From Zero to $100,000 Months with Kyle Rubattino and Joe Walsh

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
Coming up on this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast. I love that both of you guys were so pivotal in the growth of the organizations that you guys worked with. You know, Kyle, you helped scale a company from, what was it, a hundred to twelve hundred. Joe, you help Uber go from 5,000 to 33,000 employees. Like, that's just like phenomenal growth.

Joe [00:00:18]:
What we found through working at startups and being talent leaders at startups, a lot of the challenges around hiring are not sourcing and closing and getting candidates in the door. It's around all the processes that go behind that to make that a reality.

Kyle [00:00:35]:
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.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:54]:
I'm excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast because working with startups, Juan, they're exciting as hell. But how the hell do you get in as a recruiter? How do you make those partnerships? How do you make those relationships? And how do you make it work for you? I'm so excited. I got Joe and Kyle to share on exactly what they are doing and how they're approaching things as agency, but it doesn't feel like an agency to the clients. So we're going to walk through exactly what they're doing. But here's something I'm super excited about now. I'm excited about picking their brains, how they figured out how to build a partnership with each other. Because so often as recruiters, you look at someone and you're like, you know what? I think this could work out great. And then I've seen other recruiters where you're like, oh, that did not work out great.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:35]:
So, you know, figuring out how to build the perfect founder partnership for your recruiting business is a very important lesson to learn. So, Kyle, Joe, welcome to the podcast.

Joe [00:01:45]:
Hey, how's it going?

Kyle [00:01:47]:
Thanks for having us.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:49]:
So, all right, I'll let Joe get started. Like, what are you guys doing now? Talk about your company.

Joe [00:01:55]:
Yeah. So Kyle and I have formed Mural Group, and basically what we do is we haven't gone and niched down like a lot of the recruiting firms out there. Talk about, really the only niche that we operate in today is with early stage startups, really, from like seed stage to probably series B, series C. And we do a variety of different things. We'll do contingent and retained search. We'll do more of the RPO model, but we also offer a lot of consulting services as well. So what we found through working at startups and being talent leaders at startups, A lot of the challenges around hiring are not sourcing and closing and getting candidates in the door. It's around all of the processes that go behind that to make that a reality.

Joe [00:02:43]:
So that's what we've been focused on. We started this year in January and since then we've seen pretty tremendous growth.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:51]:
And I'm excited to talk about the growth. Like I know some of the numbers that we were talking about beforehand. You guys were looking at March of $3,000, which. And then turn that into October, 100k months of recurring revenue. Like we're going to break this down. But before we even do that and talk about some of the secrets you guys are doing, how did you guys end up in this wonderful world of recruiting? We'll start with you, Kyle.

Kyle [00:03:13]:
Yeah. So I didn't know about the world of recruiting like many of us when I entered into the professional world. I got a business admin degree and what am I going to do? I'm from Northern California, so I got into the wine industry at first, quite quickly realized that wasn't. Wasn't fast paced enough, wasn't exciting, just wasn't for me. And there was a local agency, an executive search firm that worked throughout the industries and gave me an opportunity. So I got into a family agency first, cut my teeth there for a couple years. I think I learned a lot of the fundamentals about how to be a really good recruiter on the agency side. After that I moved to the big city, went to San Francisco, joined an rpo and that's where I kind of fell in love with it and where my career took off.

Kyle [00:04:05]:
I got put in house at a company that was then App Annie, now Data AI. And I got to be their only recruiter on site in their San Francisco office reporting to the Chro. And I grew our RPO team from 1 to 7 total as the company expanded. Loved what I was doing, but I wanted to learn more. I wanted to get really in the weeds and be a part of a company. Right. When you're in an rpo, it's fantastic, but I wanted to know every bit about what the business needed and what happened after I placed these candidates. So I went to a company called Six Cents, which was about 95 folks when I joined 95 to 100 and spent three years there as their head of talent, growing the company to over 1200 folks.

Kyle [00:04:55]:
Expanding into. They had an office in India, but we opened another office expanding into EMEA and So that's where I learned the majority of what I leveraged today. That's where I made a lot of mistakes, but also had a lot of success. So that's kind of my recruiting story. After that, obviously, I took a pivot and knew that I wanted to leverage that experience that I had gotten in house through the rpo, through actually working at Sixth Sense. And I wanted to take that and do my own thing because I thought that the knowledge I had would allow me to jump into a lot of different companies and provide that same service and provide that same exponential growth to them. So that's how I got where I am today.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:38]:
You, Joe?

Joe [00:05:40]:
Yeah. I, like a lot of people, was going to film school and realized I was not going to be the next Steven Spielberg. So actually I interned at a news station down in Nashville, where I'm from, and got a chance to kind of sit down with all the different departments at the news station. And I gravitated towards the people in sales. And so when I went back to college, I started looking for sales internships and I landed at a recruiting agency. It was one of the, you know, suits every day kind of agencies, like downtown Chicago. And I had no idea that, like, recruiting was even a thing. I don't even think I knew what I was like, interviewing for when I showed up to the intern interview.

Joe [00:06:25]:
And I remember like, in my first week there, one of the sales managers came out on the floor and was like, is anybody missing a check for $18,000? And I was like, holy crap, these people are making like a lot of money doing this. And yeah, from there I wanted to kind of make it my, my career. So I spent a little bit of time in the agency world about a year and a half, and then I moved to la. The intention of potentially getting out of recruiting and trying to get into the film industry maybe in some sort of sales capacity. And I got a call from a recruiting company that was looking for a sorcerer for Uber Eats. And I hung up the phone immediately and I was like, I'm not interested. And then I went on LinkedIn and messaged everyone in the Santa Monica Uber office and landed at Uber. And that's where I would say, like, my career really kind of took off in recruiting.

Joe [00:07:21]:
And eventually after four and a half years at Uber, went to a company called Viho Technologies. We were about 20 employees at the time, joined as the first recruiter, built out the recruiting team there. And during that period of time, I noticed there was a significant gap in like the third party model and how they operated and the services that they could really provide to startups that were like, at our stage. So I knew once I left Veho, I wanted to go and start my own thing and focus on a recruiting third party model that made more sense for. For startup companies. And that's kind of where we are today.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:01]:
I love that both of you guys were so pivotal in the growth of the organizations that you guys worked with. Kyle, you helped scale a company from, what was it, a hundred to twelve hundred. Joe, you help Uber go from 5,000 to 33,000 employees. That's just phenomenal growth. And I hate to also say sometimes you guys pick the right horses.

