Hire for Skills and Culture Fit with an Intentional Hiring Process

JOSH TOLAN: Okay. Cool. Well, Meghan, thank you so much for joining me today. Very excited to have you on this episode of The Speed to Hire Show. Would love to have you tell me and the audience a little bit about yourself.

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. So my name is Meghan Focht, and I’m the Human Capital Director at Concurrency.

I’ve been with Concurrency for about five and a half years, so that’s exciting. And now lead all of their HR, and we refer to it as human capital. And Concurrency is an IT consulting company. 

We are a top Microsoft partner, and then we also partner with ServiceNow. So our mission is to partner with businesses and transform the way that they get work done, and along the way, also build careers of our people and help them grow and develop.

JOSH TOLAN: That’s awesome. And how many employees does concurrency have?

MEGHAN FOCHT: At the moment, we are at about seventy five.

JOSH TOLAN: Great. And so you talked about how you lead the human capital function of the business. Can you tell me a little bit about the makeup of the team as far as, you know, essentially what roles and responsibilities there are?

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. So there’s me, and then I have our payroll and benefits specialist who acts also as, like, an HR coordinator. And then we have two talent acquisition partners, so two recruiters. So there’s four of us in total.

JOSH TOLAN: Got it. And just for additional context as well, what is the work environment? Are you guys remote, hybrid, on-site? What’s it look like?

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. So it’s hybrid. We have – our our headquarters is located in Brookfield, Wisconsin, and one of our recruiters is located in Chicago. So she’s remote mostly, and then we’ll come on-site for some of our big meetings. And then the other two team members are in the area, so they come either anywhere from, like, two to four days on-site.

So there is some time that we get to be all together. And then I just happen to be kind of an office rat, so I like to come in. I usually come in every day, and I don’t live too far. So it makes it easy. I like leaving my home base and then coming to a fresh clean office.

JOSH TOLAN: Sure. Yeah. Change of scenery is always good.

So how has that changed over the last few years where you got everybody in person pre-COVID? 

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. Well, we have a pretty fun journey there, and I use the word fun loosely.

We, right before the pandemic, had decided to regionalize. So we had a heavy population of employees in the Chicago area, in the Minneapolis area, and then in the Milwaukee area. We had offices in each of those cities as well, and we had decided to invest in more leadership in that area. 

The idea was we want our people to be able to go home to their families at night. And a lot of consulting was travel. And so we thought, okay, let’s get our leaders close to our people and our people close to the clients.

And, you know, it was a really great idea in theory. But shortly after we did that, COVID happened. So sort of every reason about geography and location that drove that decision in a moment was just completely gone.

So we went from having pretty heavy office culture to going fully remote, as everyone mostly did who could. And, it was an an interesting change because you found the people who weren’t close to the office or close to where most of our leadership was in Brookfield feel more connected than they normally did because they would miss out on some of that, you know, by the coffee maker conversation or, you know, just seeing you in the hallway. “Let me give you this update.”

So they started to feel more connected and everyone kinda ended up on the same playing field. Since then, we’ve maintained our Brookfield office. We no longer have a Minneapolis office or Chicago office.

And when we can, we’ll, fly people in and have them come in for our all company meeting that happens quarterly.

And then I’d say probably on average, we have about fifteen to twenty people that’ll come into the office in some sort of hybrid regularity.

So, yeah, I think we’d love to see people in person more often when we do get everyone together. There’s affinity for that. We do grill outs, and people are really excited to see each other.

But it’s just, you know, it’s not realistic anymore.

So we have hired people who have said that they miss having that connection or that ability to go into an office when they want to or even people that we’ve hired out of state that are really eager to get flown out here and meet everyone in person. So it’s been interesting to kinda see this ask back, you know, the people that are like, hey. I do want some of this, you know, suddenly from a place where it was like, all I want is remote.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. That’s interesting. Well, it sounds like you guys have done a great job of navigating the shifts to the new work environment and all the cultural changes, or to keep the culture strong with all of those changes. How about on the hiring side? Has that changed what you guys look for, how you run your hiring process?

