Let's Get There Together

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:00

Welcome to The Talent Trade. I am Stephanie

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:03

Maas, your host, partner at ThinkingAhead Executive Search,

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:08

and today, I am super excited; incredible guest speaker with

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:14

us. What makes him incredible is not just what he has done in the

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:19

executive search world, but it's also who he is outside of the

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:24

office. In fact, he became our team mascot, Team Labradoodle.

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:30

And then when you think of a Labradoodle, certain things come

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:33

to mind. Nobody doesn't like a Labradoodle. Everybody loves a

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:37

Labradoodle. Nobody has issues. Even if they have dog allergies

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:41

or sensitivities, they are still a Okay, meaning, if you've got

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:44

personal problems or issues, you're still okay with the

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:47

Labradoodle. Everybody loves Derek. Nobody has issues with

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:51

him. Consistently producing can be counted on, and has really

Stephanie Maas: 00:00:55

elevated our team since he joined us. So Derek Schlender,

Stephanie Maas: 00:01:00

take us from here. Thanks so much, Derek for being with us.

Derek Schlender: 00:01:04

Wow, thank you. Stephanie. Team mascot wasn't

Derek Schlender: 00:01:06

something I expected, but you know, sometimes you just get

Derek Schlender: 00:01:10

these little delights in life that you just gotta roll with it

Derek Schlender: 00:01:12

and embrace it. So it's an honor to be here. Thanks for having

Derek Schlender: 00:01:15

me. And I think the last six years, they've been probably the

Derek Schlender: 00:01:19

highlight, just from a professional standpoint for me,

Derek Schlender: 00:01:22

not just the work that we do, but the people that I get to do

Derek Schlender: 00:01:26

it with. But yeah, I focus on SBA recruiting for our banking

Derek Schlender: 00:01:30

team. Run that niche nationally. Personally, my family, we reside

Derek Schlender: 00:01:35

in Athens, Georgia. Go Dogs. Family of five. We have a nine

Derek Schlender: 00:01:39

year old, seven year old and a two year old. So my my world is

Derek Schlender: 00:01:43

beautiful chaos right now.

Stephanie Maas: 00:01:45

I love it. So today, what I have asked Derek

Stephanie Maas: 00:01:49

to come and talk and speak to is something that, in his niche and

Stephanie Maas: 00:01:53

in his world, he has not just revolutionized, but truly

Stephanie Maas: 00:01:59

elevated in a way that nobody prior to him has ever done, and

Stephanie Maas: 00:02:04

that is the MPC approach to driving business. He came in and

Stephanie Maas: 00:02:12

started figuring out that there was this niche that he just

Stephanie Maas: 00:02:16

found his way to and really took it and ran with it, and a big

Stephanie Maas: 00:02:20

part, a tremendous part, of his tremendous success, it's the MPC

Stephanie Maas: 00:02:24

that he's really perfected. So I want to start there and have

Stephanie Maas: 00:02:28

Derek really walk us through what made you pursue this MPC

Stephanie Maas: 00:02:33

approach to your market. How do you consistently build it such a

Stephanie Maas: 00:02:37

high level with an MPC approach? And again, it's not all that you

Stephanie Maas: 00:02:40

do, but I know it's the majority, so just kind of give

Stephanie Maas: 00:02:42

us some history and then get us into the details, man.

Derek Schlender: 00:02:46

Absolutely. So as I got started in search, a

Derek Schlender: 00:02:50

big conversation between my mentor and myself and just our

Derek Schlender: 00:02:54

team in general, was talking about, hey, what's going on in

Derek Schlender: 00:02:56

the market in terms of what drives it? Is it client driven?

