Diana Alt [00:00:01]:
Hey there, everybody, and welcome to Work Should Feel Good, the show where your career growth meets your real life. I'm your host, Diana Alt, and today my guest, Kelly Hrivnak, is spilling the insider info tea about the life of a recruiter, especially agency recruiters, so you can be better prepared for your job search. Kelly is the founder and principal recruiter for NAC Digital, a certified women-owned recruiting firm in Maryland. She uses her extensive experience in talent marketing and digital strategy to help small and midsize— small and midsize businesses hire tech, creative, and go-to-market talent. Welcome to the party, girl.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:00:38]:
Hey, thanks for that lovely intro. Thanks for having me.

Diana Alt [00:00:42]:
I— you gave me some stuff and I always like to tweak it because, hey, why not? You know, I got a— I, I heard Life of a Recruiter and I'm like, I'm not a huge Swiftie, but I like the riff on Life of a Showgirl. So There we are.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:00:57]:
I know, I love it.

Diana Alt [00:01:00]:
Um, I always love to get a little bit and spend a few minutes on origin story for people. And so many people that are in recruiting came up through HR, or, you know, they're an agency recruiter that started in corporate and decided they wanted to work with more than one company. You do not have the normal background. We need to talk about wine sales. Mm-hmm. And how you got into that and kind of how that prepared you for what you're doing today. Like, what was that winding path and why was it good for what you're doing today?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:01:33]:
Yeah, it's, it's almost like a who do you know situation of I was in restaurant management actually before wine sales and the owner, the owner's husband had a, you know, distributing company and I said, kind of raised my hand that, hey, I'll go, you know, start pushing product.

Diana Alt [00:01:50]:
So did you like wine? Were you a wine girl?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:01:52]:
I mean, it was that— like, let's take it back to the time, and what was that movie? Was it Sideways? Like, wine was like cool back then too. Like, it was just everybody was very much into it. So I mean, I, I'm still not the, like, can smell vintage— like, there are people beyond that definitely have their expertise, but I knew enough. And there's a lot to learn regionally. I mean, it's just a lot of knowledge, but Um, did that for probably 2 years. And, you know, I guess I've never— I never would consider myself the sales type. Like, I never— I'm just not. Like, I'm an introvert.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:02:29]:
I'm very much just not, not the salesy type. And I've kind of thrown myself in these situations where, hey, like, essentially I'm selling people. I mean, there's a little piece of that, right?

Diana Alt [00:02:44]:
Like, essentially I said, I say that all the time. I say that job search is a sales and marketing exercise. I could argue your whole career is, is a sales and marketing exercise cuz you have to sell your ideas every day. But if you don't have a sales lens on when you're job searching or when you're marketing people, you're gonna have trouble. Oh yeah.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:03:03]:
It's all about marketing and positioning. I mean, I guess, you know, essentially that was a piece of that is selling and marketing wine to different customers, restaurants, you know. The guy who worked at the liquor store who just wanted the Moscato. Like, it's just different people needed different products. And so definitely learned to kind of calibrate to different personality styles, I think. And that even— I mean, I was a bartender for years, and that was something of like, you learn to shoot the shit with people and it definitely—

Diana Alt [00:03:32]:
make them feel heard.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:03:34]:
Yeah, I mean, right. Like, I think it's just that ability to carry conversations with people, I think, that carry over into recruitment of that curiosity of just asking questions, right? And, you know, there's always been what's that ICP or, you know, persona of the best recruiter? And, you know, what does that soft skill hire look like? And I think a lot of that is being generously curious. Like, I'm the person who's like, what does my neighbor do? I'm gonna go look up what they do professionally.

Diana Alt [00:04:00]:
Or what is— you know, I'm the same way. I am that way with Uber drivers, which, like, is— it's interesting because I've talked to some people that have done— I have friends that have done Uber, and then I've talked to— I've gone all meta with Uber drivers for, where I'll ask them, well, what did you do before you were a driver? Do you drive full-time? Like all those questions. And I'm like, do you get sick of being asked those? And they're like, we get asked them all the time, but you're the only one that sounds like you're actually interested in it. Oh. And I said, well, I'm a career— I'm a career and executive coach. So basically I don't give a crap what somebody does. I care about how they got there and why they do or don't like it. So.

Diana Alt [00:04:44]:
Um, so you could help them figure out whatever's next. I have full-on coached from the back seat before.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:04:49]:
Oh, I could, I could say that.

Diana Alt [00:04:51]:
Yeah, yeah, it is.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:04:52]:
I mean, it is genuinely interesting to hear like where people have been and how they got to where they got, right? Like, yeah, you see so many like non-linear paths.

Diana Alt [00:05:01]:
I mean, I, you know, the— I, I, I wrote a blog post a few years ago that basically The thesis of it— it wasn't said exactly the same, but this way— but the thesis of it is the career ladder is dead. There's no such thing. We have career chutes and ladders, or like a jungle gym now. It's not, it's not a ladder. And I like that a lot because too many people put the ladder— when they were climbing the ladder, the ladder was on the wrong damn wall. So they, and they spent 20 years trying to reach this holy grail thing by working up through a domain, and they're like This is kind of terrible. Tired of it.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:05:41]:
So I think I'm seeing a lot of that of, you know, not like midlife crisis, but a lot of people— I'm in my 40s and a lot of people I talk to are kind of, you know, mid-career thinking like, is this what I really want to continue to do for the last half of my career?

Diana Alt [00:05:57]:
And it's— that's the largest amount of people. Like, I, I worked with some— I haven't worked in the, in this time where the job market's been weird for a couple of years, I haven't worked with as many people that are just trying to do a pure career transition. I've had more people that are like, okay, I want to do a job search to a place with potential. I'm not trying to pivot right now, but, um, no matter what stage people are in, it feels like everybody's gotten in their 40s to this— is this all?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:06:30]:
Like, is this— is that all?

Diana Alt [00:06:32]:
Is that it? Yeah, this all is— isn't there more than this? I know. Um, and so trying to help them figure out like what's, what's making that feeling happen, which it's so funny how just the smallest changes can make a big difference.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:06:49]:
It, it, and it doesn't have to be like a career pivot, but it does determine like what's going to be meaningful to you.

