set, and then what the kind of skill that the hiring managers are looking for, like, like, it sparked this whole thing, bashing her and I literally said to myself, but they would have 100 in so us however, many people don't meet the minimum qualifications, and y'all told them to apply anyway, it's still her job to disqualify all those people.

 

Leighann Lovely  46:17

Right? Right. And that's why we have to be careful when, and we have to coach, our hiring managers, when they're writing job descriptions. When they say I need a master's degree, or that's a minimum qualification. And we have to look at him and go, do you know how many people in the US have master's degrees? And then when you give them the actual number, they go, Oh, okay, a bachelor's degree. And then you say, Do you know how many people in the US have bachelor's degrees? And then they go in industry? Oh, so do you want that to be a minimum qualification? Or do you want it to be a preferred qualification, and then all of a sudden, what was a minimum qualification becomes a preferred qualification, and then it's just five years in the industry, or 10 years in the industry, or the verbiage becomes a bachelor's degree or equivalent experience, because all of the sudden, they're realizing that 40%, you know, that the amount of people who have a bachelor's degree is only about 40% of people, unless they're in a very specific industry, you know, engineer, doctor, and so on and so forth. I mean, people out there don't realize that the numbers of people who have bachelor's degrees or higher, are not very high. And it's just the fact and less and less people are spending the money to go and get bachelor's degrees. Well, okay, we are coming to time, and I could continue to talk for with both of you ladies for the next two hours. But to respect both of your time I have a question of the season, and I think I'm gonna get some fun answers from both of you. If you could change your job, or the practice that people have in your role? What would you change about it?

 

Chenae Erkerd  48:22

I'm gonna let Morgan go first. And she gets 16 years, and

 

Morgan Sbabo  48:28

I've got one. Um, so when you say practice, what are you? Are you looking at, like practices on how we do things? Yeah.

 

Leighann Lovely  48:36

I mean, if you could, if you could change anything about, you know, the way that that something that's happens in your job on a regular basis, or the practice that people, you know, have in your role? What would what would you change? What would you make different?

 

Morgan Sbabo  48:57

I would honestly, for me, it's going to be about the candidate. And if you're an agency client experience, so it's, it's a customer service issue. And it's humanizing, keeping that, that human interaction with people. And I understand like, we can't respond to, if I get 300 resumes a day, and they're not qualified yet, we're going to start, you get an automated response. I can't send a personal email to three. I don't know 290 candidates out of 300, who applied for a job, because then I don't have time to do anything else. So but it's still you need to have that human interaction and it's putting trainings in place and put processes in place for your employees, especially if you're bringing on new recruiters who've never done this who've never been in the industry and don't understand it or don't have a customer service element. And haven't worked in customer service. There are translatable, skills that come from other customer service industries. And you're working with different people from all walks of life. So it's better training into delivering a better customer service to your candidates and your clients. That's what I would change.

 

Leighann Lovely  50:23

Awesome. What about you today,

 

Chenae Erkerd  50:26

I would say, for the competence of the recruiter. So it goes along with, partly with what Morgan was talking about when it comes to the candidate experience. But it also ties into us understanding that we are the liaison between the candidate and the company, and whatever facet because if you are like Yulia, you're independent. Morgan is an agency and I'm with corporate. Either way, all of our jobs are similar in the fact that we are the liaison between the candidates in the company, part of our jobs. Because we're in the middle, we take the brunt of a lot of the bashing, it's the candidate bashes us for either ghosting that not responding at all, or not getting them through to the hiring manager as it does in our control. We also get bashed from the hiring manager of either not sending the right candidates. Although we are paying attention to JavaScript, I'm not sending the right candidate, or having to convince the hiring manager that there is not a perfect candidate. So either way, we do have we take on a lot of the mental part that goes along with juggling different stakeholders in our process. I in my everyday job. I had a hiring manager one day, say to me, Oh, and by the way, I'm going to look at every candidate that you send over. Right. So I thought to myself, because they're going to look at they're going to look at all of the candidates anyway. But I asked myself, Why did he feel the need to tell me that? And so I realized I said to myself, did another hiring manager that I work with, tell them how I work? Because I hold everybody accountable that I work with. So what month one of my directors said to me, should they you have reached a point where you've taught them how to treat you. Okay, great now, awesome, very good. And part of that is because I am someone who I demand a certain level of respect from everybody, candidate, CEO, director, whoever you are, I demand respect from everyone. So I will want the difference that I would change is I would want the confidence in the recruiters to increase because our confidence had our hands, our confidence have to be on par because of the level of sacrifice time and effort that we take to try to literally bring the ideal candidate candidate and talent into our companies. But then also, us either not getting as much accolades as we deserve, or us taking the bashing for something that's technically not even our fault. Yeah. So I would hope that our confidence would increase, and that we know how to separate business and personal so that we can give a better candidate and client experience.

 

Leighann Lovely  53:47

That's awesome. And I totally agree. You know, we're we're constantly being, you know, the ping pong ball in the middle, taking on the brunt of the stress. So, so, if somebody wanted to reach out to you, you're welcome to provide contact on how they can do that. So somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?

 

Morgan Sbabo  54:13

Look me up on linkedIN,

 

Chenae Erkerd  54:14

Yeah.

 

Leighann Lovely  54:17

LinkedIn, and I will I will put your, your guys LinkedIn in the show notes. So if somebody does want to reach out to learn a little bit more about about you, they can go ahead and do that. And I thank both of you so much. This has been an awesome conversation. You know, hopefully, you know, recruiters in general can can start to kind of dig out of this. I don't know this, this whirlwind of, of getting this bad rap that we've we've continued to kind of try to dig out of but I know that you know, we all have the idea that we can help and we want to help individuals find you know, work and anyways, Thank you so much for the opportunity to talk with both of you ladies today.

 

Chenae Erkerd  55:04

Thank you for inviting us.

 

Morgan Sbabo  55:06

Yes, thank you.

 

Leighann Lovely  55:07

Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible so don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us, like us or share us have a wonderful day.

 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

recruiters, candidate, morgan, people, recruiting, minimum qualifications, hiring manager, work, experience, company, disqualified, job, talk, applicant tracking system, resume, hire, apply, conversation, job description, person