Derek Schlender: 00:03:00

Is it candidate driven? Do we see that swing from year to

Derek Schlender: 00:03:04

year? The thing that really came to light with SBA as a niche is

Derek Schlender: 00:03:10

that it was incredibly candidate driven. And I guess the best way

Derek Schlender: 00:03:15

to think about that from a macro perspective is just simple

Derek Schlender: 00:03:18

supply and demand. My niche in SBA lending tends this way,

Derek Schlender: 00:03:22

largely because there's been a high number of baby boomer

Derek Schlender: 00:03:25

generation bankers who have been retiring. There's just not been

Derek Schlender: 00:03:29

as many Gen X millennial you know, there's just not enough

Derek Schlender: 00:03:33

people getting into banking to outnumber those that have been

Derek Schlender: 00:03:38

retiring. And so over the last 10 to 15 years, that's resulted

Derek Schlender: 00:03:42

in this growing bubble of demand where there's just a lot more

Derek Schlender: 00:03:46

need than there is talent. And so that's resulted in something

Derek Schlender: 00:03:50

for me that's just sustainably been candidate driven. I haven't

Derek Schlender: 00:03:53

really had a lot of client driven moments in my time so

Derek Schlender: 00:03:58

far. You know, there's definitely been clients who have

Derek Schlender: 00:04:01

said, Hey, Derek, you're the recruiter we want to work with

Derek Schlender: 00:04:03

exclusively. You know, there's just some roles that have to go

Derek Schlender: 00:04:06

to search, but the lion's share of what my market needs is the

Derek Schlender: 00:04:12

talent, and it's on a constant basis. And so kind of this

Derek Schlender: 00:04:16

supply and demand idea. You know, with demand so high and

Derek Schlender: 00:04:19

supply so low if you can go bring to your clients what

Derek Schlender: 00:04:23

they're needing, that's kind of what I would define as candidate

Derek Schlender: 00:04:25

driven.

Stephanie Maas: 00:04:26

Super helpful. So we figured this out, that

Stephanie Maas: 00:04:30

it's candidate driven. Now what?

Derek Schlender: 00:04:32

Yeah, so it's candidate driven. I think what

Derek Schlender: 00:04:35

appealed to me a lot coming to thinking ahead, was that we are

Derek Schlender: 00:04:38

not generalist recruiters, and so you've got a lot of banking

Derek Schlender: 00:04:42

recruiters in the marketplace, a lot of finance recruiters, but

Derek Schlender: 00:04:46

very few of them are truly market masters. Is what I would

Derek Schlender: 00:04:51

say. We kind of call it as a niche expert. And so when I was

Derek Schlender: 00:04:55

starting off, and frankly, anyone who's gotten their start

Derek Schlender: 00:04:58

in search, you don't know. What your niche is, until you really

Derek Schlender: 00:05:02

cut your teeth and you get a sense of, where can I win, where

Derek Schlender: 00:05:05

can I go, add value. And so I just started to pull, what we

Derek Schlender: 00:05:09

call pull the thread in the market. Like you see a thread,

Derek Schlender: 00:05:12

you start to pull it, and what, what comes of that is you start

Derek Schlender: 00:05:16

to get traction. And so where I was getting traction was SBA

Derek Schlender: 00:05:20

lending. What's unique is we were heading into the pandemic

Derek Schlender: 00:05:24

as I was gaining traction. And so what happened is everyone

Derek Schlender: 00:05:28

stopped coming into the office. The Marketplace, basically

Derek Schlender: 00:05:31

overnight, was completely remote. And so while SBA lending

Derek Schlender: 00:05:36

is a national product, a national program, I was thrust

Derek Schlender: 00:05:40

into a market that was even more national by nature of everyone

Derek Schlender: 00:05:46

being remote, it didn't matter where you lived, as long as a

Derek Schlender: 00:05:48

company got hired in your state. And so that just became more and

Derek Schlender: 00:05:52

more of a focus, almost as a product of just circumstances

Derek Schlender: 00:05:57

around the pandemic. That's kind of where it all started for me.

Stephanie Maas: 00:06:01

So when you're in this candidate driven world,

Stephanie Maas: 00:06:04

and MPC is your primary focus, what are some of the criteria

Stephanie Maas: 00:06:09

that, from your perspective, make a candidate extremely

Stephanie Maas: 00:06:12

marketable?

Derek Schlender: 00:06:13

That's a great question, and I think that's the

Derek Schlender: 00:06:15

most important question, because when it comes to marketing

Derek Schlender: 00:06:18

talent, why are they marketable? Why are why is there value?