Kyle [00:08:22]:
Yeah, yeah, sorry. I was gonna say, I think that that has a lot to do with it. Right. You gotta kind of get lucky and know where your strengths are, know where your weaknesses are. Like, for instance, when I was at six cents two and a half years into the run, things were getting really expensive, getting really big. Like I mentioned, we opened three other offices and so I had to go and hire myself my own boss. Right. But I had picked the right horse and we had seen such exponential growth that I didn't want my learning to stop.

Kyle [00:08:49]:
Right. And so I think that's an important piece of it all.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:52]:
Right, so I want to, like, find out, when did you guys meet?

Joe [00:08:57]:
Earlier this year. Really? Yeah, yeah. There's a gentleman who runs a business that kind of focuses on helping folks get their next role in the startup world. I had kind of got looped into working with them as like a coach kind of. After I had been laid off from viho, Kyle was introduced into the group somehow. I'm not sure how Kyle, but the guy who owns the business, like, texted me Kyle's profile. I don't know if I've ever told you this, Kyle. It was like, do you think this guy would be good? And I was like, yeah, I think he would be really good.

Joe [00:09:35]:
Sixth Sense was, you know, went crazy during his time there. He led a global team and then to pivot out of recruiting and go into, like, into the business, which, Kyle, I'll let you kind of tell that story if you want, is really difficult to do because I think some of the perceptions of recruiting. So he got into the group, we got introduced, and we kind of just stayed in touch. And then I was sort of already doing my own thing, and Kyle and I had a conversation one day and he was like, I'm thinking about starting to do my own thing too. And I was like, well, let's do it together. Like, let's do this. So, yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:10]:
Okay. So like finding a great partnership is hard, but this sounds like you guys just, it was like a match made in heaven. Love at first sight or love is blind. But how did you guys, you know, for the ones that are jumping in to listen to how we're doing the startups, we're going to cover that. That's going to be the main focus. But I want to spend some time focusing on the partnership side of the house. How did you guys evaluate yourselves and figure out you guys are the right fit? And we'll start with you, Kyle.

Kyle [00:10:39]:
Yeah. So Joe's right. Right. I was thinking about doing my own thing. I thought I had, as I mentioned before, the experience I had would provide me some unique skills in what I would consider an over commoditized market. Right. And so I thought I had a chance to really succeed. And when I called Joe, I was looking for some advice and when he presented the idea of, hey, should we do this together? At first I thought, I don't feel like splitting my check in half.

Kyle [00:11:10]:
That doesn't seem appealing to me. Right. But the more I thought about it and I called a couple of mentors, I called one mentor who is, I won't say his name, but he's the CFO of a really successful startup. And then another mentor who owned an RPO that was sold, again, really successful. And both of them were pretty candid and said, do you think you've got all the bases covered? You think you're a five tool player with no weaknesses? I don't know. I think that you should consider a partner if their strengths fill the gaps that you feel you have. And so I sat down and I took a real look at what are my strengths, what are my weaknesses and where do I want to get this thing to. Right.

Kyle [00:11:53]:
I know I can fill a few roles a month myself. That's not the problem. But I wanted to build something that was a lot bigger than that. And when I wrote down the checklist, there were things that I didn't know how to do. And when I looked at Joe's profile and the more I talked to Joe, I thought he fills those gaps. Right. There's overlap in this Venn diagram, but he's covering a lot of the space that I don't. And not to mention, I think, which is a really pivotal piece of advice I got was from the gentleman who sold his rpo, was it's a lot of fun doing it with somebody else.

Kyle [00:12:25]:
It's a lot of fun. And so those were the considerations I took into play. I mostly considered Joe's strengths and what would be advantageous to me. And now looking back, I think it's 50, 50, I think Joe's strengths plus it's a lot of fun having a partner. And so that's what I considered before I said, yeah, let's do this now.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:44]:
Before we jump over to Joe and get Joe side of this. Like when you sat down and ran the strengths and weaknesses, did you put down some weaknesses that you didn't even realize you had until you started writing this down?

Kyle [00:12:55]:
Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. I think when you're. Maybe I did think I was a five tool player, right, when I wasn't really getting pen to paper. But when I looked at Joe's profile and I looked at mine and I started writing it down, there was a really big piece that stood out to me and that's. I had had a lot of success at data, at $0.06 at these startups, but I've never been, I had never been in a world class recruiting.

Kyle [00:13:24]:
Right. What is the best of the best look like I didn't know that. And Joe had that with Uber. Right. He almost had the opposite trajectory as me, where he started best in class and then went on to do his own thing. Whereas I started as the first recruiter and built a team from scratch. So that was a big piece of it. And yeah, I hadn't considered that before that there was somebody that could teach me a lot about recruiting and as we scaled our team could really raise the bar of what I expected from our employees, our contractors and whatnot.

Kyle [00:13:55]:
As we grew and could deliver equality to customers, that is probably a step above what I could have delivered on my own.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:02]:
And Joe, when did you sit down and realize that, hey, maybe a partnership route is the right way for this business?

Joe [00:14:09]:
I think I wouldn't have really considered it outside of partnering with Kyle because I think like over a period of time we talked quite a bit and got to know each other quite a bit and shared a lot of the same philosophies around recruiting and around just talent and building an organization. And it was just pretty clear to me that he would be a great partner. But I think when we started to sit down and really think through like, how would we complement each other? We went through a lot of the basics around like, oh, your network is different from mine. You know, we can tap into that. But what we also brought to the table is like the sort of intangible skills that go into running a business. Like you're not just a recruiter anymore now. Right? Like, you're, like, the finance guy, you're the ops guy, you're the accountant guy, you're the marketing person. And yeah, Kyle brought a ton of that, like, operational rigor, like, really strong, like, financial skills.

Joe [00:15:13]:
Like, I think Kyle could probably go and, like, work at Goldman, like, right now. Like, she's, like, off the chain at, like, building a financial model. And so that's where I felt like it just made a ton of sense. Like Kyle said, we filled each other's gaps really well.

Kyle [00:15:28]:
Do you remember when I called you and I said, it's clear as day why I need you. Right. You've got the Uber network. I mean, don't get me wrong, six cents, great network, great group of folks, but Uber's probably a little bit more well known. Do you remember when I called you and I said, but what do you need for me? How. What. What's in this for you? I know what's in it for me. Yeah, but I think you had more foresight there than I did.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:52]:
Yeah, I know we were talking beforehand, before we hit record, but what happened to the business when Cal joined on, like, explosion.

