Driving Better Collaboration to Navigate Modern Hiring Challenges

Summary

An operationally focused professional services firm, MERU is a values-driven, impact-oriented team dedicated to helping companies. MERU is united by a culture that values excellence, collaboration, and success in all its forms for our clients and our people, which translates into its hiring process.

As a people-driven organization with a learner talent acquisition team, MERU places a significant emphasis on assessing for cultural fit, collaboration with hiring managers, and engagement with candidates and stakeholders throughout the entire process.

In this episode of The Speed to Hire Show, Erin Beasley, Head of Talent at MERU, shares insights into how she keeps hiring managers and candidates engaged to ensure better job fit and overcomes the primary screening challenges brought on by the rise of “Easy Apply”.

Notes

Erin Beasley is the Head of Talent at MERU, where she leads a lean talent acquisition team driven by a mission to make hiring more collaborative. With more than a decade as a talent acquisition professional across both small, growing organizations and larger, more complex global firms, Erin is an expert in developing impactful, inclusive strategies for recruiting and broader people-related initiatives.

JOSH: Okay, cool. Well, Erin, thank you so much for joining me today. It’d be helpful to get started if you could just tell me in the audience a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you are today.

ERIN BEASLEY: Sure, very glad to be here, Josh, and hi to everyone listening. As Josh said, my name is Erin Beasley. I lead talent for Meru, which is a professional services firm that specializes in turnaround restructuring, performance improvement. We also have a pretty cool and growing data insights team that works across our service lines. I spent a little over nine years at McKinsey. prior to joining Meru, working mostly in recruiting and talent management from analyst level all the way to partner. And I’m originally from Augusta, Georgia, went to the University of Georgia, Go Dogs, and I live now in Atlanta, but spend a good bit of time in New York. So yeah, I spend a lot of my time focused on recruiting and talent, but consider myself a… HR person overall, and like to think holistically when it comes to recruiting and talent across the people space and not just bringing people in the door, but how we integrate them and make them successful. so excited to talk a little bit more about that among other things with all of you today.

JOSH: Great. And so a little bit about the company. How many employees do you guys have? What are your hiring plans for 2025?

ERIN BEASLEY: Yeah, so we have about 50 employees. We are growing. We, our company started in 2017 and we’ve continued to grow since then, you know, from two people now to 50. And like I said previously, we focus on turnaround restructuring, performance improvement, as well as a growing data insights practice. And we’re growing across all three of those groups now with a specific focus on junior talent. So looking for We folks with two to five years of experience to join us as associates and managers or manager equivalents, but also open to opportunistic hires at all levels.

JOSH: Yep. And you’re in Atlanta. Is the company on-site, hybrid, remote? What’s the environment like?

ERIN BEASLEY: Sure. So Atlanta is our headquarters, if you will. Our two managing partners and co-founders are here. I see them several times a week, which is nice. Going from a big company to a small company, have lots of FaceTime with everyone. And we also have an office in New York, which is now bigger than our Atlanta office. Which is why I said I spend a decent amount of time there. And again, that office continues to grow. We also have a small presence in San Francisco. as well as some folks scattered remotely. We do encourage office attendance. Our folks that serve clients are of course traveling and in and out of client sites. So they may not be around quite as much, but there are definitely people in the office every day. We don’t have a set number of days or hours you need to spend in the office. We like to treat people like grownups. And so far that’s worked for us amid the whole, know, hybrid return to office, all the things. I know it’s, gotten pretty complex a lot of places, but I think we’ve kept it simple. Again, we encourage attending meetings and being in the office, but again, if you can’t be there every day, you don’t need to check in, you don’t need to let someone know. And again, it’s working for us.

JOSH: sure nice and what about your team what’s the makeup of the HR slash talent acquisition group?

ERIN BEASLEY: So there are three of us right now working specifically on tele and acquisition, myself, a recruiter, and I’ve got a great part-time recruiter helping us as well. And then we have an individual that leads the rest of our HR and people initiatives and functions, which we work quite closely with as well. So we’re a very, very lean team across the people space, but our managing partners are very hands-on as well as our… for the rest of our partner and leadership group as well. So while they don’t technically have people or HR in their titles, we have a great team of supporters and that are not only thought partners to us, but actually helping us in tactical ways as well across recruiting and people.

JOSH: Great, great. And just to frame up the rest of our conversation, I know you mentioned associates seems like a position that you guys are constantly hiring people for. What are some other types of roles that you guys are recruiting for either now or you have planned for in the near future?

ERIN BEASLEY: Sure. So I mentioned our data insights group and we’re hiring analytics engineers, software architects, principal solutions architects, as well as senior leaders across data insights. And those individuals, we like to see, you know, really a lot of strength and experience in the technical side, but also someone who has some experience being in front of clients or at least you know, a diverse set of stakeholders. So you can, you know, do the technical side, but you also know how to talk about it and relate it to the business. So I’d say that’s another area where we’re growing and hiring quite a bit.