Derek Schlender: 00:06:22

That's an important question. So for me, you know, you've got

Derek Schlender: 00:06:25

kind of multiple candidate types that you are looking for in the

Derek Schlender: 00:06:30

world of finance. You've got people who are, what, you know,

Derek Schlender: 00:06:33

straight up and down, revenue contributors that are directly

Derek Schlender: 00:06:36

tied to the bottom line profitability. You've got people

Derek Schlender: 00:06:39

who are in the background, back office, people, credit

Derek Schlender: 00:06:42

operations. So for me, it's different, depending on what

Derek Schlender: 00:06:45

type of candidate it may be. But to put it simply, if someone's a

Derek Schlender: 00:06:50

revenue contributor, have they produced is number one, have

Derek Schlender: 00:06:54

they produced at a level that is recognized by the marketplace as

Derek Schlender: 00:06:59

impressive, as meaningful, but even more complex than that,

Derek Schlender: 00:07:03

have they produced within the deal box or the buy box of the

Derek Schlender: 00:07:08

clients that I represent, if they have, I've got somebody who

Derek Schlender: 00:07:11

can add value for my clients, for the marketplace that I

Derek Schlender: 00:07:15

serve, if they haven't, there's a disconnect there. And so it's

Derek Schlender: 00:07:18

my job as the market master to say, hey, tell me about

Derek Schlender: 00:07:24

production. Tell me about where you've won. Let me make sure

Derek Schlender: 00:07:28

that I'm connecting the dots in a way that's going to be

Derek Schlender: 00:07:31

meaningful and recognized for the value that you bring. And so

Derek Schlender: 00:07:35

I've got to uncover that with a candidate and understand that

Derek Schlender: 00:07:38

and a deep level. If I'm a generalist who doesn't really

Derek Schlender: 00:07:42

deeply know one niche over another, that's a lot harder. So

Derek Schlender: 00:07:46

if you're somebody who does accounting, recruiting,

Derek Schlender: 00:07:50

commercial, CNI, recruiting, mortgage, recruiting, all of

Derek Schlender: 00:07:54

these things, that's great if you don't have enough depth to

Derek Schlender: 00:07:58

talk shop with somebody and understand what kinds of deals

Derek Schlender: 00:08:02

they actually do and where you could take them, or that would

Derek Schlender: 00:08:05

add value. That'll be harder with credit and operations. I

Derek Schlender: 00:08:10

think a lot of it comes down to efficiency and proficiency. Are

Derek Schlender: 00:08:14

they efficient at what they do in credit decisioning from a

Derek Schlender: 00:08:19

timeline perspective, but also, do they have a complexity of

Derek Schlender: 00:08:23

understanding of different deal types, where they can actually

Derek Schlender: 00:08:26

get in and truly decision deals based on the experience that

Derek Schlender: 00:08:31

they have? For me, a lot of times, somebody who is a MPC as

Derek Schlender: 00:08:36

a credit candidate, they need to be a little bit more

Derek Schlender: 00:08:38

experienced, because if they're not, it's a lot harder to

Derek Schlender: 00:08:42

showcase that talent and to say, hey, based on their experience,

Derek Schlender: 00:08:46

they're going to add XYZ and value. And then the same is, you

Derek Schlender: 00:08:50

know, generally true of people in operations and other

Derek Schlender: 00:08:53

capacities. It's it's a lot of just, they've had experience in

Derek Schlender: 00:08:56

key areas that I know bring value to my clients. And then,

Derek Schlender: 00:09:01

on top of all that, I would just say that their resume really

Derek Schlender: 00:09:04

matters. A resume for a star candidate has to look like

Derek Schlender: 00:09:08

someone who hasn't moved around a lot. You know, there's

Derek Schlender: 00:09:11

occasions where a quick stint somewhere can be explained, and

Derek Schlender: 00:09:15

that's okay. But again, I need to understand their story in a

Derek Schlender: 00:09:20

way that can be conveyed in a way that's understood and

Derek Schlender: 00:09:23

accepted. And then the last thing is just compensation.