Joe [00:15:59]:
And I haven't really, like, wrapped my head around, like, how it happened, but, yeah, we. We did. Like, when I started in January on my own, it was like, nothing, nothing. March, I think I did, like, three grand in revenue. And then Kyle joined, like, shortly after that, and it was like, 30 grand, 40 grand, 50 grand. And it's just been going up and up and up. And, you know, there's got to be something to just, like, being able to pick up the phone and call somebody and be like, what do you think of this idea? Like, how do you think of this, like, approach to, like, working with this client or having an issue here or, you know, and having that sounding board, I think is underrated.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:40]:
And before we jumped over to, like, the focus of the conversation from both of you guys, and we'll start with Kyle, 30 seconds, advice to another recruiter that you would give that's looking into partnering with another recruiter to start or build a company.

Kyle [00:16:53]:
Yeah. Nothing novel or outside of what we've been talking about, but what strengths do they have that you don't? Right. That's where I would start. And that's where you're going to get kind of a blueprint, a profile of the person that's going to fit. And then I think the second piece would be, do you get along? Get to know the person, because you're Going to be working together every day. I spend more time talking to Joe than I do my wife every day. And so make sure you like each other because you're going to be in the trenches together.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:24]:
Joe.

Joe [00:17:25]:
Yeah. Start with the foundational things, like, are they going to hustle? Are you going to hustle? Are you ready to hustle? Are you ready to match each other's like, hustle? That's like, you know, table stakes, right? But yeah, absolutely. I think you should share the same philosophy around, like, the end goal. You may disagree on, like, how you get there, but I think everything should be rooted in, like, a shared philosophy around, like, what your end goal is and what type of service you want to provide and what type of business you want to go after. And that's where Kyle and I, you know, align perfectly. And I think, like, that how we get there is we have conversations and sometimes we do disagree. And that's, I think, really healthy and really good in our partnership because we, we open each other's eyes to different approaches to things.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:14]:
Awesome. All right, meat of the conversation, guys. How do you guys work with startups and how are you guys so different than every other recruiter that's, like, you know, out there chasing the startup world? I mean, it's working for you guys. So what's the secret? Like, how are you guys approaching this?

Joe [00:18:33]:
First, go work at, like, a really great unicorn startup and make sure that a lot of them get really rich and start their own companies so you can have a huge network of people digitally. Not the thing with, like, startup hiring is the roles that you're hiring for really don't exist. You're looking for a sales executive, but it's not the traditional, like, sales executive role that you're going to hire at another, like a bigger company. You have to hire people who are like, operators first. They have a product mindset, strong business acumen. Like, you have to hire these people who are super well rounded. And so to identify that type of talent. The approach to startup recruiting is very different than the way I would approach a role at, like, a larger company.

Joe [00:19:20]:
I learned this a lot, like, when I went from Uber to Viho, you know, uber was like 30,000 people. I thought I was really good at recruiting at Uber. And then I went to Veho that was like 20 people. And I realized pretty quickly, like, the talent that we were bringing into Uber, like, just wasn't good in the context of veho and it was because of the stage. So how do you, like, you know, start from, like, first principles you have to think about it from the business objectives that the company is trying to solve and then from there. That's where you like translated into a talent strategy. And if you start from that place, you're going to have a lot more success finding the right talent for these early stage startups because the talent is like very untraditional compared to like larger companies.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:07]:
Okay, so you guys have literally just internalized an ethos of, you know, figuring out the problems and challenges of startups because you guys have been working around startups and turning that into like the talent strategies that you guys come in. Let me take a step back. Like how do you even like have that initial conversation? Let's just like pick a stage. Let's just say this is a seed company. How do you even start that conversation and how do you like you show them that value?

Joe [00:20:33]:
Yeah. I would say a lot of times a client will come to us and they say, we need XYZ role. And we're like, okay, great. That gives us like a direction to go. But we back up and in our conversation with them we try to understand what are the challenges that they need. So I'll give you like an example of like a product role. Right. So client comes to us and says they need a product manager or they need a head of product.

Joe [00:21:00]:
Okay, well how big is your engineering team? It's five people. Okay, what are some of the challenges you're having around product? We're not shipping fast enough. We have some issues with our engineering process. We need to streamline those. We need somebody who can be like the glue can really drive velocity. Okay, maybe you don't need like a head of product type person. Maybe you actually need like a senior product manager who is great at driving execution, but they don't need to be great at like the product roadmap, big picture strategy type stuff. So those are the kind of conversations that we're talking about.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:37]:
And Kyle, how often do you guys like get a, like a request for help and you guys like have to turn it around and be like, no, you guys really need this?

Kyle [00:21:46]:
With existing clients pretty often, I would say I think a lot of these conversations are nuanced. Right. And so this is the tricky part, right? And this is why we think, or what we think differentiates us a bit is you're going to talk to the head of ops, you're going to talk to the head of finance, the head of product, the head of sales at this 20 person startup. But they're all wearing a lot of hats too. And so listening, hearing what all of them are saying and being able to bring the information that the head of operations is talking about into the conversation with the head of product and then have a nuanced conversation around. I know we were talking about a senior this or principal that, but I've talked to X, Y, Z candidates, and here's where I think that this makes more sense. I'm happy to run down this road if you need to, but I believe it's just providing us evidence towards this. And I think when you're able to bridge that gap between the different leaders at the company, you're providing a service just in that.

Kyle [00:22:51]:
Right. They're all doing a lot of different jobs and they're really, really busy and they're having these conversations with you in a vacuum. And so when you're able to communicate between them and kind of pull that thread through, I think you provide a lot of value. And Joe and I can both attest to him. We both have a lot of conversations where we're being confided in by an executive here or director there saying, I don't know, maybe this is a good idea. And we get to be a trusted resource. That brings that to another. We are.

Kyle [00:23:21]:
Right? And we don't say, he said this, but we say, hmm, maybe this is a good idea. Right? Because you're the boots on the ground. You know the market, you know what these candidates are doing. And your inclination may not always be correct. They may not be wrong, but those two pieces of information together are needed to make the right hire, I believe.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:41]:
I feel like you guys go deeper in these conversations with the managers and with the teams and probably other recruiters. Is that like a huge separator between you and, like, I hate to say, your competition?

Kyle [00:23:50]:
I think so, yeah. I think so. I mean, so. And this is where I think if I was a recruiter that hadn't been ahead of talent or a talent leader, I would try to put myself in that seat. I would reach out to Joe and me and ask for advice on certain things or people like us. Right? Because when we're having these conversations, that's exactly what we're trying to do. I'm trying to put myself in their seat and understand what do they want, what are the resources they have and what are their options as a company. Right.