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. So originally, pre-COVID, we would fly everybody in, for at least a final interview, or a final panel of some kind. And then when they onboarded, everyone would get flown in or brought in for a new employee orientation, and we would send them to go get a headshot to this one photography studio nearby. And, and we would do a big happy hour and on-site and all that. So that went away.

We just started to bring back the in person final interviews for certain positions, which has been a real nice touch, I think. It’s cool to see people in person, and we’ve gotten a lot of really positive feedback from our candidates on that as well.

But we’re still doing mostly remote, new employee orientation unless the people are local and can easily get in, then we’ll do some on-site sessions.

JOSH TOLAN: Got it. And when you’re identifying candidates are a good fit for the role, are there certain things that you need to look for and evaluate for to make sure that they’re going to be a good fit in the type of work environment that you guys have?

MEGHAN FOCHT: I think for us, you know, there was always some element of remote even when we were heavy office culture.

So I, you know, that piece of how we evaluate a fit probably didn’t change too much.

I think we’ve just naturally honed in a little bit more specifically on what our culture needs to be and what it is moving forward.

And I think we were forced to get maybe a stronger opinion on that than when we were in office. I think it kind of just naturally happens. So I guess in that sense, you know, staying close to culture related questions, value related questions, I think we always did that. But now just with a more honed in approach to it, I think it, you know, becomes more clear what we’re looking for.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. That makes sense. So talk to me a little bit about when you guys hire, what, you know, are the most common roles you’re often recruiting for?

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. So we are heavily recruiting for technical consultants.

We’ve had a lot of work in the m and a space, sort of that post merger acquisition, getting your technology, in line and looking the same and migrating from the old platform to the new platform or combining them, whatever that is. So we’ve been needing to look for a lot of architects and engineers that have that skill set.

And then we also are, you know, part of leading the charge with AI and what that means for a lot of businesses. So fighting those data scientists, the modern application architects, those have probably been the most needed. And then on top of it, sales. I think sales is maybe one of the hardest positions to look for.

People in sales can be very good at selling themselves.So you never quite know what you’re gonna get.

And then for us, just really honing in on what that is that we are looking for. So we’ve had a bit of a journey on that too. So the more we get clear, the easier it is for us to find the people who are the right fit.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. I’d love to learn more about that. What makes it so challenging to hire for those sales positions specifically?

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. I think there’s a couple things. I think, naturally, salespeople have a tendency to say all the right things, and then it’s kinda harder to figure out how real it all is.

So there’s that piece of it. And then on top of it, we are a smaller consulting company.

We don’t have as much structure in place because of all the changes that we’ve gone through. So we’re rebuilding a lot of it. And then I think also just trying to adapt to the way that the world is, it’s a different kind of selling approach than it was five years ago.

So that’s part of it. And then we also when we recruit from bigger companies, a lot of these salespeople or these account executives have a pretty big support system. So they may only have to do one part of the job, and we ask our account executives to do a little bit more at the moment.

We may not have a sourcer. We may not have, you know, a bunch of bad men that can, you know, follow through and do the stuff in the CRM and all of that. So we need someone who can do all of it, and then really make those connections in a mostly remote world, which is challenging.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. What has changed most, would you say, over the last five years about you mentioned the sales strategy changing.

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. I think, prior to that, you were able to get in person with your clients or potential clients. So it was easier to get that lunch or that meeting, in person. And I think what we found is if you meet someone in person, you have a little bit more obligation to give them an answer either way.

Right? You maybe understand who they are a little bit more. Maybe you know about their family or you know what they – you talked about things beyond just whatever the the point of the call is. Right?

Or you could run into each other at events, and you have a little bit more touch points.

And now people are less willing to meet in person, so it becomes challenging. And then when you do a call or a remote meeting, it just does a little bit more agenda focus. So you have less of the small talk prior to the meeting. If you’re sitting in a conference room, you might have that one on one conversation.

