Transcript of The Secret to Hiring Top Talent

Today, we have Mr. Walter from HireFinder. How are we doing, Walter?

Feeling good, doing pretty good. And again, Kavon, thank you very much for the opportunity. I'm hoping to learn.

Yeah, and we're also hoping to learn a little bit about you. And I'm excited Because just before the call, you were telling me a little bit of what you do, and I thought, oh, this is going to be a good one. So from what I understand, you have figured out a way to help companies recruit, train, hire at a cost-efficient way instead of having to pay typical recruiting fees. Before we jump all into that, tell us a little bit of who Walter is. How did you get to where you are? Tell me a little bit of your story.

Yeah, for sure. Thanks for asking. So born, raised in New York, a fledgling, and then eventually a failing professional tennis player. I tried to give it a go. I tried to become the next Roger Federer, Andre Agassi. It didn't happen. So I took my talents into the corporate world, eventually getting into, after some sales leadership gigs, into recruiting and hiring. And I've been in talent acquisition now for almost two decades.

So I've been in talent acquisition for two decades. Big tennis player. I love it. I'm a big fan of tennis. Talk about that on the next episode. Right now, you're working with Venture Employer. Is that correct?

Yeah. So Venture Employer Solutions. Kavon, we are the second largest in the world for HR outsourcing. Maybe you've heard of ADP, right? We're the biggest, the 800-pound guerrilla, and we're the second largest in the world. We provide HR outsourcing solutions for all of our clients.

Let me give me a little bit of a breakdown. When you say HR solutions, what do you mean by that?

Yeah. So, Kavon, hypothetically, you're a business owner. You're out there, you're in the world, you're making your widget, and you're keeping your head down. Well, what do you know about HR compliance, about the laws, the regulations? Do you know the best way to get your employees health benefits, let's say, or provide them with a 401(k) plan? That's all the stuff we do. We will write you a sexual discrimination handbook to have on for your company because unfortunately, there's too many companies out there who are at risk. They're liable, and ignorance is not a defense these days in our litigious society. So that's what we do. We provide all the different HR aspects to a company. So we are the subject matter experts. And recruiting is part of that.

Absolutely. Just take a step back so we understand. You come from what it sounds like an outsource HR agent. I'm going to call an agency, but I think you guys are probably more of a firm where you handle all HR-related items for businesses. Now, What typical size of businesses are we talking here? We're talking Fortune 500, we're talking startup, everything in between.

Yeah, it's a great question because it does tie in what we're going to talk about. By the way, we have about 140,000 clients. So clients are all over. Yeah, I know, right? It's like a big deal. 140,000 clients, but our average size is about 24 employees. So it's a small... Now, we have Fortune 500. We have startups just getting off the ground, but our average client size is 24 employees, what I would call more of a small business.

Which I love. So again, I'll just say this, if you're a business owner, it sounds like, wow, if you need HR, anything to do with HR, you don't even have an HR department and you think you're safe. I know for sure in the United States, you are not safe, especially if you have an employee. You need HR. I'm not a big fan of HR. We are not going to talk about HR today. I just wanted to understand where we're coming from, because I know today you're excited to tell us about this new product, this new offer you have, which I think is very interesting because I know one of the hardest things right now that I'm seeing a lot of business owners go through, not only are they trying to acquire great leads and convert great leads, is also talent acquisition. Hiring the right people for the right seats, the right buts, and people that are going to stay and be loyal and actually do the job and fulfill the needs of the business no matter what size it is. So tell us a little bit before we go right into it, what makes you the expert in this?

What have you done or what has the company done to say that this is what we've done and this is how we've changed the game. How are you flipping the game upside down?

Yeah, sure. So for sure, this is the most fiscally sound approach approach to finding top talent. And because our client base is mostly small and mid-size business, we say that we focus on the SMB sector. So mostly, our clients have been complaining to us or distressed about the fact that they cannot get the top talent because the big boys and girls, the big companies out there who who can afford to pay 25 or 30 % of the first year base salary, they're snatching up a lot of the talent out there. So what we've done is we created a very, very cost-effective solution which will help small companies who don't have those huge budgets for recruiting and talent acquisition to be able to compete on a more-level level.