Diana Alt [00:06:56]:
Yes. And I, I think that, um, one of the— I didn't mean— I do not even remember who said it, but I saw a piece of content a couple of years ago that I loved because one of the things that I don't love is the follow your passion stuff that people say. And there's a, there's a few reasons for it, but one that is not talked about enough is particularly applicable to women, and that is that women already are painted with this brush of being overly emotional or what the hell ever. And so injecting the term passion in does not help elevate a woman as a serious professional in the eyes of a lot of people, including other women. And when I heard that, and then I reflected back to every time that someone said, I appreciate your passion, Diana, but— I realized, oh, passion actually is often a liability. And so that content that I watched, um, said, why don't you reframe it as meaning? If you reframe what you're doing as meaning, it is more professional, it's less subject to whims, there's a more pragmatic thing to it than follow your bliss. So yeah, yeah, I really like that. Well, you are You're a recruiter.

Diana Alt [00:08:20]:
I think you're my first, like, active full-time, this is what I do all the time recruiter I've had on the show, which is impressive because it's a year. Yesterday I— yesterday I streamed the very first, um, episode of the show and I've had people with recruiting background that do other things now, but we're going to talk nuts and bolts because, oh my God, does anybody know how recruiting works?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:08:47]:
They— everybody thinks they do that part.

Diana Alt [00:08:51]:
They think they do, do they?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:08:53]:
And everybody can do it too, actually.

Diana Alt [00:08:56]:
Oh yeah, anyone can. All you need to do is just set up a Google Voice account and you're good. That's right.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:09:05]:
I mean, all you do is just like go find people and send the resume.

Diana Alt [00:09:09]:
Any idiot, you don't have to do anything. It's the same bullshit they say about realtors.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:09:14]:
Oh yeah, that's true. Well, it's the barrier to entry, right?

Diana Alt [00:09:17]:
It's— yeah, the barrier to entry is— one thing that I, I was a server for a couple summers in college, and the thing that I came out of it with is the understanding that it's not that hard to be an adequate server, but it's really an art form to be a great server. And I think realti— like real estate agent and recruiter the same way. So all these relational things. One of the things I want people to do, there's an awful lot of people out there, especially the ones that have never— they haven't looked for a job in 10+ years. They haven't looked very many times. They really just don't actually know what recruiters do. And they definitely don't know the difference between a third-party recruiter and an internal recruiter. So Can you break us— break down a little bit the difference between those two things for us?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:10:15]:
Yes, I'll start with internal. So internal recruiter, talent acquisition might be their title, is they are working internal for one corporation, one brand. So there could be— maybe it's a small business. There could be just one internal recruiter, talent acquisition professional who's handling all like inbound applications coming in. So if you're applying, they're reviewing all of that. And then they could be very much actively sourcing, but they're just managing all the applicants and recruiting efforts for that one brand. Now, let's throw Amazon out there. It could very well have, you know, various talent acquisition teams under different divisions.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:10:56]:
So they, you know, throwing an arbitrary number of like 200 talent acquisition professionals under that brand. But I think the, the key thing to understand is that They could be supporting different managers and different reqs or requirements for that company. Um, they really— I'm kind of speaking, I mean, they might be made aware of some opportunities as they might be some growth mode coming up, but they are typically only recruiting for roles that are active and budgeted within that brand, if that makes sense.

Diana Alt [00:11:29]:
Did you work— you worked internal before you were an agency?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:11:32]:
I mean, I worked embedded So I've seen— worked internally, the same thing.

Diana Alt [00:11:36]:
It's like you're a contract— it's like being a contract software developer. So when you think about internal recruiting, what are recruiters usually measured on when they're an internal recruiter? Yeah, how do they know they're doing a good job?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:11:50]:
Yeah, so they usually have different metrics, like time to fill is a big one, right?

Diana Alt [00:11:54]:
So, and that's from when it's posted to when the person onboards, or is it something else?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:12:00]:
Person, right, correct. Because time to hire, time to fill. So, right, a difference of start date and when the offer letter came in. So very similar metrics, right? But I think that's a big one as far as teams want to know, you know, what's taking so long to hire. I mean, ideally they want to keep that number down, and they're analyzing that. There could be some sourcing ratios as far as, you know, how many people are they reaching out to? Is it 500 engineers? How many people are replying to them? How many people are interested? So kind of measuring as far as just market and how many people are responding.

Diana Alt [00:12:36]:
It's kind of like proactive-reactive. We're proactively— we're going to talk about sourcing a little bit more in a few minutes, but so sourcing being the recruiter is actively out there trying to find the right person versus, um, so-and-so has applied, right?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:12:51]:
Exactly. So I mean, thinking in marketing terms, it's outbound and inbound. So yeah, you know, which, you know, maybe some internal teams are— I think it depends upon the brand and volume too. But, you know, some internal teams might— and I think that that's the big difference I've noticed is when you are internal, you know, you do have to be managing a lot of those inbound applicants that are coming in. So a large portion of your time is monitoring and hopefully getting back to those applicants. So, yeah.

Diana Alt [00:13:19]:
And it's really important to note too. So for anybody listening to this, like that time to fill metric, when a company is doing it well, yeah, they are having different— they're measuring it for everybody, but they're having different benchmarks or expectations for different types of roles. You don't expect to fill your CFO or your principal software engineer in the same amount of time that you're filling, like, customer support analyst 2, right? Because some of those are more higher volume, easier to find qualified candidates than others. So, how are internal recruiters paid?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:13:59]:
They are typically— We gotta talk about the money.

Diana Alt [00:14:01]:
This is the thing that people don't understand. So how are internal recruiters usually paid?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:14:05]:
They will usually have a base. I mean, sometimes there might be bonus if they're hitting like, you know, like any other, you know, average W-2 employee. Exactly. So there might be some incentives. It's not heavily, you know, in opposition to the agency recruiter where— and again, there's different models out here. But I think, you know, from retained to contingency to— I mean, retained is kind of the same, but the classic like headhunter agency model has been like a percentage based on a salary. So it is really more I mean, it's, I think, more commonly known that typically search firms, good recruiters are making typically more money.

Diana Alt [00:14:52]:
Let's, let's talk for a second. Let's like do this for people like they're 5. So when we say agency recruiter or third-party recruiter, which is what Knack Digital does, break down like I'm 5 or like someone in the audience is 5 because I'm at least 8.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:15:08]:
Okay.