Kyle [00:24:21]:
If they want 30 profiles presented to them that match the buzzwords that they put on. Right. Or the requirements that they put on, there are a handful around every corner of agencies that can do that. There are systems that can do that. Right. And the systems are getting increasingly good at that and people are getting increasingly good at changing their resumes to match that. And so yeah, I think getting deep in these conversations is the only way to differentiate yourself.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:49]:
And I know one of the things that you guys have also been really good at is understanding the differences at each, we'll say valuation level, you know, whether A, seed, series A, series B, series C and what those internal teams need. And just for the listeners out there that you know, around the startup hiring or even just like, you know, supporting not startups, like how do you guys work with these internal teams to figure out what they need at those stages?

Joe [00:25:18]:
That's a tough one because I think one of the big, the most common mistakes I think a lot of maybe first time founders or early founders make is they want to hire way ahead of the actual role that they need today. So they want to hire this like, you know, C level person from like the company that they want to be. And it's like, all right, that person is not the right person. Like they're not going to drive the type of velocity that you want at your company. So I'm really big on, like you want to hire the person who has the project ability. Like you want to find that person five years ago and plug them into to this role and let them scale as your company can scale. That's like the key I think when it comes to startup hiring at an earlier stage company.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:09]:
Kyle, what about maybe a little bit of a later stage?

Kyle [00:26:12]:
I think that's a little bit harder. I was going to echo a lot of Joe's sentiments about finding somebody ahead of time, but even in the later stage I still think that there's room. I mean naturally as a company grows and gets bigger, they do have a better understanding of what they need. And as they build out headcount, I mean with a larger stage company, like if you're talking about a series C company, they have specific head count plans, they have budgets and they're a little bit more finite about what they want and they have a better understanding. Naturally they should. But I still think it is your responsibility to pressure test the market and bring that information back. Now to Joe's point, I think it's less, hey, you want somebody to run ops and partnerships, maybe you just go partnerships you run, you get the business, you get your series B and then we go and hire an ops expert. It's going to be less of that of completely changing the foundation of the role, but it's still going to Be identifying the characteristics of the candidate and coming back with market information on the candidates that you interviewed, what you've seen in the market where you've seen success, and providing those tinier curves in the direction you're going.

Kyle [00:27:28]:
And I do want to preface that. By no means do we. Our goal is not to change a hiring manager's mind, Right? We don't go into every role saying, you're wrong, we're right. Don't hire for that. Plenty of times they're right, but you're just keeping your eyes open. Like I said before, you are their bridge between the business and the talent pool out there. And so it's your responsibility to make them steer it in a little bit of a different direction if you see it necessary.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:58]:
No, I mean, I see that in the government contracting space. So often the government wants this, and I'm like, that's not really what you need. And then you have to build a case to bring back to the government that has no clue what anything about the role, actually. But they just put it on a piece of paper.

Kyle [00:28:13]:
Exactly. But nobody knows other than you.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:17]:
Well, I want to get into two things. You just talked about projectability, and I think this is probably a sixth sense that a recruiter has, just based on the conversations and the value that we pull out. But how do you, Joe, figure that out in a conversation saying, like, hey, mister, you know, startup exec, you know, cfo, CEO, founder, I just had a hundred conversations or reached out to a hundred people, had 25 conversations. I really think this person has projectability to take you guys where you want to go. Like, how do you figure that out? And how do you convey that to your partners?

Joe [00:28:49]:
I wish I had, like, a framework that I could give you that's like, they do this, this, and this. Projectable. But it is, like, really kind of a gut feeling. Like, I don't know if you've had 20,000 recruiter phone screens, right? Like, you start to pattern match over time, and you're like, you know, you can tell who. Who's going to be the person who gets the job a lot of the time, like, from the first conversation that you have with them. But I think there's, like, some baseline signals that you can, like, look for in folks. You know, the folks who are, like, really projectable tend to get promotions. Like, more often they tend to have longer tenure at companies, but they tend to not have too long of tenure at companies, like three or four years typically is like, I think what you see.

Joe [00:29:35]:
And you see a number of promotions at those companies. Those are typically, you know, a couple of the signals. The other signals you're probably going to get, like, throughout the process, like, we had a number of people at Uber who would go and do the craziest things to, like, prepare for the interviews. I'm talking, like, sign up. Well, this isn't that crazy, but they would, like, sign up and do like a hundred trips or like, you know, they would go and sign up and do like a hundred deliveries. There's a famous story. I don't know if it's like public or it's probably somewhere out there, but there was a guy at Uber, like, really early stage, way before I came there, who got declined for a job and then went and like, basically launched a new city for Uber and was like, hey, I launched this city for you. Here's all the drivers I signed up.

Joe [00:30:24]:
Can I get the job now? And I do end up getting the job. So, like, that type of, like, going above and beyond type of actions throughout the process, I think speak volumes on, like, projectability And Kyle, like, I know.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:36]:
You guys get a lot of inbound, which is awesome based on the network and the hard work that you guys are doing, but once you guys get a new client, like, how do you set up that partnership for success? And, like, what are some of the challenges that you've seen in, you know, making sure that you guys are successful for the end client?

Kyle [00:30:54]:
So I think it's a process. Right. And I think that that's important to emphasize on the last topic as well. Right. Sometimes you don't know what projectability looks like initially. You interview 20 candidates and they fail, and you iterate, and you iterate, and you iterate the case studies, the process, and you learn what to look for and what signals to look for. And I think it's the same with a company when we get on. Where we start is to understand the business objectives, like I mentioned before, across the board, talking with the business leaders in each department and understanding the objectives of the business and then backtracking from there.

Kyle [00:31:31]:
And that's where we start to put that foot in to really understand.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:36]:
Joe, did you want to add to that?

Joe [00:31:38]:
Yeah, I think it's setting the right expectations up front. Like, you know, when you're having those initial conversations around, do we want to work together or not, we're pretty clear about, like, how we operate. You know, we want to have an email alias if you're comfortable with that. We want to get into your slack. So, like, we really want to operate like an like an in house team, you know, and we also want to set the right expectations around like meeting cadence and how we think about like interview processes and things like that. So we want to align on like a lot of those just like process oriented details first. And then so it's not a surprise when I'm like, you know, meeting with a hiring manager every week for, you know, 30 minutes or calling them on the phone or texting them or slacking them. They expect it.

Joe [00:32:29]:
And I think it also builds a lot of credibility with them as well because a lot of times they don't get that type of service. They get like resumes in their inbox and then that's kind of it. And that's like the opposite of like what we want to do.