Whereas if you’re sitting on a Zoom call or a Teams call rather, you’re not gonna have that one on one conversation because everyone’s sitting there as an audience. So Yeah. Yeah. So I think it’s overcoming that. You really have to have that grit. I think you’ve always had to have that grit and that resilience, but it’s definitely being tested now.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So when you guys are hiring for that role, how do you look for somebody that would thrive in that type of environment?

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. It’s a great question. A lot of touch points. I mean, we do have them meet a lot of people.

We go through references, and then we have been doing the on-site. So I think that helps us to really understand their presence, their physical presence, how they can light up a room, you know. And I think paying attention to when they meet with you, have they done their research? 

You know, when they meet with me, am I telling them who I am for the first time, or have they gone, understood who I am, where I came from, if we have connections, that are similar and really doing their research before meeting me. If they’re treating me that way in an interview, I can, I can expect that they’re gonna treat a client that way?

So those are all the things, the follow-up, how are they following up?

So, yeah, I think we’re still trying to figure that out, but, but those things have definitely made a difference.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. It’s interesting, though. Like, you mentioned a remote meeting in a sales environment, you know, maybe is a little bit less personal than it is if you’re meeting in person, and so you don’t get that small talk in the beginning. So it sounds like you guys are using the hiring process as a proxy for how somebody would prepare for those meetings in the future. 

And so, you know, if they’re doing their research to make that personal connection before the call, they go into that remote meeting, with a lot more information, and they can build that rapport with somebody a lot more quickly versus if they just come in and go through the standard agenda, like you said.

They probably won’t have as much success. So it sounds like you’re evaluating sales candidates of how they navigate the hiring process similar to how they would navigate, sales process in real life. So I think that that makes a lot of sense. Now regardless you mentioned a variety of roles. Regardless of the role, are there, like maybe it’s values or maybe it’s something else. But are there overarching themes you’re looking for in candidates? Like, if we’re gonna hire somebody, no matter what their role, they have to have x or demonstrate y.

MEGHAN FOCHT: Mhmm. Yeah. So our values end up really being that guiding light. We’ve refreshed them in the last year or so, so there are five of them.

I am the final interview on everyone at the moment at the size we are that’s possible.

And my role is really to vet out that culture fit. So I think our teams are pretty honed in on what that culture is. I know that they find it to be really important. So I’ll even find in our debriefs that even our employees who are doing the technical interview may call out where they feel like candidate doesn’t align with our values. But, I’m there to kinda be the catchall at the end. 

And our values are to be yourself, to be authentic, to assume positive intent and give the benefit of the doubt, to be the difference. So are you leaving a place, a person, a workplace, a client better than how you found them?

Growth mindset, you know, I think especially in consulting and especially in technology, you have to be curious. We have to find the people who are not okay with the status quo. They’re not okay with, hey, this is how we’ve always done it. They’re sort of sniffing out where we can break things, make it better, and think outside the box.

And then finally, it’s to be bold.

You know, we’ve got to take risks. We have to think outside the box, as I mentioned. We have to challenge each other, but do it respectfully, you know, and with an open mind. And now when I always say is really inspired by our owner and founder who is just the most bold, out of the box thinker that I’ve met and is, brave enough to sort of support us trying new things, and just trusting our gut in some cases. 

So those are the five things that we’ve really we’ve kind of evaluated our people who have the most success and found the common themes where those things, and now we look for that in the people that we bring in. They’re really non negotiables.

JOSH TOLAN: Yep. That’s awesome. And when you’re interviewing candidates, how do you evaluate for that? Are you coming up with very specific behavioral interview questions or aligned with those values, or what does that look like for you?

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. I think, you know, some of them, you’ve got a vet through the behavioral interview. You know, it’s like tell me about a time where you had a tough thing happen or a mistake was made. Right? You’re gonna find out if they assume positive intent through that. Are they taking ownership through that? Are they being bold with how they solve it and transparent?