Diana Alt [00:15:09]:
Um, what that means.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:15:11]:
And yeah, like, when they are— and what they do, right? So an agency recruiter is a consulting firm, right? So they are— companies are coming to them. Typically, these agencies and search firms should have an, an area of expertise, right? Or— and this could be very specific to maybe type of roles, as they do only 100% sales, sales roles. Some could be technology, some could be biotech. So very industry specific. And again, some get very niched down as far as the type of roles. Some could be specifically we just fill, you know, in Tampa, Florida or whatever it might be. So which is helpful for anybody out there going to look for a recruiter because of these specializations. And so how they work is companies will come to them for whatever reason is they just maybe don't have enough bandwidth internally., within their internal TA teams.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:16:13]:
Or there are many circumstances where confidential searches, executive-level searches, need to be conducted, and the internal team can't do it for confidentiality reasons, or just they don't have the expertise to recruit at an executive level. So, you know, I've conducted many, you know, replacement searches with NDAs because they are looking for under basically replace underperformers. Um, but that's getting a little bit into the weeds. So that being said, is those companies will pay these third parties a fee to hire top, top talent for whatever positions.

Diana Alt [00:16:50]:
And so there's a few things like, because I've been— I've engaged recruiters to help hire, and I have been hired through recruiting agency for contract and for full-time. So as a human, I've done several of these different things. And so something for people to note is when you're a full-timer getting hired through an agency, it's usually a percentage of the fee, and it's often not paid until 90 days in, right? Or if you get paid— like, what is your arrangement at NAC? Like, because I know a lot of people that are like either they didn't get paid till 90 days after the start date, or they got paid, but there was a clawback period. So if the person quit or got fired within 90 days, then what, what does it look like in your world?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:17:41]:
Or what do you— I mean, payment, I've seen anything from— I mean, ideally I'm, I'm at 30, but I've seen anywhere from start to probably 90 within my network. Um, there is the clawback, but it is like a guarantee of— yeah.

Diana Alt [00:17:57]:
Basically a 90-day— that's another way to look at it. That's how I've heard other people say it. So what we're— what I'm trying to get across to the people that are listening is it can be high risk because if people are going to flame out, they are going to flame out in the first 90 days. It can be really hard to find people, especially for complex tech roles or executive roles. And so when you go in, um, or when, when you're hired through an agency, if you leave within 90 days, that recruiter that brought you in probably has to go do the whole process again for no compensation. I'm not saying you should feel bad about that if it was a bad fit, but that's just how the money works. There's a perception that you all are just printing money hand over fist for doing nothing, and it's not true, right? So, um, another thing that I learned about whenever I was a contractor is, um, how that works. So the, the consultant contractor person will get paid a rate, like let's say that's $75 an hour.

Diana Alt [00:18:57]:
And then the staffing firm that placed them for that contract might get paid like $125 an hour. And then that $50 gap runs the company. It's split up in between the recruiters and the business development people and whatever else is going on. So they're making, they're making their pay off of how many hours you work and how long you're on the engagement. So, um, that's.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:19:22]:
How that works. Yeah, it's, you know, it's interesting because I was just talking to somebody, um, who was approached by probably 9 recruiters within 24 hours because I'm sure the job went out in a vendor management system and then all the recruiters were like out. And so, yeah, and I guess to your point about like the, the margins, right? And so he was approached with the same job with a variety of like different rates And I'm like, I guess, you know, like what everybody's charging for markup, which is wild.

Diana Alt [00:19:54]:
But I have to tell you the wildest story about that. So, so years ago, this is over 10 years ago, I was doing a contract project management job at AMC Theaters, which is headquartered here in Kansas City. And I don't feel bad about naming names because like everyone that I worked with is gone. Um, so I'm just Joe Schmo. Project manager. I'm working in the theater systems area, and there was like another that was the IT PMO, so I reported to a different executive. And there were a boatload of us all sitting in this one table. Like, we didn't have nice queues, we were like— this was like a cattle call, a whole bunch of project managers all sitting next to each other that were all contract.

Diana Alt [00:20:39]:
And somewhere along the line, someone tripped across what was effectively a rate sheet for every project manager in the IT PMO. And so it had the name of the person, the company they went through, and the billing rate. And we're all sitting there and it went like wildfire. Oh, and there was companies getting paid like 140, there was companies getting paid like 105. Every single project manager on that list made like within $6 an hour of each other.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:21:15]:
Oh, really?

Diana Alt [00:21:17]:
Yes. Um, that was it. Cause most everybody was like a 8, you know, 8 to 15 year, kind of like mid senior level person. People were pissed. I wasn't on the list because it was the other department. And I knew everything cause my, my firm that I went through was 100% transparent. This is what we're billing. This is what we're gonna make.

Diana Alt [00:21:38]:
The other ones hadn't. I just quietly sauntered over to my friend that I knew worked on the SharePoint team and I told them, you really might wanna secure that. Oh my gosh. You might, you might wanna lock down that SharePoint project because this is what's happening over here. And then that person is like, oh my God, I have to go tell the PMO director. Yeah. Good luck. But it was, there were, there was some people that immediately started looking.

Diana Alt [00:22:05]:
Because they just— they were very senior, very good, deserved more money, and they got told, well, we just, we just can't get you, we can't. And it was the, the worst offender was the highest rate. I— and it was— they had a giant fancy building that they didn't need, and I worked for a company that was remote first, and so they were able to be more affordable to the client because they weren't paying for a freaking building. Anyway, wild, wild. Um, there's another one term that gets thrown out a lot, that is full desk. So what is a full desk recruiter, Kelly?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:22:46]:
Yeah, I know, it's funny because I've always been full desk. Um, full desk is basically you are working directly with your clients, so the hiring managers I guess there's two sides of it.

Diana Alt [00:22:58]:
I guess that again, who is the client?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:23:02]:
Yeah, the client, the client is, um, the company that is paying you a fee.

Diana Alt [00:23:07]:
Thank you. It's not the— it's not the candidate. Yeah, we care about the candidates, we get paid by the clients. Okay, continue.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:23:15]:
Yes, so there's that client-facing piece, working with, you know, strategizing, and then the other half is just recruitment and sourcing. So the candidate side, as far as going out, you know, being that operator, sourcing, going and finding the talent. Um, I mean, I've always done all of that, so— and I still do— is work with my clients directly, and then I'm going out and sourcing and talking to the candidates and presenting them. But there are many agencies where that is split up, and you might have one person who's working directly with the client as like an account manager, and then you have people kind of working more in the back end doing just the candidate side, if that makes sense.

