Leveraging LinkedIn to Build Relationships & Recruit Top Talent in 2019 & 2020 with Tammy Riley EPISODE 7

In this episode with Tammy Riley of ACCI talking about building relationships on LinkedIn, she really helps us approach job candidates differently and in a way that is proven to work. Using current data as a backdrop, surveys of small and midsize US companies show that owners report that recruiting remains one of the top three challenges of the multitude of business challenges that owners face. According to a 2019 survey, by CNBC and SurveyMonkey, 52% of small business owners claim it's harder to find qualified individuals to hire now compared to just a year ago. For businesses with more than 50 employees, 63% of owners believe it's harder to find qualified hires. Another survey conducted by CNBC in January of 2019, they published that CEOs cited the ability to attract and retain quality workers as their top internal concern.

For purposes of upping your game in recruiting on LinkedIn, Tammy provides really great tips that most people don't take the time to do today. That is going about one-on-one and one-on-many conversations on LinkedIn, without making people feel either like they're being creeped on or that the message is spam or canned. She also talks about setting up resources to enable continuous communication and message monitoring in LinkedIn. As well as creative ways you can capture video to allow candidates to get to know your company, your culture, and your job opportunity before they get to the interview table. Because candidates who are informed before they get to the interview table are much more likely to be hired. Why? Because if they like what they see and they hear about you online, and there's information they can consume ahead of time before the interview, they'll be able to visualize themselves whether they're a good fit or not. And if they think they are, they will have reason, and information, as to why they're a good fit. Therefore they'll feel excited, there's that emotion component, and eager about learning more.

Tammy talks about similar things as what the Glassdoor survey shows, that some of the top influences on candidates include information on things like salary and compensation, company culture, company reputation, the interview experience, company mission and values, and your senior leadership.

Welcome to Episode Seven, Leveraging LinkedIn to Build Relationships and Recruit Top Talent with Tammy Riley. In this episode with Tammy Riley of ACCI, which originally stood for Atlanta Career Connections, we're going to hear from her about how organizations can become much better at finding top talent by utilizing the working community and the platform capabilities of LinkedIn. Along with LinkedIn methods, she'll share with us how she helps companies build relationships with candidates throughout the recruiting process or life cycle. So allow me to introduce you to Tammy Riley. Tammy has been in the recruiting industry for 30 years. She began well before the internet age working for the second largest recruiting firm in the US. She has staffed for IT, or information technology, with data centers, computer operations, C programmers, which are like coders, WordPerfect, and data entry processors. Those are some of the types of jobs that she filled. And she left and started her own it recruiting firm out of Atlanta in 1989 I think, Tammy was that it?

1998.

Oh, 1998. Okay.

Yes.

That's awesome. That's a good year.

I know that was forever ago.

Right.

Tammy: Yes.

Carey: So it has allowed her to stand up her own firm, and work in the Tammy way, and helping companies fill positions in such a beautiful fashion, and having surfaced with the evolution of the internet requiring a multitude of new skill sets. So at that time the internet was really taking off and people were still saying www. dot. [laughter) ....All of these new skillsets were coming about. So Tammy had to learn all these new technology skill sets that these companies needed. And she did a just amazing, she's amazing what she does for client companies, and she really engages with the hiring leadership, and the teams, to develop a modern strategy that sets the company up for success in their hiring needs. Because we need to face it. We cannot say in the nineties anymore with the way we attract workers today. So hi, Tammy, and thank you so much for being our featured guests.

Tammy: Hi. Thank you. It's so awesome to be here, Carey. It's exciting.

Carey: Yeah! So can you tell us a little bit in your own words about you and your recruiting from ACCI?

Tammy: Absolutely. So I started in 1998. And it was right after I was managing a branch office for a CEO in Atlanta, and I needed to do a lot of hiring for that branch office, in addition to training a sales force and building a service team. And I didn't have time to do the hiring because I had taken a break from recruiting to do some management work for the companies. And I found that it was difficult to outsource recruiting to third party agencies because they weren't really building relationships with candidates. And I thought this is so difficult because I found that I was doing all the work, and then building relationships, and then paying a fee for that service. So it didn't really make sense. And I thought, "Ah, there's a need out there for recruiting to be done differently." And so with that in mind, I started at ACCI.

Carey: Yes. And that just reminded me that Tammy got me into the technology world!

Tammy: Yes.

Carey: I mean we always talk about that.

Tammy I know. It's such a great story.

