Takeover Unfiltered

Brianna Rooney:
Hello, welcome back to another super fun episode of talent takeover, unfiltered, where we will be tackling if you are interviewing right now, which I'm sure a lot of you are. You need to make sure that you're asking those tough questions. Taylor, how are you doing today?

Taylor Bradley:
I'm doing good. How about you?

Brianna Rooney:
It's just been a California. You wanna really, you wanna really know. It's been a day, but , that's, that's irrelevant enough about me.

Taylor Bradley:
Yeah, no, I I'm sure it has. Um, I feel like everybody that I talk to sounds like it's been a day. It's been a week. Um, it's just, it's just a different time right now that we're experiencing, but I'm excited to talk to you today about, you know, about if you're interviewing, make sure to ask the tough questions and really give that advice to people. I think it's super valuable given what's going on right now in the market. Um, and also wanna encourage everybody to stay on until the end of the episode. Just make sure to check out that broke to boss tip of the week. You'll find some valuable information. There

Brianna Rooney:
There're always good ones, but for this particular thing, since we are seeing so many people with the layoffs and, and interviewing this, one's probably gonna nail it.

Brianna Rooney:
Welcome to talent takeover

Taylor Bradley:
Unfiltered.

Brianna Rooney:
When it comes to working hard and keeping it real. We know our. Self-care happiness, inner peace and time. I'm Brianna Rooney, and this is Taylor Bradley. Hey y'all and we have thrived in chaos and turned it into in art form. So, Taylor, what are we doing here today?

Taylor Bradley:
We're here to give you a raw under the hood view of all things recruiting and finally give credit or credit is due to a long underrated industry. That's full of quote unquote experts.

Brianna Rooney:
All right. Well then let's take this show to the road.

Taylor Bradley:
Yeah. I'm excited to see what the feedback will be on this episode.

Brianna Rooney:
Cool. All right. Well, let's get into it cuz this is something that, you know, I know, um, something you feel really strongly about, and this is actually I think a little even controversial when you think about it because, um, normally we're used to, you know, the company like grilling us and, and talking about us and you know, putting us back and, you know, scaring us, giving anxiety, but this is flipping this, this script a bit right on what you're supposed to be asking the company. So what do you think about that?

Taylor Bradley:
So what I think is so interesting about this topic, um, when I was reading a bunch of articles about it is that, you know, we've all seen that it's been a candidate driven market for a while now, at least a year. So we all know that, right? That the things that we can ask for the transparency, the transparency, the, the work from work life, excuse me, work life balance, these things that you could never really talk about in the interview process before you can now talk about, and that's kind of been a theme, but then this one I thought was so interesting because this is a very recent theme. I feel like we're seeing based on it's driven by business and the market needs and what's going on in the economy. So, you know, me, I always love when new comes to light for me with recruiting, because oftentimes we're like, okay, we've been doing this forever. So I, I feel like as these things shift, and as you get to start kind of peeling back the layers and it really just becomes, you know, we had this candidate driven market and then now, now what's this gonna be called? What is this that we're living in? I mean, that could probably be a whole nother episode. Like, what is

Brianna Rooney:
Moment? What is this that's whole called? It's a whole other thing because you know, candidates, aren't having all the power as much as they were the last year, which again, I think is another episode. However, what they still need to make sure they have is that, uh, respect the mutual respect. So true from companies. And so you get that through questions, I think. Um, but God, I, I have to just say when, uh, I remember if someone would've asked me like a few years back, Hey, how's your work life balance. I'd be like out, get outta my office. this, that God sales you job, get outta my office.