Diana Alt [00:23:54]:
Yeah, it, it totally does. Um, and I've like— I know a couple people here in the Kansas City area that are leaders in recruiting firms. One of my good friends owns one, and he said that one of the most important things to know that you have a healthy recruiting firm is that the account manager and the recruiter are getting paid the same money, the same percentage. Yeah, that's like, that's a model. He said that's how you know that it's really a partnership and, um, it's not, you know, the recruit— because a lot of the bigger shops, like, the recruiters are treated like they're almost clerical. They're not treated like a respected professional. And if you ever want to get respect or compensation, you have to go to the account side. So I thought that was a really interesting thing he said.

Diana Alt [00:24:43]:
So, um, what— let's see, we covered some of this stuff. Let's talk sourcing because it's a word that when I started my career in like 1998, '99, we didn't hear about that word. I started hearing it out loud from people maybe 10 years ago. What the heck is sourcing? Is it something— it sounds like something that both internal and agency recruiters would do, but it's a little mysterious of a word. At least it was when I first heard it. What does it mean?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:25:20]:
Yeah, I don't know if it was kind of more of an underground— and there are— so what it means is it's really the research and identifying potential personas, ICPs, people who could be a fit for whatever position you're looking for. So, okay, sourcers kind of traditionally are doing more of that research of finding those people. And it— yes, like, you can use internet websites, but it's also— I mean, the scrappy sourcers, I'm thinking— I'm biased because I'm in the tech arena, but they're, you know, scraping Reddit or GitHub or coding repositories and really, like, going deep in the interwebs to find these people besides just LinkedIn. Um, you know, traditionally I think they typically have not been doing the actual outreach and conversations to— with the potential prospects. So I think maybe in some teams the sourcers would work with like a recruiter, and maybe a recruiter does that more formal screening. Um, yeah, you know, how that's structured now, you know, very much could be an all-in-one. I think now, especially with AI tools, that they're kind of thinking sourcing is going to go extinct per se, um, because there's a lot of tech tools that can do a lot of that sourcing and research now.

Diana Alt [00:26:39]:
We'll see, but it's gonna be interesting to see how that evolves, especially, um, it's like handoffs— like recruiting, timing is everything. Yeah, it's kind of like job search, timing is everything. You're in a job search for 8 months and then all of a sudden, bam, bam, bam, found the thing, applied, interview, interview, you offer can happen for people. Um, and if you're not— if you don't answer the call, then they're gonna go to the next one that they found on their list, and maybe you're not considered. So, um, I think that all the handoffs— we're going to be thinking differently about handoffs, which is a rabbit trail. That's my systems brain showing. When you think about sourcing— so I'll tell you, I'll tell y'all, Kelly and I actually recorded a video a few weeks ago that was I requested this from her because she came into, um, my client community about a year and a half ago and did this where basically she showed us exactly what she does in detail in LinkedIn to search for people and do the sourcing side of her job. I'll make sure that that's linked to this video, um, on YouTube so that you can find it, and I'll put it in the show notes, but At a higher level, so we don't redo that 30-minute video, what are some of the things that you are looking for that make someone sourceable, for lack of a better word? You know, if you got given a— I need a B2B SaaS fintech senior program manager, like, what are you doing, right, to find that person? What makes it instantly obvious that someone is going to be a good person

Kelli Hrivnak [00:28:17]:
to reach out to? Yeah. And, you know, a lot of that has to do with who we're working with. And listen, at the end of the day, like, I can try and persuade people, like, we should look at these profiles, but a hiring manager is always going to have, like, this is ideally who we want to target, right? And so that's where we start, is that's the profile that they want to see. And it could very well be, like, to what you had said, if it's a SaaS company, hey, we need to hire somebody who's worked in the SaaS company before. So, um, thinking B2B too. Now I can put in those keywords, right? But— and assuming I'm using different sourcing tools, I'm just going to throw out LinkedIn because it's always so popular, right? But, you know, not all people will optimize their LinkedIn profiles with B2B SaaS. So you have to start thinking a little bit more creatively as far as, well, maybe what competitors do they work for, right? So starting to go build out a list of companies that maybe if it's in with proximity and if I have to hire, you know, in the DC area, I'm going to know who those competitors are. So starting to list all those companies and try source talent out of those companies.

Diana Alt [00:29:27]:
So if I flip it back— so that's what you have to do. If I flip it back around and I'm thinking like a candidate, what I'm hearing is be up to date in all the places that you want to have a profile. Be accurate. Make sure that the company names that you worked for are there unless there's a damn good reason not to. Stop putting stealth on every startup and thinking it looks cool. It doesn't look cool. Um, and then listing things like the industry, making sure that you're saying that you worked on the B2B product versus the B2C product. That kind of thing will help you when you go do your search, right? Correct.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:30:07]:
So what I'm— and I, as much as like soft skills is kind of a stupid terminology for it, I will tell you, never in my life am I looking for like Googling and searching like communication skills or— no, I'm not looking for that. That more of those, you know, soft skills are going to be vetted during the interview process. That's what I could very well be looking for is more of the hard skills, technology platform. So of course, yeah, include those.

Diana Alt [00:30:32]:
So hard skills and industries are gonna grab— are gonna pull into searches. And then when you get to the point where you actually care enough to open up the profile, that's when some of the other things start to matter. But no one ever— like, I think saying communication skills is dumb. Like, to me, that's a show-and-tell thing. But if you're gonna do it, like, they care a lot more about the fact that you worked on a project of a similar scope. You worked on a $5 million program portfolio. Um, and they need someone that's worked in $3 to $10 million. Like, that kind of thing is needed.

Diana Alt [00:31:09]:
So when you hear resume writers and career coaches and people say quantify, quantify things, we're not just saying put any old damn metric on there. We're asking for context so that Kelly finds you and then says, oh, this is my person. When you listed you had a $5 million portfolio and the client asked for a $3 to $10 million portfolio that they've worked with.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:31:35]:
So I mean, that's always a big one, is like budgets, project sizes. At least, I mean, be including those

Diana Alt [00:31:42]:
metrics because it doesn't— mass apply. How is living in the age of mass applying changed sourcing?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:31:49]:
Oh, it's changed sourcing.

Diana Alt [00:31:52]:
That's interesting.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:31:57]:
Um, I would say just the mass applications. I think it's Listen, I keep hearing that, and I've even heard it from some internal teams, that because they're getting crushed with so many applications, that teams are starting to rely more on outbound sourcing. So not only outbound sourcing but referrals,

Diana Alt [00:32:19]:
which— listen, I could— like, real referrals, not bullshit.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:32:23]:
Well, I know that's a whole different conversation.