JOSH: Yep, that’s definitely something that’s been consistent in what I’ve seen across professional services is while you may hire for those technical roles and a non-professional services company, once you’re at a professional services firm, the client facing aspect of those technical roles becomes really, really important, both externally, but then also, like you mentioned, you’re collaborating with a lot of stakeholders internally as well.

ERIN BEASLEY: Right? Yep, absolutely.

JOSH: Cool, and so what, I know this is gonna definitely vary from position to position, but what is like a typical hiring process look like for you guys?

ERIN BEASLEY: Sure. And like you said, it does vary, but for the most part, it’s a mix of, well, we start with a screening interview, of course, to talk through what you’re looking for, what we’re looking for, make sure timing, comp aligns, things of that nature, just get to know you a bit and share more about our company culture and the role itself. From there, we typically do a skills assessment of some sort. And depending on the role and the tenure, that either comes in the form of a technical screen. for instance, for our data insights group, a case where we’ll be evaluating problem solving capabilities. We also have a modeling assessment as well for some of our roles to make sure that your modeling capabilities and experiences are going to be ready day one. So then beyond the skills assessment, we tend to do what we call a take-home homework assessment, which have to talk about later because I there’s mixed feelings on take-home. interview homework and I have feelings on them as well. But that’s typically also a case study where you come back and present to us your findings. It’s not something we can then use for a client or anything like that. It really is just to give you some time to reflect on it and not necessarily have to think right on the spot like a traditional case interview. From there, we tend to do a couple more conversations with partners or senior leaders in the company. that are a bit more informal after those fairly formal technical and presentation components.

JOSH: Got it. All right, well, thanks for that context. And I know in the beginning of the call, you mentioned that you were at McKinsey before, huge consulting company. Now you’re at a 50 person professional services firm. What are the core differences you’ve noticed being at a really, really large firm like that and going to a company at the size that you guys are at right now, mainly from a HR talent acquisition standpoint?

ERIN BEASLEY: Sure. So what I’ve noticed the most and what has been exciting to me is the agility and our ability to make changes quickly. Of course, it’s a little more difficult at a large organization. If I see something that’s inefficient in the assessment process or the interview process at a large firm, you might raise that and nothing happens, or you might raise that. And then we start a pilot program or some research to better understand if it’s a theme or It’s just an anecdote or a one-off, whereas here in a smaller company, if I see something two or three times in an interview process or separate interview processes that seems to be inefficient or it seems to be knocking people out too early before we’ve really gotten a chance to know them, I round up a couple of people on the recruiting team and a couple of our leaders in a quick call and say, hey, can we try to do this differently? And the answer is usually yes, which is exciting. And so I think that agility and just being willing to make quick pivots and changes is definitely the biggest difference and something I’m still getting used to as well.

JOSH: Yep. And then on the flip side, being a leaner team at a smaller company, I’m sure that also creates some challenges that maybe aren’t as prevalent at a bigger company. What are some of those things you guys run into?

ERIN BEASLEY: You know, I haven’t run into any super big ones yet. think one of the in the more high volume spaces, so I’d say the more entry level or call it earlier, 10 year roles that tend to be higher volume, higher volumes of applications, et cetera. At a larger firm, you tend to have or at least in the firm I was at before and some of our similar and some similar firms, you tend to have a digital assessment or something like that that you know, pre-assess his talent before then the recruiters need to screen the resumes one by one or have screening calls. So that’s super helpful and having again that kind of pre-qualified talent group up front, smaller companies are less likely to have that, although it’s certainly becoming more common with off-the-shelf tools that are now available from different vendors. But I’d say that’s right now one thing that I’m getting used to is, you know, we actually are going through every single application, is great. But as we grow, that may not always be possible.

JOSH: Yeah, so probably a capacity, just from having a lean team, capacity and resources aren’t the same as if you’re at a bigger company, you have often specialists for different parts of the hiring process and to manage all of that.

ERIN BEASLEY: Totally, yeah. In terms of even, you know, at larger firms, also have, you often have recruiting support or executive assistants, whether they’re for the recruiters or for the assessors who are helping juggle some of that scheduling back and forth. Whereas, you know, on a small team, lean team, you’re doing most of that yourself, but at the same time, sometimes that makes it a little bit more efficient when you’re not passing off different slices of the puzzle to others. So I think there’s pros and cons to both.

JOSH: Yeah, absolutely. How does having a lean team impact your need and desire to engage hiring managers at a smaller company?

ERIN BEASLEY: I don’t know that the lean team is necessarily directly correlated to how or why or how much we might engage a hiring manager. I think having a lean team when it comes to discussions with hiring managers allows everyone to be in the conversation versus again, when you’ve got a large team where different people are handling different parts of the interview process and you’re passing people off from a practice to an office or whatever it may be, especially in professional services where you’ve got a, you know, a matrixed organization. In a smaller company, at least what I’m experiencing is oftentimes we are able to just bring everybody to the discussion because it’s only two people, it’s only three people, it’s easier to align schedules. So everyone hears directly from the hiring manager versus it coming, you know, via a game of telephone. from the person who talked to them originally and now it’s been passed through three or four people. So I think there’s some clarity of message as well that I’ve noticed and think is a plus.

JOSH: Yeah, and I think to your point, just naturally having a smaller company and a smaller team, you’re able to one, be more agile, but also be more agile with the hiring managers in the sense that you have more influence, you can work with them more closely, you can make changes based on some things you just saw happen in the hiring process a lot more easily than if you have such a large team and you’re interacting with a hundred different managers over the course of your tenure at a big company.

ERIN BEASLEY: Great.

ERIN BEASLEY: Right, right, right. Yeah, and I think one thing I’d add to that as well is when hiring manager needs something, let’s say they expect work to really grow in a specific area or specific industry over the next several months, they can come to us and say, hey, we need to hire someone with this expertise. Like, let’s put this together. And usually they’re the decision maker or the decision maker on headcount or whatever is really easy to get to versus at a large firm. someone comes to you and says that, but then you know you have to go get that approved by 10 other people or departments. So that’s also, again, just leads us to efficiency when we know we need this type of talent. We can usually hit the ground running pretty quickly without all of the syndication that’s often needed at a larger firm, understandably.

JOSH: Yep. And so, I mean, at a high level, what does your collaboration look like with hiring managers during the hiring process? How involved are they before you start the hiring process? How involved are they at the different screening and interview steps? What does that all look like for you guys?

ERIN BEASLEY: Sure. And as you probably can expect, it depends depending on the role, the seniority of the role that we’re looking for, et cetera. With roles that the recruiting team is quite familiar with, especially if we’ve been recruiting for them for a long time, kind of evergreen roles, we tend to have a bit more autonomy upfront in selecting the candidates, putting them on the slate, screening them, passing them through to later stages. Whereas More niche roles or roles that we perhaps are still getting calibrated on ourselves as a recruiting team and as an organization will typically pull the hiring managers in early even to screen resumes with us or even to do the first batch, let’s say, of screening together so that we can get a better understanding of what they see versus what we see, make some decisions together, and then ideally duplicate that moving forward. But beyond that, You know, the hiring manager, tend to keep abreast at, you know, every few days or every few weeks, again, depending on how quickly we’re looking to hire a particular role. We also, again, have several evergreen roles. So on the client-facing side that we’re always recruiting for, and we make regular updates about the pipeline, what we’re seeing, what we’d like to see more of in terms of talent and skills and expertise that we… have forums that are already in place, such as leadership team meetings, all-hands meetings, et cetera, where we’re sharing more of that and keeping folks more abreast, whereas, again, it’s not necessarily just relevant to the hiring manager, but for all leadership or even the entire firm. So I’d say it’s pretty collaborative regardless, but more niche and more senior roles, the hiring manager tends to be more hands-on and hands-on earlier.

JOSH: Yeah, that makes sense. curious. Well, first of all, I like the approach that you guys take of having them involved for those more niche roles where, you know, it’s maybe a position you guys are hiring for for the first time or you haven’t hired for in a while. So I like that you involve them early in the process of like screening the resumes with you. So you guys get a better feel of what to be looking for. What else goes into that process? Like before you even post the role, how much do you need to work with hiring managers to iron out? what you’re exactly looking for, especially for those roles that aren’t evergreen.

ERIN BEASLEY: yeah, so typically I am gonna take a first pass at the JD. At least every new role to date, I’ve been able to do that. Oftentimes there is someone that we know, maybe that they’re not the right fit, exactly the right fit, but we know we want someone like this person that’s out there. So oftentimes I’ll start kind of drafting something similar to that individual and then go through a few iterations with the hiring manager on. what the JD should look like before we post it or before we start looking proactively for candidates for that role. from there, similar to what I said before around screening, usually, I or one of the other recruiters will usually bring a first batch of candidates, whether they’ve applied or whether we’ve sourced them to the hiring manager just to say, hey, these are, here’s the… 20 candidates we have, here’s the seven that we think are really spot on, wanted to get your feedback on those before we start engaging and getting into conversations so that we’re all on the same page. And then after that first batch, from an outreach perspective or a screening perspective, assuming we were pretty close from that first time, again, we’ll continue to duplicate that and then pull in the hiring manager for whatever parts of the interview. They need to be actually… facilitating, if you will. And then I’d say, sorry, going back, another piece of the early planning process as well is to talk through who will be interviewing that individual, what types of interviews we want to do, skills-based, fit-based, behavioral, et cetera. We have some different tools that we use as well. And so I’d say that aligning on the skills expertise. everything that comes for the JD, the interview slate, how we want to assess these individuals. And then certainly the comp is something that we lean, I won’t say heavily, but we work quite closely with the hiring managers as well as our finance team on that as well as we’re setting up for a new search.

