Making The Successful Jump From Agency Recruitment to Internal Recruitment with Dan Harten

Dan Harten [00:00:00]:

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 excited about this episode of the It'll Be A Recruiter podcast. I have my special guest, Dan Hart, with me to talk about making the successful jump from being an agency recruiter to an internal recruiter. And I know myself, I, my story, I made that jump. I actually had a blast as an internal recruiter. So Dan, I'm excited to bring you onto the podcast and real quick, Dan is an executive recruiter, But inside Fortune 100 companies, and he's going to talk about all that success, the things that you have to do to prepare and the mindset that you have to have to be, make that jump successfully. So Dan, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker B [00:00:58]:

Yeah, thank you so much, Benjamin. It's been about a year since I've been listening to you. And I'm just super excited to be a guest on this podcast and share my thoughts and influence any other recruiters or sourcers or recruiting professionals within the industry. So let's get started. Like, how did you even jump into this wonderful world of recruiting? Yeah. So growing up, a lot of people growing up wanted to be doctors or firefighters or cops. For me, it was a little different. I've always think I wanted to be kind of a sports and a football division 1 recruiters. Going around the country, evaluating all these football players to come to the big program and seeing their success on the field. But little did I know, I stumbled upon recruiting in a different way. I threw a friend that informed me, Hey, my recruiting agency is hiring. Are you interested? It had no clue what that had to do with it. But she said, there's, there's 3 qualifications. You love people, you love money and you work hard. And I think I could have checked those 3 boxes off really good. Uh, so I said, let's roll with it. Let's see what that looks like. So I started my career in agency recruiting at a, uh, privately held staffing firm called AeroTech. And it looks like you have some ties with that as well. So shout out to all the recruiters that were for AerialTac that are still doing red zones for that. But I worked there for years and kind of built up a team where I was developing recruiters and sorcerers on that end. But also building up a territory, a client base. And I really enjoyed that. Part of that transition of wanting to transition from agency to corporate was I really wanted to get into like a fan company, those Facebooks, those Amazons, those Netflixes, those Googles of the world. And the more I studied, the more I found out that those companies like both agency recruiting as well as corporate experience. So a company in my territory gave me a call and said hey would you ever come work for us and kind of do the same thing and give you the same experience that you have been giving us and be a pretty cool transition and I said hey if that ultimate goal is to give me where I want to go, I love to take that job. So I went over to a local company called Vista Outdoor. I'm sure you're familiar with the brands, but you're not familiar with, you know, the pairing companies. So if you're any outdoorsy, Bill Elmett's, Animal Back, all those top brands, I supported all of their staffing needs. Um, there I kind of got this transition of, okay, well, how am I going to get to the level of success and after those companies and how am I going to transition my skills and kind of dive in deep on those companies. So I met 1 of the, the sourcing professionals there that really knew how to source really, really well. So I said, hey, teach me everything, you know, so I can excel my level of experience.

Dan Harten [00:04:09]:

And before we start talking about like all those secret success, just hit a point in the agency world where you're like, I'm just looking for something different or like, was there a, like a instance or a mindset shift that really went from like, I'm having such a great time at AeroTech. I'm doing well, but I need to change my career or do something else. What was it? Yeah. So in agency,

Speaker B [00:04:33]:

typically if you're doing some B2B sales and account management, you have a territory. In that territory that I was selling into and building up my clientele, there were some like Z accounts that other account managers already had that they weren't giving it to me. So I had to quote-unquote, dig my own well, which gave me great experience of how to do that. But looking at the landscape of that territory, I grew it from 0 to X amount of dollars. And I saw the writing on the wall that I couldn't elevate that territory any longer. And I was trying to get burnt out of saying, I'm doing all this work. All the larger companies, what's already a legacy account, and they're not going to get that to me. So I said, okay, perfect. I'm going to use these skills. And as you connect with those people in those territories in the industry, you get valued And say, Hey, why don't you come work for me? Why don't you come work for me? Why don't you work for me? And at the end of the day, they taught me at a great time, great place and made a good pitch. And that's, that's what I loved about it because timing is everything. It recruiting and they just hit me on a good day.