Derek Schlender: 00:09:26

Because as much as we're talking about representing candidates,

Derek Schlender: 00:09:29

our primary responsibility is still our clients, which is

Derek Schlender: 00:09:34

sometimes hard to think about. When you're thinking about, hey,

Derek Schlender: 00:09:36

I'm representing talent and trying to go place them in the

Derek Schlender: 00:09:39

market, you still have to ethically understand, hey, my

Derek Schlender: 00:09:43

primary job is to solve a need for my client, and a lot of that

Derek Schlender: 00:09:47

comes down to simple math. Does this candidate? Are they someone

Derek Schlender: 00:09:51

who's affordable? Are they someone who's commanding a

Derek Schlender: 00:09:54

salary that the market will support again, if I'm not

Derek Schlender: 00:09:58

niched? I don't know my. Market. I may not be able to answer that

Derek Schlender: 00:10:02

question, and I may not actually able to add value to my client,

Derek Schlender: 00:10:06

because if I bring them someone they can't afford, that's great

Derek Schlender: 00:10:09

that this candidates a rock star, they can produce, they add

Derek Schlender: 00:10:11

all this efficiency value, but if they aren't in the budget for

Derek Schlender: 00:10:15

what the client can pay, I'm wasting a lot of people's time.

Stephanie Maas: 00:10:18

So let me ask you this; when you're

Stephanie Maas: 00:10:20

approaching a candidate and you're not specifically calling

Stephanie Maas: 00:10:25

on behalf of a search, which is what a lot of us do. How do you

Stephanie Maas: 00:10:28

get the candidate engaged? How do you even set up this MPC

Stephanie Maas: 00:10:32

relationship?

Derek Schlender: 00:10:33

Yeah, that's a great question. I think again,

Derek Schlender: 00:10:36

I'm going to probably beat this horse the whole time, but being

Derek Schlender: 00:10:40

very specialized is the key, because if you get a phone call

Derek Schlender: 00:10:43

from someone who is specialized to represent the niche you

Derek Schlender: 00:10:47

literally operate in as a candidate, as a professional,

Derek Schlender: 00:10:50

and someone calls you, it's a different conversation when you

Derek Schlender: 00:10:54

can convey to them, Hey, the only space I recruit in is your

Derek Schlender: 00:10:58

world. And so what I'm going to do first and foremost is I'm

Derek Schlender: 00:11:02

going to pursue understanding you as a professional before we

Derek Schlender: 00:11:05

I mean, whether or not I have an opportunity that I'm recruiting

Derek Schlender: 00:11:09

for or not that for me is the right approach, even if I'm

Derek Schlender: 00:11:13

taking a search to market, because it's going to take me

Derek Schlender: 00:11:16

some time to truly understand if you're the right fit for this

Derek Schlender: 00:11:20

Search. So even if there's a search, Hey, I am specialized.

Derek Schlender: 00:11:24

I'm niche, specific. Let me understand your situation, and

Derek Schlender: 00:11:28

as we develop that relationship with the candidate, the beauty

Derek Schlender: 00:11:31

is the value we bring to our clients. It's not going after

Derek Schlender: 00:11:35

people who are thanking God that you called them on that Tuesday

Derek Schlender: 00:11:39

afternoon. It's the people who didn't really have time to talk

Derek Schlender: 00:11:43

to you, but they start to catch, oh, there's value in talking to

Derek Schlender: 00:11:47

this recruiter, because they are actually in my space, even if

Derek Schlender: 00:11:51

it's a quick conversation, I want to keep in touch with them.

Derek Schlender: 00:11:55

So it's very relationally driven. Again, it's a value

Derek Schlender: 00:11:58

proposition to the candidate that, hey, whether or not I go

Derek Schlender: 00:12:02

take you to one of my clients right now, we need to know each

Derek Schlender: 00:12:05

other, even for long term relationship. And so that's the

Derek Schlender: 00:12:09

approach that I take. And then from there, again, being

Derek Schlender: 00:12:12

specialized, you can pick up on things that are causing pain

Derek Schlender: 00:12:16

when you hear how things are actually going well. Derek, it's

Derek Schlender: 00:12:20

been a good year. I've produced X amount in volume. The only

Derek Schlender: 00:12:24

frustration is it's caught. It's taking 60 days decision to deal.