Kyle [00:32:42]:
Yeah, I think, right, Joe, you get, here's our interview plan, here's how it's all going to go. Here are the case studies, here are the technical rounds we're going to do. You share your upfront thoughts about it and in the initial conversations we tell them that part of what we do is try to improve your processes. Right. We want to leave a company in a better position than we found it. And so in a lot of cases, we're the first recruiters in the door or on the first team of three and our goal is to go in there and when they eventually don't need us or they continue to use us whenever, when they look back six months later, they have improved interview processes, improved candidate tracking will go into the ats. And those are things that I think happen over time. Right.

Kyle [00:33:25]:
We make assessments, we observe. And then once the trust is built is when we start to say, hey, maybe let's work on changing this. Right. And a lot of times we look back six months later, Joe's got a great example of a company he's in right now. And it's completely different. I mean, he's built the TA process from A to Z and they're in an awesome position. And that value is worth more than any single candidate they could hire because that's going to foster their growth once they take it from one to ten, ten to a hundred. Like the processes we're putting in place we hope will live on after we're gone.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:59]:
Okay, so you guys are very heavy on the systems and the processes and really just trying to set a foundation so that way these companies can actually scale. I hate to say this back in. That is what you're selling, right?

Kyle [00:34:11]:
Yeah, yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:12]:
And I know we talked about this too. Like you guys also Do a lot of consulting. And I'm going to ask this, and I might be asking this wrongly, so feel free to correct me, but it's one of the things that you become a go to person in the space, a lot of people start reaching out to you. Did you guys set up the consulting because you guys were doing so much, quote, unquote, quote, free work?

Kyle [00:34:28]:
We have not perfected separating those two. Right. It's part of who we are. And when you're in an RPO model, right, you have a statement of work, you're contracted to source candidates, to do this, to run the interviews, reference checks, et cetera. Right. Anything outside that scope of work, we're going to change the bill rate. Joe and I find ourselves in the systems, in the processes, working on them just naturally, because that's what's going to get you the best hire, right? We're not calibrating appropriately upfront. We're doing too many interviews.

Kyle [00:34:59]:
The close rate's not enough. Here's where the problems are, here's the potholes. And so we just naturally find ourselves doing it. And so that's where we kind of said, okay, let's try to separate this. And we're still not perfect at it because we just, we, we love to do it. I mean, we, that's why we got into this, right? So I think it started with the recruiting and then it was, man, we're doing so much of this work to improve these processes. If they have their own recruiting team and they just want the process to be assessed, let's separate that and bill for that.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:31]:
Hey, Joe, it looked like you were laughing there for a second. Is there something you wanted to add in there?

Joe [00:35:35]:
Well, I think, yeah. Kyle and I often have a lot of conversations around what we should be billing for and what we should not be. You know, what should we be baking into our bill rate and that kind of stuff. And we do need to do a better job, I think of like baking it into the bill rate. But, you know, what we're here to do is hire somebody for them. And in order to do that, if you see a problem with something that's going to prevent you from reaching that goal, like we're going to try to address that issue because that will lead us to hiring faster and getting you the right person.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:13]:
I love it. And on how you guys have helped these startups and the stories that you guys work with and the companies and the founders, is there anything else that you guys want to kind of share that you guys are doing to the other recruiters out there as either inspiration or, you know, just. Just knowledge.

Kyle [00:36:29]:
Yeah. I think I've got something that maybe isn't so pointed, perhaps a little bit poignant, but that service that Joe just talked about is the most important thing to me. I have fought back on Joe and said, hey, do less. You're the cheapest. This company's using you as a head of talent. You're the cheapest head of talent out there, man. Do less for him. But we circle back and he reminds me of the most important thing, and that's improving the TA function as a whole at these companies, making hires, which by necessity you have to improve the TA function.

Kyle [00:37:06]:
And delivering a good service is the most important thing. And I think that there's patience that comes with that. Right. We talked about some steep growth. There was two months ago, we had a couple opportunities to make extra money, to change the bill rate, to change the model a little bit and to make extra money. But we pumped the brakes, pulled the reins back and said, let's deliver an excellent product. Right? That's what's going to provide longevity for us as a company. And relationships that last.

Kyle [00:37:38]:
The startup world is fickle, right? By nature, most of them do not succeed. So most of the clients that you've worked hard to get will not succeed. But the relationships that you build and the quality of service that you provide, that can last. And so when a hiring manager goes to another company and another company, your reputation is, I believe, is what's going to keep your business going.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:02]:
Absolutely. Love that. Well, I want to kind of like, you know, take the conversation to a different lens. And you guys were both like, you know, leading TA teams at fast growing startups. So you guys were probably hammered by hundreds and hundreds and probably over the course of your career, over a thousand staffing agencies have probably reached out to both of you guys to try to work with you all. Let me ask you this, and we'll start with you, Joe, for a staffing agency that we'll say back in your Uber days or the other startups that actually got through, impressed you and you worked with, what did they do different early on and reaching out to you?

Joe [00:38:35]:
You know, I think a lot of it comes down to timing. When I think about my own experience, when we needed to augment our team and bring in a third party, so much of it came down to timing and so much of it came down to this person's always in my inbox or this person called me and I kind of had a good conversation with Them. And so that goes a long way. Like the BD for every, I don't know, a hundred calls you make, right? Like, you're going to get a bunch of people who are like, no, and I want to talk to you. You're going to talk to maybe somebody like me when I was at veho, and I was like, at the end of the day, and I was like, man, we got to make a thousand hires this year, and we have like four people on our team. I don't know how we're going to do it, and you're going to catch me in that moment, you know? But what was, like, sort of the separating factor? I think none of them were overly impressive, to be totally honest, which is why I wanted to start my own business and why Kyle and I joined to start our own business. I think there's some models that worked really well or could have worked really, really well. But, you know, I think the person who can act as least like a used car salesman as possible is probably one of the big deciding factors that influenced my judgment on which company that we wanted to work with.

Joe [00:39:49]:
Because I don't want to hire, even when I was building my teams, never wanted to hire recruiters who felt like salespeople that I want to hire, recruiters who feel like consultants, because those are just better recruiters. And Kyle, like, you know, out of.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:06]:
The thousands of recruiters that have reached out to you, what made the difference in the ones you guys actually worked with?

Kyle [00:40:12]:
So while at Sixth Sense, I worked with a handful and not going to sugarcoat it, I think it's tough. I think Joe, there's no one way to do it right or we'd all be doing it. I think Joe hit an important note, which is sometimes it's just timing, and that's why you got to keep trying, right? You stay vocal on LinkedIn. You stay in somebody's inbox, you continue to call. So I'll give you, like, two examples, right? The one is a really romantic story. We had a great relationship and he was there before I needed it. Yeah. Said, hey, so you guys have some, you know, have like five roles open.

