If you’re only advocating for the needs of the company, then you risk missing out on the most important aspect of values based recruitment, which is finding the right fit for both parties. And I think a one-sided approach can lead to, you know, candidates just being unhappy. Higher turnover rates and also a damaged employer brand as well, that reputation. So when you balance the needs of the company with genuine advocacy for the candidate, I think you create a process that has long term success. And I think both parties are going to be happy with the outcomes.

This podcast is brought to you by Fast Slow Motion, a team of expert consultants that have helped hundreds of growing businesses build scalable systems on the HubSpot and Salesforce platforms. To learn more, visit fastslowmotion.com.

Welcome to the Fast Slow Motion podcast, where we teach you how to build a business you love while enjoying your life. I’m your host, Sam Donaghey, and today’s episode is part one of our series on how to find and hire superstars. And I’m also joined today by FSM Director of People, Michael Smith. So Michael, welcome to the podcast.

Hey Sam, it’s great to be here. And I’m excited about this podcast because we’re going to turn the tables on you today, and you’re going to be the guest instead of you asking the questions. We ask the questions of you and get to learn from your expertise as the recruiting director of Fast Slow Motion. I mean, you’re the host of our podcast, but the majority of your role is actually being the recruiting director. So let’s dig into that. Sam, can you just explain what that role is here at Fast Slow Motion?

Well, first of all, I’m super excited to be interviewed. And let’s just hope I do a good job of it today. But yeah, Michael, back to your question. Before I talk about what I do, I just like to say like recruiting at Fast Slow Motion is definitely been the best thing I’ve ever done in my career. It’s a it’s a really special company. I officially joined FSM in 2021, and since then we’ve just grown a huge amount and the company has achieved some huge milestones. And it’s just great to see all that hard work be recognized now and celebrated. Since joining FSM, I’ve really been fortunate and I’ve had the opportunity to work with some truly amazing people as well. And I had the chance to get, you know, to ask questions and really learn much more about business and processes and leadership and culture and just doing things the right way. So it’s been an amazing time. I’m super excited to see where the company goes in the future. But as a recruitment director, in terms of my responsibilities, I connect with all candidates. In my opinion, I believe that I’m a brand ambassador and a guide, so I’m responsible for guiding candidates through our interview process. I also work with stakeholders to understand the hiring needs. I’ve had the opportunity to help improve our recruitment processes, and I’m also part of the team that assesses and evaluates each person that comes through the process. So I get to see how all that works. And being a brand ambassador means that I get to talk about FSM every day, and I’ve been doing that now for half a decade, and it never gets old. You know, we’re a growth company. It’s been a really fun ride so far, and we’ve definitely got a very exciting future ahead of us.

You do a great job finding those great candidates. I’d love to more know more about how you find those candidates. Will you unpack that for us?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, firstly, finding candidates, you know, we use a multi-channel approach at Fast Slow Motion. We occasionally leverage job boards, social media platforms. We’ve got a fantastic internal employee referral program as well, which often leads to very, very good candidates as well. LinkedIn has been incredibly effective for us, especially for reaching passive candidates who might not be actively looking, but they’re open to new opportunities. And mainly these days we get a lot of applications directly through our website. And it all ties into what we’re going to talk about today. But what I’ve learned is that finding candidates isn’t really the issue anymore. Everybody today has access to the same candidate pool because of various platforms and technologies. There’s never been a great a time to get visibility on candidates, but getting access to candidates is possibly getting more difficult. Grabbing attention and standing out in the crowd in this day and age is definitely critical. So when it comes to recruiting, there’s two parts to my role at Fast Slow Motion. One would be getting access to candidates, but then two, once we have access to candidates, it’s then executing on values based recruitment. And this four principles that I, you know, we can talk about today.

Yeah that’s great. I know that sounds simple on paper just to say that there’s two pieces to this and getting access and that value base. But I want us to take some time and unpack each one of those. So let’s just start at the top with getting access to candidates. Tell us more about how that happens in your role to get to those. And the first step in getting people in our team.