Taylor Bradley:
Yeah. Um, and even asking about growth plans. So it's interesting. So we had one situation come up that just came up this week that I was like, oh my gosh, the timing of that, how ironic. But, um, a candidate asked one of our recruiters who supporting one of our amazing clients. Um, we absolutely love this client. Super good partner to us. Nice little plug there. I'm not gonna say their name, but they know who they are. um, but the candidate asked that and they were a little taken aback by that. But the expectation, as far as asking, what are your growth plans? The expectation is that employers are transparent about that. And then every article I read was like, if an employer is reluctant or potential employers reluctant to give you this information, that's a red flag. So it's like whenever have employers been required to disclose things like this and, and you bring up a great example of when someone, when you were interviewing years ago and someone, if they would've asked you X, what your response would've been, I would love to know from your perspective,

Taylor Bradley:
If go, it wasn't going, what's going on in the market today. Wasn't going on. If someone had come to you and asked you the tough questions, like, okay, Brianna, it's my turn to ask you questions. What are your growth plans for the next year? What's the next time you'll re when's the next time you'll review those growth plans. What's the average tenure of the team. Like these things that I feel like are typically maybe only certain level roles or individuals are privy to this type of information, or maybe it would've been acceptable to ask this type of information. Mm-hmm um, like a, a chief growth officer or something can obviously that's relevant to ask about growth plans and whatnot. But I feel like, you know, now anybody can ask these questions. You're supposed to ask these questions.

Brianna Rooney:
Yeah, it's crazy. It's um, when you think back to when we first started asking people their salary and it was like, whoa, that's so rude. Now, when you're asking what's your growth plans? It's like, oh, that's so rude. Like, that's a personal question, but it's actually not. And so my answer to that, if someone asked me those questions, I would probably hire that person immediately because those are some badass questions. It means like, oh, you're actually thinking farther than your nose. Great. Like, that's a good thing. Um, I think about how many employees always say like, oh, just putting my head, head down, getting done. Why don't you keep your head up? So, you know, what's going on? Mm-hmm , you know, what's going on. You can do better think better, you know, help more. So, yeah. I, I love those. I would be loved to ask those questions because it would put me on my seat and be like, oh. Okay.

Taylor Bradley:
So that's good perspective to have that the whole purpose of this episode, I was kind of thinking this is more geared towards candidates interviewing, but this could also be geared towards hiring managers as far as learning what questions to prep for. You may be asked some new questions that you've never been asked before. And how do you prep for those? And to expect those and to not have the reaction. Like I, I'm not gonna share that information because again, every article I read said, if an employer's not willing to share this information, it's a huge red flag. Mm-hmm so let's, let's kind of go into what some of those questions are. We already talked about, you know, asking the question, what are your growth plans for the next year? Mm-hmm when is the next time you will review those growth plans? What do you think about that one? Do you think any of these are getting a little too invasive? Like the first answer should have been good enough?

Brianna Rooney:
Yeah, the, yeah, the review is a lot. Um, so I think about, uh, a candidate the other day, when they were getting their offer, they wanted into the strike price of the equity. And again, I'm not gonna dig into that, but it's like, well, if you really wanna know, this is set by a board of directors and they go over it every three months, but that's not a set thing. Mm-hmm , you know, depending on the size of the company really depends on if they know, I mean, think about us, like we're, you know, a year old. Right. And so it's like, when's the next time I'm gonna brew I don't know when the next time I have to pivot and fix something, you know, it's like, so it's like, that is a hard, it's a hard question. So I, I really, and, but the way I would answer that is exactly how I did and that's super truthful. So I think from a candidate's perspective, I don't know if it's exactly about what the actual answer itself is. I think it's about the honesty and the transparency in that answer to make them feel good. Cause I think that's a whole other thing you wanna work for a company that, you know, talks, the talk walks the walk.

Taylor Bradley:
Absolutely. I, I think that that's great perspective and I know here that's a thousand percent the case and how that would be received. Just like you said, I would probably hire this person. I do think there are gonna be companies out there that are going to be offended and they're just not there yet. Right? This is very new emerging trend to ask these tough questions, given what's going on in the market. And so I think employers, they're not there yet. They'll get there, but being that, this is what we do for a living. You know, we do recruiting, we talk to different clients, we give them recommendations. Like you said, we've always got our heads up, looking for the new trends, the latest and greatest, hence how I stumbled on these articles because things change so quickly. You've constantly gotta educate yourself. But I think what I took away from your response to that is that it's, it's more about the actual willingness to share and answer and not be guarded with that information.