Diana Alt [00:32:25]:
As far as— you can come back

Kelli Hrivnak [00:32:26]:
someday and we'll talk about that. Yeah, I mean, listen, like, when done right, they can work, but I think just because of the overwhelming amount of volume. I mean, that being said, listen, I've never had to go through thousands of inbound applicants, so I can bang out, you know, I have 400, I can get that done, you know, within a couple hours if I really focus and batch that. So it can be done. Um, but otherwise, I think, you know, whether they're just not getting the right applicants, but I think that there is going to be a little bit more of a swing towards internal and, you know, external agency recruiters have always been really great at sourcing, but kind of relying more on sourcing just, you know, from a time perspective, especially.

Diana Alt [00:33:11]:
I've anecdotally heard a few people that are agency recruiters say that the, the impact of high volume of apps— applicants going directly has had the inverse impact that they expected. They worried it was gonna harm their business, and in some cases it actually made their business better. Hmm. Because the signal-to-noise ratio sucks so much on the people that are applying. So, um, I have one of my friends that is in this lane. He says he regularly gets, you know, 2, 3, 400 candidates and 90% of them won't meet the basic qualifications, let alone all the extra stuff. What are you observing when you see— I mean, high volume come in?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:34:02]:
I think it always depends on the role, right? But I think that's always been a problem. I think we're just seeing it like amplified now, and especially with the tools that you're getting more who are not qualified.

Diana Alt [00:34:13]:
But that's what I was gonna ask when you said it's amplified, because it would be one thing if you used to get 50 and 20% were good, and now you get 500 and now 20% are still good. But some of what I've heard people experience is that, yeah, they're getting 500 and now 5% are good.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:34:32]:
I mean, that's— and I think that that's true because the auto applies are just like, yeah, adding more layers of people who are not qualified where it's just less friction. It's easier for people to do now.

Diana Alt [00:34:43]:
So don't use an auto apply tool, guys. Please don't. Well, it's not good for you.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:34:48]:
Like, companies, like, what are you doing? Like, also, like, employers need to take a little bit of the heat and start building— designing smarter applications.

Diana Alt [00:34:58]:
Well, I'll tell you what they're doing, and I don't know if it's the right way. The thing that I'm hearing more and more of is deliberately adding friction to

Kelli Hrivnak [00:35:06]:
the process, which I kind of love.

Diana Alt [00:35:08]:
I mean, I kind of like— I don't always like how they're doing friction. Like, please don't make people record a video.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:35:14]:
Like, that's okay. So That friction I don't love. I love a couple open-ended questions.

Diana Alt [00:35:19]:
I love that. Throw two, throw two of them in. I love that. And that is where, like, if, if somebody is kind of passive and they're like, oh, my pals said there's an opening and I'm like, maybe I'll throw my hat in the ring and then there's 3 essay questions and they don't want to do it. Like that to me is working as intended. Mm-hmm. But, um, yeah, I think that we're gonna see more friction. And I've also seen more— I've had a few clients and people that I just have known because everyone knows I'm a career coach that have sent me postings that are starting to say, here's what the process is like in the posting.

Diana Alt [00:35:57]:
I wish everybody would do that. You're going to do this screening and then you're doing this test and you're going to do this and this. And they will have early on a pretty— some pretty onerous take-home stuff that they list, and they're hoping that people will opt out if they're not serious. So, um, I don't know. I think all of that has existed too, but I'd like people to be more open about it because it sucks when you customize a resume, spend an hour applying, and then find out you have to do a project that you don't have time to do.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:36:29]:
So yeah, it's— I mean, I feel like I see a lot of the tech companies that are outlining, hey, listen, like, this is what it looks like, step 1, 2, 3, and 4, Which, if you're not on board with an assignment, like, if you have an assignment, you should include that up front just so people can opt out.

Diana Alt [00:36:44]:
Yeah, you definitely should. Um, you definitely should. One thing, so we talk a lot— there's been a lot— a word that has been coming up a whole lot lately is signal. And so how are we signaling to the world that we are ready for the thing? And when, when a lot of people talk about it, they're talking about more than just you have the right words in your profile. Are there any things that you look for to see, hmm, maybe this person both has the right profile and they're worth reaching out to me because— uh, to— bleh— worth reaching out to because they might actually be ready to take action? Does anything come to mind?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:37:26]:
Yeah, I mean, you know, like When I think about how I kind of approach— it's funny, as the Erin Riska, I think I'd made a comment, uh, a post about a week ago, and I think this is looking at sourcing too, but typically like not to approach somebody who's been in a position for a year or less because in theory, like, and this is just current tenure as far as assuming, well, they've been there for a year, like they're probably still figuring things out, right? So yeah, sometimes there is a little bit of eyeballing, like, well Maybe they've been there 3 years. They got that 3-year itch that they're ready to go. So, I mean, sometimes you're even just eyeballing patterns of tenure and maybe— Oh,

Diana Alt [00:38:09]:
that's a really good point. If you open somebody up because they match on profile and they seem to move every 3 or 4 years and they're 3 years in, that feels riper than a year in. That, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:38:22]:
I mean, that's just, that's a weird signal, but just something I think that some recruiters take into account is just eyeballing that. Um, I mean, there's even just other, you know, you catch word that a company's going through a merger and acquisition and there could be one, you know, some— maybe a company is returning to go back into office. So kind of thinking as far as like you wanna go target some people that might not be too happy right now because of these changes or things that aren't stable. So I think just in general, like keeping in touch with any news that's going on in the market and some companies that might be having some shakeup where the employees just might not be

Diana Alt [00:39:03]:
stable.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:39:03]:
Um, I mean, I'm really throwing some random ones out there, but let's say

Diana Alt [00:39:06]:
like— I think it's important. And what's interesting to me is I— so I work— I'm in Kansas City, and Cerner Corporation is a healthcare IT company that got bought by Oracle a few years ago. And a lot of people— and they've had some layoffs, some significant layoffs in the Kansas City area out of what is now called Oracle Health. What's really interesting to me is that some of— I've, I feel like the, the less experienced people I knew that were recruiters were immediately trying to dial in on the people that got laid off. And that the ones that had been around for a while were like, no, no, no, no, no, we're gonna go find the high performers that didn't get laid off because they're good. And they probably are pissed because they feel like this is unstable now. So looking at both sides is really good. You don't just have to look at— hey, we got a kitty in the picture! Oh, I, I like when— I like when pets visit the podcast.

