Alex: Hey everybody welcome back to another episode of Debt Collection 101 here on
Arbeit U. Spencer: Yes, sweet have a great episode today, right? We're talking about
recruiting and who better to talk about recruiting than our recruiter. We have
Kim Schultz from Acara. Alex: Thank you for joining us. Kim: Yes, thank you for having me.
Alex: No problem. Spencer: Pleasure's all ours so start off by telling us a little about
yourself how you got in recruiting. Kim: Well um I actually
before I was a recruiter I worked in college admissions so yeah so it was
actually a really great transition um I worked in college admissions for couple
years and kinda wanted something bigger better so kind of let friends and family
you know that I was looking which is actually an awesome tip for job seekers.
If you are looking for a new job make sure that people know. You know make sure
your friends know. Make sure your family knows because everybody knows everybody
in Buffalo. So I let people know that I was looking and got my resume to
Superior Group which is now Acara Solutions and here I am three and a half
years later. Spencer: Wow, what school? Kim: Bryant And Stratton College. Spencer: got it, Cool.
How do you like recruiting? Kim: I love recruiting. I love finding people their new jobs. Their
dream jobs. Getting them more money getting them a better atmosphere. Yeah, it's
super rewarding. It's super awesome. Love it. Spencer: What uh what do you look for
when picking a recruit? Is that right? Kim: Yeah, there's a lot of different things to
look for. Obviously my client comes first so I really try to understand what
they're looking for in a candidate so I try to really understand their education
requirements and culture and background and experience and then when I'm looking
at candidates, I'm looking you know do they meet what my client
is looking for. You know do they have that education background you know. Do
they have that same sort of culture or personality fit that will mesh well with
the team. Spencer: Nice segway. So speaking of all that, how important is
culture to match new candidates. Kim: So important and I think it's gotten a lot
more important recently. We were just talking you know before this even
started. Oh yeah, you were late. Spencer: If you're not 10 minutes early you're late. Kim: We were talking about how
I'm sorry. Spencer: No, no, no. Alex: How the
culture with like millennial generation right? Kim: Yeah yeah and how maybe a few
years ago it wasn't as important as it is now but you know culture is just
becoming so important to even like the younger generation. Kids that are just
getting out of college. You know they're seeing what these awesome companies like
Google and Amazon are doing and they're like well I want to work for a company
like that. So I think companies are slowly starting to integrate some of
those really cool features that bigger companies are doing. Spencer: How do you know a
company's culture? Like how can you gauge that? Kim: um by meeting with them before you
start recruiting on some of their jobs. So I like to be with a client and maybe
visit their office space. Meet with a couple members of their team. Take like a
quick tour just get a better feel for like what the office vibe is like. I
asked them you know what's a standard day in the office? Is everybody like
sitting at their desk or you know are they quiet. You know heads down
not talking or is everybody like making friends. You know grabbing coffee are you
going out to happy hours. Are you you know doing bowling on the weekends? Spencer: Big
bowlers. big bowlers. Kim: See and that's you know then I wouldn't want to find
someone who just wants to sit at their desk all day and do their work. Spencer: I
wanted to recruit softball players. That was my goal, right? For our softball team.
Alex: We still lost. Spencer: Didn't work. We could not find good softball players. Kim: You tried to recruit me
for the softball. Spencer: I recruited everyone for the softball team. Anyone who could play
softball I was ready to recruit them. Alex: So well are one of the biggest concerns we
get from our current clients which are majority of collection agencies is it's
hard to recruit people. They need to know how to recruit people how to bring
people on board we were talking to collections isn't something that you
guys are you know that you do very much but you do work with a few. But there's a
you said there was a lot of carryover, right? Kim: Yeah, I mean I think what
collection agencies can do to attract and retain great talent is something
that really can go with any company whether it's a call center or customer
service. Whether it's an office or anything of the sort I mean I think
there are things that every company can do to do that so making it making the
office space and environment an inviting place that someone wants to come and work in everyday.
Spencer: Cause a lot of times you walk into these place
that's it. Alex: It's the easiest and the cheapest Spencer: It's the easiest thing to do. Get
a fresh coat of paint and some stick on peel on floors and you're happier than a...