But then there’s the “be yourself” where I think you can feel that. You can feel that when you’re meeting with someone if they’re authentic, if they are putting on a show for you, or if you they’re really being real. And sometimes that might look like, you know, I don’t know. Let me think about that answer or, even just the humbleness of how they present, the scenarios that they’ve been involved in. So it’s definitely a combination of those, those things.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. Interesting. I like that you guys embrace it sounds like vulnerability in an interview setting, and that’s a symbol of somebody being authentic and being themselves and not trying to sell themselves through answering a question with some fluffy answer. It’s, you know, sometimes, like, I’m not sure of the answer. 

I have to think about that, or let me get back to let me think more about that and get back to you. Yeah, and I think that you know is more realistic of what you would want with somebody in real life when they’re working on the job as you want that vulnerability. You want somebody, it’s okay to not have the answer right now.

Let them go figure out the answer. 

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. I wonder what vulnerability will have a synonym that is strength. You know, like, right now, if you look it up, you’re gonna see, you know, different types of synonyms. And it’s like it’s such a strength, and, we require that not only in the interview process, but in the people that we have working here, really emphasizing it. We just did burnout training like a two-part burnout training for our managers, how to identify it, identify it, how to lead by example and make sure you’re managing it, how to sort of wave that white flag when you need help.

And a big one too is that paradigm switch of, you know, only bring problems if you have solutions. Right? We’ve all been taught that. And really rewiring it to say, bring the problem forward if you’re struggling.

Be open to being a part of the solution, but don’t feel like you have to wait till you know the answer because you’re not gonna figure that out in, in a silo. You’re gonna need other people and there’s gonna be things that you may have access to that you don’t realize. 

So it’s really breaking down that wall and helping people understand just, you know, come forward if you’re struggling, if you’ve made a mistake, if you’re challenged with something, if you can’t even describe it or understand why.

And that’s that’s human. And I think in the interview process, it’s important that people understand, you know, we’re vetting criteria of skill sets and what you’ve done and what you know. But ultimately, once we made the decision to hire you, like, we’ve hired you for you. And that means that sometimes you don’t know the answer, and that’s okay.

We’ve hired you for how you think about finding the answer, about how you collaborate.

And I think a lot of times, especially in consulting, people come in and they think, oh, I’m entering this world of really smart people. I’ve heard that multiple times. I’m like, us? Like, yeah.

We’re smart, but we certainly don’t have it all figured out. So if you think you’ve entered some world that we all know the answers, you’re you’re mistaken. Like, we’re all fumbling, figuring it out, making mistakes, and just, you know, celebrating that. I think finally too, it’s it’s rewiring people because we can say that, hey.

It’s okay to make the mistake. Let’s own it. Let’s talk about it. Let’s come together.

But people have been wired so tightly at other organizations to say that’s not okay, that they need, you know, sometimes up to seven times of that reinforcement to actually believe and know that that’s true.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. That’s a really great point. And I also think what you said is what makes a great consultant. Right? It’s not about going into a client meeting with all the answers. It’s about listening, and sometimes you don’t have the answers. But a good consultant will go and seek out answers or seek out resources and, you know, think about it in a very proactive way, but it’s not coming in with all the answers.

MEGHAN FOCHT: Right.

JOSH TOLAN: So I think that’s really nice that you guys have that mindset both within the culture and then also within the hiring process. You mentioned something very quickly about burnout training. So I know that’s a big thing in professional services in general is just managing the concept of burnout with the employee base.

What does that mean for you guys, or what does that look like for you guys? And then how do you deal with that on the hiring side, like, from a level of being proactive and making sure talent planning is in place?

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. I mean, it’s certainly tricky. I think every, probably every company is faced with this just especially coming out of the pandemic.

Many of us reached a level of stress that we’d never experienced before, you know, at work, but then also at home. And so it’s just kinda like all cylinders firing on stress, ambiguity, and maybe places that we’ve never, sort of understood before, just based on our circumstances. Just I can recall having three kids at home for, you know, weeks on end because of quarantine rules while trying to work, you know, all these things that in normal life prior would have never taken place.