Diana Alt [00:40:13]:
Yeah, I'm sure he'll be back. I have a rule with clients that if, like, if their pet walks into the room when we're having a session, that I have to meet the pet. Same thing for children. So let's talk, uh, I got a little section I want to talk about a few different things that we hear a lot of scuttlebutt about. Usually I do this when I hear about some of these again, but I want to get your takes and let's get some real information for people. And then we're going to have a lightning round and go on with our Friday afternoon. We're recording on a Friday afternoon. So the first thing is, um, Backdoor references.

Diana Alt [00:40:51]:
You and I had this on the schedule already, and then we connected earlier this week because you posted about a backdoor reference and LinkedIn went wild. So talk to us about what a backdoor reference is, um, and how— what's your take on it? Let's talk about how we should think about this.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:41:11]:
Okay, so the definition of a backdoor reference is, you know, typically candidate provides their nice tidy little list to an employer, says, hey, listen, call these 3 people. Fantastic. Backdoor is when hiring manager does their own research and will go identify somebody who this candidate has probably worked with in the past, um, without their knowledge and contact them to gain any intel about their performance and character.

Diana Alt [00:41:41]:
So, because everyone knows that the people on the tidy little list are just gonna say nice things 99.9% of the time.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:41:49]:
Correct. Correct. So, and, you know, like, listen, like, very, very rarely am I told by hiring manager, oh, hey, this is what I'm going to go do. And then off, you know, listen, to be honest, they're going to do whatever they want to do to begin with, even if I tell them, listen, like, this is not ethical. And that's, I think, obviously, where there's a fine line right now is that it is unethical, because and I think there's a bigger conversation here to be had, that this person is not aware that the person is doing this, and they, you know, there could be different situations that could have gone on in that environment, personality mismatches, who knows, where that could be a very subjective reference. My argument is really coming back to the core of this, is really, you know, a) what kind of questions are being asked to all references Because if you're just saying, hey, listen, would you work with this person on a scale of 1 to 10? You know, you need more context. Like, well, why do you think that way? Like, what did they work on?

Diana Alt [00:42:54]:
I'm gonna tell you what, I've been called multiple times for backdoor references. And in my— I mean, over the— before we were even calling them backdoor references, I've been called and I've never had someone call me and just say, would you hire this person again? They've asked for more information about what they were like to work with. And, you know, I will share, and I don't, I don't lambast. I'm not gonna screw anybody over. Yeah. Um, but I feel like those conversations were more meaningful than the official reference checks that I've had people call me for. And I don't mean like the official where you call the old company and they just say dates and title and you get hired. I'm not talking about that.

Diana Alt [00:43:40]:
You can get that through Work Number now. So, um, I feel like a lot of times the hiring manager contacting you is actually asking better questions. As far as the ethics are concerned, the only real thing that comes up for me is, well, what if they call the person's current boss who doesn't know that they're looking?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:44:05]:
Yeah, that's a big no-no.

Diana Alt [00:44:07]:
I don't know anyone that's ever done that. I know people that called me as a peer of the person and said, I also know y'all's boss. I'm deliberately not calling. I know you're friendly with this person, so give me the dope. Like, at least a couple times people are like, I'm actively trying not to get this person in trouble, but I need to know what's really happening here. So that was my take. But my big thing I got roasted. I've got— I've been roasted on this more than once.

Diana Alt [00:44:39]:
I don't care. I don't have time to care if someone backdoor reference checks me. So would I want— if I was advising a company on their hiring practices, would I encourage it? No. I would encourage them to build a reference checking process that gets them the information that they want to get and put it in front of their legal team to make sure they're not going to run afoul of problems. But I live in the real world where people— it's reputation management. Like, we should be managing our reputations all the time. What's the difference between if I call someone 2 weeks before they apply for a job and if I call them to, to learn more about, oh, I heard, I heard about Susie might be a good product manager. I would love to know about Susie.

Diana Alt [00:45:27]:
What's the difference between if I do it then and if I do it 2 weeks after they have applied?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:45:31]:
Yeah, I, I don't disagree with you. I think first of all, regardless how anybody feels about it, it's still going to happen. Um, yes, as much coaching or however you want to word backdoor— I mean, I've seen it happen where it's really like two people running in the same circles for industry reasons. They know each other, they're gonna call each other. Um, cold calls are a little more difficult, but I mean, it's going to happen. And to your point, like, I don't know if I have any skeletons to hide. Like, go ahead and, you know, call some former people. I, I will also say, like, I would find it almost more rare for those calls to be extremely negative— don't hire this person, they were— like, usually people will be very professional in the way that they address those questions too, and identifying strengths, they'd work better in this environment.

Diana Alt [00:46:26]:
I would like— I've been called about somebody that I never want to work with ever again. And I quantified it. I base— I, I didn't say I never want to work with this person ever again. I did say I think this and this was challenging in our environment and that and that would be better. So if that's what you got, if it's not, then you might want to talk to them about those factors and make sure how you feel about them. But yeah, I've been, I've been backdoor reference checked by somebody I didn't like.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:47:01]:
Hmm.

Diana Alt [00:47:01]:
Or about somebody I didn't like. Another topic that I'm almost tired of hearing about is reverse recruiting. This one is, to me, insidious. I'm going to lead with It's insidious in my opinion. Mm-hmm. Can we talk about like what reverse recruiting is and is it good? Is it bad? What people should work— look out for? What really is this stuff? So how do you think of reverse recruiting?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:47:39]:
I mean, I don't know anybody who's had a success in doing it or really anybody who has rolled it out. I did just hear from a former recruiter who said, And his model was a little bit different of really just creating a target list. And then I don't even know if he does outreach for them, this job, you know, the client job seeker as far as, you know, marketing them to potential companies. But I think reverse recruiting is essentially that of being able, I guess, from an activity standpoint of— Yeah, let's back it up.

Diana Alt [00:48:14]:
So you're, you're, you're getting to what I understand. So, and, and I've researched a few of these places, so The idea behind reverse recruiting is that if a recruiter like Kelly is getting paid by a client to go and find the right person to fill whatever job, then why not apply that same model to a person that is advocating for the candidate, going and shopping that candidate around in ways that we'll talk about in a minute. And then if they— the person gets hired by one of those places, they get paid a percentage of the pay. Of the person's first year salary. What I have seen when I looked at this is that a lot of the people were trying to couch this as reverse recruiting and career coaching, which may or may not be the thing. I think that there is a blend of stuff, but the problem is that the way reverse recruiting is happening is unethical AF. So we talked earlier about how auto-apply is a problem for many reasons. Including one I learned about from fellow career coach, former executive recruiter Gina Riley, who says on the back end, the systems can tell whenever a bunch of applications are coming in from the same IP.