Kyle [00:40:45]:
You have two recruiters in house. You probably got it covered. But if you ever need anything, keep my name on a sticky note, you know? And then when I needed it, he was the first person I went to. I didn't look at any of the emails in my inbox. He was already there. He had taken the time to reach out to me when he knew there probably wasn't business there. And so I called him because I appreciated that. Right.

Kyle [00:41:05]:
He looked at the company. And so I think that that's one avenue to go now. That takes some research, that takes some effort. And you're going to sit there saying, I'm spending time doing business development with companies that aren't going to say yes today, but I think that that can pay dividends. And then the other one is more than necessary evil. Right? It's a day where I've had a VP of Sales berate me, the CFOs on me, and you happen to call and I'm just worn down. I say, yeah, please, I need help. And so I think that's the timing thing, right, that Joe's talking about, where you just keep on going.

Kyle [00:41:39]:
But that's how I like to operate in our business is kind of bifurcate our efforts between our BD engine that always runs, right? It's volume, it's hitting you. And we're going to get you at the right time eventually. Maybe not you or somebody else, but the other one is a very concerted effort. We have a list of target companies and we've got really early stage companies or founders that we followed that we believe in. Right. Because you're still trying to pick that winning horse or that winning individual to make a connection with. And those are the folks where I'll take time out of my day to call, write a note, comment on some LinkedIn posts when I see some early action. Because I want to be there before it's like these athletes, all these famous people, right? Who was there before I had my money.

Kyle [00:42:21]:
You want to be there before they have their money.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:24]:
I love that. It was, you know, that actually made me think of, like the years I was internal. Nobody ever spent the time of distributing an email saying, like, how many open positions I had and how many recruiters I had.

Kyle [00:42:33]:
Because you're part of an automated system, right?

Benjamin Mena [00:42:36]:
Crazy. I didn't even think about that. That's awesome. So going back into, like, you guys have, like, you've taken all the things that you've seen, you've taken your experiences internal working at these, like, growth companies, and now you guys are an agency. What are some of the things that you guys are doing when it comes to business development? That is working.

Joe [00:42:53]:
Yeah.

Kyle [00:42:54]:
I hate to pair it, but I think I was just hitting on it. Right? I did the same thing. And this goes back to kind of what we've been talking about. Like, this can go full circle, right. I'm putting myself back in the seat of A talent leader, a hiring manager, an early stage founder. And I'm thinking, what works from the other end, right? So what worked on me when I was a TA later, that's exactly what I'm doing, right? We've built our engine that pumps out outbounds. Like Joe said, we try to make it not like a used car salesman, but I'm selling, but I try to look for things that I'm excited about genuinely. And that's where I think, you know, we all talk about in all walks of life, right? Find something you love, find something you're excited about.

Kyle [00:43:36]:
Same thing with the clients we work for. Like I am on LinkedIn, I'm on the Internet, I'm looking at blogs, press releases, and when something really excites me or two kids from, I hate to generalize, but two kids from Stanford make a startup with some tech that I'm excited about, that genuinely excites me. That makes it easy, right? Cause I can comment saying, this is really exciting. I'm stoked for you guys, really happy. And then I'm there early. And so I think that that provides me a really good chance that when they get their seed, when they get their Series A, if I've been there, they'll know that I've genuinely interested in their company. Because for these founders, it's their baby. You're representing something that they have worked tirelessly to build and to put that in the hands of somebody they don't know, that they don't trust to then spread the word to the world.

Kyle [00:44:26]:
Right? You're pitching their company every time you talk to a candidate. If they think that you're somebody or they know that you're somebody who genuinely cares and has interest in what they do, they're going to be a lot more apt to put their business in your hands, I believe.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:39]:
Awesome. Well, before we jump over to the quickfire questions, is there anything else that you guys want to cover or share on what we've been talking about?

Joe [00:44:45]:
I'll add one thing. I think going back to advice for recruiters, if you really are working on your craft and you want to get better. The part of my career where I saw the most velocity was when I worked with like a group called Product Operations at Uber. And that was such a pivotal moment in my career because not only were they have like a really high bar for hiring and everything, but they let me sit down with them and learn about, like, about the business and they taught me the business and that's when I started to really see success. With hiring. So I'd say for any recruiter out there, we've said it a million times on the podcast already. Understand the businesses that you're working with. Start there and then understand how that maps to the talent market.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:30]:
Man, I think that just, like, took the first two questions out of the quick fire questions. So perfect. Well, we'll just go ahead and jump down to, like, favorite book for both you guys that's had a huge impact in your career. What has it been? And we'll start with Kyle.

Kyle [00:45:44]:
That is a really good question. I don't know if I have one. Honestly, I don't think I have a favorite book that's been a part of my career. I don't read a ton, but when I do, it's fiction.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:59]:
Are you more like a YouTube learner or podcast?

Kyle [00:46:03]:
I listen to a lot of podcasts. I read about a lot on LinkedIn. Joe and I tirelessly look at other agencies. I mean, we've got, you know, a figurative board with agencies pinned up who we at the same time admire and at the same time throw darts at, you know, so that's kind of what I do. I look at what they're posting, I look at what they're doing, I look at the sort of clients they're bringing in, and that's how I like to learn or at least set a target for what I want to do. When it comes to the recruiting and the fundamentals of it, like Joe said, I think it's learning the business. And when I first started, like I said, I was in a family agency, but there was one gentleman named Marcos who stood out. And I could hear it was different on the phone.

Kyle [00:46:50]:
The way he talked to candidates, the way he ran the process was just different. And so I stayed in touch with Marcos for 12 years now.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:58]:
Awesome. And yourself, Joe? Has there been a book or is there another way that you learn there?

Joe [00:47:03]:
I've definitely a handful of books that I read over the years that I think every recruiter probably reads. How to Win Friends and influence People or whatever that book is. It's like sitting on your desk when you show up for your first day. I would say the Malcolm Gladwell books, I think are really good. Just like the process of thinking and kind of the data driven approach to just the book itself is really interesting. I think getting in that type of, like, frame of mind of like, first principles thinking, taking a data driven approach to problem solving has been like, really instrumental in my, like, recruiting craft and probably my career. So I'd say those books but yeah, I'm definitely like a. I love podcasts.