Derek Schlender: 00:12:28

Hang on, that's a huge red flag. But I only know that if I truly

Derek Schlender: 00:12:32

know the time frame it ought to take for a lender to decision

Derek Schlender: 00:12:35

transactions so things like that. As you're talking to

Derek Schlender: 00:12:39

someone and they're engaging with you, you can say, Hey, can

Derek Schlender: 00:12:42

I provide some feedback based on my expertise in the market? I

Derek Schlender: 00:12:46

think you're in a place that's kind of preventing you from

Derek Schlender: 00:12:50

being the best you could be. You mind if I give you some

Derek Schlender: 00:12:53

feedback? And so it's developing a relationship of trust based on

Derek Schlender: 00:12:57

expertise.

Stephanie Maas: 00:12:58

So that gets the candidates engaged. What about

Stephanie Maas: 00:13:01

the client side? If everybody's hiring, if everybody needs these

Stephanie Maas: 00:13:05

people, how do you determine your target list?

Derek Schlender: 00:13:08

That's a great question. So a lot of it, for

Derek Schlender: 00:13:11

me, is just paying attention in a number of ways. It's

Derek Schlender: 00:13:14

absolutely paying attention to who's producing at different

Derek Schlender: 00:13:17

levels, who are the top places that are competitively looking

Derek Schlender: 00:13:21

to be in the top 10 in the country, top 20 in the country,

Derek Schlender: 00:13:24

and having a relationship developed with those hiring

Derek Schlender: 00:13:27

managers to understand, how are you going about that? What kind

Derek Schlender: 00:13:30

of talent is it going to take for you to achieve your goals?

Derek Schlender: 00:13:34

Do you have the support in your back office to support the

Derek Schlender: 00:13:37

production you're looking to have? But it's also

Derek Schlender: 00:13:39

understanding what are the kind of new to market, new to the

Derek Schlender: 00:13:43

stage, players who may not have as much volume publicly traced

Derek Schlender: 00:13:46

where it's like, Hey, you're actually going to be a player in

Derek Schlender: 00:13:50

the next two to three years. But knowing the people in your

Derek Schlender: 00:13:53

niche, it's achieved through a number of things. It's what I

Derek Schlender: 00:13:56

just talked about in terms of the rankings. It's attending

Derek Schlender: 00:13:59

conferences and actually getting in front of your market and

Derek Schlender: 00:14:03

getting to know the people in your space. But it's, again,

Derek Schlender: 00:14:06

it's very relational, and it's asking, Hey, what do you need

Derek Schlender: 00:14:09

right now? But where are you headed? What are you going to

Derek Schlender: 00:14:13

need? And the next year, if I came across a top qualified

Derek Schlender: 00:14:16

candidate in the market is that someone you would want to have a

Derek Schlender: 00:14:19

confidential conversation about, every hiring manager you talk to

Derek Schlender: 00:14:23

is going to say yes, but again, it comes back down to can you

Derek Schlender: 00:14:26

actually produce that and value to them? And so if you can come

Derek Schlender: 00:14:30

back to the table and say, Hey, I really urge you, when you and

Derek Schlender: 00:14:33

I talked about the talent that it's going to take for you to

Derek Schlender: 00:14:37

get where you're headed, and give them some feedback that you

Derek Schlender: 00:14:40

actually have the talent that they're looking for 10 times out

Derek Schlender: 00:14:43

of 10. Those those clients want to have a conversation with you

Derek Schlender: 00:14:47

about that. The challenge for most of my clients is not paying

Derek Schlender: 00:14:50

a fee to a recruiter or even going the search route. It's

Derek Schlender: 00:14:53

working with recruiters who don't bring them candidates who

Derek Schlender: 00:14:57

are well vetted, who actually you. Solve a need, or actually,

Derek Schlender: 00:15:00

like thrust them toward your goal. So it's connecting those

Derek Schlender: 00:15:03

two dots. But again, I think it's a lot of relational

Derek Schlender: 00:15:06

business development conversations that are not just

Derek Schlender: 00:15:09

centered around, what search do you have for me today? But let's

Derek Schlender: 00:15:13

have a business conversation around where are you trying to

Derek Schlender: 00:15:16

get to? What type of people are going to help you get there?