Diana Alt [00:49:29]:
And if you are getting blocked, it's upstream because they don't want stuff from the Sprout IP coming into Workday.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:49:37]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:49:37]:
And then if you're not getting seen, it's because of that. It's not because you didn't have the right keywords, but The idea is that we're going to get you ready and understand your positioning and what you're targeting for. And then this person is going to go apply on your behalf for roles. There's a few problems with that. Number one, a lot of times they're using auto-apply tools. They're promising to apply for anywhere from 20 to 100 jobs in a week, which means they have to be using auto-apply tools, right? Which are problematic. They can't be customizing. The other thing is every application I've ever seen says that I am verifying that I am filling this out, like, under penalty of fraud, perjury.

Diana Alt [00:50:21]:
Like, it can say penalty of perjury when you apply for the federal government or something like that. So you're lying, you're misrepresenting, it's for— like, it could be called fraud or identity theft or just a really bad idea, and it's not effective. So that's my— that's the biggest part, right?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:50:41]:
It's— I'm, I'm just trying to understand. Listen, like, I know everybody wants a shortcut. They feel frustrated because they're not getting anywhere in their job search. So hey, like, let me go hire somebody to do it for me. But really, like, and it's almost like the better investment is the career coach who helps you with clarity, who helps you identify what those companies are, and then you are taking the act the action to represent yourself accurately to these companies.

Diana Alt [00:51:07]:
This— earlier this afternoon, I did a webinar on using AI the right way in your job search and talking about some of this nonsense at scale versus strategic approaches. And the two things that I said are, number one, most people that are using AI right now are not doing a job search. They're doing busywork masquerading as a job search. Mm-hmm. And that the work that matters the most to make you successful is the work that you're avoiding. So that's having conversations with people, that's getting clear on what you're doing, that is narrowing down instead of trying to be broad. I do think, though, that the, the service of— if you have someone, if you have either been able to articulate a career target, a job search target to someone, or you've worked with a coach or a mentor or a friend to help develop one, And then someone is able to pull target companies for you, like go and search for— especially if you want small companies, that could be a valuable service. Um, that is something I think is pro.

Diana Alt [00:52:11]:
And then you can say, here's my top 25 B2B fintech SaaS, you know, Series A through C, and then you can go forth. That is useful. If you run across someone offering that service, and they do a good job, like, take them up on that, but don't let them apply for you.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:52:28]:
So it's so risky.

Diana Alt [00:52:30]:
Have you heard— this is going around like wildfire right now. I first saw it on TikTok. Um, there is a story going around. It's the first place I saw it was TikTok, but it was like a screen clip of Reddit. Someone going into a job interview and being asked by the interviewer, give this prompt to ChatGPT which basically is, based on everything that you know about me from me using you, um, tell me the summary of my personality and whether I fit this job. Why? This is— I think it's an old— what, like, uh, I think it's an urban legend. But have you heard about this?

Kelli Hrivnak [00:53:14]:
No, this is— I see I don't have TikTok.

Diana Alt [00:53:16]:
I missed out on all this. I've, I've had people DM me this no less than 20 times in the last 10 days. Saying, have you seen this? Have you seen this? And I've been looking for it and I cannot find where any human with a name is actually bringing receipts that this happens. It sounds like bullshit off of Reddit,

Kelli Hrivnak [00:53:37]:
but not on Reddit. Get out of here.

Diana Alt [00:53:39]:
I mean, I get some good information off Reddit, but this— no, I do too.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:53:43]:
On the list, I mean, what kind of company would do that? Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, listen, nothing's shocks me now of what goes on. So maybe it happened. I don't, I don't understand what the objective is.

Diana Alt [00:53:57]:
Like, uh, I think the— I don't know, save, save 10, save 50 bucks on giving an actual personality assessment that's designed for use in hiring, is my guess. So y'all, if you've been hearing this, if you are one of the 20 people that has been in my DMs, and probably 50 more by the time we publish this episode in a few weeks, Here's my take. Number one, I have no reason to believe that this actually is happening at all. Number two, if it's happening, it's not happening at scale. No. And number three, you can always end the interview. And I would encourage you to— if anybody asks you to do this, you do not want to work there. Drive Uber or be a Walmart greeter if you have to do to buy food.

Diana Alt [00:54:46]:
That is unethical. It is indefensible in hiring. If someone got pulled in for like a wrongful, you know, discrimination and hiring suit and this was part of their hiring process, they would get— they would be sherm'd out of existence. Like, they would basically end up with a verdict against them. There's nothing defensible about that. So it's, um, stop worrying about it, but because I don't think it's happening, but if it does, exit immediately.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:55:18]:
Yeah. Signal, signal to exit.

Diana Alt [00:55:22]:
Another one, uh, is last one before we start to close is recruiter scams. So one of the biggest ones happening right now is recruiter reaches out to somebody on LinkedIn, usually with a pretty green banner that says open to work. And says, you look great for something, give me your resume, send your resume in, and then you get back, you're a great fit, but your resume doesn't pass ATS. You need to go over here to whoever, Upwork, Fiverr, some random person and pay for resume optimization. I did a, a podcast breaking this down, but that was me, not— I'm not a recruiter. What are some things about that whole process that's happening? That's one of the most common scams that are telltale. This is not legit.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:56:13]:
Yeah, I would think like in general too, if a recruiter is working with you, they might— I mean, I know some recruiters who will even offer to be like, I'm just going to make some changes to your resume, which, right, I would ask just to see what that final product look like if they're going to do

Diana Alt [00:56:29]:
it.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:56:30]:
Or they might ask you to make some changes if it needs to be customized. But I don't know any recruiter, and this should never be sending you to a third party where you're paying a fee for anything.

Diana Alt [00:56:41]:
That is a— well, it also should be, I do resumes on the side and you're going to pay me to do it.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:56:47]:
Yeah, that's slimy.

Diana Alt [00:56:48]:
That's unethical.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:56:50]:
100%. Yeah, that's like a bait and switch right there. So Yeah, I would say in general anybody who's asking to, you know, send you to any kind of third party for an extra service to be basically moved forward in a process is a huge red flag. Um, I would also check, you know, profile. Who are they? If you can determine the LinkedIn history, when the account was created. I mean, typically— I mean, I've done so much as to go track like the, the IP or the domain name and when the domain was created. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of ways to kind of just figure it out. But I mean, in general, like, if you're unsure, maybe go find your trusted tech friend and ask them if maybe it's legit.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:57:34]:
If you're feeling— if you're feeling icky about it, it probably is.