Now, let's talk about that because I know what you're talking about, but I don't want to assume that everybody that's listening understands what you just said, specifically around, they take the 20 to 30 % of the first-year budget. So how do typical recruiters usually work?

Yeah, I'll break it down for you, Kaven. So a typical recruiter will charge, on average, these days, 25 % of the first year base salary. So hypothetically, if you want to hire a graphic designer, a graphic designer, in the United States, is typically making a around $80,000 a year. Okay, so if I go out and search, I find you that graphic designer, you interview them, you hire them, the first day that graphic designer is start work, you now owe me $20,000. That's for one higher, 25% of the $80,000, that's a $20,000 fee. You write a check and you send it over. The person starts work. Hopefully, they make it, they last, and life is good. Occasionally, we all know things happen, but it's really costly. And by the way, I have been a recruiter, again, for a long time. I've been paid many, many, many, many times that $20,000 check. Sometimes, I think my largest placement was $54,000. That's one check for one higher at one time.

And no guarantee. As you said, anything can happen, right? Hire slow, fire fast, and you don't get that 20K back, I'm assuming.

You don't. Look, we will offer a 90-day replacement.

You're not getting the 20K back. And on top of that, as you mentioned, really, a lot of business owners, they don't have $20,000 in cash. They could just fork out so they can hopefully hire the right employee to do the job that will deliver the cash three, six, nine months later. And like you said, unless you're the big fortune, your big top, top company that snatched them all up, they have the bigger playbooks and the bank dollars that they can afford that. So how are we flipping this upside down? So now, first time ever, bringing it to the new entrepreneur, the small business owner just trying to make it happen, wanting to grow, stuck with, I'm going to say, the Upwork type people and want the real absolute A players in their business today. You got a new product, you got a new service. Let's break that down. Tell us what's happening.

All right. So Venture Employer Solutions, the big parent company. We listened to our client base who was upset, complaining, having trouble So we created our solution called HireFinder, Kaven. And HireFinder provides our clients with a team of three recruiters. Okay, so if you're a prospect, a client, and you're looking to grow in some ways in your company, you want to hire some people, you would receive three recruiters to join your team. Now, they would be working from our offices, but they would recruit for you exclusively for the amount of time that you choose. We also will provide you with a project manager to help handle all of the logistics, everything like a liaison between the recruiting team and your company. We provide you with all the resume databases. Like, for instance, not all, okay? Not all the job boards in the world because there's millions of them. We'll We provide you with monster. Com and Career Builder and ZipRecruiter and Indeed. And we provide our recruiters, the ones that be working for you, with LinkedIn recruiter seats, which are ungodly expensive. So you get all that. We create customized dashboards for you. So once a week, we could look at these dashboards, and this way, you know where you're at always.

We track the KPIs, the metrics of how many people we called, how many people we presented to you? How many submittals? How many people you hired? And on top of that, and this is really where, Kavon, this is where I think we really separate ourselves. We're not just going to put up postings on the job boards. We're not just going to send nice messages over LinkedIn. We're not just going to send Facebook messages. We're going to do all that. And I know this is radical. This is Yeah, and actually have some calls. And we call candidates. We do what we used to call in the old days, headhunting. So we pick up the phone and we call people, yes, at work, we call them at home, we find their cell phone and we ask them, Hey, are you open to a conversation? Just a conversation with a great client who has a great offering. Just take the meeting. And then you never know. You put two smart people in the room.

You never know what happens. Yeah, I love it. So I'm seeing a full done for you, recruiting, hiring, bespoke service that you've been able to offer to, I'm going to say the little guy. Now, Are we still offering the same type of pricing structure where you have to pay 20% of the first year salary, or has that changed, too?

Yeah, great question. Before I answer that, let me just share. We We have some Fortune 200 clients. We have some companies, some clients who are utilizing us. They have a big recruiting team. So it's not only for the little guy, it's why we created it. But some of our clients use us for a portion of the hiring process. In other words, we're fully customizable for whatever you need for us to do.