Taylor Bradley:
Mm-hmm . And even if that answer is, that's not really set in stone and it could depend on when we have to pivot again, that is a true, honest answer. And I know I would receive it and have so much respect for that, but there are people out there that would be like, okay, that makes me if, if you can't check all these boxes, that makes me a little bit nervous. Sure. But to me, the, what are your growth plans for the next year would, if I gotta answer to that, it would would be suffice. I wouldn't need to know or require knowing when's the next time you're gonna review those. Um, but going

Brianna Rooney:
On yeah. That's too nitty gritty for sure. It,

Taylor Bradley:
Yeah, I think so. I think that that's too, but I think it could happen and employers should be prepared to have an answer to that. That's not like, how dare you ask me that

Brianna Rooney:
Question.

Taylor Bradley:
You know what I mean? So, um, going on to, what is the average tenure of the team? This is one that I feel like is always relevant, has always been relevant

Brianna Rooney:
Thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've personally never been asked that question, um, over the years, but yeah. It's, I mean, it's relevant, like, uh, I know like with engineers. Okay. So like when we first get a client, I, I look through, I do the sourcing map, right. I look through all of the team members and I look to see how good the team is currently. And are they older members or are they newer members? Cause to me that's that trend, are they hiring better or are they hiring a little more loosey goosey? So that is like kind of the, the trend I would look for as of candidate perspective. But, um, so again, sometimes, and I just relate it to ourselves sometimes when you're so new, it's really difficult to do that and have an answer for that. Um, but I think for a little bit of larger companies, like three, three plus years, I think that's for sure a question, cuz we want people to stay and when people don't stay, it's always a red flag.

Brianna Rooney:
Um, and it's almost like, you know, as it as an employer, I, I would almost wanna say like, um, these people didn't stay, but it was not their choice or these people didn't stay, but it was, you know, it was there, but you know, so I think the tenure question from my point of view is a really difficult one to answer. Um, but again, absolutely. Do candidates wanna ask that question and ask about the team and ask about, um, the happiness of it and Hey, like how long do people stay? Uh, for sure. I mean, when I, when I had techies, like I, you know, I had that for like 12 years and I would boast all the time about I've had employees for five years, six years, seven years, eight years, 10 years, you know, I would talk about that all the time. And that was easy because I had that. So, yeah. Sorry, tangented on that one.

Taylor Bradley:
No, I, I took, I was actually writing some things down cause I took a couple good nuggets away from your one response. So first off I'm like, you gave me chills. I'm like, this is exactly why everybody that is interested in getting in recruiting should take our diversity courses because of exactly what you just said is the way you prep for clients. Mm-hmm and the research that you do. I'm like, Ooh, that just that, I mean, I'm nerding out right now, but that just gave me chills, you know, because it's like the homework that you need to do. And I know you cover that extensively in our course. And I just think that that's something that regardless of, if you're in a recruiter role, if you're in a leadership role of prepping and knowing your clients and knowing their talent, because that's our job is to know their talent and then how do we go find, you know, the perfect candidate persona for them?

Taylor Bradley:
I just think that again, that gave me chills and I'm like diversity y'all yes. Shameless plug, but diversity love it. And then the second part to that is I'm just baffled that you've never been asked that question because mm-hmm , I feel like it's so common and maybe it was in my Renaissance recruiting world, that it was very, very common that people would ask this. But you also think when you're talking RPOs recruitment process outsourcing a lot of you hire people for these clients and for these clients and based on their business needs and how many openings they need to fill and what types of openings. So you'll go hire the team that needs to support those openings. And so sometimes, you know, when a client, if like we saw with, um, with the global pandemic, right? We had some clients that specifically were in the airline industry that were really affected by that. And obviously nobody could have anticipated that. And so there could be those unforeseen things, but because in my world that I came from, we did RPO. People would ask that because it was off, like if, if there's not another client for you to go to and you lose a contract or just the contract ends, it's kind of one of those things that makes people entering into the RPO world a little bit nervous. So I think that's an interesting differentiator between agency and RPO too.