Diana Alt [00:57:39]:
Yeah, there's a— there's a lot. This is real icky. Um, my, my hallmarks are no recruiter is going to ask you money for money or send you to a friend. To pay something to move forward. Now, if they say, you seem like you have a cool background, your resume needs more work than I have time to do, and you say, um, thank you, how do you recommend I proceed? And they send you to a reputable, vetted, with reviews person, or even better, 3 people. If I was a recruiter, I would say, here are 3 people that I think could help you if I was going to recommend anyone. But if they're only sending you to one option and they're not giving you enough information that you can direct that option on what to do, that's a problem too. That's scam, scam.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:58:29]:
So yeah, I mean, I would even ask like, what is it about my resume that needs changing? I mean, if these people are just hustling, they probably didn't even look at your profile or resume to begin with.

Diana Alt [00:58:37]:
That is in fact the most obvious thing that I did not bring up. That's so important, Kelly. Because, you know, I had a— so many people are— have 50 versions of their resume because they've been told they have to update it every single time when they apply. Pros and cons to that. We're not going to get into that today, but they feel like they've tweaked it to death. So when someone tells them they need to change it again, they both believe it and they're dismayed by it. So It's ripe to scam someone. I had a client get taken by it, Kelly.

Kelli Hrivnak [00:59:13]:
I have a very, like, well-versed technology friend who said he almost fell for it too.

Diana Alt [00:59:19]:
My friend felt— my client fell for it, and she ended up— the person was centered at Fiverr, and she paid for it because she was just got laid off, like, the whole nine. And then she messaged me and I said, that's a scam. She got her money back from Fiverr. So that was a good deal. But yeah, bad deal. Well, I got 2 lightning round questions, and then we're gonna close. So the first one is, what's the worst piece of career advice you've ever

Kelli Hrivnak [00:59:49]:
received? I'm gonna actually trickle back to something— I'm gonna parlay it a little bit to the follow your passion. And I think, you know, I don't even know if it was advice, but it was really— I was sent off to college to kind of figure my life out, right? And figure a college track out. And, you know, I figured it out, it was fine. But I think, you know, I think, I think I was really like pursuing things of interest. And I think now, especially as I have kids who are getting ready to— I mean, yeah, but thinking as far as when you're pursuing school and really what tracks are going to be marketable Mm-hmm. You know, after college, I mean, especially now, I think that we can't— and listen, like, interests are very important, right? Like, yes, you can 100% go do something that you hate, but I think it's also important to factor in that you're learning skills that are going to be marketable and needed in the market.

Diana Alt [01:00:47]:
And the, and the skill, like, there can be nuance to it. One of the absolute best product managers that I know, tech product manager, Principal level, studied journalism. Mm-hmm. Highly trans— like, most people would be like, it should have been an MBA, or it should have been, you know, she's technical, should have been comp sci or something. But she learned how to dig at a problem. So sometimes there can be translation, but knowing some of the options is really important. Thank you for that. The last one is some— what is something you've changed your mind about? Fairly recently?

Kelli Hrivnak [01:01:25]:
Oh, something I've changed my mind

Diana Alt [01:01:31]:
about.

Kelli Hrivnak [01:01:31]:
I think I'm going to go— well, it's something that I had waffled on for a while where I was a big fan of when people would put interests and hobbies on their resume and I loved it.

Diana Alt [01:01:41]:
Yeah.

Kelli Hrivnak [01:01:41]:
And I was like, oh, it gives them personality, it humanizes them. And now I'm like such the bias police because I see so much of it happening all the time where, yeah, I kind of waffled back and I'm like, I mean, and it can work for you either positively or negatively when you're including hobbies on your resume. So now I'm kind of— I'd be interested to hear what your thoughts are.

Diana Alt [01:02:04]:
I think, couple things. Number one is this is one of those things where you don't have to have your LinkedIn and resume match. Like, you want all the dates for your jobs to match. But if you want to list a hobby or sometimes the issue is a volunteer activity, um, that you're trying to squeeze onto a resume that may or may not add value and it represents a hobby. Like, I think that if you err on the side of leaving it off your resume, but it's important to either showing the values that you have or there's some relevant skill or exposure you got, then put it on LinkedIn. Um, I don't know that reading and gardening as hobbies make much sense on a resume unless you are applying to do something in the agricultural space or in the— in like a literature or book or publishing space. But then everybody is gonna have that. So that's my take.

Diana Alt [01:03:03]:
Yeah. I think that people worry about bias a lot on things like that and they don't realize how much bias can be read in. By the wrong kind of person on just the regular professional resume stuff. I mean, like, we can, we can only limit bias so much while still accurately reflecting our background. So I don't encourage people to put interests on there. I do encourage people to put values-aligned activities that showcase something important about them. Yeah. Um, I agree.

Diana Alt [01:03:41]:
One of my— two of my favorites are, number one is Girl Scout cookie mom.

Kelli Hrivnak [01:03:49]:
Oh God, worst job ever. No, I'm kidding.

Diana Alt [01:03:51]:
It's horrible. That's why putting it on there, but especially if you're trying to apply for something that involves dealing with other people and detail orientation, if you were the Girl Scout cookie mom for a couple, three years, Come on. Or cookie parent. Sorry, don't mean to imply only women can do it. It's a lot. Um, and then another one that weirdly gets good reactions is, uh, Eagle Scout

Kelli Hrivnak [01:04:18]:
or like Eagle Scout. I still see it on like Girl Scouts, senior level professionals that still have Eagle Scout on their resume.

Diana Alt [01:04:26]:
And I, I, I think it's fine.

Kelli Hrivnak [01:04:28]:
I do too.

Diana Alt [01:04:29]:
I'm, because that, that showed like a community commitment very early on. Oh yeah. Um, and yeah, so I think it's fine. But if you look at it and you're like, I don't, I don't want to talk about Scotty, and you can leave it off, that's cool. Yeah. So, well, um, thank you so much, Kelly, for coming and doing this. I, I hope that we edu— educated the people that are looking for a job or maybe on some of the crazy scams and what the hell is sourcing and just how recruiting works since everyone on LinkedIn thinks they know and they don't actually know.

Kelli Hrivnak [01:05:06]:
All right.

Diana Alt [01:05:07]:
Have a great day, everybody. Bye. Bye.