JOSH: Yeah, that makes sense. And I definitely want to come back to your different interview stages and how you determine what you’re looking for and who’s involved, etc. I did want to ask a question about the evergreen verse niche roles again. Do you find that hiring managers for the evergreen roles tend to be, I don’t know if easier to work with is the right term, but I find that often like hiring managers that are consistently hiring or somewhat engaged in the hiring process, obviously, they have that practice and they have that rhythm and they know it’s them versus somebody that’s hiring once a year for a role they’ve never hired for. I guess what’s, what are the differences you see between hiring manager engagement and just their overall participation in the process when it’s one role, one type of role versus.

ERIN BEASLEY: Yeah. Yeah, I think it often goes back to how much the hiring manager actually needs that person. And so if they are, you again, in a consulting environment where they really need these evergreen roles, say call it analyst, associate, et cetera, to staff their teams and deliver work, they’re going to be pretty engaged, especially if there’s a need to hire those people right now. And similarly from for the niche role, I think there’s going to be a lot of engagement because the hiring manager knows that they need that exact skill set to then bring the best of our firm and our capabilities to XYZ client or set of clients. I think that the biggest difference that I notice in the Evergreen roles, especially that we’re hiring likely more than one of, there’s not like a cap necessarily versus a niche role where we’re only hiring one person is there’s just more repetition and trust on the Evergreen side. So I think on the recruiting side, there feels like a lot of autonomy, but when we need something, the hired manager typically is ready to swoop in because again, it is very important to them, but at the same time, they’re not proactively checking in on us because they know that it’s happening all the time. We have proof of concept. We’ve hired this role in the past. There’s less reason to have regular check-in calls, et cetera, to go over the profile, to go over what it is because we already know what it is versus a niche role. where you just have to maintain that close level of contact. And also because the role may change, we may get out there and say, hey, we’re finding all these people, but we’re priced out. So we need to go back to the drawing board and talk about seniority, talk about comp, et cetera. So I think it just lends itself to more iteration, which of course means you’re talking more and collaborating more.

JOSH: Yeah, that’s interesting. I wonder if that’s unique in professional services or generally in like people powered organizations where the your people’s expertise is your service and is your product. And so when there’s a need arises, like you really, really need that person. And I wonder if that leads to just better hiring manager engagement in organizations that are similar to yours. That’s interesting.

ERIN BEASLEY: Yeah, yeah, I would think so. Because I’ve never worked in, let’s say, recruiting for accounting. But I think it’s similar. A big accounting firm constantly need accountants at different levels on the tax audit side, et cetera. And you’ve got a steady flow. You’ve got these super teams on campus dedicated to it. It’s very well-oiled. There’s certainly partners and hiring managers involved. But again, it’s a pretty set process versus a very senior niche. tax expert role that needs to be hired. I’m sure that process looks really different. I’d say the same is true on the consulting side and what I’ve seen.

JOSH: Yep. And you mentioned, you know, being at a 50 person company, your managing partners are very hands on. And so everybody’s playing a part in the people strategy. How involved are they in the hiring process for roles that aren’t reporting directly to them?

ERIN BEASLEY: I’d say pretty involved. We have one of our leaders who, say, owns recruiting, if you will, as part of his portfolio of things that he looks after. And he interviews pretty much every candidate that comes through the pipeline. Again, small companies, so that’s possible. And then the other leaders as well, again, depending on, let’s say, they’re in their location or if the individual will be part of their service line but not necessarily reporting to them. They typically want to be aware of that individual and speak with them as well before a decision is made.

JOSH: Yeah. And what, you know, I know you’ve got to evaluate people for their technical skills, behavioral competencies, culture fit, everything that goes into a grade higher. When an MP is getting involved in the hiring process, you know, I imagine you’ve already vetted for a lot of those different things. What are they really looking for? Like what’s, what’s their need or desire to be part of the hiring process?

ERIN BEASLEY: Hmm, good question. I think culture fit is a big one. And if there obviously if there was anything during the hiring process that wasn’t clear, or we didn’t get a good read on, we often leverage our managing partners, partners, hiring managers, some combination of that to dig in more and get a more meaty answer, if you will, and whatever that competency or characteristic might be that, again, we just maybe haven’t gotten to read on through other interviews. think overall, again, small company, have a you know, a culture that we’re all really excited to protect in a way. So I think there’s also, again, just a bit of a, I don’t want to say gatekeeper because that’s not the right word, but just a real vetted interest, regardless of if that managing partner will ever work with that individual. And most of the time they will at some point, but in just preserving the culture and the types of individuals that we bring in.