Well, when it comes to getting access to candidates, there’s also, you know, there’s two different topics we could cover here. Again, one would be how do you stand out from the crowd and attract candidates when you’re actively going to market and you’re trying to fill a role and you’re trying to grab attention, you know, this is a great subject. It’s a critical one these days, as recruiters are increasingly trying to build their personal brand, and they’re out there developing content and all that good stuff. But the other topic on how to get access to candidates flows nicely into the first of the four principles of values based recruitment here at Fast Slow Motion. And and I think it’s a powerful one, particularly for internal recruitment teams and business leaders to think about.

Hey, Sam, quickly, can you just name those four pieces of value based recruiting?

Absolutely. Now, this is my opinion. This is the way I’ve kind of packaged it up. But executing values based recruitment of Fast Slow Motion, the four principles that I think are worth talking about would be reputation, curiosity, alignment, and advocacy. Those are some big words and value based recruiting. Let’s just take some time and unpack each one of those. So let’s start at the top. What does it mean by reputation value based recruiting?

I think reputation is so important because reputation precedes everything. That’s both the reputation of the recruiter. But even more importantly, it’s the reputation of the company. A recruiter is quite possibly only as good as the company’s reputation allows them to be. Every candidate has the ability to do their homework. You know, long before they engage with the company. So building and showcasing a strong employer brand is a solid way to attract and get access to candidates. So getting your company culture and your values out there for people to see through your website, social media channels, that’s the fastest way for candidates to get a good picture of how good your reputation is. But yeah, having a good reputation precedes everything. On the flip side of that, I think if a company has a bad reputation and they’re struggling to hold onto staff and they’ve got internal issues and you know that needs to be addressed, the recruiter just can’t be honest at that point. You know, they can’t be authentic and what they’re probably going to end up doing is forcing square pegs into round holes to get people on board. And that approach rarely ends well, and most candidates are likely to leave once they find out that where they work, it wasn’t what they expected. So I think that companies that have a bad reputation really need to address the root cause. They need to take steps to build a better foundation and look to do things the right way.

Yeah. Thanks, Sam. Well, the value based recruiting, you mentioned that there are four topics and we just started with the reputation. Then curiosity, alignment, advocacy. We’ve unpacked a little bit about reputation. Let’s dig into curiosity.

Yeah well let’s define curiosity and recruitment first. I think like curiosity means looking beyond the resume and finding out who the candidate is and what it is they’re actually looking for. You know, I think it’s about exploring their motivations and understanding their values. And, you know what’s important to them. I think it’s important to peel back the layers, because then you’re going to find out if someone is ready to connect and be vulnerable, or if they’re just going to be transactional throughout the process. And I think if you have a genuine curiosity, you’re going to unlock the potential to understand not just what people do, but why they do it. I think when recruiters showed genuine curiosity, they get to know the candidate better. But you also build trust, and then trust helps you to dig deeper and understand the candidate better, you know, which then leads to being able to representing them better too, which is so important. But curiosity is definitely a two way street. It’s not just about the recruiter trying to understand the candidate, but also it’s about creating a dialog where the candidate can really lean and drive the conversation and ask the right questions to help uncover what’s important to them. So I think when both sides are driven by genuine curiosity, it leads to transparent conversations, which then helps determine if there’s a true fit. Think transactional conversations without that genuine curiosity, just fail to build proper connections. And then at that point, it’s more about ticking boxes rather than understanding true motivations.

Yeah, we’re a strong believer in this vulnerability based trust idea where it’s transparency, authenticity, and we just become curious about our our team members. And now you even say we’re curious from the beginning of the candidates getting the best that they can be, or helping them become the best that they can be. The third component you mentioned about value based recruiting is alignment. Lets unpack that.