Dan Harten [00:05:49]:

That's awesome. I think like many of us that have made that switch either to another agency or your own firm or becoming an internal recruiter had a little bit of like, I don't want to say the aha moment, But it was just like, huh, okay. Maybe I need to do something different. So congrats on making that change and, you know, kudos to them on jumping on you on the right day. So back, back to what you were saying about like learning the source, in-depth sourcing techniques that helped you become super successful.

Speaker B [00:06:17]:

Yeah, for sure. So I transitioned from that corporate, wanted to get into the thing. And I knew that how do I get in there is to get noticed. LinkedIn recruiter is, is what's growing at a rapid rate. And I would say, put myself in position. If I wanted to recruit me at how would I find me so I figured out how the algorithms worked and I would do executive sourcing executive read for team sourcing lead into these search functions and then I looked at the top profiles, went into those profiles, and then mirrored that profile to my profile. So when they're doing the searches, trying to find those top people, I always came to the top of the list. So it was an SEO, marketing play, because I truly believe if someone can connect with me, that recruiting happens on both ends on that conversation.

Dan Harten [00:07:15]:

I was going to say, I actually love that. I mean, if you want to go off like LinkedIn many, many, many years ago, like something like 2007, 2008. I was looking at trying to change jobs and I literally just tried to requested every single recruiter in the city of Tampa that there wasn't that many on LinkedIn back then, but that's how I created the conversations like, Hey, look at me, look at me, you went out and completely changed your profile, had it mirror out. SEO has gotten super important and LinkedIn optimization. So You were smart with that way before many other people were. Sure. Yeah. So I just want to say, like, I absolutely love that.

Speaker B [00:07:51]:

Yeah. It was, it's a great tool to utilize. Uh, you always try to put yourself in the other person's shoes. If you're going to go find that, How would you find that and then mirror it?

Dan Harten [00:08:04]:

Hey, so you, you know, went from learning a bunch of sourcing techniques. You started mirroring your profile to get found. What was the next step in your recruiting evolution?

Speaker B [00:08:13]:

Yeah. So I'm a big, big component on influencing the recruiting process. And that's with, as an internal recruiter, I don't think you're able to, you can do it more so if you're in an agency recruiter. I think when you are an agency recruiter, the biggest, biggest thing that you don't have and you can leverage is that relationship with the hiring manager or the decision maker. The best recruiters from a sourcing or a corporate function or an external agency versus corporate is can you get that candidates to the hiring decision maker as quickly as possible as often as possible. The cool thing is, as an internal recruiter, I have way more resources and tools and information and relationships that I can leverage versus an agency recruiter. An agency, we've all had it, that you send a candidate into your client and the guy is perfect, the gal is perfect, and what do they say? Hey, they did okay in the interview, they did pretty good, but we're going to actually go with the internal referral or we're going to go with our internal person that applied and it's crossing and you're like, what happened? Well, in the background, if a good internal recruiter does it right, they can leverage the tools, leverage the resources, leverage those relationships and influence that hiring decision. People use agencies because they don't have there's no bias in it. They can say no, they can say yes, and they have to have the best candidate to out beat Because there's already a relationship tie internally with my hiring managers that, Hey, I presented this, Hey, it's your referral or it's XYZ's referral. There's more impact there. We all know the best person sometimes doesn't get the job, but the best narrative and the best influence in the hiring decision, those people get the job. And that's just for reality. And, you know, you kind of jumped on like 1 of the things that I, I always enjoyed about being an internal recruiter, you know, is

Dan Harten [00:10:31]:

being able to have those like really solid relationships with those hiring managers. And I think you hit the nail on the head that, you know, the good recruiters do that, but there's also a lot of recruiters that I don't want to say like they're post and pray, but I just want to look at the resumes and just throw some paperwork around. And that's, it's just, I love that it's all about the relationships,

Speaker B [00:10:53]:

the impact that you can make. And really like you get a chance to probably build out some incredible teams. Ain't that right? Mm-hmm. For sure. I would say is as a agency recruiter, if you said, Hey, what's your job? It's, well, I got to fill the rep and then I'm off to the next rep, right? That's, that's what you get from a corporate or an internal recruiter. You know, what's, what's your job is obviously still the job, but that building something beyond that 1 position that leads into XYZ in the company is a bigger, uh, more strategic long-term impact versus just filling a rack. And that relationship matters in the whole thing.