So do you do the interviews as well?

In the hiring paradigm.

Yeah, okay. And it It's like you would create the onboarding documentation, the SOPs. Everything, I mean, realistically, all things HR, very bespoke tailoring to the needs of the business. Now, in recruiting and hiring in hiring HR firms like that, there's usually two sides, right? You either represent the client or you represent the people. Who do you guys represent?

Well, we represent the client, number one, because they're paying our bills, but there's no placement fee here. It's a whole different model. So because of that, most recruiters who are driven by the placement fee, they sometimes try to force a square-He's calling out the competition here. Oh, I was- So I'm just saying we are incentivized to do a great job and provide a flow of candidates. And we will let you, Mr. Or Mrs. Business owner, decide who do you want to hire, because we're not going to charge you a dime, besides our fees, per hire.

So part of pitch me, is me working on your pitch. And I usually wait till the end for the elevator pitch, but I love what I'm hearing here, and I want to help out even when I see it before I forget. So there's two things I wanted people to understand if you saw what he did, which I loved and you did brilliantly. Number one, I gave him a price. I asked him for the price. And did you notice he handled that objection? Well, before we get the price, let me show you X. He didn't give us the price yet. He started to still sell, right? A little bit of the features, but the value. But here's the one thing I always tell people, you never, ever put down your competition. And you indirectly did. Now, it's a little different here. We're on a podcast. We're not on a sales call. We're not really in that sales cycle yet. But how can we learn from that? I would just say in that, instead of saying, oh, you know these recruiters, they cared about their commission. Basically, they only cared about their commission. So they would put a round peg in a square hole, all that stuff.

There's an opportunity for you to give me a little bit of a history, a little bit of stats, a little bit of who you are as a person, how has you evolved? So things So we could have went like that. It's interesting you say that. That's all the reason why I'm here, actually, Walter. After being in the recruiting game for 20 years, I watched so many people focus on the wrong things, like caring more about their commission instead of the mission of the business. And I remember as I went through it, I got caught up in all that, too. And what I realized was that's not what I want to be. It's not who I am. Actually, what I do here is I really where I get my jollies off, right, is connecting the right people to the right businesses Because when that happens, two people win. And as a result of that, I get paid handsomely for that. So what we've done is we flipped recruiting upside down. We don't actually charge a recruiting fee. We charge what I'm going to assume, you never told me this, but more of a monthly fee. There's some other fee.

We charge another fee. So we're not actually motivated by getting you a hot candidate and just sending them your way and hoping they stick and moving on. We're actually motivated by sending you the right candidate who will stay a lifetime so that we can do business long term.

Kavon, what are you doing later? Because you're looking for a side gig here? No, that's phenomenal feedback. I really appreciate it. That was a great added value there that you just threw my way. And by the way, I know. I could tell. I have that experience. Yeah, for sure. So you really hit it right on the nail. And that approach is just 10 times more professional.

Yeah. Well, it is also been a story, right? Story, facts tell, stories sell, right? So again, and then that was one approach, right? The other way you can do it, if you have stats, did you know that 90 % or 40 % of most firms, whatever it is, whatever the stat might be, right? In this case, 60 % of most firms who actually place their candidates in businesses fail. And the reason for that is this. So now you're not putting down the competition. Again, you're just saying what the problem is. And what we've done is we We were tired of being that statistic. Do you know what I mean? After working, here's now, after working with a... Or you said what was it again? 140,000. After working with, probably more than that, but currently working with 140,000 employers, employers, let's call it, there's a reason why businesses work with us. Why? With things 140, okay, you've got my attention now. Do you get what I'm saying? But you never bragged about it. Again, you just slid that in indirectly to prove a point that the current model or the old model, let's say, is not working.