JOSH: Totally, yeah. And that’s really, honestly, consistent with what I’ve heard from other professional services firms that are similar in size to you guys is really culture fit, both, you know, especially at a small company, every person that’s added to the organization plays a huge role in the culture of the organization. So it’s really important that they align with the values and what the leaders of the business are looking for. But also, I think, you know, what’s unique about your business is that every single person more or less that you bring on board is ultimately at some point going to be a representation of your brand to your clients, right? And so as a leader of a firm, I can see why that’s super important for them. Like you said, not to be a gatekeeper of it, but to uphold the standards that you guys have set internally and in the eyes of your clients. So cool, cool. So with all these people involved in the hiring process,

ERIN BEASLEY: Exactly. Yeah.

JOSH: I know you mentioned run different types of interviews, different types of assessments, depending on the position. So the hiring process can be unique from role to role. How are you determining whether it’s the hiring manager or you or your team, how are you guys determining what steps need to happen for each role? Who needs to be involved? What you guys are looking for at each of those steps?

ERIN BEASLEY: It’s a pretty collaborative process. and I’ll acknowledge I’ve been at this firm for three and a half months. So I came in and wanted to adapt and learn the interview processes that were already in place, some of which were still evolving. So it was a great time to come in and get to be part of some of those decisions. within each, again, I’m gonna call them service lines, but within each of the three groups that we mainly hire into, There’s a set group of individuals that tend to be a little bit more involved in the people side of that group. And we usually work on the interview components, the core competencies, et cetera, what we’re looking for with those folks. And oftentimes, let’s say we do want to make a change to the technical strain, let’s say. We’ll often have individuals at the firm. take the technical screen as if they are interviewing to make sure that it’s not way too hard or way too easy and give feedback. So one of our values and core characteristics at the firm is collaboration. So I think the more ideas, the better. I know sometimes more hands can make things a little complicated or inefficient, but I think for the most part, when we’re talking about bringing in the right people, I like to have as much perspective as possible. So it’s just a constant iterative process to get us to at least our go-forward plan. And then I don’t know if it’s a consulting thing or what, but you’re usually, even once you have that go-forward plan, revisiting it months, years later to change it or of course, adapt to the market, adapt to the type of talent that’s coming in. So I think just there’s an open collaboration and an iteration that are constantly there. I guess I’d also say if that’s not something that you like, if you like a set process that’s never going to change, probably isn’t the industry for you to be in because things are always changing.

JOSH: Yeah, fair enough. Now, how about in the hiring process, you’ve got all these people involved, it’s a multi-step interview process. How are you coordinating with all the different people to make sure it’s consistently moving along at a speed that’s well suited for how quickly you guys need to hire and how long your candidates are going to stay on the market?

ERIN BEASLEY: Sure, sure. So one element of is our ATS and how we collect feedback and keep things structured in terms of who is interviewing who and when we use our ATS. I would say even more so than I expected for coming into a small firm for even things like interview scheduling, feedback forms. We know immediately when a forms come in so can go, we as recruiters can go in and look at the feedback and then talk to that assessor, determine next steps, if the person should move forward, if they shouldn’t, et cetera. And then we have specific decision points within the process where we pull in everyone who’s interviewed that person to date. And we have a thoughtful discussion about, again, where we are in the process, what else we might need to learn about this individual to move forward or to get to an offer. it’s, we’ve learned enough about this individual and don’t think it’s the right fit, here’s the feedback that we’re going to share and who’s going to share it with them. And then again, we have a similar discussion at the end of an interview process to determine if it’s an offer or no offer, and again, discuss feedback. And one thing that I’ve really liked about professional services in all environments I’ve been in is that there tends to be a pretty big push toward giving feedback to candidates after I know some companies have moved away from that, but I’m still a fan of it. I know it takes a little bit of extra time, but I think it’s so helpful to individuals in the process, especially if they can take it to other interviews and other organizations where they’re pursuing opportunities.

JOSH: Yeah, that’s great. And, you know, let me just back up for a second. I mean, I lost my train of thought I was gonna ask you. We’ll cut this part out, obviously.

ERIN BEASLEY: you

JOSH: I obviously want to go to the next section, but there was, there was one thing I wanted to ask you. okay. So you mentioned being surprised when you joined the company at 50 people, how well you guys were using an applicant tracking system. A lot of companies at that size may not have one or just started using one and they haven’t really, you know, stood up all parts of it. How important for a 50 person company is having an applicant tracking system because you’ve lived it and you’ve seen.

ERIN BEASLEY: Yeah.

JOSH: you know, what it’s doing for your guys business.

