Sarah Taylor: WFH and The Importance of Candidate Experience Today

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In this episode, Marcus Edwardes speaks with Sarah Taylor, a Senior Technical Recruiter at a mid-stage healthcare startup. She previously held positions as an internal recruiter at Amazon, PG&E, and Mercedes Benz.

Listen in as Sarah shares her experience with her current WFH setup and why she prefers a hybrid WFH model in the future where team members also have the option to choose whether to go to the office or work remotely.

She offers her best advice for creating a positive candidate experience, including how to showcase your company culture when you’re limited to digital means, and why talking to candidates directly instead of relying solely on their resumé often leads to the best matches.

Sarah then describes her approach to building rapport over email and personalizing the initial outreach by categorizing candidates and applying modifiers in her messages as needed. She also gives her opinion on sequenced versus 1-1 emails and using Gem in particular.

Finally, Sarah speaks on how recruiters can effectively communicate company culture through the interview process and how to get the rest of the internal recruiting team on the same page with regard to her approach.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

●      [01:39] Sarah’s experience with her new role so far

●      [02:22] How Sarah overcomes challenges in the WFH environment

●      [06:24] Does being away from the office impact performance?

●      [10:03] The need to increase productivity with a WFH setup

●      [12:01] Sarah’s thoughts on companies paying remote employees differently depending on which part of the country they currently reside in

●      [16:53] How Sarah goes about the initial outreach to maximize candidate experience

●      [21:30] Reclaiming the human component of engaging with candidates

●      [23:53] The advantage of sequenced emails over 1-to-1 emails

●      [31:15] Showcasing company culture through the interview process

●      [34:52] How Sarah imparts her approach to candidate experience to the internal recruiting team

Key quotes:

●      “I do have four children. Their ages range from middle to elementary school; so, if I did not utilize my calendar, I would be crazy (or crazier than I already am). If I’m not organized, I can’t keep either straight.”

●      “I think there are days when Zoom is great because there is so much on the calendar that there would be no way for me to run around to different meeting rooms and be effective and have my head in the game. [...] But, I also think that when you’re able to head down the hall and pop into your hiring manager’s office and talk about what’s working and what’s not working, their opinion, or getting approvals—that’s also a very effective way to build trust. I see both as productive and meaningful.”

●      “My mindset when I’m reaching out to a candidate is to be personalized and be engaging and to share a blurb. Whether I’m working for a famed company or, now, a startup, sharing the blurbs and the links that will help them do their own research might excite them to reach back out to me.”

●      “When you recruit not as a horse with blinders but you look at the bigger picture, the world is your oyster: You're going to not only give the candidate you’re talking to a great experience, but they’re going to go talk [...] and word-of-mouth starts happening and you start getting networking referrals. So many other doors open up.”

Resources Mentioned:

●      Sarah Taylor on LinkedIn

Connect with Marcus https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusedwardes/