Be a Bold, Unorthodox, and Unstoppable Recruiter with Shaun Hervey

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
2025 is going to be the best year that you've ever had, and we're going to help make that happen. We got two summits heading your way. First of all, in January, the Sales and Business Development Recruiting Summit. Make sure to get registered free for the live sessions or go VIP for the replays. And then the Recruiting Growth Summit is coming back for March. These events are going to help you start strong, run strong, so that way you can finish strong. So let's go. Make sure you get registered.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:25]:
You'll see the link in the show notes. All right, enjoy the podcast. Coming up on this episode of the.

Shaun Hervey [00:00:30]:
Elite Recruiter Podcast at Arkham Talent, we don't hire dickheads, because if you hire one dickhead, the next thing that you know, your entire sales organization is full of dickheads. And we don't want to do that. I think if you're someone that wants to go out and do things, you want to do it your own way. There's literally no one or nothing stopping, right? There's nothing. It's you versus yourself.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:52]:
Welcome to the Elite Recruiter Podcast with your host, Benjamin Mena, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership, and placements. I'm so excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast because have you ever been called insane for chasing a dream when you wanted to make a change that you knew that was right for you, that was best for your future? Everyone around you is just like, no, like, don't do that. That's stupid. Like, you are. You are crazy. But here's the thing. When you chase your dream and when you go out on your own and carve your own path, you get to create your own story.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:38]:
You are the one that gets to write the next chapter of your book. And so I am so excited about my buddy Sean. Been following him for years, and there's a little bit of an unfollowing, but then it's back to following again. But I'm excited that he's going to kind of share, like, some of the things that he did, like going from talent acquisition, leadership, being in those meetings day after day, building out the spreadsheets, and, like, you know what? I can't do that anymore. I gotta go chase my own dreams. So, Sean, welcome to the podcast.

Shaun Hervey [00:02:04]:
That was probably the best introduction that I've ever had and one of the best introductions I've ever heard. I don't know, why are you in recruiting? Why aren't you in Marketing.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:16]:
I have no clue. Well, I mean, it's like, we're going to get to your story, but it's one of those things, like, how do we all end up in recruiting?

Shaun Hervey [00:02:23]:
Yeah, I know. It is awesome, dude. And I'm so excited to be here. Like I was telling you earlier, like, I am super excited. I'm honored because you are like the Joe Rogan of recruiting podcasts, and I am honored to be on the show. But I'm also super, super nervous because of all the people that you've had on here that are like, just insane fillers and all that fun stuff, like having to compare to Mr. Rich Rosenberg and all those guys. Gonna be awesome.

Shaun Hervey [00:02:49]:
But I am super excited and thankful to be here.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:52]:
Well, before we get started and how you even ended up in this space to get to this podcast interview, talk a little bit about what you're doing now.

Shaun Hervey [00:03:01]:
So, like you mentioned in the intro, right? I've probably spent 10 years as an internal recruiter. And in 2022, November 22, I was laid off just like a lot of the other recruiters that were, you know, doing the internal thing for a number of years. And, dude, it took literally, like, three months to get one interview. Like, one interview. And I just kind of looked at my life and I looked at everything that I was going to be doing, going back into that world if I did get another job. And it was just spreadsheets, and it was just like, same bullshit over and over, and I just. I didn't have it in me. So I literally just called a couple of my buddies, a couple of people that I knew over the years, and just said, hey, I'm going to start a recruiting company and just kind of see, like, how they re it if I can get any work from them.

Shaun Hervey [00:03:51]:
And right off the bat, two of them were like, oh, yeah, I need an enterprise ae. Oh, yeah, I need an sdr. Oh, okay, great. So that's how it started. It was just like, it was literally one of those things as, all right, maybe I'm gonna do this, maybe not. Because I would keep asking people. It was always in the back of my mind, and I always knew that someday it would lead here, right? I knew I'm not. I was never gonna be, like, a corporate talent acquisition person.

Shaun Hervey [00:04:18]:
I just don't have the spreadsheet awareness and all that stuff. It's just not me. And everyone that I talk to are like, why would you do that? Like that. That is crazy. Right now. It's middle of a, you know, we're Coming out of the pandemic, people are getting laid off. No one's going to utilize recruiters. Like, what does it matter with you? You are insane.

Shaun Hervey [00:04:37]:
And that's when I just said, okay, well, I'm gonna do it anyway. And I named the company Arkham after the insane asylum and Gotham City as an homage to that and mental health. But mostly to the people that told me, hey, you're insane and you're crazy. We've been through it.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:51]:
I love that. The tip on your shoulder, like, hey, I am making the identity. I'm going to go crush it because you said I couldn't.

Shaun Hervey [00:04:58]:
Yeah, yeah. I'm one of those people, like, if I have it in my mind and some like, enough people tell me, like, no, you're not going to be able to do that. Like, I will raise hell before I give up on doing it. So here I am. It's been a year and to a little over a year at this point. And it's just learning every single day. Getting kicked in the face, the rejections, the this, the that. I don't have 15 years of experience to kind of fall back on.

Shaun Hervey [00:05:25]:
I know how to recruit, I know how to talk to people, but I'm still really developing that client acquisition arm, building that up and, you know, falling on my face and getting kicked in the mouth, but still standing.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:38]:
Oh, and that's one of the reasons why I definitely want to chat with you because like, you know, there are so many people that have recently made that jump from being an internal ta. You know, maybe they started agency and like, you know, when you're working at a grad shop, you're not really learning the BD stuff, you're just filling the jobs. You went internal like other people, like, did the internal route and realized like, hey, isn't as good as I thought it was going to be. The dream of being the internal TA leader, it really just ends up being a lot of crappy work.

Shaun Hervey [00:06:06]:
Yeah. The hard part about it is that once you get to a certain level, you lose why you got into recruiting in the first place. Right. It just becomes looking at numbers and looking at spreadsheets and maybe helping out, closing an engineering hire or two. But like, you're not talking to people. You are running a team, you're running the function. And you're in meetings all day, high up meetings. And that's not why I loved recruiting.

Shaun Hervey [00:06:36]:
That's not why I got into it. And once I got a taste of what it was going to be like at one of my last Companies just going through all, all the spreadsheets, all the data and all of this stuff that I just had no interest in. I just had zero interest in looking at and analyzing that type of stuff all day. I just said to myself, all right, I need to buy the time, I need to had the savings. And then I'll.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:02]:
Let's even talk that like, you talked about, like, the love for people, the having the conversations, the making the impact. Like, how did you even end up in the wonderful world? Recording.

Shaun Hervey [00:07:11]:
So when I graduated college and how I got myself through college was playing in wedding bands and cover bands and all that stuff my entire life. And I had just graduated, I got this gig at an airport. And at the airport, what I was doing is I was that guy who stands at like a terminal and tries to sign you up for like a Delta Sky Miles card by giving you like, T shirts and teddy bears and all this whatever the hell I was selling for the day. And one day this lady, like, runs by the kiosk. She does like a double take and I whisper her over and I. I sell her on everything. And I said, okay, well, I just need your Social Security number. And she's just like, I'm not giving my Social Security number.

Shaun Hervey [00:07:57]:
I said, man, we're in a Delta certified airport. Like, who you think they're going to have people out here that are, you know, like fraudsters? And she's like, okay, all right. And then a couple of other things I had to get from her, like her credit card and all this other stuff. And as I'm like, signing everything up and just like finishing the transaction, she's like, you just got my Social Security card in the middle of an airport while I'm traveling to get on a plane. Like, is this what you planning on doing like the rest of your life? I said, absolutely freaking not. No, no. I just graduated college and I'm actually looking for a job. She's like, okay, great, well, you have a job now.

Shaun Hervey [00:08:34]:
I need you to go interview with my account executives tomorrow and a couple of other people. And the woman was actually a VP of like, the northeastern region of Adecco, the giant, the big staffing company. So I did that. I said, okay, great. I didn't know what recruiting was. I didn't know it was even a freaking thing. I had no idea what it was.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:57]:
You literally got her, got her Social Security number, signed her up for a credit card, and she's like, yeah, you're actually good at talking to people. Yeah, I want you on my team.

Shaun Hervey [00:09:06]:
That's literally it. She's like, okay, where you live? Long Island. Okay, great. You're going to cover north, you're going to cover Nassau and Suffolk County. I said, okay, great. What the hell am I going to do? She's like, you're going to go knock on doors and you're going to go sign up people or you're going to bring on clients to, you know, the staffing company. I'm like, okay, cool, what's staffing? And she's like, okay, just call me on Monday. And I called her and we went through the interview process and that was it.

Shaun Hervey [00:09:30]:
My first job out of college was with a deco staffing, knocking on doors and trying to sign up. Temporary staffing.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:36]:
Oh, real quick. Were you actually like knocking on doors?

Shaun Hervey [00:09:38]:
Oh, baby, was I knocking on doors? I was the king of knocking on doors and king of getting the door slammed in my face. I probably. I've gotten kicked out of more buildings than I could count.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:52]:
Maybe like, I'm just thinking of this like, is it like a New York thing? Because like, I remember like when I started working at Aerotech, nobody's really knocking on doors. Actually it was like calling into doors. Like, you were actually like your first recruiting job, like walking into somebody's office. Like, hey, you know, I'm Sean.

Shaun Hervey [00:10:05]:
Literally like, that's it. That's it. So Long island is different, right? Like, there are a lot of. It's hard to do it if you're in the city, right. You can't just like walk into these startup buildings. Like you can't do that. Just ever since 9 11, you have to be really be able to like have an appointment before you could go be allowed upstairs. But not Long Island.

Shaun Hervey [00:10:25]:
It is a free for all. So once you get into like one of these really big buildings, if you can get one appointment, then you could go to all of the flight wharfs, all of the offices and everything. So I would just finish up my one schedule appointment, knock on the door and then. No, we don't utilize agencies here. Okay, great. I'll call Tom back on Monday, go around and then I would usually get like 45 minutes in and just like clockwork, clockwork security would come because they see you on the cameras and they know exactly what I'm doing. So unless I was gonna be like one of those movies that like takes like the. The ficus behind me and tries to like go throughout the corridors of the buildings, I was getting kicked out all the time.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:14]:
I love that. And would you decide to make the move over to internal from, like, knocking on doors every day?

Shaun Hervey [00:11:21]:
Yeah, it was probably like two years in, and I was like, you know, the whole knocking on the door thing and is probably not a sustainable life. And I wanted to learn the other side of it, which was the recruiting side. Because the people in the office, I don't know, I just like the idea of being able to, at the time, like, help people and have the conversations. It is what it is now. I know now what recruiting is and kind of can be. But at that moment in time, it was like, huh, I want to do what they do.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:55]:
Wait, were you, like, at the Deco, just on the sales side, like, you weren't even doing any of the recruiting?

Shaun Hervey [00:11:59]:
Yeah, I wasn't doing recruiting. I was just doing the business.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:02]:
Like, most of the time. Like, the grad shops, they stick you in as the recruiter, then grow you to an account manager. They literally just shoved you into the sales side.

Shaun Hervey [00:12:09]:
Sales side. That's it. That's it.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:13]:
Okay. Two years later, you're like, I actually want to be a recruiter. I'm giving all these jobs to the recruiters. I'm not working on them, I'm not filling them. I'm just knocking on the 700th door this month.

Shaun Hervey [00:12:22]:
700 doors this month. And it's crazy. Like, there were two jobs that really stuck out that I remember was. One was, it was a company in Long island, you know, Snapple Iced Tea. You remember Snapple, I see right there. Obviously they're around everywhere. They had a big warehouse almost like around the corner from where I live now. And they're in my territory.

Shaun Hervey [00:12:43]:
And I just knew that they had a ton of temps running around there. I just had a ton of intel. I knew, like, half of that business back there. And there was like 80 to 100 people at the time, were temps from another agency. And I kept trying to get in touch with this one guy, this guy Mike, who was like the warehouse manager. And I would call, I became best friends with the receptionist. But I could never get Mike ever. Like, he was always, like, coming in late.

Shaun Hervey [00:13:12]:
He just never called me back. And then one day I got up because I knew that he worked really early in the morning. I couldn't sleep one night, so I went in to work. I didn't go to the office because it was like 4:00 in the morning. I went right to fucking Snapple Iced Tea. And I showed up with coffee and, like, bagels and stuff like that. And I just walked in the back. I don't know what Possessed me.

Shaun Hervey [00:13:39]:
I just walked in, I just started to talk to this guy Mike. Where's Mike? Are you Mike? Who's Mike? And the guy just finally I corner him and he's like, I gotta tell you man, you were annoying as, but touche, touche.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:55]:
And you got, and you got the contract.

Shaun Hervey [00:13:56]:
I got the contract, got the contract. And that's the stuff that I miss, right? Just being able to show up and like, okay, what are you going to do now? Are you going to kick me out at 4 o'clock in the morning? Which probably yeah, most people would, but at that point it worked.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:12]:
Okay. And I want to shift over to like the internal side before we jump back to you starting your own business. Like you've worked at some startups, you've worked at a lot of like great places. You grew yourself internally recruiter to TA leadership. Like how did you get into the leadership role before you realized it wasn't for you?

Shaun Hervey [00:14:30]:
It took me a little while. I mean I was never one of these people that was super hell bent on becoming TA leadership to become begin with because I just knew it wasn't really like what I thought it would be. A lot of it was being in the meetings all the time and just having to be responsible for like every. Everything that did not go right when it comes to recruiting was on you. Right. So I really want to make sure that I was ready for that before I really wanted to work towards that, if that makes sense. So probably about like six or seven years in, that's when I kind of like made the conscious decision, like that's what's probably the most logical next step. And then I was in the seat for maybe a year and a half.

Shaun Hervey [00:15:16]:
Then I was laid off from that job which was a company called Live Person at the beginning of COVID and then the next job that I had, next internal job that I had was at a digital healthcare company. And then I realized like I can't do this anymore.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:32]:
Well, and jumping back into like your TA job search, like internal talent acquisition, one of the things we talked about offline and real quick for the listeners, he actually made a bunch of placements recently from TikTok and we're going to talk about that. But back to, I love this story. So back to this. Like one of the things that you did that I think you did different is when you are looking for a new TA role, you contracted yourself out. There's a lot of people that like are, you know, go get a contract recruiting job. But you're also like I hate to say this. If you do that, you're missing on the spread. You win.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:04]:
Contracted yourself out to these companies. Can you talk about how you did that and why you did that?

Shaun Hervey [00:16:09]:
Like, you said, the margins, you're making a lot more. Right. And if you could, if you're able to, I guess LLC yourself or S Corp yourself, like I did at the time, it was just kind of like going in there and having the conversations, networking with, like, the leadership, the talent acquisition leadership, and just saying, listen, I'm hired gun. I come in, I'll work on the roles that you want me to work on. And, you know, at the end of the day, like, I'm not something that you got to pay for in terms of benefits or anything like that. If once the hiring is done, we kind of go our separate ways, if that's really what it kind of comes down to, and it's a try before you buy sort of scenario also. And it's odd because on three of the places that I contracted myself out to, I ended up staying for, like, a year and a couple of months anyway. So it was always.

Shaun Hervey [00:16:54]:
It was good. But, yeah, just having the conversations, just about like, hey, it's the best of both worlds for you.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:01]:
Like, how did you even, like, open up these conversations? Cause I think that's one of the things a lot of recruiters are afraid of is, like, even that freaking message. Like, how did you start that conversation, structure it, and get in the door?

Shaun Hervey [00:17:11]:
So the first one, I applied for a contract recruiter job. Like, it was just that simple. And what happened after that one was over. I stayed at that company for, I want to say, like, a year. Like, I signed a deal with them. It was like, it was supposed to be for three months. And then they asked if I want to stay on for a couple more months. I said, okay, sure.

Shaun Hervey [00:17:32]:
And next thing I know, like, three months again rolls around, and I'm like, do you want to do for a couple more months? I'm like, why don't we just make it a year, guys? Let's just make it a year. You have a couple more things to hire. I don't have a lot going on. Like, my wife was pregnant at the time. We were expecting our first kid. So I'm like, let's just kind of keep me on here. Let me just do this, and we'll grow all the locations. And it was great, and it worked out.

Shaun Hervey [00:17:54]:
So I followed that leader that I was working with to another company where I just did the same thing, which was your Contract. The talent leader that I followed, he knew me like, we were very good friends at that point too. And he really was able to speak to my work. And that was a little bit more of a. In kind of going to the CEO and like writing out like my hourly and this is what I do. And it'd be like a year long contract because that's how much they had to build, right? It was a really big build. It was building go to market in New York, San Francisco. Then I went out to Missoula, Montana for a couple of months.

Shaun Hervey [00:18:36]:
Building out. Yeah, it was really crazy. It was a crazy, crazy time. Like spending a week, a month in Montana for about like five or six months. It was wild. It was fun though. I enjoyed it. Made a lot of great relationships and that's how I was able to just pivot to what I'm doing now.

Shaun Hervey [00:18:57]:
It was a lot of these people understood and they knew me and they worked with me. They knew that I was able to like, deliver on all the obligations to them as a internal partner and they just were able to speak to the work. And I've gotten a number of wrecks from people I've worked with in the past.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:13]:
So it sounds like you're getting wrecks from like, you know, relationships from eight, nine years ago. Like, how are you keeping up with these relationships memes?