Brianna Rooney:
Yeah. We, we constantly, you and I constantly talk about the difference between corporate recruiting and agency recruiting and you know, everything I know is agency recruiting and I just think that it moves faster, but it just moves different as well. Um, so it's yeah, so that's like, there was always another client, there was always someone else that needed us. It was like, that was never the issue. It was more of a, like we got to choose, you know? Yeah. Um,

Taylor Bradley:
Exactly. And then we would hire for like these niche clients, these specific roles, these sometimes manufacturing, sometimes they want some, somebody local to that loca, geographic location, you know, it was very specific as far as the teams that you would hire to deploy that obviously they'd be our employees, but they'd go support these clients. So I, I feel like that's an interesting, that's an interesting one. We could probably make another episode about that, but if I had a dollar for every time we said that too. I

Brianna Rooney:
Know

Taylor Bradley:
Um, so, okay. How much has the company grown over the past year?

Brianna Rooney:
Yeah. Uh, that for sure. Uh, that that's a no brainer question. You have to ask that. And I think that it even more important is how much is the company going to grow and how soon, and what plans do you have behind that? Because like, whenever you hear high growth, it's super exciting, but high growth is also scary because do they have enough managers in place to handle the growth? Are they hiring the managers first or are they hiring the ICS first? So those are all I think, yeah. That's like a whole other can of worms that I would wanna know if I'm joining a hyper growth company.

Taylor Bradley:
Yeah, exactly. Well, and one of the things that I read in one of my good takeaways from that article was for candidates. The best thing to focus on are the company mission position and the opportunity for future growth. Of course, money matters too. But companies that are paying the most are also the quickest to lay off people

Brianna Rooney:
Always. Why do, oh my God, I, okay. You just gave me the chills. Why do people not realize that? Like, okay, I, I know we wanna value ourselves to the utmost ability, right? Like we're like, I am worth so much money, you know? Great. But how does your spidey sense not go off if you're getting offered 20,000 plus more than anyone else is offering you like, and people are just like, well, I'm worth it obviously. Well, or red flag one. No, one's joining that company. So they had to boost up or two, they don't care because they're gonna use you and lose you. So like there's just so many. Yeah. Oh,

Taylor Bradley:
The wording on that, I'm like, yes. Write that down. Use you or lose you.

Brianna Rooney:
I dunno why I thought of a strip pole, but I did. Um, well, I just want the hamburger Mary's okay. Drag queen show. Uh, okay. Yeah. Anyways, so, but yeah, I mean like that is its own separate thing. I, Ugh, that's a video and I just gave you $2 for that one.

Taylor Bradley:
Oh yeah. Okay. Well I'm gonna go buy myself something real nice with that. Given the, the inflation we're experiencing. But, um, no, I, I just, I love this subject because I, and there's a long list of 'em. I just kind of put the questions that I felt like were the high notes that we needed to hit on. And I love the perspective and I definitely think we should do it from a, a hiring manager perspective down. Like, how do you respond to these tough questions that you are going to start getting asked?

Brianna Rooney:
Yeah. And the, the biggie is layoffs. You're gonna start getting asked about all of those things. People wanna feel nice and comfy in their role, but again, and I'm not gonna tangent cause I just won't do it. But big companies is not that big companies are the ones that let go first. Like you have to just know that. Yep. Uh, should we wrap this up? Is it broke boss time?

Taylor Bradley:
Yeah, I think so. Um, kind of basic guys, we have already covered this and already said it, but it really is just if you summarize everything we've discussed today, broke to boss, tip, ask the tough questions, but also understand that regardless of the answers, no job is a hundred percent secure,

Brianna Rooney:
A hundred percent love that. And by the way, you are not a basic. So nothing's basic that comes outta your mouth.

Taylor Bradley:
so true. I dunno why I just, I, I just shortchange myself.

Brianna Rooney:
That. that was nasty. thank

Taylor Bradley:
You for reminding me who I

Brianna Rooney:
Am. no worries. All right. Well again, this has been super fun. If you have, you know, if you found this valuable, which I hope you did, please send this out to all your friends and we've been loving out, you know, actually we got a couple of reviews, so that's exciting. So keep subscribing and keep listening. We are, we'll see you next Tuesday.

Taylor Bradley:
Have a good one. Y'all.