ERIN BEASLEY: Sure. Sure. And I’ll preface, I’ve worked at another 50-ish person organization before that didn’t have one. certainly seen pros and cons. I think if you’re in an organization where you’re not constantly needing to fill the pipeline, so something outside of professional services, and you’re not planning to grow a lot, I don’t know that a huge investment in an ATS really makes sense. Ideally, you have somewhere where you’re storing where You can keep former applications. If you’re using LinkedIn primarily as your ATS, that’s obviously an option as well. But in situations like ours where we constantly need to be refilling the pipeline, we also may want to go back and check in with people that we met years ago who either declined our offer or the timing wasn’t right or whatever it might be. think having, again, that really structured and well utilized ATS becomes so much more important. And again, we have, like I said, evergreen roles that are posted all the time. So we’re constantly getting applications and, you know, those are all going to someone’s inbox and being tracked in Excel, it just be a nightmare. So that’s probably at the baseline why it’s so important as well.

JOSH: Yep, and that makes sense. speaking of applicants, one of the things you and I talked about in leading up to this call are some of the challenges related to the volume of applications being received for certain positions. So whether it’s easy apply or the rise of AI generated resumes where it makes it easier for candidates to personalize their resume and apply to more roles in a more efficient manner, those first of all, Those are all good things on their own, but I think what’s happened is together, it’s created these converging forces that are making hiring more challenging, especially at the front end of the process. Can you tell me what you guys are facing and what you’re seeing in the market?

ERIN BEASLEY: Sure. Yeah, and I think that LinkedIn and Easy Apply have certainly added to that. trying to think of, well, you know, the main takeaways here, but.

ERIN BEASLEY: Okay, I’m gonna play devil’s advocate a little bit. I’m finding, as someone in the talent space for the last 15 or so years, I’m actually finding that we get a fewer applications that are just totally irrelevant. Like how did you even find this? And I think part of that is because things like LinkedIn and Indeed and all the third party sites are getting smarter in what they present to candidates. That’s a good thing. But to your point of AI-generated resumes, easy apply, et cetera, I think one thing that maybe is not a common answer, but you just get candidates that don’t really know anything about your company. So if they’re qualified and they applied, that’s great. But then you hop on the phone and it’s clear they’ve applied to so many places that they have no idea who you are. And that’s not always a bad thing. It just changes the discussion a little bit, especially if they’re good and they’re qualified. You want to keep talking to them. But yeah, I’d say that that’s actually something that I’ve noticed. And again, in professional services, it lends itself to that because you’ve got companies that are seemingly doing similar things. So people might be applying to all of them, but not actually doing real research on what differentiates each one. And so when you say, hey, why do you want to work here? It tends to be pretty vague versus, think, when that was not the easy apply and the AI generated. generated resumes wasn’t as common. You had a little bit more refinement and preparation from the candidates.

JOSH: Yeah, and some of that, like as we talk about AI generated resumes is directly related to that, right? Because in order for them to personalize the resume, they actually had to redo some research about the company, actually had to read the job description, so on and so forth. So yeah, sounds like you almost get, you get these applications, you get to your first screening step, whatever it is in that hiring process for that role, and you end up with candidates that are almost at like,

ERIN BEASLEY: Great.

JOSH: way different levels of engagement. You have the people that have done a lot of research and are really bought into your process. And it’s probably a lot easier to move them quickly through that process. Whereas you get others that you’re still advancing to that same screening step, but there’s so much less engaged because they don’t know anything. It’s almost like there’s like an additional step for you now in between where you have to really.

ERIN BEASLEY: Mm-hmm.

JOSH: I want to say sell them on the company and sell them on the position, but more give them the information so they can make a decision if they want to still buy in to that next step.

ERIN BEASLEY: Right, right. Yeah, no, it’s a really good point and spot on. it’s, you know, selling them, but also if they’re interested and right, the job market hasn’t been super great the last year or so. Oftentimes the candidates are still very interested in moving forward, even if they haven’t done their research. But I want them to be more prepared before I’m putting them in front of more colleagues or especially senior colleagues because I don’t want them to crash and burn if I think they’re talented and maybe just haven’t done enough research. So to your point, it is usually, OK, we don’t have enough time in this 30 minute conversation for me to tell you everything that you should know going into a next conversation. So let’s chat again next week. I’m going to ask that you review these three things on our website, come back to me with questions, and then you can usually make a more, you know. informed decision from there about next steps for them. And then also they can make a better decision for themselves on whether or not they want to move forward. But yeah, it’s a really good point that it does ultimately create more work for both the candidate and for us post-screen.

JOSH: Totally. Yeah, it sounds like it’s a multi-part challenge that’s created out of that. As first, you have the additional work now of, in some cases, like you said, even scheduling a follow-up to make sure that they’re still interested and haven’t, you if they want any questions answered before they proceed to the next step. So that’s more work for you and your team. But also, you might get somebody that applies and you’re really excited about them because on paper they look super qualified, but then… you have no indication of how engaged they are at that process. So you might be like chasing this person that has no idea that they don’t even remember applying to your position.