Dan Harten [00:11:36]:

Now, for the companies that you've worked at, how did you go about creating those successful relationships with those hiring managers? Sure.

Speaker B [00:11:45]:

The best thing that agency recruiting did for my career is utilize those strategies in building a territory, pallet mapping and prospecting and utilizing that same technique every time I started a new job. So when I started a new job at Amazon, when I started a new job at Facebook, what I did was I looked at it as that is my territory. So I talent map all the hiring leaders that I'd be working with, all the cross-multiple partners that I'd be working with, and the best thing that anybody can do starting a new job is play the hey I'm new card, and you can throw a calendar invite on any leader, any level, throughout the organization to get in front of these people. In those type of meetings, I might've been working with them at the time, or it might be in the future or interlude from an HR standpoint. If I ever want to elevate my career, those people are going to make those decisions, right? So I want to have that relationship with them. So what I did, and I would recommend anybody that starts a new job is within the first 90 days, talent map your own company and put calendar invites and have meetings with those leaders and understand what their pain points are from a recruiting function and then get all that information, go back to your desk and have an open book and write down every single person you've talked to, everything they said and they come up with a game plan of how you're gonna follow up with them. Just like you did an agency, the more touch points you can have with your hiring leaders across the whole organization, not just the 1 function you're supporting, your name's going to get out there and you're going to make that huge impact. And you're going to grow your network within that and the hiring gets a lot easier because they request you, hey, can you support my function? Hey, can you support this team? And it expands from there because you put that effort to understand who they are, what they do in the company and how you can support them and alleviate those pain points.

Dan Harten [00:14:04]:

I think that is probably 1 of the best way to get your people, your jobs hired. That's awesome. I, you know, I, it's 1 of the things that I think like, you know, a lot of great, great internal recruiters don't realize what they're doing and I think you did a good job just explaining and simplifying how to be successful if you start a new uh internal job. Now when it comes to finding these high-level executives for these faint companies Like what kind of tools were you doing? How were your conversations? Like, how are you successful now that you've have these successful relationships, you've successfully mapped up that company. Now, how did you successfully still these positions?

Speaker B [00:14:46]:

For sure. So I could break it down in 3 different categories. So you know sourcing internally, sourcing externally, and then different tools like AI tools that are doing the work for me. So when I roll in to work I have a sled of candidates already to review. So, when I'm talking about sourcing internally, sourcing those top talents, many recruiters overlook the most valuable resources available and it's your own internal database. That interview notes, that's when they interviewed, who they interviewed for, results of even if they didn't get the job, maybe they were close, And how could that impact for future roles? Okay. For example, what I would do when I was at Amazon, typically bigger companies have an 18 to 2 year window of when you could re-interview. I would go into, I would work with HR and some of the other cross-functional partners and said, Hey, do you have the reporting of who interviewed and how do I get access to that? They gave me the access and I would run a report daily and it would come to the inbox on that specific date on the 2 years. So, for example, it's May 4th. 2 years ago on May 4th, who interviewed for these specific functions? So I would have a report, I would cross-reference from that system. And then in that tool, it tells me what core competencies were they good at? What did they lack? I would utilize that information into my read show. I think the best recruiter, I take all this information, but how do you play it back into a value proposition to the candidates? So for me, I would say, hey, so-and-so, I saw that you interviewed for XYZ company, 1, they were interested at 1 time. 2, even if they didn't get the job, guess what? Everybody wants to know how they did. The rules and the things that are in place, We can't share specific information, but everybody wants to know. And what I said before, the recording starts when you get on the phone. All I need is a response and like less chat about your experience. So these candidates, even if they're not interested, they said, hey, yeah, let's jump on a call. So my phrase was, Hey, you interviewed 2 years ago. There are some really good information about that interview. I would love to approach you about another opportunity. And my response, great rocketed because people want to know how they did, even if they didn't get the job. So they would get on the phone with me, I would explain kind of who I was and why I reached out to them. And they would always say, Hey, can you tell me about that last interview? And, you know, I would say, unfortunately, I can't tell you the details. However, I wouldn't have reached out to you if there wasn't really good feedback. And I wouldn't have reached out with you if I didn't believe that you could have successful second time around and get the offer. And what I'll do for you is I'll help you. Cause I can coach you what areas that you could highlight in this time around using past data to predict the future hire. So coaching them and being there for them, um, and wanting somebody in your core throughout the interview process is huge. People want relationships. People want people to succeed. And that's my approach. And that, you know, really helped, you know, helped your response rate. It also helped your close rate with people accepting jobs. 100%. I'm all about touch points. The more touch points that you can have in the process with a candidate, the higher success rate that they're going to accept the job because they're more dive in and they're, they're more, okay, this person really cares for me. If this recruiter actually cares, uh, and it's having following up and they want me to actually be successful, that's a core value from the whole company. So I want to be more inclined to work for them. I love that. And you were, you're the only