Joe [00:47:45]:
Big podcast guy. I really enjoy the podcasts about tech and, like, startup world. I won't name any of them, but those ones are. You probably know what they are.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:56]:
You guys should probably start one.

Kyle [00:47:59]:
That's what allows you to understand the business, right, Joe? But you're in the system. You know this ecosystem. That's what gives you the knowledge.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:08]:
All right, so you guys work with a ton of tech startups. What is your favorite recruiting tech tool that each of you guys are using? And we'll start with Joe.

Joe [00:48:16]:
There is a bunch of these types of tools out there, but there's one that I like quite a bit, and it's called pin. So shout out pin. I was just super impressed with the quality of talent that it was, like, pulling through in the system. It uses like, you know, AI or like, machine learning to, you know, you take a job description and throw it in there and it bounces back candidates. I was just, like, super impressed with, like, how good it was and how they, like, set it up. Like, there's a couple of features that they set up that allow you to, like, basically do sourcing in your sleep. So, Pen, I'm a big fan. There's a bunch of them out there.

Joe [00:48:55]:
But I love pin.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:56]:
And Kyle, were you gonna say PIN two?

Kyle [00:48:59]:
Totally. But I was gonna preface it with I am. I am a documented old man when it comes to this stuff. I don't believe that there's a substitute for the human element. PIN is fantastic, and I think Paraform for every recruiter that's listening is another cool platform to check out. It's a really good way to get cracking on some roles. They allow a few agencies to work on these different roles, and not only if you're interested in getting down and doing some recruiting for some exciting companies, but also if you're interested in recruiting tools in general and new recruiting products, I think this is a good example of a way things are going to go. So Paraform is the name again?

Benjamin Mena [00:49:39]:
They were just part of one of my talks I gave at the Pinnacle Society. I was like the backend of what they're doing for business development, I think is just super smart and insane. Even with them actually not having a salesperson, which they were in the process of hiring one right now as we speak.

Kyle [00:49:52]:
Yeah, yeah, they are. They're cool. When we talk about tools that are upcoming and recruiting, I think that they found a good one.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:58]:
And you guys have had a lot of success and we'll, you Know, maybe make it like a minute or two for each of your answers. And we'll start with you, Kyle. What do you think has been a contributing factor for a lot of the success that you've had?

Kyle [00:50:10]:
Personally, I think I'm going to take a little bit of what Joe said earlier, and it's. I have a genuine interest in a lot of different areas and in business in general. And so when I get a piece of information from one of the, I'll talk about a business in specific from an ops leader and from here, I want to know if their interests, if their directions are aligned, is there some synergy between them? And so I think that that genuine interest and want to learn more about the business has contributed to all my success. Sitting in on meetings, sitting with tech teams later, learning about what they're doing, it's really hard to mimic that.

Joe [00:50:49]:
And you yourself, Joe, I'll say keeping the chip on. On my shoulder, I think that really fueled a lot of. A lot of me just getting better at the craft of recruiting for, like, a long time. Maybe a little bit of that, like, imposter syndrome, you know, going on. I think there's like a healthy amount of that. Maybe not, I don't know, I'm not a therapist, but. And then, you know, like, later on, finding ways to, like, continue to stay, like, motivated and keep that chip on your shoulder when you've had success, I would say, like, that's probably the biggest thing.

Kyle [00:51:21]:
Plus Joe's got great hair, so he's got a leg up on us to start.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:28]:
Joe, when you say chip, what do you mean? Like, what started that chip in your shoulder?

Joe [00:51:33]:
You know, I think when I went to Uber, really is where I felt it for sure. Like, I was in rooms with people who went to, like, Harvard. I had never met anybody in my life who went to Harvard. I'm from Clarksville, Tennessee. I mean, people don't even go to college for the most part, like, you know, in the hometown that I'm from, which is, you know, totally, totally fine. But, yeah, feeling like that sort of bit of like, you gotta punch up, you gotta, you know, punch above your weight big time. Because there's a gap there. Right.

Joe [00:52:04]:
And so how do you close that gap? Well, you gotta read, you gotta learn. You have to, like, do everything you can to. To close the gap so you can build credibility with those types of people who you're working with. That's kind of where I would say it started, but, you know, it's in every aspect of life. I have a Philosophy of, like, there's people who are better than you out there. There's people who are making more money than you. There's people who are, like, doing things that you would like to do. And so where's the gap and how do I close the gap? And if you're always in that, like, pursuit of closing the gap, that's kind of what I'm talking about there.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:40]:
Awesome. And you guys, I know early stage, like, been in business maybe when this goes live, like at the year mark. But, like, I know when you guys probably first started, you guys had some, like, some hard days as you guys were figuring this out. How did you guys get through it? And I see Kyle shaking his head first. So let's. Let's hear from you.

Kyle [00:52:58]:
I'm thinking of one thing, and I think there's a lot of different ways, right? There's kind of the personal side of being appreciative for what you have. But I think how we got through it together. And Joe, I'm thinking about that one week where it was just Joe and I, right? I don't even think we had any contractors in place yet. So it's literally just Joe and I and we created a Slack channel just to, you know, pretend we had something. And Joe on Friday sent in the slack. Hey, team, really tough week out there. We're going to bounce back. Like some motivational speech, right? And I thought he was being serious, and I was like, yeah, absolutely, we will.

Kyle [00:53:40]:
And he was like, dude, I was kidding. And so I think that bit of humor gets us through it or that was helpful for me.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:48]:
Joe, from your side too, like, outside of, like, the motivational speech on Slack, like how through those hard days and there's hard weeks, you just gotta take.

Joe [00:53:55]:
It a day at a time. There's going to be ups and downs. You're going to, you know, but, like, the next day could be better. As long as we're controlling what we can control and we're not making unforced errors. I'm generally, like, pretty, you know, pretty positive around things. I just know that there's gonna be ups and downs in this business. It's great when it's great and we're riding a wave right now and it feels awesome. And I feel like we're really onto something.

Joe [00:54:24]:
But there's gonna be downtimes that are expected. And as long as you do the right things, I think, you know, it will come back to you.

Kyle [00:54:32]:
I think. Sorry, if I could. I think that this is really important advice to people, especially if they're getting into tech recruiting and the startup recruiting in general, if you expand out, right, there are tough days and there are tough weeks, like where, you know, you don't feel like doing it. But it's important to remember that in the startup world there are going to be tough periods, right? And so this might be like too specific to people, but we talked about recurring revenue, right? And you, Ben, said monthly. And that's an important thing to keep in mind, right? Joe and I don't have a great month. We're going to crush it this year and go out and say, okay, well I'm going to make this much for the next 10 years, right. And it's going to continue to grow. Like, no, we're very weary of what the tech startup world is, right? So Kundali bank closes.