It worked back then. You know when you even just said we used to headhunt, headhunt, right? That model works. We've lost the model that once worked, which was we'd actually pick up the phone and just start having normal conversations with great people and asking them if they're looking. Somewhere along the way, we've become complicated over online. People have put safeguards up. Oh, did you actually know? Because So I just heard this, that, which I was waiting for you to ask about more about this. I just heard that in the recruiting industry right now, the way it was said in the last podcast, I didn't understand it, but what they were saying was the replacement rate, so the level of people who are actually leaving jobs, so in this case, people who are open for a new opportunity has dropped over by 50 % because of the current market. People are scared. We don't know what's going on. We're uncertain. So people might get something sexier, but they're afraid to move. My question to you is, are you seeing the same thing in your market? Is that a correct stat? Is that what's happening today? Why are people afraid to go after something bigger, better?

Why are we playing the safe game with our careers, our finances, our family, our health? And most importantly, I would assume our happiness.

Yeah, wow. How much time do you have, Kavon? Because there's a lot to unpack there. And a lot of this has to do with at least the timing of COVID. So immediately post-COVID, a lot of employees said, You know what? Yeah, my happiness, the culture, my work-life balance, there's nothing more important. So they were given Giving the middle finger to the employer a lot, searching for their happiness. And there was a trend. There's lots of the great resignation. There's lots of cute names for everything. So people were leaving at a full-time high.

They were leaving at a full-time high. Okay, so now we're talking, that's what I thought. So we're going back a little bit to what I was just saying. I love it. So in COVID, I get everyone because the stimulus was the stimulus, Pat. I mean, we don't want to go down that road, but we get it. There was this idea that I can make money, not work and live this high life because I was stuck online watching everyone else and nobody's seeing me do everyone else. But right now I'm using the quotations for you guys that are listening. Everyone else making all the money in online. I can just go home and do it. I love it. We're on the same page here. So there was this huge uproar of people going. I mean, some of them being faced to actually leave their jobs, but a lot of them just thinking, hey, I'm I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not doing the grind. I'm not working Monday to Friday. I'm not sitting in the car. This is a blessing for me. And then now here we are.

So now we move forward, and a lot of people have found a better career, a better opportunity. Companies are a little more hesitant to just hire, fire, bring new people on willy-nilly Because two or three or four years ago, it was the Wild West out there. I think what you're seeing in the decrease of people leaving is a little more of a level set that employers and employees are starting to settle in. I mean, even just think about the whole hospitality industry. That was 100% shut down in COVID. 100%.

So a lot of those people never- Absolutely. We know that. I mean, hospitality, I don't know what it is in the States, but in Canada, it's down by 20%. People don't understand how big of a number that is. That's a massive number. For a whole industry to be down 20%. We're not just talking about employees here. We're not talking about people who are willing to work at the restaurants. We're talking about people who are willing to even to walk in and eat at the restaurant.

Yeah. Again, nothing really came out of COVID. However, employers, employers, in my opinion, are starting to listen more and more and better. They're better listening to their employees. They're hearing what the employees are saying instead of, Oh, they're working for me. Where are they going to go? Instead of that now, they're like, Oh, wait a minute. We should take care of our people because they have other options. They can leave because they were leaving at great rates. So now the employers have taken note of that, and I feel they've made some good changes to their culture, offering better benefits, maybe better pay. So again, there's that level set.

Yeah, I hear that. Things will level up. How's this new offer going for you guys? What's the market saying about it? Are people excited about it? We still haven't gotten to the price of it. I love that. We'll get there. And I'm not expecting. I know the price is very different for different services, but I'm just wondering, what's the pricing model about it? If we're not charging a commission, are we charging a monthly- Sure.

We are. I'll bring it up. We're not shy about this. Again, Our goal is to help our clients, to help companies out there grow. Because guess what, Kavon? There's a little bit of a double-edged advantage for HireFinder. When we help our clients grow, guess what they need more?