Dan Harten [00:19:06]:

person running this record or was there like other recruiters doing this too? Or is this like, you know, for a recruiter looking at even trying to implement something like this, like what advice would you give them?

Speaker B [00:19:17]:

Yeah, I would say the cross-functional partnerships are huge. You have to treat every single person like gold or you're not going to get access or find out how to gain that access with all of those partnerships and relationships. The simple things it's like, oh, that makes sense. Why don't I do that? But typically recruiters come in and they're just focused on the work that they have versus how to think differently outside the box to get to the same process or same result. Uh, kind of jumping a few steps back, you know, going from agency to internal recruiter,

Dan Harten [00:19:54]:

did your, you know, I, this is just me, you know, picturing my day, my days many years ago at agency

Speaker B [00:20:01]:

with many hours I was working. Yeah. And then I've worked some insane amount of hours as an internal recruiter too. But did your lifestyle change? Yeah. So coming from agency to Internal recruiting, the biggest change for me was working smarter, not harder. I think the core message to agency recruiting is dial and smile, dial and smile, dial and smile. And if you're not constantly working and putting in that effort, yes, recruiting is a numbers game, but there is a better way to do it. And how am I going to scale a system or a process to get the results that I need versus working 20 hours a week or 20 hours a day, excuse me. 1 way I did that was, you know how I said, now you've got a group of candidates and having retaining all the information and then send that information into a value proposition that really clicks with that candidate. You know, the biggest takeaway that I see is you can bucket that. So in that example was, Hey, every single person that I send a message to was the interview 2 years ago. That was the comment theme that was personalized to them. But every single person that I message to that group all interviewed in 2 years. So I could send that same message, having that personalization to them. And I got the results I needed because I could scale out that message.

Dan Harten [00:21:43]:

Personalization at scale. I love that. Yeah.

Speaker B [00:21:46]:

So I think that's 1 of my questions. And if you can, if you can combine personalization at scale and then not take away the relationship that you have with your hiring managers, and if you can intertwine those 2 things, your success will skyrocket as an internal recruiter.

Dan Harten [00:22:06]:

So is there anything else that you'd love to say about making the jump from an agency to internal before we start to move on to the next part?

Speaker B [00:22:13]:

Yeah. Um, I would say if you want to jump, find and network with the people that already made the jump. The biggest thing that I would say is do that and network like crazy. Um, and not going into those interviews of, hey, I filled X amount of racks because the biggest thing that corporate and internal recruiters want is those relationships with those managers and the hiring leaders that you're supporting. And instead of, hey, I've had a lot of success at filling racks, which is great because that's where the highlights that people want. I always want to hire sourcing and agency recruiters because they actually know how to source. Right. But the downfall of it is, can this person develop high level relationships within the organization? That's more of a long-term play and that's the biggest hesitation of hiring agency recruiters or internal recruiter roles. And if you can bridge that gap and highlight, Hey, it's all about my relationships with the leaders that I support in my territory,

Dan Harten [00:23:29]:

you're going to have a better chance of making that transition quickly. Awesome. That's great advice. Cause I know that's 1 of the things that I remember over the year as I've heard, I'm like, I was always like hire an agency recruiter, I think that's because, you know, I was an agency recruiter and they're like, oh no, no, no. And I'm like, they'll get the job done. Like what the hell is your, what the hell are you thinking? But you hit it on the nail. I think there's been a few agency recruiters that came in and they just didn't develop those relationships. And that's what some managers think, but I'm always about, yeah. Good relationships. Let's get the jobs filled. Make sure the company moves forward. For sure. For sure. All right. I'm going to move over to the, some of these quickfire questions. Sure. So as a new internal recruiter, you just started out off your career recruiting. You're an internal recruiter. What advice would you give to that person to be successful?