Kyle [00:55:19]:
They went bankrupt, right, not too long ago. And so Joe and I could be out not, you know, figuratively buying horses, buying boats, and then the next year, nothing, right? And so be conscious of that. And I think a couple of things that we do to prepare for those days, those rainy days, those rainy seasons are we keep that in mind, right? We stay within our means. We're conservative in what we do, we're conservative in the expenditure of the business. We don't go out and spend it all on advertising. So we're conservative in that manner. That's another reason why Joe and I look to diversify, right? Look to work not just with tech startups. That's why we haven't specialized in it.

Kyle [00:55:58]:
And I think that that will provide any individual or partnership or company a little bit more stability in their business.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:05]:
Absolutely love that. I'm going to ask this like two different ways, but for the first time I want you guys to both answer. Kind of like, you know, looking just at your guys business, everything that you guys have learned, the highs that you guys have had, the lows that you guys have had. If you can literally go back to the early days when you both teamed up together as a partner, what advice would you give yourselves? And we'll start with you, Kyle.

Kyle [00:56:28]:
I think that we've done a decent job at this, right? Because I learned this the hard way at Sixth Sense. It's really hard to undo bad habits and to put processes in place, place while the train's moving. But even with Joe and I, when we're starting out, I think if I could go back, I would figure out some tools, some processes and kind of build some of that operational excellence into place perhaps a little bit earlier than we did.

Joe [00:56:57]:
And yourself, Joe would say prioritization, like, ruthless prioritization. There's like a million things you can do, right? Like, you know, and I'm guilty of this. Like, I'm going to spend two hours on building out, like, cool graphics for the company, and so I can post a bunch of, like, cool, like, LinkedIn thought leadership stuff. And it's like, is that the most important thing I should be doing? No, probably not. So I would say ruthless prioritization is like, the thing, you know, keep in mind, like, you're not a recruiter anymore. You're not, you know, running a recruiting team. You're running a business, and the business has to come first.

Benjamin Mena [00:57:39]:
And on that note, actually, this is, I think, one of the challenges with the recruiters. I think recruiters are some of the biggest givers when it comes to their time. So you guys have both probably had, like, over the course of your career, recruiters asking, like, hey, how'd you do this? How'd you do this? How'd you do this? And, you know, I'll start with Joe on this one. But, you know, what's the question that you wish recruiters would actually ask you and what would be that answer?

Joe [00:58:02]:
Hmm. I wish they would ask more about or less about, like, the fundamentals of recruiting. You know, like, when you're in this offer situation, how do you close, you know, this type of candidate or that type of stuff? And I wish they would, like, sort of ask more about, like, how to partner with the hiring managers and the teams that they're supporting and how do they learn about the business itself? I wish they would talk more about the business because recruiting is just a part of the business. Right. But really, it's the business that's important. And you have to understand that as a recruiter that what you're doing is impacting the business. I'll give you a quick example. Uber Eats is in a battle with DoorDash and a bunch of other players in the market.

Joe [00:58:50]:
The key to the battle is menu selection. How do you impact that as a recruiter? Well, if you're the recruiter who's running SMB sales roles, you hire the hell out of those roles so they can get more restaurants on the platform and you guys can go and crush the competition. That's the types of conversations. I wish I could have more with recruiters.

Benjamin Mena [00:59:11]:
Awesome. And yourself, Kyle?

Kyle [00:59:13]:
Yeah, I think I get asked a lot of questions, and there is a time and a place for it about how to. How to augment certain sourcing efforts, how to Find an alternative to the work, so to say. And those are coming. Right. The tools that we've talked about allow you to be more efficient in your work. But I agree with Joe. I think if somebody leaves the conversation with just, okay, I'll use this tool to reach out to a thousand more candidates a day, then they've gotten very little value from our conversation. Because that tool's available to everybody.

Kyle [00:59:48]:
Right. You could Google it and you haven't gotten much out of it. I think asking how to build long lasting relationships with hiring managers is up on the list of the most important things they could ask. Cause like I said earlier, that's what's going to keep our doors open.

Benjamin Mena [01:00:03]:
Awesome. Well, for the listeners, if they want to follow you guys, how do they go about doing that?

Joe [01:00:09]:
LinkedIn, I guess so go find Joe.

Benjamin Mena [01:00:12]:
Walsh and Kyle on LinkedIn.

Joe [01:00:15]:
Yeah, I mean, that would be probably the best place. I don't have a ton of social media or anything like that. Follow the mural group. That would be great. I think we have like 350 followers or something.

Benjamin Mena [01:00:25]:
Is there anything else that you guys want to share with the listeners? Like, last thoughts and we'll start with you, Kyle.

Kyle [01:00:30]:
Now, if I had to pick one, I would say, look, this is going to be beating a dead horse, but work for a company you care about, work in an industry you care about. If you're going to go internal, you're going to be external, go after businesses in an industry and whatnot that you care about. Because if we haven't made it clear already, I think understanding the business, the space, the competitors, that's what's going to make you stand out and yourself.

Joe [01:00:54]:
Joe, I would say don't be afraid to make sacrifices in other aspects of your life to reach your career goals. I think a lot of times we try to talk about like work life balance and things like that. And, and that's great if you want to have work life balance. But for me, my work is my life and I think that's been a big part of like, why I've been able to be successful and knowing that you're going to have to make some trade offs in other aspects of your life and just be conscious of the decisions that you're making.

Benjamin Mena [01:01:29]:
Awesome. Well, I just want to say thank you guys so much for coming on and sharing and definitely reaching out for this conversation because, you know, I've seen partnerships work out. I've seen partnerships just absolutely blow up. But it's one of those things like you have to understand like what brings the foundational sides of each together for a true successful partnership. And on top of that you guys talked about really just how to like get involved and work with these startups. I so appreciate that you guys are doing something different. You guys are literally taking the frame of lens that you guys had as internal TA leaders and scaling companies and flip that into like he realizes his own business that has literally gone from a $3,000 recurring revenue month in March to October, crossing the hundred K mark for recurring revenue. So huge congrats on you guys making that partnership foundational, figuring out what is your guys special sauce and then attacking the hell out of it and then sharing those secrets with the rest of the recruiting community.

Benjamin Mena [01:02:25]:
So thank you so much for that. And for the recruiters out there, 2024 is almost done. Whatever you're doing now is setting yourself up for 2025 and make 2025 the year of personal abundance. Let's go guys.

Kyle [01:02:37]:
Thanks.