So I think everyone at some level has to deal with this, and there is no one way to do it, I think, it is the truth of it all. And so we’re trying, by having the conversations first and foremost, you know, calling it out, having our COO in the training, you know, kick it off by saying this is a really important topic. And, and being clear that, you know, the work that we do is important. Our clients are extremely important.

Our employees are very important. And, you know, we are a business. We have to be able to make money in x y and z, but let’s not get it twisted. There’s nothing more important than your health, your family, your wellness. And if that’s being threatened, we have to talk about that. You know, we have to explore it. So that’s kind of the first thing is just making sure priorities are clear, and then just reinforcing that it’s a safe place to talk about it.

Then it’s just, you know, reminding people about the EAP. I think that has been a really helpful thing, the employee assistance program. Maybe one of the most underutilized free benefits for employees and hopefully that’s changing.

But to know that that’s a number you can call where the person answering is a trained therapist and can kinda help you in the moment if that’s what you’re experiencing or set you up to take advantage of free counseling sessions to help you figure that out. 

It may be us just kinda walking through the workload, figuring out how we need to reset that. We have had employees who’ve needed to take a leave. They just need a moment to pause, regroup. And I’m excited to say that we’ve had employees come back after that, feeling ready and excited to come back to consulting.

And I think through that, you’re finding it’s also the individual. You know, there’s only so much an organization can do. The individual has to be good at boundary setting also.

We find a lot of sort of manufactured urgency, I think, especially in consulting where it’s like, oh my god. This is happening. We have to solve it today or someone’s asked me for something, and now I’ve got to put it on my to do list today. And the simple act of going, hey, Josh.

Thanks for asking me for this. Do you need it today? Because I could get this done next week, but I have a lot of priorities this week. And, be amazed at how often that person might go, oh, yeah.

Next week is fine. You know? And it’s like, woah. I would have really tried to rush to get that done.

But having that conversation is really pausing to say I don’t have to do it all. I don’t have to say yes to everything. And maybe the answer is yes. I do need it. Then going to your manager and saying help me out because I’ve got all these priorities, and I’m feeling like I’m not gonna be able to get them done well. What can we shift? Who else can help me?

So those are a lot of the things we’re talking about and exercising.

And I think too, I’ve just seen in my past when someone’s burnt out, the go to is, like, give them vacation time or give them more money. Right? Like, that’s, I think, just human nature where brains tend to go and realizing that burnout can sometimes happen when, maybe you’re not working that much, but it’s the stuff you’re working on is aligning to your values or it’s taking too long to complete easy tasks because of the roadblocks that are in the way.

Or even knowing that some of the most engaged, energized employees can sometimes be working fifty hours a week. And love it. Like, there’s those people that are just like, I want more, and I like to work, you know, in the weekend.

It’s not me today, but, like, for sometimes that happens. So just understanding the complexity of it and just really knowing it’s it’s individual.

JOSH TOLAN: Yep. And then from the hiring side, how do you guys get ahead of that? Right? Like, you don’t wanna be caught off guard because you know, obviously, you guys are doing a great job on the employee side of managing that. But what is that how does that play out from a proactive pipeline building standpoint?

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. I think some of it is just trying to be as transparent as possible about what the job is, what the current conditions of the company are, you know, what the challenges are that we’re facing, the type of work.

We want people coming in here not blindsided.

And so we try our best to give the most realistic picture of it, even if sometimes it’s ugly. You know, sometimes you’re hiring someone into something that’s a mess because you need an additional person or, hey, we’re rebuilding something, so it’s not gonna be as neat and clean. And just making sure that they understand that and then giving them the chance to say, like, hey, this isn’t gonna be the right fit for me now, is really important.

And then it’s just the values. I think if you’re representing our values, then you should be bold enough to speak up, and you should be really honest about what is working for you and what’s not working for you.