Speaker B [00:24:20]:

Sure. Uh, the first 1 is identify your personal brand. Um, people make decisions about you and your career when you're not in the room? How do you treat people? What's your work ethic? When nobody's around, are you still working and trying to complete the tasks that is for the ultimate goal? The biggest advice that I always was told is people make decisions about you and your career when you're not around. So how are people gonna think of you? If I said, hey, Benjamin Mena, okay, what comes to mind first? People want to like you before they buy from you. And they'll make that really, really quick. And your reputation, especially in recruiting, goes a long ways. Your network, it's all about who you know, especially in this job market, people are not getting jobs just for applying, it's who you know, and guess what the leader is going to ask. How do you know them? What are, what are they like? Am I going to like them? Are they going to work hard? Your career is defined in a room when you're not. I absolutely love that. So same question, but for experienced

Dan Harten [00:25:40]:

recruiters, experienced internal recruiters, what advice would you give to them to keep up the success?

Speaker B [00:25:47]:

Yeah, I would say continuously learn and adapt to the market. Recruiting and sourcing over the last decade has changed rapidly. And if you're not adapting to the way the world's going, you're going to be sitting there and saying, what just happened? A little advice in order to do that. The best advice I ever gotten is an easy way to stay up on the market is if you're not doing it already, ask to be on the team that hires recruiters. 1 way to do that is because those recruiters in that interview, they're going to be, okay, I got to come up with my best recruiting strategy and my best example and all of these things that are probably new and More and more newer folks are coming into the industry. You're not doing anything You're just asking what your best things are and then you can take that talent into your old process, whether you use it now or later, and you've done a research. There's many times that people come up with these examples, and I'm like, and I act like I know what I'm talking about, but I'm like, I come up and I'm like, I'm gonna do some research on this. I think this could work in this play. So the second 1 is just doing what you're doing right now. Podcasts. Networking is the key to success in a podcast is 1 way to leverage information, build up networks and build up connections and let people talk and listen.

Dan Harten [00:27:21]:

The fun thing about hosting this podcast, I do very little talking. Exactly.

Speaker B [00:27:30]:

I would always say the best recruiters are not the ones that are really good at talking, they're really good at asking questions and then listening.

Dan Harten [00:27:39]:

Awesome. So flipping over to books, has there been a book that has had a huge impact on your career?

Speaker B [00:27:44]:

Yeah, for sure. Uh, 1 of the biggest 1 is it's a classic, Good to Great by Jim Collins. There's a quote that says, perhaps your greatest responsibility as a leader is to connect people to a larger purpose. I really look at this quote and it emphasizes the importance of creating a sense of meaning and a purpose of your work. Um, and as a recruiter and your relationship with your hire manager, people want human connection and it's a crucial element of any type of job or leadership. Um, and fostering those connections really help your work come to fruition. Awesome. I know you've probably touched a ton of awesome tech tools, rec tech tools. Do you have any favorites at the moment? Right now, obviously, Chad CDP, if you're not used to it, you gotta do it. However, I look at that as a Lamborghini that 12, 13-year-old, you got thrown to the keys and you just speed 140 miles an hour down the road and they don't know how, they don't know how to control it. Right. So if you know how to operate, I would say if any tool at all that you're using, even like platforms like LinkedIn or SeedGalic hire tool, if you don't know the backend of how it works, you will be successful and you won't get the results that you want. If you're doing everything that everybody else is doing and just using filters and stuff like that, you're going to get those same results. So figuring out using technology, but figure out how it works. So for example, chat to UTP, you can put anything in that, in that system, but what are the questions? What are the prompts you're utilizing or seeing to the bot

Dan Harten [00:29:32]:

to give the response that you want. I think that's the biggest takeaway. In the world of tech, you need to figure out how the tech works so you can maximize it. I think another guest recently said it's like, Child GPT is like a grand piano that can do like an amazing, like, you know, part be part of a symphony, but if you have it in your house, if you don't know how to hit the right keys, you're going to get some pretty crappy sounds coming out of it. Kind of percent, kind of percent. Yup.