Carey: Tammy recruited me and she helped me. I'm thinking, I can't understand coding and guys that are software developers. She's like, "Yes you can. Yes you can. You're great at sales." So I started at sales for Tammy. And then I found that I had an aptitude for technology and I love to learn, and Tammy loves to learn, and we are just -  we are the prettiest technology geeks, aren't we, Tammy?!

Tammy: (laughs) That's funny.

Carey: So we really, that's how I broke into it. But anyway, it's not about me. I just wanted to say that you are a technology guru and you really helped me realize that really anyone can learn technology. It kind of can be overwhelming and assumptions can be made at first but that that's kind of where you started, right, in the IT space?

Tammy: I did. I mean when I was early twenties I was kind of like one of the few women in technology and that was back when, I don't know, there was WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3, and everyone was programming in C. Or maybe prior to C, BASIC programming. And I had started working for a temporary services firm. They were the second technology recruiting firm in the United States. They were founded by two developers, a husband and wife team. And so at that point, if we go back to 1988, we were recruiting technology professionals without the internet. You can imagine some of these recruiters, being on the phone all day, it was prior to voicemail even being on the scene.

So we scheduled 10 to 15 in person meetings a day with technology professionals, and worked with them on their career tracks and goals and objectives. And then when we would meet with our clients and we'd talk about the top candidates of week and the people we thought would be a good match for them. And it was all done proactively through building relationships, both with the candidates and then with the clients. And everybody would know about each other, we'd coordinate, facilitate meetings between the candidates and the clients, who'd get to know each other. The candidates would get to know the companies, the career tracks and then they would, you know, wait. And when positions became open, the client already had the person in mind that they were going to hire, and they were already ready to go!  So it was a very proactive, engaged talent pipeline we were building back in 1988.

Carey: Man, that takes me back. Yeah. But you know, it's funny because many, many companies are still recruiting the way they did back in the 90s and early two thousands. And what I mean by that is not utilizing the platforms that are available today and the social connectivity, with LinkedIn being one of the main ones for recruiting. Yet they report that their biggest challenge is finding talent or their biggest challenge is recruiting. Like the huge number of companies and leadership reports.  So usually when you have a challenge or if you want something different or better results, then you need to change what you're doing. So what, what would you say be the reason for that?

Tammy Yeah. Definitely.

Carey: What would you say has not changed? Like what do you find is the same now as it was back then before digital and social became part of the working culture?  And I guess because why I asked that is, I know you act really like a coach and an expert to your clients. And so when they are trying to do things the way they did back in the day, and they're not utilizing LinkedIn or other means to communicate and build the relationship when they're not face to face with the candidate, what do you find is the same now as it was back then before social became part of the norm?

Tammy:  Recruiting. Yeah, so it's so interesting because it is the same. You would think that it would be different but the challenges are the same. And if I could narrow it down to two things for clients and one thing for the candidate, the top two challenges for clients are they think every single day where can we connect, and talk to qualified candidates about who we are, about our company, about our open positions. How do we effectively connect with those candidates who would want to be involved in our brand and take their career to the next level with us so that we can support their career growth? And then how do we market our company brand and how do we market our company so that these qualified candidates that are out there looking for us can find us? So that they know where to call and to send emails to!  Candidates are always wondering which companies are the best fit for my career long term and how do I find those companies?

So see all the questions are the same. This is the... I would say the two things that I actually do in my career, my title is a recruiter, but I'm coaching clients on how to find candidates, and once they do, how to reach out and connect and build relationships, and start those conversations before they have open positions. To build an engaged pipeline, build credibility and trust. And then with candidates, I'm also teaching them how do I get found, what can I do so that companies can find me, and how can I become attractive to those companies for the perfect next role for my career?

Carey: Yes. Okay. That makes so much sense. The way that you kind of see it from a high level. What has changed in preferences and expectation of candidates? Do they, I mean I hear the younger generations especially be like,  "they're taking forever, and like why haven't I received a text reminder?" or things like that. What do you see?

Tammy:  Right. Yeah. I think that what I... When I coach clients on how to build an engaged, proactive talent pipeline, and I'm teaching them how to communicate their brand and to how to build relationships with candidates, I think that they have to have dedicated resources depending on the size of the company. It's a small company, one dedicated person, dedicated to relationship building with potential candidates. Larger companies may need more than one person because they have recruiting teams for each area of the company. But so it's getting involved in social media. It's getting online and connecting to people via LinkedIn messages, InMail messages, and striking up conversations, getting people to want to engage with them.