Well, I was already going down that road. So let's talk about the business. I'm going to just bring it up because I don't know how to ask the question around this, but I already see it. Whoever the CEO is or the board, I'm sure there's a board, they're sitting there going, okay, how do we be different in this world? How do we exist? How do we start? Just like the banks do, how do we get kids into our banks when they get old enough to get a banking? And it sounds like the smart board over there was starting to look what you guys were doing and said, Okay, how do we help the little, not just the little guys, but how do we help even some of these growing businesses here? How do we stay in, get in and stay longer? And what it sounds like, hey, instead of charging these enormous one-time fees in and out. It's we help them at every stage, no matter what stage they are, and offer the full suite so they stay longer. And why wouldn't they? Why? If you find me employee number one, why wouldn't I get you to get me to employee number two?

Oh, now, guess what? Now I have two employees caving on. The employees are calling us and complaining that they don't understand what's really going on in the business. They don't have SOPs. I don't want to write our SOPs. Oh, guess what? Don't worry, we got you covered. I could see it. Smart, very smart move. Yeah.

And thank you. Thanks for saying that. So something that's keeping our clients around is our customizable-No, it's your ability to offer à la carte. But here's what we do. We offer our recruiting team and the project manager, the job boards, everything on a customizable basis. In other words, when you're in growth mode, maybe you want to hire us for 40 or 50 hours a week because you need to hire 17 people by next Tuesday and let's get going. We really need a tremendous amount of recruiting horsepower. And then over the next couple of weeks, months, whatever, we hire you 16 out of the 17 people. And you are saying now, you know what? We're in a good stage right now. Let's lower our hours. Let's have a maintenance plan where we'll always be finding good candidates for our pipeline, put them into our software. We want to contact them over the time. So we'll lower it to 20 hours a week. So all you need to is tell us, Hey, you know what? We want to go down from 50 hours a week to 20 hours a week. Done. And maybe you are a seasonal business, then the business is going to take off in November, December.

You want to add hours? We can do that. So we scale up and down as your business scales.

I love it. Like I said, you guys are, like you said, it's customizable plans. And again, long term working with the employees. So no matter where they are, no matter what their needs are, you'll be able adapt and you're not stuck in. And I don't care. I'll say them, I'm afraid to say, those Salesforce guys, I'll tell you, they lock you in and you're screwed for life. So I love it. So it's easy for people. They say, yeah, it's easy for them to walk before they run with you. And you guys then have the whole gamut of offers and services.

Yeah. Kavon, talking about locking clients in. We're so confident that we're providing great value at a tremendous cost savings. Yeah, it's a yearly agreement.

With a 30 day out.

If you're not agreeing with us, if you're saying, you know what, or maybe the value is done, we're never going to hire again in the history of the world, then we will part, friends. Just give us 30 days notice because we want to find our people a new client, so we'll place them somewhere else. But we don't want our clients sticking around if they don't perceive that we're doing it.

So I love it. So we're at that point in the show where I'm going to ask you to give me the elevator pitch. But before we do that, I want to make sure we understand what we're dealing with. We are dealing with a, I'm going to say, a huge HR solutions company, specifically in a recruitment opportunity for businesses of all ranges, from small businesses all the way up to Fortune 500, flipping up the recruiting fee upside down and doing a more of done for you customizable plan that suits your business's needs depending on where they are and grows with you or slows with you depending on those needs. Is that what I hear?

I mean, that was too long of an elevator, maybe. Maybe we're going to New York City to the 48th floor, but you summed it up very nicely. Yeah, the customizable part, I definitely love that you put that in there.

It seems like it is. Tell me, what's the elevator pitch? What do you say? If someone says, Hey, what is it you do? Walter, what do you do?

Yeah, thanks for asking, Kavon. So my company, HireFinder, we offer a fully customizable recruiting solution. Whether you're a small business and have You're no recruiting department or you're a big company and you have a big recruiting team, what we do is we help you find top talent at the most cost-effective way possible. Top talent that will stick with your team and really make a difference.

Okay. How does that go? How do you think that sounds? Yeah.

You're asking me? Yeah. I like the beginning.