ERIN BEASLEY: Yeah. No, right, right. Yeah, no, totally. And I don’t see it happen a lot. They don’t remember at all. But the kind of blank stare when you ask, know, why did you pick our company or why did you want to apply is happening a little bit more than maybe I remember in prior years.

JOSH: Yeah, they’re like, yeah, you guys, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Cool. All Well, let’s jump here to evaluation. So you’ve got your applicants. You’ve already went into some detail about the technical things you have to evaluate them for and how you’re coming up with what you need to be putting them through. I really want to focus on culture fit because I think it’s so important people powered organizations. How do you guys define And maybe you don’t define it as evaluating for culture fit. Maybe it’s the behavioral competencies you’re looking for, but how do you define what those are and are there company ones and then position ones and how do you blend like the evaluation process for those? And I was kind of a loaded question.

ERIN BEASLEY: Yeah, think there’s, I think first about overall company values and culture when I’m thinking about how that translates to the assessment process because However you define as an organization your values, whether it’s a list, whether it’s a few anecdotes, ideally that should apply to everyone, right? Regardless of what role they’re in, whether they’re the CEO or any other position. So I personally don’t do as much culture-based assessment or questions that are really targeted toward a specific role. The way that I think about assessing or evaluating for values and fit is really seeing how someone has thought through a situation in the past, because if you ask someone their strengths, right, and your characteristics or values are listed on your website, and usually by this point, hopefully they’ve done a bit of research, anyone can share a few strengths that they know are going to be relevant or make sense. in terms of your organization’s values or mission. So I like to instead ask candidates to maybe, for instance, describe a time when you had to make a tough decision that challenged your values and see how they thought through that decision to suss out, is there empathy when someone’s values are otherwise are different than yours? Is there? tenacity and moving, you know, getting to an answer together. Is there collaboration? Is there feedback? Is there listening? And, you know, even stopping the individual as they’re sharing that story to ask very specific questions about what a specific conversation looked like and how did you react when they said this or they said that. Again, versus asking someone to…

ERIN BEASLEY: to define their strengths or characteristics and assessing if that’s a culture fit just based on, again, their list of strengths.

JOSH: Yeah, that makes complete sense. Behavioral, open-ended questions that draw on real-world experiences and both the specificity in the questions that you ask and the specificity in the candidate’s responses are super important. Like if they give you a really unclear wishy-washy answer, then, you know, maybe they didn’t really process that decision they made or… you know, don’t have, didn’t have a well structured approach for handling that situation. And so. Yeah. I think that’s a really good lesson here is that if you’re trying to evaluate somebody, whether it’s for values or for fit is just drawing those real world experiences. versus, you know, to your point asking if they demonstrate this value or that value and they’re like, yes or no types of responses.

ERIN BEASLEY: Totally, yeah. Yeah, and I love what you said about asking specific questions. If you ask vague questions, you’re going to get vague answers. And if you ask specific questions, you’re more likely to get specific answers. And then on that same note, I think the other piece is also just having consistency in your assessment framework and even in the questions that you’re asking and maybe the questions you’re asking to your earlier point vary. based on the scope of work that person’s going to have or the level of leadership or responsibility they might have. But with that in mind, I do still think that the interviewers ideally aren’t just coming up with their own questions on the fly. And this may sound really basic, but obviously that still happens a lot, even at really established companies. So that you can also come to the table and have a really productive discussion about culture, about fit. And it’s not just, did you like this person? Do you see them fitting in here? It’s actually a framework that everyone’s aligned on because we agree it translates to our culture. And we’ve got a rubric and we’ve got things we can discuss versus, you were the only one in the room. Is the answer, yes, they’ll fit in or not? Because that’s, you know, very subjective and not the best way to get to if someone’s really going to be a strong culture fitter or additive to the culture.

JOSH: Yeah. And look, that’s the importance of, you you’ve talked about it multiple times in this call is when you have all these stakeholders that are involved in the process to collaborate with them upfront, so you can agree on what steps are needed, what you’re evaluating the candidate for, how you’re going to evaluate them, even getting into what questions are going to be asked in different interviews. So as a team, first of all, you know, you’re not asking duplicative things that feels like a waste of the candidate’s time, but you know, more importantly, you’re getting to the answers of what really, really matters for the position. And it’s fair because it’s the same across every single candidate that you’re interviewing for the role. And that’s how you can actually evaluate this candidate versus that candidate.

ERIN BEASLEY: exactly.

ERIN BEASLEY: Absolutely. Yeah.