Carey: Makes sense. Makes sense and a lot of people don't set aside the resources or realize the importance of that, and how it trickles down to the candidate experience? Is that what you're saying?

Tammy:  Absolutely. Absolutely. If you have dedicated person reaching out to candidates, you can continue to start conversations and continue those conversations, so a lot of times you have to have a tech savvy person who's going to have a mobile device. They're going to have the LinkedIn apps on their phone and other social apps on their phone. That way when candidates are getting these messages and then they're responding to them, you can easily respond back quickly, and create that momentum, and start creating a rapport.

Carey:  I see. So you approach the recruiting process, like you guide your clients to build those relationships in that way with all these ways and methods, I guess you could say, and best practices to find the most best qualified candidates. The LinkedIn platform, it's not just to have a profile on, right? It's used by working people to have thoughtful conversations, contribute, and get to know other professionals on, right?

Tammy:  Absolutely. You want to connect and you want to be with like minded. Like for instance, you're looking for people that are also in the same networking groups, like women in technology for instance. And you can connect with those groups and start networking with other people that are involved in the same activities that you are in professionally. And the same goes with clients. You want to be able to reach out.

Carey: I think there's a misconception that it's (LinkedIn) just for people to go on because they have a job and they want to have a profile to show that they have that job. But it's really all people that have jobs, or are looking for a job, to have conversations on, and get to know other people on, and therefore like work... where I'm kind of going with this too, is leadership needs to be involved on LinkedIn because that way they'll be in the conversations, and get to know and take notice of people that are really great on there. Like a CEO is noticing a chief marketing officer.

Tammy:  I ask people their opinions of things. I network. I ask them if they know anybody who also may be a good fit for a position. But I also think that, you and I, as just normal people on LinkedIn, we can connect with other people like ourselves to create communities.

Carey: Yes.

Okay.... well I've seen come in and you're working with a hiring team. I've seen you in Atlanta coming in from Florida, and work with a team that you join them for a couple of days. I'm not saying this is the normal normal gig or anything, but you really work with them, and the way that recruiting is successful this year, not just this year, but in 2019, 2020 because they really don't know how to go about building those relationships with candidates seems like.

Tammy: Right, exactly. And everyone's so busy that no one really has time to take the time to not only begin and create conversations, but to continue those conversations so momentum happens. And then before you know it, you're building credibility. You're building trust. You're building, you're putting your brand out there. And then those people, that are very excited about your organization, they're going to tell the people in their network. Then they're going to tell the people in their network. And that's exactly how the brand proliferates out in the work. You know, out in the communities.

Carey:  Yeah. Yeah. And when I do a good job on LinkedIn in having conversations, and checking in, and joining groups, and getting to know people, that's part of building a relationship. But then it just extends out to the phone interview. And then they bring them in to the face to face. And they've already seen their nice professional picture that's in line with the organization's kind of look and feel. I remember at Forester, I had a SVP come in new, and at first one of the first things he had the whole salesforce do was change their LinkedIn profiles so that they were more conducive to people, when they go there, they automatically know that we work for Forester and were in line with the Deloitte and Touche, and the all of our competitors like McKinsey. And I was like, "LinkedIn is personal. I should be able to decide what I want my LinkedIn profile to be!"

But I did it because he required it and I respected him. And after I spent time on my LinkedIn profile and then I saw everyone else doing it too, we were more cohesive as an organization and our leadership was trying to, like you said, exactly Tammy, extend the brand beyond just the company page. It's the employees too. And that's part of relationship building I think. Internally to bring that out and connect with people that will fit into your culture.

Tammy: Absolutely. It does extend the culture out beyond LinkedIn. And people get, they look at business page profiles and they are looking for not only a brief summary of the company, the history of the company, they click on the people in the company, and they want to get a sense of do I belong here? Do I fit this culture? They click on those videos where they will showcase an employee of the month, or a person who's won an award. Or they'll have a little clip of where one of the employees, they were speaking at a trade show or presenting or accepting an award for President's Club achievement. And that gives a great idea of vision, actually a feeling of how it is to be an employee there, like a day in the life. And it just promotes culture. It promotes the brand. It promotes the initiatives and the what everybody is believing in in that company. Like what is it that they feel they stand for. And what they do, not only within the organization, but how do they extend out into the community too.