Stephanie Maas: 00:15:19

Dang. Just listening to you talk, it is so

Stephanie Maas: 00:15:22

evident how you are so good at what you do. Okay, so my last

Stephanie Maas: 00:15:26

question is, you've got this expertise. You approach

Stephanie Maas: 00:15:30

candidates in a very relational way, you approach clients in a

Stephanie Maas: 00:15:34

very relational way, all under the umbrella of this MPC model,

Stephanie Maas: 00:15:38

which a lot of folks feel often, can be transactional, but you

Stephanie Maas: 00:15:42

just walked us through how it's not. What kind of feedback have

Stephanie Maas: 00:15:47

you gotten from folks that you've worked with about this process?

Derek Schlender: 00:15:51

It's honestly been extremely positive. And one

Derek Schlender: 00:15:54

of the things I love most about the world we live in is we have

Derek Schlender: 00:15:58

something called LinkedIn.

Stephanie Maas: 00:16:00

Is it on the World Wide Web?

Derek Schlender: 00:16:01

It is. It is actually the website. But every

Derek Schlender: 00:16:04

placement I make, it's part of my process. I ask first for the

Derek Schlender: 00:16:08

candidates I place to leave me a review, and thankfully, almost

Derek Schlender: 00:16:11

everyone is so willing to do that, and the feedback I've

Derek Schlender: 00:16:15

consistently had is they just love the ethical experience that

Derek Schlender: 00:16:19

they have. And that's interesting to me, that that

Derek Schlender: 00:16:22

comes to light so frequently, because you would think that

Derek Schlender: 00:16:25

ethics or something that every recruiter considered to be a

Derek Schlender: 00:16:29

high priority, but it's just not. And I think what it comes

Derek Schlender: 00:16:32

down to is a lot of recruiters don't really know what else to

Derek Schlender: 00:16:36

do with a resume, than to go run to their clients and try to put

Derek Schlender: 00:16:40

it in front of them. And so for me, it's a lot different than

Derek Schlender: 00:16:44

that. So much of what I do is it's not spaghetti on the wall,

Derek Schlender: 00:16:48

it's not resume spamming. It's very much a partnership with

Derek Schlender: 00:16:51

candidates in the market around hey, let's work together in

Derek Schlender: 00:16:55

developing a wish list of organizations that you want to

Derek Schlender: 00:16:58

go to. I'm going to come to the table with recommendations. I

Derek Schlender: 00:17:02

expect you to come to the table with dreams and desires. We're

Derek Schlender: 00:17:06

going to put that together and come come up with a list of

Derek Schlender: 00:17:09

target organizations. The result is, you're going to get in front

Derek Schlender: 00:17:13

of the organizations you want to get in front of. And a lot of

Derek Schlender: 00:17:17

times, it's people who they have all of the qualifications, all

Derek Schlender: 00:17:21

of the resume to get them the job, but they don't have the

Derek Schlender: 00:17:24

connections. It's the timing, it's the coaching, it's the

Derek Schlender: 00:17:28

representation at the offer stage. It's giving voice to this

Derek Schlender: 00:17:31

is what the market's supporting. You need to be paid X amount to

Derek Schlender: 00:17:35

right size, you get you paid what you're worth, or it's Hey,

Derek Schlender: 00:17:39

you're paid very competitively. Let's go get you an opportunity

Derek Schlender: 00:17:43

that lets you maximize your incentive compensation to make

Derek Schlender: 00:17:46

you a lot more money all in it's that expertise, and without

Derek Schlender: 00:17:50

that, it's open season. They're on their own. They don't have

Derek Schlender: 00:17:54

representation, and so many people I work with have had that

Derek Schlender: 00:17:57

experience. They would much rather have a advocate working

Derek Schlender: 00:18:01

with them, but somebody who's really a guide, a trusted

Derek Schlender: 00:18:04

advisor, someone who's not just going out there and saying, Hey,

Derek Schlender: 00:18:08

let me go. I'll keep you posted on what I get for you in terms

Derek Schlender: 00:18:12

of an opportunity to interview. But no, let's go. Target an

Derek Schlender: 00:18:16

organization we agree on. You're in charge. I'm going to guide

Derek Schlender: 00:18:19

you there, and let's get there together. So the feedback I've

Derek Schlender: 00:18:23

gotten is that that's really value for a candidate. They

Derek Schlender: 00:18:27

appreciate that. They don't get that from everyone. And so I

Derek Schlender: 00:18:30

feel really good about the work that I do based on that feedback.