Kim: Yep, yeah. Comfortable chairs. Good lighting. Good dusk space. Yeah, I mean
just make it an inviting place that people want to come to work and then
also I think it's important that companies ask their current employees
what they like and what they don't like because I think that's a great way that
companies can attract new talent is by seeing okay what are our current
employees liking or what are they maybe not liking?
I know. You know personally my supervisor asks me every once in a while. Hey, what can we
do for you. What do you need from me to make you happy and you can't be quiet.
You got to tell people. You know if you're unhappy about something make it
known and worse they're gonna say is no so... Spencer: I love it. I would answer that question in half an hour.
Kim: Flexible work hours are like something that's become huge being able to work
from home the flexibility is really important because companies are now
learning that people have lives outside of work. You know they have families. They
have dogs. They have other activities that they like to do so and I think good
employees will want to balance that work, home, life. Spencer: Who doesn't want to balance that work, home.
Alex: You said that something you recently started having, right? Kim: yeah
our company recently in the you know brought in a flexible work schedule
where we can really work between seven and seven and it's awesome. We
love it. We love. It changed how the office vibe is completely
everybody's so much happier because if you for the people who are morning
people like me who want to get their eggs in early. I want to get there Day done
and get to the gym after work and then still get home and then it's still light outside
like that's me and then we've got other people who maybe aren't morning people you
know they want to stroll in ten eleven o'clock in the morning but they can work
you know later into the evening that works too. Spencer: How's that how's that being
received? Kim: Awesome, I mean we've gotten really positive from feedback from our
management team. They haven't seen any drop in numbers as a matter of fact
we've actually just seen us all so much happier. Spencer: How do you.. we're going to gear off off a little bit
but how do you like your role is very much almost like sales based, right? To a
certain extent. Kim: Yeah, I'm selling candidates. I'm selling clients. Spencer: Yeah
make everything a sales role. So what do you do the people who work for like eight
o'clock at night like how what are they doing between
five and eight o'clock? Kim: Actually that's a great time to get a hold of candidates.
because they're not at work. Spencer: They're not at work, they're at home makes sense so actually a
lot of my job is done during lunch hour between like 11:00 and 1:00 when people
are taking lunches. I'll get messages out in the morning so people can respond on
their lunch hour and then I always make myself available and that's another
thing actually. So I work like 7:00 to 4:00 but I make myself available from
4:00 until 8 o'clock at night and I think that's really important because my
company gave back to me that flexibility so I'm giving back and saying okay well
I can be available after work hours to talk with candidates that are currently
working. Alex: So what are some when somebody's looking for candidates you know if they
can't say if they're not using a recruiting service so that they can't
afford these or recurring service they're just starting out what's are
there any red flags that you look for when somebody signs up where you're just
like I'm not even gonna have a... Spencer: That's a great question. Like a terrible candidate Alex: Yeah
just like where you don't even want it you don't want to touch it. Spencer: What's
a good... Kim: I would say they're job hopping so if someone has had like 10 jobs in the last
four years. There's probably a reason why they haven't been able to stay at any
one job. Of course, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt but that's
probably one that I wouldn't even call but I like to always hear everybody's
story out. Everybody has a different story. You never know maybe they just
wanted to work some contract positions. They were in going in between things.
Maybe they just want to work you know contract positions moving forward and
that's fine too. I would say other red flags are just
candidates that don't follow up very quickly. You know if you talk to them and
you ask them to send you their resume and they you don't get it right away.
Spencer: That's a flag Kim:Yep, probably a flag. Spencer: We actually turn people down because they haven't
responded in a timely manner. Kim: Yeah, people that don't you know take drug
tests right away. Spencer: Oh that would be a flag too.
Kim: Another red flag but no I think it's really important to hear people out and give
everybody the opportunity to tell you their story before making that red flag
decision on the candidate. Usually I can tell within the first minute of talking to someone.