Carey:  Yes, that is awesome. So is it a lofty, unrealistic expectation or goal for a company or hiring managers to say that they can find someone on LinkedIn and then develop a relationship? Not just through LinkedIn, but LinkedIn being a component of it. And then getting the candidate to a state where they're like, "I want this job.... When you have an opening."  Like "you don't have an opening now, but call me when you're ready and I'll make a jump." Like is that something that LinkedIn kind of helps expedite?  help it go faster?

Tammy:  It totally facilitates those relationships. Some of the work, in fact the work that I do with companies is I'll go in and learn all about their culture. I talk to all the leadership team members, the HR and talent acquisition team members. And then I create a solution of how they want to reach out ,how they want to communicate, who their target candidate audience is. And then I literally train them on how to handle those InMails, and then the phone conversations, the instant message conversations, and then how to, like step one to step 20, this is how we get there from here. And so it begins with learning how to identify which candidates are the target candidates for the potential rules that we're going to be growing and opening up for the year. And then we start creating full files and we'll send those messages out for each group.

And then we'll wait for return messages. Or we may have an email campaign where it's message one, and then after a certain period of time message two, after a certain period of time message three. And we look for common conversation points by reading the profiles. What college did they go to? What achievements have they accomplished? Do we have people within our organization that have commonalities in alignment with what they've achieved? And then we'll have those same team members reach out and start a conversation.

And so now we're creating a dialogue. And then before you know it, we do get responses. People engage with us. And then the goal at that point is to continue the conversation. So it's all about continuing the conversation. And the minute we have an opportunity to meet someone for lunch or to bring them into the office, and this is prior to the position being open, they're coming in and they're meeting us, they're getting a feel for the office, the culture. They have a chance to interview us. They're saying to us, "I want to learn more about you. I want to learn about where you're going next year." They're thinking, "Can I trust this organization?" They're building credibility. They're visualizing their career path there. And so candidates are not used to that. They're not used to a role reversal.

And so when they are talking to us and they're saying, "Oh my God, you're saying I can come and have lunch with you. You're saying I can meet you at your office and tour your facility. You want me to interview you and see if this is a good fit for me." It's a total switch of what the normal process typically feels like for a candidate. So the they do. They immediately engage and they're very, very interested in doing their research. And then what's happening is rapport is building, relationships are building. And then we have, of course, our a talent acquisition databases and our CRM systems. And then we just kind of compile the data and then we make a plan to stay in touch with them during certain points in the year, leading up to when the position becomes open. And when a position becomes open, it's easy. We just give them a call. They already have planned to be with our company. They've already communicated our brand to colleagues in their network, and they're ready to go. And they're bringing their network as well.

And so it is a very successful, successful, I don't know what you call it, a plan, a campaign, a process. It works. And it just boils down to building relationships. The same thing we did in 1988 without the internet. It's just a different medium.

Carey: Yes, it can be accelerated. It can be easier. And it can be more interesting too, with video and with more capability to see more from behind your desk or on your mobile device. So that's how people have to think about it. So what should business owners do? Let's say they're on LinkedIn but they really haven't paid attention to it. Their leadership maybe doesn't really have profiles, or they have a profile, but it's like a picture that looks like their Facebook picture. I know myself, if I get an inbox or a DM from someone inside, - DM means direct message - inside LinkedIn, nine times out of 10, I'll go to their personal and or their work profile to kind of check out what they're all about. And it's like a first impression as a face to face, like the first three seconds of meeting someone, and it's critical to that first impression. So do you have a few things that matter to kind of get that in line with what is a better setup on LinkedIn?

Tammy:  I think that it's important to reveal details of where you went to school, and some career highlights, and talk about the company itself. A lot of companies they, like you said Forester Research, they create a brand. And they wanted each employee to communicate this same brand. Maybe the logo under their profile picture, everyone had the same logo. Everybody had the same first paragraph of the company mission statement, and talk about something interesting about the company that may peak someone's interest but also somehow have the link over to the company business page. Because you want them to also be able to do, they're going to land on your professional page, and see you and get to know interesting facts about you and who you're affiliated with, which is your company. Then they want to be able to easily click on over to the business page, which is the company presence, which will have the videos of employees, employee of the month, trade show, moments in time, and fun facts.

And then they want to click over to the company website where they can get a traditional piece of information about what we're used to, company history, the leaders of the organization, contact us for these things. So there's three ways candidates do their research initially. And they'll hit the recruiters' page or a hiring managers' page. Then they want to click over to the business presence on LinkedIn. Then they want to click over to the website.