Shaun Hervey [00:19:22]:
Like, you need, like, you name it. Like the weirdest shit. Like, I will talk to people if I see something that reminds me of someone or something that we work on in the past. Or like, just like, I'll go through my lists every once in a while because now, obviously working in the agency space, you have to be able to stay on top of that stuff. And I was able to just have relationships with people where, I don't know, I just jive with certain people. Certain people jive with me. Others definitely don't jive with me. But the ones that do, I'm able to really just like, have a long relationship with them.

Shaun Hervey [00:20:02]:
Like, I have a unique way in my own way. I guess I'm just like finding my tribe, if that makes sense, or finding my own people. And yeah, once you're in my phone and once you start bullshitting and texting and all that fun stuff, it kind of never ends.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:16]:
Okay, so you're not finding your tribe. It sounds like you're slowly building your own tribe and that's like turned into business. That's turned into, like, you create content and we'll talk about that too. But, like, did you purposely go out there and try to like, I'm going to build my own tribe of people that want to be, want to buy from me, but want to utilize me as a recruiter.

Shaun Hervey [00:20:37]:
It was always in the back of my mind to keep relationships going. Right. Because a lot of the time also it was a two way street. Right. It wasn't just me hitting them up for, for business. Right. These are people that throughout the courses of the year, like, they would reach out to me if they had a friend who wanted it in at a company, if I knew somebody or looking at their resumes, helping them in whatever they needed in terms of career, just kind of talking them off the ledge in terms of like, hey, I got an offer at xyz. Is that what market rate is? Like, just always being there and doing the right thing? I think put me in place to be able to go to those people to ask for business at that point.

Shaun Hervey [00:21:24]:
Right. So I think yeah, it was just really being able to maintain those relationships.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:32]:
After that, like the work started happening. You started having to put in the work and figuring out how to build a business. What were some of the early struggles that you've had that you've overcome with that man?

Shaun Hervey [00:21:44]:
Honestly, trying to figure out cold business development people that I don't know, people that I've never spoken to before, people that have, I guess, you know, I've been connected with on LinkedIn and hey, they're in my ICP now. How do I go and approach them after being connected with them for so long? Just trying to develop that muscle, man, it's, it's hard. Especially when you haven't cold called in like 10 years. Like, that's why 95% of it. I just wish all these companies were like on Long island and I could just walk in like I did back then. That is easier for me. It's just like, hey, I'm here. People were genuinely curious.

Shaun Hervey [00:22:21]:
They'd be like, what the hell is this guy want? Who the, who is this? Who is he? Why is he here? And people will come out and see me. It's like FaceTime, but unfortunately in this world it's just not the way that it is anymore. And that has been really, really difficult.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:37]:
Oh, but one of the things you've also done, like, okay, that's a challenge that you've been working through, a challenge that you've overcome, but the business is coming in. But you also create a lot of a content. Yeah. Like, first of all, talk about like the content that you create and then share the story of how you've made a few placements from a freaking TikTok video.

Shaun Hervey [00:22:57]:
Yeah. So in terms of content, like, it was always kind of like a means to an end. I have, like a love and hate relationship with it. I feel like just the content I've always put out there and doing the things that I kind of do, I like trying to do things differently. You know, like, you see the same sort of content that's out there on a daily basis, people talking about, like, the ATS and all of that fun stuff. And as much as I love getting in those arguments with internal recruiters over that stuff, it's just kind of like you get lost. And one of the things I always said, if I was going to run my own company, I was going to do it the way that I wanted to do it. And I've always wanted to do things differently.

Shaun Hervey [00:23:41]:
And I like marketing and I like content, and I've always made videos. I am a creative at heart. I mean, like, I'm a musician. I've done comedy. I've done all these different things. And for me, I always thought I wanted to try that and see how it lands and if it sticks. Right. And the videos that have had, like, the most traction, they've stuck.

Shaun Hervey [00:24:03]:
And I've gotten a couple of content, a couple of clients out of it, for sure. But sometimes there are videos that don't click and people don't like them at all. And the messaging that I guess I put out there too, it's. It's really hit or miss. That makes sense.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:22]:
But it's like you've developed your own tribe and like that messaging clicked for somebody and what was it? Three placements from a TikTok video.

Shaun Hervey [00:24:29]:
Yeah, yeah. Three placements from one TikTok video, which was interest. It was funny because I make, for context, I make commercials, right? Like, I do these commercials in my garage. I do them in my backyard, and they're just like, really silly. I guess if you've ever seen, like, the Mint Mobile Ryan Reynolds sort of commercials where he's talking, like, really fast just about the company and what they do and making, like, jokes off the top of his head, it's kind of similar to that. And I made one commercial where I'm talking about Arkham Talent and we have a no dickhead guarantee in our contract, right? And I just go on this rant about, well, at Arkham Talent, we don't hire dickheads, because if you hire one dickhead, the next thing that you know, your entire sales organization is full of dickheads. And we don't want to do that. And I sent that video to an sdr, which is part of my strategy going like, bottom up.

Shaun Hervey [00:25:27]:
He sent that to one of his sales leaders and next thing I know I'm talking to the sales guy because he thought it was really interesting and ballsy that I would send it. And yeah, got a couple of SDR hires and a mid market AE hire out of it.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:43]:
That is incredible. I as like, you know, pretty much all my videos are just like repurposed, you know, podcast videos. And I feel like after that I need to go like, cut some of my own.

Shaun Hervey [00:25:56]:
You know what though, man? Like, it gets attention, but if it's not the right type of attention, then you could really mess it up. I'm lucky to not have anybody respond super negatively to any of them. But it could definitely be something like, you wouldn't send something like that to a CEO. Like you have to send that to a very certain type of person. You have to send it to someone that you know, like maybe like a warm lead, you know, or somebody in your network already that knows who you are and knows what you do. You've seen the name on your content sometimes, right? Sending that out cold to like C level people. I would not recommend doing it.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:35]:
Okay. And like talking about content again, like, you know, one of the things that I've been watching you do and we've talked about this is I feel like so many recruiters send the same canned message since that's been around, since 1980. When it comes to like business development and candidate stuff, you're a lot more direct in your approach. Can you talk about, first of all, like, why you're different and why the directness works?

Shaun Hervey [00:26:55]:
I think it works in a number of different ways. Right? Like, there are definitely people that I'll be less risk averse to emailing in the way that I email other people. Right. Again, like, I'm super like locked into like what my strategy is, meaning if I want to be creative, if I really want people to see the emails that I send, I'm sending that to a very specific person. Right. Like, I have another email campaign that I do is basically like, starts off like, so you've hired an idiot, what next? And then it kind of goes down like, well, you know, if you hire one idiot, then you know, your boss is going to think you're an idiot and they're going to think that you can't hire anybody. So you don't want your boss to think that you're an idiot. And you're out on the street because they hired a bunch of idiots.

Shaun Hervey [00:27:46]:
Right? That's another one that I'll send to people that are, you know, a little bit more like I recognize their name, I see who they, they are, they've interacted with me, they know who I am. But when it comes to like people I don't know, cold is. I just really focus on npc. Like I really just do. I don't have the balls of send stuff like that to people I don't know at least would be receptive of it or completely cold leads or C level or anyone like that. Like I don't have those type of balls. Just don't.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:22]:
Well, you know, mpc, okay, so MPC has been working a lot for you, but also like you have experience being from the internal and being an internal TA lead. Like how has that, you know, your experience there, how has that helped you work with other like the internal recruiters of the companies that you're working with?

Shaun Hervey [00:28:39]:
Yeah, I mean like when I was internal, the only messages that I really thought resonated with me were like two things. People that were really knew the business. Right. Or people that came to me through a referral for someone in the company. Right. Like when I was internal, I didn't really use a lot on a go to market side. I just didn't because I did most of it. I knew most markets that I was working with.

Shaun Hervey [00:29:08]:
But engineering, I don't know. I wouldn't know a good developer or if they came up and kicked me right in the face. I just don't know it. I just, it's not my world. So I relied on a lot of agencies and I know that a lot of people will kind of shy away on the internal side and be like we never work with agencies, blah blah, blah, blah blah blah. But like I utilized those partners and I needed those partners to succeed to build the business. Because I couldn't go out and build, go to market and you know, have a team of recruiters that I was also managing and training and all that fun stuff and trying to recruit for engineering something. I had no idea what the hell was going on.

Shaun Hervey [00:29:46]:
A lot of that was referral base, the people that I would utilize internally. But how it changed my business here, it's hard because the other methodology that worked was like, hey listen, I see that you have an AE open. And they caught me on the right time where a hiring manager was up my butt about something and I didn't have time to get to it or I haven't filled it, or the wrecks were not coming in, or the candidate flow was just super lax. But not. I would take a call and say, okay, like, do you really have a person or are you just sending me some candid resume? And that's happened before where people would say, yeah, I absolutely have a candidate. And I would write them back, all right, cool, can I talk to them in 20 minutes? And they'd be like, oh, no, we don't smell.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:31]:
There you go. The importance of your NPCs.

Shaun Hervey [00:30:34]:
Yeah, if you have somebody. And there were absolutely a couple of times where I called their bluff, they called my bluff, and I ended up talking to the guy. And yeah, I had never hired somebody on that side of the business from the agency world because, like I said, I go to market is kind of in my wheelhouse. But, yeah, engineering, I would always just. Yeah, I needed that partnership.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:56]:
I love that. Well, is there any, like, you're looking back on, like, you launching the business after being an internal ta? And if somebody is, like, thinking about that, whether they got laid off, whether, like, they're in a recruiting job that just isn't paying what they want or isn't, like, what they really dreamed of, what advice would you give to them on the first three steps that they probably need to do if they actually do want to make that jump to their own business?

Shaun Hervey [00:31:21]:
Get comfortable being rejected. Just. You gotta get comfortable with it. If it's something that you're gonna. They take to heart, probably not going to be the area or the way to go for you. The second thing is get used to the idea that you are going to have to utilize a lot of your business.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:44]:
Cold, right?

Shaun Hervey [00:31:45]:
I got lucky. I absolutely got lucky with a couple of my first. I think eight or nine placements came just from people that I knew that were just like, okay, here we go. Like, it was great, but the well runs dry. It runs dry quick. And I'm figuring that out as I go. And I will report back to you, Ben, on how it does go because, listen, there might be a time where I say, hey, Ben, listen, why don't you throw me something? No. But, yeah, you really need to just be open to putting yourself out there.

Shaun Hervey [00:32:18]:
Another thing, reciprocity. Don't. You can't depend on people.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:22]:
Talk about that real quick.

Shaun Hervey [00:32:23]:
Yeah. So as many people in my network that were great to me, like, I'm thinking about three or four people that were just really able to help me out. Right? There are people that, you know, you work with and you do things For Right. That when you come in and call in a favor for they vanish off the face of the earth or they won't even be willing to make a connection for. For you. You know, and it's not to their fault 95% of the time. It's maybe it's just because they're not in a position to. But having to go out there and just like be comfortable with like learning the basics of recruiting, not having to rely on your internal network all the time is probably where I would.

Shaun Hervey [00:33:03]:
I would say to start to.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:05]:
Okay, awesome. Well, before we jump over to the quickfire questions, is there anything else that you want to share? Whether it's like, you know, differences between internal and external? You know, getting out there and chasing your dreams yourself and just, you know, being not afraid to somebody call you insane?

Shaun Hervey [00:33:21]:
Yeah. I mean, I've literally been getting called insane my entire life. So this is really just fitting right between everything that I've done with the music and the creative stuff, the comedy stuff. So like, I'm used to the insane stuff. When it comes down to, I guess doing what it is that you want to do, you just gotta fucking do it. Like, you just gotta do it. Like that's the first thing that you have have to do. You have to take calculated risks.

Shaun Hervey [00:33:47]:
Like if you're somebody who's sitting at home and you've got two kids, another on the way, and you don't have, you know, months and months saved up, I don't recommend doing it. You have to be able to take calculated risks. And that all depends on everyone's individual status, individual situation. There's no one size fits all. If you're a single guy, single gal, and you're doing it on your own, and you've got rent and you got your food to pay for, okay, great. It you got money in the bank, go do it. Go do it. You can go back to the agency, you can go back to another agency tomorrow.

Shaun Hervey [00:34:21]:
But like, if you're working internally at an agency right now, if you're doing that, why are you not doing it on your own? You can go and do that. You could do it. But again, it depends on everybody's situation, right? Yeah, that's really it. Oh, and in terms of the internal versus the external, completely different jobs. I don't care what you say, I don't care what anyone says. Any internal recruiter that tells you I could go external, it is not the same thing. It's not. Yes.

Shaun Hervey [00:34:52]:
You are racing against. You got to get these jobs filled right? You have to make your hiring managers happy. That stuff is the same. But there's nothing in a position like you or I, as you know, important as speed when we are working with golly knows how many other agencies are out there trying to fill it. People are trying to figure out like who our clients are so they can go out and take our business from us. It's another level. It's just a different pace, is a different, different world. And listen, I came from the internal world and I'm the first two totally different functionalities.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:30]:
I'm with you on that. Like we have to so much speed, so much that we have to do. And I remember like my first internal job was at a large government contractor called Lockheed Martin. Oh yeah, like, if you want a good laugh, like they put me in charge of some Kaizen project and Agile, whatever the hell it was. But we were able to get our touch points down to 92 touch points per hire. 92 based off this Kaizen event that we spent weeks working on.

Shaun Hervey [00:36:00]:
Holy moly. 92.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:03]:
Jesus.

Shaun Hervey [00:36:05]:
All's insane.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:07]:
So like what you just said, I remember like a recruiter saying like, oh yeah, like we do the agency world all day long. And I'm like, it took you six months to find three engineers. Like the agency would they need to find it by like this week.

Shaun Hervey [00:36:21]:
When you look at the two sides, the in house and the agency, they have to function together. It's not about what's harder, who's better if both sides of the house. I've always felt like this and like I was saying earlier with my engineering partners, like, I couldn't do it. I couldn't function or run the business without external partners. Right? So the ideology that we're still out here having these arguments all day on LinkedIn with all these people, just the internal versus the external and the RPO versus this is like, shut up. It all goes to one goal and that's getting the hire, that's getting the candidate in the door, getting them happy, excited about the role. Because the only people that lose out or get screwed in the end, if we're all like bickering and back and forth and we drop the ball is candidate. That's not what we want to do.

Shaun Hervey [00:37:13]:
So fighting over this stuff is just kind of, kind of dumb.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:17]:
Well, jumping over to the quickfire questions and you know, talking about like a new recruiter, like you've started off like literally knocking on doors. The internal TA leadership, now your own search firm, Arkham Talent. What advice would you give to a brand New recruiter that's literally just getting started in our industry. Like what would you tell them to succeed?

Speaker C [00:37:37]:
You gotta put in, you just have to do the work like you gotta do. You gotta make the cold calls, you gotta be smart, you gotta be able to just. He's gotta be able to roll with the punches a lot of the time too. Because you're also gonna have a lot of people telling you different things, different tools to use, different automations, different that, different this. If you keep getting in front of people, you keep doing things the right way, you're creative, you make the cold calls, you make the dials, it'll happen, right? So I think just putting in the old fashioned work is probably number one. Number two is probably say that you have to trust your gut on people too. And you have to be able to walk away when you know that you're getting screwed or you're working on something that you're never gonna fill. Because 95% of the time if you have a client that is just completely unbearable, unrealistic, they have crazy expectations.

Shaun Hervey [00:38:35]:
You're not making any money off of that. You're not making any money off of that. You gotta be able to know when to walk away.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:41]:
Who. That's. I think one of the biggest things recruiters have challenges with is saying goodbye to not a good client. Can you call out a client if you haven't made a placement and made money?

Shaun Hervey [00:38:51]:
No. I mean I literally, I walked away from a client that I worked at for like a year and a half just because I'm like, I can't do this stuff for you contingency anymore. Like, it's just, it's too much. And this was like three weeks ago. So gotta be able to do it and spend your time finding another client or something else to do.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:14]:
I know we've talked about this. You said you made your seven, your purse like seven to nine placements from people that you knew.

Shaun Hervey [00:39:20]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:20]:
How did you go back and like rekindle that conversation or kick that conversation off like, hey, I'm launching my own business. Like, how did you do it?

Shaun Hervey [00:39:28]:
That's it. You just said it. That is it. One of them was a VP of the president at one of my last companies that I worked with. He left that company and went to another company and I worked directly with him, directly for him. Shot him a text. This was last summer that, hey, you know, I'm officially 100% doing this thing on my own. Flying.

Shaun Hervey [00:39:56]:
Let's rock and roll. And he's like, good, okay, I Want you to talk to this guy, that guy, and if you know they want to work with you, you're good to go. We'll get everything going. So that was three AES, a head of customer success and ahead of product. So I got four searches out of that one client.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:17]:
I think it's one of those things that I think so many people, when they make that jump, they're afraid to even send that text message.

Shaun Hervey [00:40:22]:
Yeah, I mean, don't. That's the lowest hanging fruit that you have.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:27]:
Okay, perfect. I love that. Has there been a book that has had a huge impact in your career?

Shaun Hervey [00:40:31]:
Yeah, it's called Lycanomics. I forgot the name of the author, I guess in that to you later. But essentially what the book really did was just talk about like how to position yourself and your marketing and how you want to be perceived. Right. And just kind of like giving like a lot of different details and stories of brands that have failed and went back and have done things to be likable to the public and kind of take some of those ideologies and utilize that in how you go to market and how you sell and. And how you kind of just present yourself. And there are a couple of really cool stories about like Domino's on, like 2009, they went through like whole onslaught of just like PR disasters. There was a couple of guys in one location that were caught, like doing really disgusting things into a pizza box.

Shaun Hervey [00:41:27]:
And that same year they did a research, market research thing, and it came back like, oh, the pizza tastes like cardboard. And essentially how they're able to turn it around is like the CEO just came out and was like, guys, we fucked up. Basically that was a marketing message like, we screwed up so badly that we are going to be working to make sure that this never happens again. And they went on a whole marketing campaign, like, making this is what it was. The market research came back and it said that the pizza tasted like ketchup. So they just did a lot of like clever marketing around their pizza tasting like ketchup. And people really, like, they appreciated the honesty because they had a company that was coming out and saying, we just completely dropped the ball here. Like, this was awful.

Shaun Hervey [00:42:22]:
Like they humanized themselves instead of pushing things under the rug. And I think in a year and a half or two years, they turned like the sales completely around from that point in time, you know, when it was just like not doing really well. So just stories like that really just kind of made me think just about how I go to market and how I Just kind of like embrace the full vulnerability sometimes. And sometimes just being who I am.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:49]:
Like, you're bringing the human back into recruiting.

Shaun Hervey [00:42:52]:
I try to. I try to. And like the one thing that personally I'm horrible at trying to be anybody else, I. Well, bad. I don't have that corporate like switch on. I'm just. If I was talking to, you know, Steve Jobs right now, I'm talking to him the same way I talk to you. I just don't have that ability to be or act like I'm something that I'm not.

Shaun Hervey [00:43:20]:
So there's no point in trying to hide that or trying to run away from that. And if you jive with, I guess, how I come across and who I am, great. If you don't, like, we could still work together and still be cordial and everything. But like, I can't be someone that I'm not.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:37]:
So I'm kind of curious on the next question because the Go to Market space is always so many things coming at you. So many tools, like so many different AI things. I feel like there's a new thing coming out every day in Go to Market. What is your favorite tech tool as a recruiter?

Shaun Hervey [00:43:53]:
My phone. My phone camera. I like to make videos, as you can tell. Like I'll. I'll make videos and I'll send them directly to the clients, to potential clients. I did it the other day. I ended up getting a meeting out of it, which was awesome. They're not ready to hire, but they're going to hire in 2025, which is great.

Shaun Hervey [00:44:13]:
But just doing a lot of that super personalized reach out. And I also have Apollo, which I hired a couple of guys to help me out with some marketing recently on utilizing that tool and helping me with messaging and going to market that way. I'm completely cold because, you know, that's something that I still have to work on. But other than that, man, it's just like TikTok cold calling, finding numbers everywhere and just going at it.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:41]:
Absolutely love that.

Shaun Hervey [00:44:42]:
I'm not super technical. It's actually kind of sad how untechnical I am being the Go to market analysis, right? I'm in tech. I'm in the tech world. My wife makes fun of me all the time. She's like, I don't understand how you are able to talk about all these different technologies. And you could talk about all this stuff. I hear you on the phone, but you still can't figure out how to, you know, put the batteries in the remote. Like, I don't Know, what's the matter with gear?

Benjamin Mena [00:45:07]:
And my next question is kind of, I think, is important for the listeners. Like, you know, you got started, you know, but when you jump out on your own, like, it is hard. There are hard days. How do you make it through those potentially hard days and hard weeks to keep on going?

Shaun Hervey [00:45:22]:
And there are days where it takes a lot, especially when you're just figuring it out, right? Like, the first six months, it's really hard, right on the rejection side. And I was lucky enough to have immediate work, but even after, like, having things to work on, still, like, you're also at that point where you don't want to just rely on what you have because you don't want to, you know, the pipelines to stop. You just have to, like, keep going. I made a video, and this is, like, really personal. I made a video of my kids, Like, a montage of my kids, and I'm getting a little, like, weird here. Sorry. To a song that, like, they love. I love.

Shaun Hervey [00:46:06]:
And it's just a song. It's called Atlas Falls by Shinedown. And the song is just like, if Atlas falls, which is, you know, it's a Greek God, the guy who holds up the world on his back, if that falls, and then the world falls apart. And, like, I see myself, like, as the atlas for my kids, my family and my. And for them. So I have to. I utilize that all the time. I look at that video when I'm just having those days where I'm like this.

Shaun Hervey [00:46:42]:
I'm done. I want nothing to do with it. I watch that video, and that snaps me back. Just like a little montage of them playing, running around. And with that music going, it just. It just gets me back in the place where I need to be. So that's how I personally get through those days. Sorry.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:59]:
Watch that video. Game on.

Shaun Hervey [00:47:00]:
Game on, man. Game on. I could get, like, yeah, I could get rejected all the time, but that video, it gets me, hits me a lot, and I'm ready to rock and roll.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:11]:
It kind of goes into, like. You know, I'm going to ask this question two different ways. You know, first, looking back at the very beginning of your recruiting career, and the second is looking back at, like, maybe a month or two after you started your company, but, you know, taking everything that, you know. Now, if you can give yourself some advice, going back to the very beginning of your recruiting days, what would you tell yourself?

Shaun Hervey [00:47:31]:
Probably to get real comfortable with the coke. Only, like, immerse yourself and just loving rejection. Just that is like, the hardest thing in this business, right, in terms of, like, what I've learned. And like I said, there's a million people that have been doing this a much longer time than I have been. But from what I've noticed is that it's not about getting in front of the people. Like you can get in front of the people. It just takes a long time. It takes a lot of different touches and having the balls to go back time and time, pick up the phone after they pulled you, hey, off.

Shaun Hervey [00:48:11]:
I don't use agencies finding something to get in front of them. Again, it's providing some sort of value to them to have them want to talk to you. Because at the end of the day, when it comes to business development, like, 95% of what we do is just chasing people that don't want to talk to us. They don't want to. Like, why would they? Like, recruiting is one of those things where if there's not a need, it's very hard to get in front of somebody and force a need or force an opening. Right. That's why the NPCs are so effective. And I don't think it's the hard part getting in front of them.

Shaun Hervey [00:48:45]:
I think it's having the balls to do so. And it all starts with cold calling. It all starts with putting yourself out there. All starts with just kind of saying fuck it and just dial, like, and listen, you lose a couple people, a couple people, like, cursy out. If that's the case, most of them aren't even going to remember you anyway. So call back in a couple months. Just is what it is. Just go do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:10]:
I feel like that's like the perfect advice I should have gave myself, like, back in the day, like when I first started Aerotech. Smile, dial and keep going. Same question, though. Like, you know, now that you've, like, had your business, you've been growing your business. If you could literally have a conversation with yourself, like maybe a month in, would you tell yourself to do anything different?

Shaun Hervey [00:49:28]:
I think early on I really relied a lot on branding and marketing and posting on LinkedIn and things along those lines. Cause that's really what worked for me. Like, that's where my audience was. That's where I could go to get warm leads. Right. I didn't grow up in the agency world where I could go and call like 25 clients that I used to have or I used to know because I was their account manager back in the day. So I had to start or what I thought was a Better idea with just bombing it with content. Bombing it with content.

Shaun Hervey [00:50:10]:
Because people only really knew me as an internal recruiter before then. But they knew me, they knew my name, they knew that I post dumb sometimes. They knew that I was going to talk about, you know, like my life and my kids and whatever it was. So I really tried to double down on that early until I learned very quickly that that does not produce a lot of business, especially in SaaS. And I see so many people out there that constantly talk about how they were able to build the business just by posting content on LinkedIn. Hasn't been my forte. Maybe I just am awesome or awful rather at the content, at attracting clients. But software and SaaS go to market.

Shaun Hervey [00:50:54]:
It's a very crowded world, world. So I noticed that I. Well, I figured out that I gotta go and make a change. So I started reaching out to more people and doing more of the networking. So I would probably say don't put an emphasis on content just starting. Just get into your network. People, you know, ask for favors, people that you've done things for. Reach out to them and just tell them, like, hey, listen, I'm starting a business.

Shaun Hervey [00:51:22]:
This is what it comes down to. This is what I want to do. These are my goals for next year. Can you help? Can you make an introduction to Steve who runs the recruiting department? I noticed that you guys utilized a couple of agencies in the past. Like, right, like that's what you've done. Yeah, I came from an agency. So just having those sort of conversations and just asking to be introduced to people, you're not going to get a yes if you don't ask.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:42]:
I love that. And before I let you go, yes, like, this has been awesome. I've been loving, like watching your story and the shifts that you've been making and like how you've been attacking them. Market, is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners?

Shaun Hervey [00:51:55]:
I think if you're someone that wants to go out and do things, if you want to do it your own way, there's literally no one or nothing stopping, right? There's nothing. It's you versus yourself all the time. I think when it comes down to what you want to do, at the end of the day, you shouldn't be letting people tell you what to do, how to do it. Everyone has their own personality, everyone has their own goals, their own way that they get there. Your life is not linear, right? You're gonna go, you're gonna try a million different things in business. You're gonna try A million different things everywhere, but you're not gonna be able to do it. You're not gonna be able to know if it's something that you'll want to do. You're not gonna be able to just.

Shaun Hervey [00:52:38]:
You're not gonna be able to do anything. But just don't fucking start. So just start. If I could do this or try to do this, anyone can. Literally anyone. There's so much opportunity. All you have to be able to do is just be able to talk to people. Be able to talk to people, right? Other than that, man, I don't know.

Shaun Hervey [00:52:59]:
That's all I really have, man. Like, I don't know. What else should I say? What other. What do other pants. What would Rich Rosen say right now? That's what I want to hear. What would Rich say?

Benjamin Mena [00:53:07]:
Oh, I'm just going to be interviewing him again sometime soon, so I'll keep you posted on that.

Shaun Hervey [00:53:12]:
Lovely.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:13]:
For those that are listening, I also am the host of the Pinnacle Societies podcast, so make sure to, like, you know, subscribe to that, to listen to those conversations, too. So Rich Rosen's. An upcoming episode.

Shaun Hervey [00:53:23]:
Rich Rosen.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:25]:
Rich, before I let you go, if somebody wants to follow you, how do they go about doing that?

Shaun Hervey [00:53:31]:
LinkedIn or TikTok is probably the two best places. I'm also on Twitter, but Twitter is this kind of. Or X. Whatever you want to call it nowadays, but mostly just stick to LinkedIn, TikTok if you want. Just pure chaos and pandemonium. Ben, you're on my TikTok, so you know what's up.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:53]:
Yeah, once every 30 days, I log.

Shaun Hervey [00:53:54]:
In, I'm like, hey, but no, man, this is awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I hope the episode does well for you, and it was just so cool being on with you, and I appreciate everything you do. I listen to the show all the time, so I'm probably going to cringe listening to everything that I said. But thanks so much for having me, man.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:15]:
Well, I'm excited that you shared and, you know, some of the things that we talked about, like the internal versus external. But I think that one of the most important things you said is when you talked about being Atlas and carrying the weight of your family. And for you to do that was to chase your own dreams, go out there, face the rejection, face those cold calls.

Shaun Hervey [00:54:34]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:34]:
So that way you can be the person for your family. That right there is just what so many other people are looking at and dealing with and realizing. But because you did it, if you're listening, you can do it too. And I want you to finish this year strong. I want you to spend time with the family during the holidays. But 2025, you're putting in the work. Now is going to be the year of personal abundance. I believe that for you.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:59]:
So let's go crush it.

Shaun Hervey [00:55:00]:
Let's do it.