Speaker B [00:30:00]:

So, you know, I feel like the recruiting world is on the edge of its next evolution. So I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on the future of recruitment. Sure. So as You look at the landscape of what's happened in the last 3 to 6 months, even like Tacker and it's trickling down to different industries, ton of layoffs, majority of it is in the recruiting space. What I believe is a lot of those companies got rid of some of the, uh, what, obviously 10 years ago, you had HRBPs that try to do everything, right? Then you bring recruiters in that kind of did everything. And then the evolution of, okay, what is sourcing? Oh, we need to bring sourcing. So it was sourcing and recruiting HRBPs. Now with the evolution of that, I believe that they got rid of a lot of those people that only could do 1 specific thing, and then they're going to teach if they kept a company kept a lot of the recruiters, guess what? They're going to make them do, Hey, you're going to be a full desk recruiter now. The full desk recruiting only happens typically at a smaller company or agency. I think that skill set is going to be valuable to any company because they want more with less. So that's how I see it coming with the world of AI and everything from that standpoint. I think the users are gonna get a little, they're gonna figure out how it works and then just tweak their resumes to get past the bot. So they're going to get smarter too. And if a bot's just declining resumes, uh, you know, there's no human interaction. The user is just going to tweak that resume just to get through it. Awesome. So what does it, do you think it takes to be a top level,

Dan Harten [00:32:01]:

high performing work creator in the internal space?

Speaker B [00:32:04]:

I think it's mastering the art of relationships. As AI, everybody puts their chips in that. I'm going the other way and it's all about those relationships from that standpoint. Uh, You see it now is how people get jobs. It's the referrals and people that you know, or the strong relationships that people get built up. A lot of the people that are relying on this AI and all the other technology are going to lose that interaction of how to influence the decision. Cause there's going to be a point where they're going to come in and have a formal interview. Well, the bot's not there to interview them as well. At the end of the day, we are a people business and we need to put people first. Technology is not going to make that go away.

Dan Harten [00:32:56]:

If you could go back and talk to yourself at the very beginning of your recruitment career, what advice would you give yourself?

Speaker B [00:33:04]:

I would say be patient and embrace failure. I would say when you start in your career, take as much in as possible, as many projects, um, and grow that you can, because either you succeed, you're going to look great, if you fail, you're gonna learn something and you can have an ongoing what I typically do when I tell everybody this is you need an ongoing resume or a notebook. And any experience, any project that you do, any success, any failures, you could write down that list on an ongoing notebook. So at that time of, Hey, you're getting a promotion, you got to interview for this. You add the specific examples already in your notebook. So then you don't have to go back of like, okay, what did I actually do at that company? What were the metrics on like, and it just, it's all in that notebook. So have an ongoing notebook, whether it's success or failures and continue to fail as much as possible.

Dan Harten [00:34:12]:

Well, awesome. This has been a great interview. Is there anything else that you would love to share before I let you go? No, I really appreciate the opportunity and, and much success in the future. Awesome. Well, guys, definitely. Thank you for joining us and Dan, thank you so much for joining the elite recruiter podcast. Until next time guys. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast with Benjamin Mena. If you enjoyed, hit subscribe and leave a rating.

meaning and purpose, leadership, job performance, tech tools, Chad CDP, LinkedIn, SeedGalic hire tool, internal recruiter, agency recruiters, bias, personal brand, work ethic, attitude, positive reputation, networking, talent mapping, sourcing process, AI tools, interview process, learning, industry experts, lifestyle, scaling, AeroTech, Vista Outdoor, COVID-19 pandemic, full desk recruiters, AI screening bots, B2B sales, account management, territory, legacy accounts, timing.