Well, you went on a little bit. But you know what I love about you? And most sales people, and this is, again, this is years. You have more years. I can tell you have more years than I do in sales. And it's called conviction. You just have this conviction in everything you say, you believe in everything you said. And you got this silver tongue is what I call it, not the negative way either. You got the tongue that knows just what to say, how to say, the tonality and whatnot. So that's fantastic. What I would do is I would... That to me is your typical, here's what I do. And then you just literally tell people what you do and it goes, here we So nowadays, we got to shock people. We need them to question and be engaged. So one of the things that I love doing is, I'm not sure if you heard me on my podcast, I always say, did you know? So I want a wow statement. So a wow statement is something where someone goes, wow, I didn't know that. So I'll give you an example because we are in recruiting ourselves with very niche.

And people come to me for commission commission sales reps only. So when people go, Hey, if I'm selling that, go, What is it you do? Well, did you know that an average business will lose $600,000 on a misshire? Meaning it costs a business $600,000 for hiring the wrong person. What we actually do is we have an eight-step profiler that guarantees that if I send you a commission salesperson, they'll have a 98. 76% chance of being successful. Have I caught your attention? That's a good did you know. Because then the next question is, well, how do you do it? It doesn't matter what you say at that point. That's what people don't understand. They all want the elevator pitch. It's like it tells you what it is and it nails it. No, you need to just get their attention. I don't need to tell you how, what, everything. I just need to know, do I have your attention? Because we're in the elevator. How do I know you're my client? You might not be my client. I don't need to give you all my verbal diarrhe Maria, I just need to know if I've got your wow and if you're even open to the idea of it.

Something I'm always trying to do is to pique prospects of curiosity. I'm trying to get them to be interested and curious and ask me questions. And that, the did you know question, certainly got me-So if I were you, I don't know them, obviously.

I haven't done the research on them, but I would actually do a little just... I mean, that's not hard to do. Just do a more research on some stats, right? About your industry or like, specifically about in recruiting. So, again, did you know that employers lose, I don't know, whatever it is, thousands, X thousand dollars a year? Well, you can even use the one that I had, but that was more salespeople. But like, there are a lot of stats that you can find that are wow statements that are specifically around what you do. And then what you do is, right? We flipped it upside down and we actually have a cost of efficient, effective way of helping anybody of all sizes to be able to find the right person, the right time, the right seat.

Now, I love it. Sometimes you're at a conference and you don't have time to get it because people are going from this booth to that booth to this breakout session. All you have time for, potentially, is a did you know?

Because I'll tell you, when you're doing it, the only thing anybody Listen, the only thing you're trying to enlist it is how. How do you do that? And then at that point, you're running out of event. You go, Hey, here's my... I wouldn't go, Here's my card, but here's a scan thing. Let's connect and we'll show you. Now, the whole time, you got mind space. And that's where we're trying to get attention in the mind space. So, Walter, someone wants to work with you. They want to understand all this. I know I got a lot of business owners that listen to this. And I could tell you myself, too. I've always had HR needs. And this is something I'd be looking at as well. But where can people find you?

Yeah, Kevin. Kaban, first of all, thanks for asking. Thanks for the time. It's rare that I go on a podcast and I learn and I feel like I improved my own game, and I really feel I did that here. Kavon, I'm going to make a statement. You're going to tell me if I'm wrong, but I think I'm the only Walter Sabrin in the world. Now, I don't know if any of your previous guests have ever said that, but it's true with me, Walter Sabrin, I'm on LinkedIn. All that stuff there. Facebook, Instagram, all the normal ones, but I'm all over LinkedIn. I'm a big player on there. That's my business, recruiting, hiring. Venture Employer Solutions is venture. Com. There's hirefinder. Com. And we'll make sure we get all your contact in the show So leaving the podcast.

Is there's one last statement, anything you'd like to leave the audience with?

Well, again, besides being grateful for coming on, recruiting doesn't need to be expensive. If you are an employer, yeah, communicate with your employees, number one, because you can hire the best talent. But if you don't have a great system, a great culture, there's the potential for high turnover for people coming in the front door through my efforts and going out the back door. I would just love if your business owner listeners would just listen to their people, listen to their employees, take action. Don't listen to everything they say, but take action when it makes sense because we're just trying to make companies better.

I love it. Walter, thanks so much for joining us.