Stephanie Maas: 00:18:34

And I bet, too, from the client's perspective,

Stephanie Maas: 00:18:37

you showing up with an MPC, is not you just showing up with a

Stephanie Maas: 00:18:40

resume saying, Hey, you do the work, you do the vetting, and

Stephanie Maas: 00:18:43

I'm just sending you this resume, and I hope you send me

Stephanie Maas: 00:18:46

25% if you hire them. I gotta imagine the feedback from the

Stephanie Maas: 00:18:49

clients is super similar. Hey, we know we're looking for

Stephanie Maas: 00:18:52

talent, but you brought us the talent that's spot on for what

Stephanie Maas: 00:18:55

we need to achieve our goals. I imagine you get some feedback

Stephanie Maas: 00:18:59

that it's a game changer that way too for you.

Derek Schlender: 00:19:01

For sure, for sure. And I'd say too that like

Derek Schlender: 00:19:04

I think most organizations would like to have the unlimited time,

Derek Schlender: 00:19:07

unlimited bandwidth, to take everything, to search and

Derek Schlender: 00:19:10

competitively select a slate of candidates and pick the best

Derek Schlender: 00:19:14

one. And I mean, that's an ideal world, right? We want that on

Derek Schlender: 00:19:17

paper, but in the reality of what we are dealing with is you

Derek Schlender: 00:19:20

have a goal to meet by into quarter one. It's the beginning

Derek Schlender: 00:19:24

of March. Your top producer just collected his bonus and left for

Derek Schlender: 00:19:27

whatever reason. What are you going to do? Can you go to

Derek Schlender: 00:19:31

search? Can you go find that slate of candidates? Can you go

Derek Schlender: 00:19:34

through that full process? Well, what if someone called you and

Derek Schlender: 00:19:37

said, Hey, I've got someone who can produce at a level that's

Derek Schlender: 00:19:41

equivalent to what your top producer was producing at who

Derek Schlender: 00:19:44

wouldn't want to have that conversation. So again, it's a

Derek Schlender: 00:19:47

time saver and a money saver, because the time it takes to

Derek Schlender: 00:19:51

take an opportunity to search, you're losing money on that top

Derek Schlender: 00:19:54

producers revenue. And so a lot of it is it's a monetarily

Derek Schlender: 00:19:57

efficient way to select top talent, but. Again, I think the

Derek Schlender: 00:20:01

clients that I work with value the industry expertise so that

Derek Schlender: 00:20:04

they know when I bring them a candidate, it's not just

Derek Schlender: 00:20:07

someone's resume that I got from a job posting.

Stephanie Maas: 00:20:10

Man, that says a tremendous amount. Anything else

Stephanie Maas: 00:20:13

that you think right now is critical for our listener to

Stephanie Maas: 00:20:18

know or be aware of when it comes to elevating the MPC

Stephanie Maas: 00:20:22

approach to the market?

Derek Schlender: 00:20:24

Stephanie, you probably said this already, but

Derek Schlender: 00:20:26

I think the overarching principle is that good

Derek Schlender: 00:20:29

recruiters are good listeners. Great recruiters are phenomenal

Derek Schlender: 00:20:33

listeners. And with everything I'm talking about, if you don't

Derek Schlender: 00:20:37

go in with a really active listening mindset, you're only

Derek Schlender: 00:20:41

going to be able to default to transactional recruiting, but if

Derek Schlender: 00:20:45

you can really listen and really learn from every conversation,

Derek Schlender: 00:20:49

you become someone who is incredibly valuable to your

Derek Schlender: 00:20:52

marketplace and to the candidates you recruit. So

Derek Schlender: 00:20:55

that's it. I mean, it's Listen, listen, listen and do something

Derek Schlender: 00:20:59

with what you learn.

Stephanie Maas: 00:21:00

Love it. Derek, thank you so much for being here

Stephanie Maas: 00:21:04

sharing some of your wisdom. I know that there's a lot more to come.