Carey: Awesome. That's so smart. So what are a couple ways to initiate these one-on-one or one-to-many conversations on LinkedIn. How do you not be creepy when you're recruiting, or you're company and you're leadership, and you're trying to find the best people on LinkedIn. Do you have any examples or ideas how they can start those conversations? Because when they go to LinkedIn, they're in kind of a work mindset. Whereas Facebook, and we teach this, that people go to Facebook with one intention, that is to connect with family and friends. Even though they get ads and they're open to that now, people are... You go to Instagram, you have another mindset. It's same with LinkedIn.

Tammy:  No, you're absolutely right. And the thing that I teach my clients is to not sound like they are recruiting. Don't sound like you're marketing. Don't send the same email to 50 people at the same time. You want to personalize each message if possible. And it can be quick process if you have the right message. And then you just change the message to attract that or to get that individual's attention, something that matters to them personally. So you have to read the profile. And then you find some alignment and then you talk about the alignment. You talk about common connections that you have in common. Talk about the same groups you may be both involved in. I always ask questions that I know they may have the answer to based on their expertise or their work experience or where they worked before.

And to keep it really simple and personal, and that way they know this is not just a web bot or a massive marketing message, a campaign going out to 300 people. It's very personalized and short, but also something meaningful is happening, a professional question, something about their experience. The common person we might know or a common company we may have worked. Maybe went to the same school. But I do personalize and I don't let that conversation sound as though it's "businessy", like I'm trying to sell them something or I'm trying to get something from them, if that makes any sense.

Carey: Makes perfect sense. It does automatically take away, even though it takes some time, thought, and energy, -  that creepiness factor. Or they don't even read the message factor because they think, "Oh this is spam." So that's super helpful.

And last, I just want to close with the whole video stuff. You mentioned it earlier, videos about your company. And they don't have to be extravagant or completely, totally commercial level grade or anything like that, but videos are getting a lot of traction on LinkedIn now. People are really enjoying them. Can you talk about what brands can do on their corporate and personal pages to help candidates learn about like the company culture and hiring managers on LinkedIn. And is it worth the time even getting these videos done on LinkedIn, would you say?

Tammy:  Absolutely. I do believe in providing content because it gives the candidate the opportunity to feel what it is like to be within the organization. It gives them a feeling of the type of people that are there and they think immediately, "Do I fit in here?" You want them to get a feel for the type of success the company's experiencing. So I find that social media companies like yourself will be hired by companies to go in for a day, and maybe walk around, and have short five 30 second interviews with key employees. And they may describe, "Hey, this is our break room and this is what we do here." Or "Here's where we develop code." Or "Here's where we go outside, and sit at a picnic table, and enjoy our lunch together, collaborate." You want people to feel like they get a sense of who the company is, what the culture is like into, and then they think to themselves, "Do I fit in here?" So I think that the content is extremely important.

Carey: Yes, those are great examples. There are studies, that you and I have talked about, that show that candidates that come to the interview table after the phone screen, or if the phone screen step is skipped, if they're uninformed about the company, then they hardly ever get hired, like it's some super low percentage. Or they don't even show up to begin with. But those candidates that are well informed, which you just being a recruiter, totally help on that because you're that liaison, and that representative of the company, and filling them in and everything. So that really helps. But it also helps to have those videos on the social platform of like LinkedIn where the worker is looking for a job. Or maybe he's really happy with his job, but he's looking maybe for something better when the timing is right. That they, by the time they get to the interview table, they are way more likely to be a fit because they know more about the company and they're excited.  Those informed candidates are more likely to be hired. 

So Tammy, this has been super helpful, so great. And I'm sure you've really got everybody's wheels turning! (laughter)  Can you tell everyone where they can find you on, I'm sure LinkedIn and your website?

Tammy:  So my website is www.accisearch.com. And then from there there's a link to my LinkedIn. So it's pretty simple to find me.

Thank you. It's Tammy Riley, T-A-M-M-Y R-I-L-E-Y. ACCI is her company. And Tammy, thank you, this is amazing. And everybody, hope you have a great day. See you next time.

Tammy:  Thanks Carey. Talk to you soon!

Carey:  Thanks for listening to the All Social Ya'll podcast. For free resources and materials, head over to allsocialyall.com. That's allsocial-Y-A-L-L.com. Also, we'd love to hear from you. What subject areas would you like to hear about in future episodes? You can share that with us by dropping me a comment on our website or in Instagram @allsocialyall.