Absolutely. Yep. You know, alignment is all about making sure that the candidate’s values, mission, and goals match companies. And this is just crucial in values based recruitment and also for long term success. Alignment just helps a candidate to become an employee who is engaged, committed. Their values resonate with the companies and it really sets them up for success. You know, we want people to not only fit in, but we want them to thrive and contribute and make an impact. So alignment is just such an important piece of the puzzle because when things are aligned, it leads to higher performance and better retention rates, and it just makes teams more cohesive. And, you know, everybody’s working towards common goals and they’re sharing the same principles. And Michael, you know, at Fast Slow Motion we hire to culture. So alignment is mission critical. We want to make sure that every team member is genuinely invested in our mission, our work, and also the success of the company. So as a recruiter, it’s my job to clearly communicate Fast Slow Motion’s company values and mission during my calls with candidates. And I think this helps candidates to understand that the company stands for something, and then it helps them to decide if what we stand for aligns with their own personal values. For me personally, I want to be transparent and open and honest about expectations and what to expect at Fast Slow Motion and what we have to offer here. I’m not a believer in sugarcoating anything to get people through the process. You know, I want to find out if we’re misaligned as early as possible and I don’t want anyone to waste their time. I want to get the right people on the bus. And I want to, you know, I want people to be happy here, and I want them to stay for as long as they’re happy. And FSM isn’t for everyone. You know, we’re clear about that here anyway. And that’s why alignment is so important, because a recruiter can sometimes mis sell the role or the opportunity, and then that kind of thing ends up costing the candidate time and effort, and it costs the business time, effort and money as well.

Yeah, you do a great job of that. And I’m so thankful for your role because when a candidate gets to me makes my job a whole lot easier. And when we do talk about culture moving forward, and I think this alignment also, Sam helps us understand that we’re bringing in people with an owner’s mentality that they feel their buy in to the organization, not just an employee. They really have a heart for what we’re doing.

I have to admit, this last piece of values based recruitment. It sounds a little odd to me when you think about advocacy and that you’re the advocate for the candidate. I’d love to know. And you explain that to us.

Yeah. Well, to give a little bit of context as well to advocacy. Remember your role at Fast Slow Motion, Michael, you’re an employee advocate, right? As the director of people. So once people come in to the business, they’ve got you as an advocate. Well, on the front end in the recruitment process, I consider myself a candidate advocate. And what that means is I act as a bridge. I’m communicating the candidate’s needs, their concerns and their aspirations to the hiring team. So what I like to do is try to remain transparent, and I want to give candidates a clear picture of what to expect. And what I always try to do is advocate for fair treatment and alignment with their own career goals. It’s, you know, for me, it’s about building trust and showing candidates that their well-being is important to us as a company, which I think ultimately leads to better matches in terms of candidates, but also more commitment as when when they become employees. And it also, you know, we care about candor enough as an internal recruiter to be able to challenge the company if needs be. You know, it’s genuinely wanting the best for the candidate and making sure that you look out for them. But that doesn’t mean that we’re going to argue internally all the time. And there’s disagreements, and we’re always pushing back against decisions made. That’s a rarity, but it does mean that we have the candidate’s best interests and it’s a high priority throughout the process.

If you’re only advocating for the needs of the company, then you risk missing out on the most important aspect of values based recruitment, which is finding the right fit for both parties. And I think a one-sided approach can lead to, you know, candidates just being unhappy. Higher turnover rates and also a damaged employer brand as well, that reputation. So when you balance the needs of the company with genuine advocacy for the candidate, I think you create a process that has long term success. And I think both parties are going to be happy with the outcomes.

Well, Sam, I appreciate your heart on that. And there are any candidates listening to this podcast. I want to tell you in our recruiting meetings, when we go over candidates, that’s exactly how you behave and act. So these aren’t just words on a piece of paper or words on a podcast. That’s how you live out your role. And we sure do appreciate that. Man, this has been great. Sam, as you unpacked how you go out and find the candidates put in the process, that’s so important to us. And you’ve done a great job as we’ve hired a lot of people over the last few years. As you know, when we finish a podcast, we always like to hear a quote from our guest. And since you’re the guest today, is there a quote that sticks out to you that kind of aligns with a lot of the things that you’ve said in this podcast today, or supports what you’ve said in this podcast.

I’ve got two, actually two quotes that I’ve picked out, and one is a Simon Sinek quote. He said, if you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears. I love that one. And then there was another one from Richard Branson, and he said, hiring the right people takes time, the right questions, and a healthy dose of curiosity.

Thanks, Sam. Well, that’s it for today’s podcast. Thank you, Sam, for letting us turn the tables on you and you being our guest today. For our listeners, we hope you’ve enjoyed it. We’ve had a great time filming this, and remember to subscribe to this podcast at any one of the podcast platforms. And if you want to look at archived episodes of the Fast Slow Motion Podcast, you can find that at fastslowmotion.com/podcast.