So I think that part of the interview process helps that, as best you can.

JOSH TOLAN: Yep. Alright. Well, let’s talk about the hiring process for a minute. Can you give me the high-level overview? I know it’s gonna vary from role to role, but generally, what are the different stages that you guys run?

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. It’s a good question, and we just actually revamped it all. So I just with my recruiting team, did a whiteboarding session of, okay, what really are the stages and what should sort of happen before we move to the next so we do require a, a call to just understand what the need is. 

So whether we are being proactive and just trying to meet people and keep them warm, which we refer to as soft pipelining, or if we’re creating a real wreck putting out there and expecting to have someone in the next four to six weeks hired.

We’re meeting with that manager, making sure we understand the job description that it’s updated and cleaned up, and then really understanding from the manager based on the skill sets that they have on the team, personalities they have on the team, you know, what’s really gonna be that right fit for them.

Once we understand that, then if it’s soft pipelining, we’re starting to meet candidates proactively reaching out to them on LinkedIn primarily and then sending the manager in a chat sort of a description of that individual. If after that manager, you know, reading that wants to move forward, then we schedule that call. If it’s soft pipelining, then if the manager likes the person, we’ll keep that relationship warm. We’re setting that right expectation.

If it is, hey. This is a hard rack and we need it filled. We are working with the manager to say, okay. What is the interview schedule gonna be like?

Who is gonna be involved? What do you want each person in the interview process to focus on? So the technical screening, these are the specific skill sets we need. Okay.

Meghan’s gonna come in at the end, focus on culture fit, focus on, you know, proactive activity as a consultant, whether that’s posting on LinkedIn or sharing posts, whatever that is.

And, you know, there might be other people who do very specific things. We drop that in an email. We send it out to the hiring team for that role so that everyone’s very clear on, okay. This is the process.

This is who’s talking about what. So I don’t have to feel like I have to worry about this part. Someone else is gonna do that. And then in the past two, we’ve had feedback where you guys are asking a lot of the same questions in each of these interviews. So we’ve taken that to say, okay. We’re really gonna get disciplined about who’s asking what.

Then we schedule a debrief, you know, about four weeks out from that rack being created, expecting that by that time, we should have multiple people in the process.

And then we talk about the candidates and who’s the right fit with all the interviewers.

And then ultimately, that hiring manager has to make the call.

There are gonna be times where you get a candidate that’s really strong and they’ve got multiple offers and, you know, we may have to expedite a quick debrief just on that person to say, are we gonna pull the trigger on this individual because we might lose them and sort of stop the rest of it? But we try to stick to a debrief that includes multiple candidates as much as we can.

But yeah. So then from there, it’s the offer, background check references, and then hopefully, start working on an onboarding plan.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. That’s great. So one of the things I’ve heard when talking to other professional services companies is most of them have implemented, just like you guys, a multi-step interview process where it’s not only HR or the recruiter that’s involved and not only the hiring manager, series of other stakeholders that are part of the hiring team. What do you think is unique about professional services that requires that type of multi -step interview process? 

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. I think when you are not professional services, it really is the manager saying is this the person I need on my team?

And there’s probably I mean, there’s always gonna be collaboration, but your business is maybe not going to be, relying on that as much. So when we go into professional services, our people are our product. They are the reason why clients wanna spend money with us, and they also work with more people than just their team. So, you know, they’ll be in a department on a team that might be more skill set focused, but then go on to a project team that has multiple different departments working on it, a project manager.

And so, there’s that element of it. And then I think also it’s a technical person, who also needs to be outgoing and, extroverted in a sense or be able to kind of lift that up if that’s not their natural state and and interact with people in a way that, your stereotype of a technical person may not be able to do that. So it’s a little bit of a big ask. I think, when you go into consulting, especially at tech consulting, it’s a big ask to sort of have all the skills.

So that allows us to really have one moment to focus on. Do you have deep enough technical skills? And then another moment to focus on, okay, but culturally and, you know, when we look at interacting with our clients and how challenging that can be, can you hit that mark too?