Alex: So on the flip side what is like oh my god it's great. Spencer: Should I pull out my
resume? I couldn't contain that one. Kim: You know there's a lot of things
that people can do to make themselves stand out um complete opposite of
everything that I said someone that's got strong work history. You know they
Spencer: Supplies a drug test up front. Kim: They can demonstrate yeah they can demonstrate
they've stayed at a job that maybe progressed through a job like they
started off in one position and then they were able to grow and take on
bigger and better roles. Someone who's quick to follow up you know gets in
touch with you via email phone text. Someone who's not afraid to be a little
bit aggressive during the job search because I found that those candidates
are the most likely to stay with you in the process and if you offer them a job
they're gonna accept. Spencer: What's the average length of time so you
hear a lot about people like job hopping. Like a trendy thing Millennials like.
How long should someone stay at a job Kim: That's a hard question.
Spencer: Well, I'm glad I cracked it.
Kim: I'll take myself for example so actually this with acara this is the longest job
I've ever been in since I graduated from college ten years ago. My been with them
for three and a half years but before that I think it was between like one and
two years I'm kind of bouncing but I was also trying
to find where I was a good fit so I think you kinda have to take a little
bit into consideration when talking to people who are just graduating college
and I think I understand that because I went through it. You don't really know what you
want to do when you "grow up" people are still trying to figure it out and you
know it takes time. It takes time so I would say I know you try to tell people
this. You know give it a chance. Stick it out try to make the best of it. Try to
learn from every job you're in learn something positive that you can take
with you on your next journey. Spencer: So optimistic. Every question was an optimistic
answer. What's a tip for someone who's currently job hopping. How
do they help themselves stand out? Kim: If someone's job hopping then the first
thing I tell them and then they're looking to leave their current position
I will flat out tell them you need to
stick it out. You need to stay. You need to make the best of it. You've got to figure
out a way that you can be content going into work every day. I need you to stick
it out for at least two years. In a job if you've been job hopping consistently
try to stick it out for two years and then we what we can do is you can take
off some of those old jobs on your resume and eliminate them so it doesn't
look necessarily like you've been job hopping. Alex: Awesome. Kim: Yeah, pro tips.
Spencer: Yeah, wow
look at that. Got anything else? Alex: Yeah, any final tips or you got is that it? Spencer: Yeah
why should someone use a recruiter? Boom!
Thought of that. Not in the paper. Kim: Oh no that's a great question and actually I
think recruiters have gotten bad raps in the past for maybe being pushy or trying
to get people into jobs that aren't great. We hated recruiters. Alex: We did. Spencer: because
we get the aggressive LinkedIn mailboxes.
Kim: Yeah, I've got this awesome job you need to talk to me right now.
No and that's and that's not I think using a recruiter or an agency is actually
really important because especially for someone who's working. You know you're
working. You're working looking for a new job.
You can't do that Monday through Friday eight to five. I can. I'm doing that nine hours
ten hours a day. Spencer: Seven to four. Kim: Yeah, I'm going to
you know professional networking events and meeting with companies all over the
area. I know who's looking for what type of candidate. Chances are if we have a
conversation within a couple of months I'm gonna have a great job for you. Yeah
well maybe not you. Hopefully not you. Spencer: I understand that completely. I would not
want me anywhere else. Spread this plague. Take them. take them. Well that's it
right? Alex: Yeah, thanks for watching I mean basically it's a collection agency if
whether you're a collection agency. Whether you're a barber shop. Whether
you're you know software and start up. Everyone has this problem. Spencer: It's the
biggest problem any company, any industry anywhere faces is I cannot
find good employees. Alex: Yeah, I think a lot of companies just always they like oh
we're different. We have this problem no one else does right and it's like our
problem's different. No, it's not it's the same. It's across the board everyone has
this problem so... Spencer: and you know what you you can't do it as well as a recruiter
can I know that sounds crazy but like you think like oh I'm a great
interviewer I can do this you can't. That's just not true. You spend hours going
through 50 interviews to find one person you like right versus recruiter I'll
send you five people you do like, right? and then an Emily so I would highly
recommend a recruiter. Kim: Yeah, so call me. Alex: We'll put Kim's information below. Spencer: Cool, thanks so
much for watching see you next week. Alex: See ya
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