JOSH: Well, you mentioned it once during this call and this is last thing I want to touch on. I think we should have mentioned this in the beginning. You are not even four months into your new role. So I think it’s first of all, super impressive of how well versed you are in everything that’s going on in the company. But I’d be curious to know, you know, in from your experience and just recently joining this company, where do you start? Like there’s probably a lot of things when you enter the business. that fall under HR and talent acquisition like all things people, how do you know what to focus on in your first 90 days without stretching yourself too thin so you can start to make some immediate impact?

ERIN BEASLEY: Sure. So I asked a lot of questions during my interview process about what different individuals at the company thought was really great about our talent process, what needed to be improved, what they saw for the future of the organization in terms of types of talent needed. And I got a lot of really great feedback that maybe while I didn’t put it all on paper into a 90 day plan, it definitely helped influence my priorities and where I wanted to spend time. I mean, probably this is probably a pretty common answer, but I definitely spent the first few weeks listening, observing and learning and asking questions, of course. But then, you know, after certain meetings, going to, you know, my manager, one of the managing partners and saying, OK, I heard this. Is this something we need to be aware of or is this something we need to focus on more? And then. you know, again, small company, there’s a lot of room for change and agility. After those first few weeks, you know, not going in and changing everything, but just starting with subtle changes, especially if they were related or relevant to what I had heard even before joining. And I’ve heard it come up multiple times. It’s not being afraid to try new things and make small changes, whether it’s to the interview process, whether it’s to a way that we track something or report on something. So yeah, I’d say it was a mix of getting feedback early on, but also listening and observing and then drawing some conclusions about where to start.

JOSH: Yeah, and I think you hit on two things, two things that the best candidates or new employees do. they start the job before they actually start the job. And what I mean by that is not that you’re actually like doing work. And like you said, you’re not like documenting a plan and starting to work before you’re actually being paid to do so. But it starts in the interview process as a candidate by the questions that you’re asking to help give you the context. So you have some direction for when you start, you have that knowledge. So you’re not just starting from like square one. think a lot of times candidates will focus on surface level questions to ask during the interview process and they demonstrate themselves very well and they get the job, but then they start and they don’t have a whole lot of context on what’s going on in the business. And so I think a lot of that work starts in the interview process as a candidate. So that’s one thing. And then the second thing you hit on related to agility and small changes is the best people.

ERIN BEASLEY: Yeah.

JOSH: They put points on the scoreboard when they start. Now you come in, you do your listening tour, of course you have to learn and you have to hear what’s going on within the business. Then you put points on the scoreboard through quick wins that come through that agility, these quick small changes. And that I think is what ultimately builds confidence on your team and those people around you now to partner with you now on probably the bigger initiatives that you’re focused on in the next eight, nine months of your first year with the company. Gave some great advice there. Thank you.

ERIN BEASLEY: Totally, yeah, for sure.

JOSH: Cool. Well, Erin, this has been great. I got tons of insight, learned a lot from talking to you. I really appreciate you coming on the podcast. And I know that all of our listeners will really appreciate the feedback that you gave as well.

ERIN BEASLEY: Well, I’m so glad you reached out to me, Josh. Looks like we do have a visitor. I love it.

JOSH: We do. Hey buddy. This is, guess, I guess a blooper for the blooper for the podcast. Give me one second. Just give me one second. Let me just, yeah, just give me one second. Hey buddy, you gotta go.

ERIN BEASLEY: I love it. It’s great. If I were at home, I would put a dog in my lap to join the birdie, but no dogs are in the office.

JOSH: You locked it too. Unlock it. Unlock it buddy. Yeah, there you go. Thank you. Alright, time to go. So it’s so funny every time I work from home. So I used to have this problem where he would come in my office because I didn’t have like locks on my doors. Then I got locks on my doors, but his little fingernails, he’s figured out how to stick it in the little thing and he can twist it. So even when it’s locked, he can like still get in. So it’s like, no matter what, he can get in here if he wants to get in here. And he just got home from school. So that’s why he came in. So anyways,

ERIN BEASLEY: huh.

ERIN BEASLEY: Is he joining you on the podcast anytime soon?

JOSH: I should bring him on. I should bring him on. It will definitely make for a comedic segment. He’s quite the character.

ERIN BEASLEY: Does his generation even have a name yet? Like, what are they in the alphabet?

JOSH: I have no idea. I have no idea. Yeah, I don’t even know. Like we already like had Gen Z. So do we like start the alphabet over again? I don’t know. I don’t know. All right, well, let me, I’ll give a quick outro again so I can thank you again so we don’t have the visitor. Although that’ll definitely be maybe an outtake that I can post somewhere because it’s just funny.

ERIN BEASLEY: Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know either. It’s a good question. I haven’t thought about that till right now.

JOSH: But anyways, Erin, thank you so much. This has been really insightful. I know I’ve learned a lot from listening to you and I know our viewers will as well. So I appreciate you joining the podcast.

ERIN BEASLEY: Thanks Josh, thanks for having me.