So Yeah.

JOSH TOLAN: Makes a lot of sense. And I think with Concurrency, you know, being around for about thirty years now. You guys have a really well-defined culture. Right? And so it’s probably really important to you to bring people in that are gonna be a strong fit for that culture. What are some of the ways in the interview process that you are evaluating candidates for that cultural fit, specifically at concurrency?

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. I mean, we’ve definitely evolved what that culture is.

In the last thirty years, we’ve had a lot of ups and downs and twists and turns.

But I think what remains true is, you know, we want that client first mentality that it’s you gotta be kind of a helper because when we go into clients to help them, everything’s not running smoothly. You know, that’s why they need us. So we need those people that understand we’re entering at a chaotic time, and we’re here to help bring the calm. We’re here to help take the chaos, create the clarity, and guide people through that.

So we’re looking for that, and I think just really the focus on our, our values and really focusing on that person who can just show up extremely authentic, our clients feel that too. So we did just, launch a renewed interview training for all of our interviewers, and that included, you know, spending some time on our values and talking through, okay, this is some ways you can ask questions to vet this out. This is, you know, a reminder of what this means and how it might show up in an interview and making sure everyone is thinking about it. Like, certainly, it’s my job in the interview process to specifically vet that out.

But to get everyone thinking about that and knowing that that’s a focus, you’ll start to hear our technical interviewers, you know, just notice things and point things out because we’ve made it a focus.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. I love that you guys are doing the interview training. I think that’s such a miss from most companies that aren’t doing it because the reality is the hiring managers or the broader stakeholders that are involved in the hiring process, hiring isn’t their full time job. They’re being pulled out of their full time job and thrusted into a hiring process.

So the training is really key. So it sounds like you guys have everybody really bought into that. But as far as during the hiring process, one of the challenges that I often hear is holding hiring managers and the other stakeholders accountable for doing what they need to do when they need to do it, such as providing feedback, timely feedback right after an interview. Yeah.

What have you found to work really well to hold everybody accountable to the standard that you want to maintain?

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. I think that’s definitely an ongoing challenge, and I will admit that I’m even guilty of it at times. And part of it is building that into the schedule. You know, I think post COVID especially, you’re meeting after meeting after meeting. You’re usually finishing an interview, hanging up, and then hopping on the next call.

So it is a challenge, and we’re certainly not perfect at it. One of the things that we did implement though was, we’re not putting out any offers until all the feedback for every candidate for that rec has been completed. So it does put the pressure on a hiring manager to own that as well and to reinforce it with their team, “Hey, I want to move on this candidate and make the offer,” and, “Hey. You’re standing in my way.” 

So it kinda makes more people care about it and makes it real. It did take some time to have our recruiters really stick to it because, you know, they’re anxious to get the hire closed.

So that helps just with the urgency of it. I think even in the interview training, just explaining, you know, have the, have the form pulled up. You know, we use Lever as a tool. And so you have Lever pulled up, and we have an outline of questions that need to be answered. And, feel free to be typing during the interview.

It is a balance. I think for me specifically as I’m vetting out culture, I don’t like to be typing. I like to be extremely present, and watching the candidate and listening to the candidate. And I’m not always great at multitasking. So for me, I try not to do that.

But when you’re doing technical interviews, it might be more important that you’re jotting down what you’re learning in the moment.

So yeah. So just talking to that and trying to share different people’s, you know, tips and tricks that work for them. But I think, ultimately, that deadline of, like, “Hey. We’re not moving forward with anyone,” has probably created the best urgency, and then the talent acquisition team just has to follow-up sometimes.

JOSH TOLAN: Yep. Well, it sounds like you guys are doing a lot of great things at Concurrency.

You know, you have a few team members that are helping you out, and you guys have implemented a lot of systems and processes both on the existing, you know, employee experience side, but also in the hiring process.

There are a lot of professional services companies that are probably similar in size to you guys, seventy five employees, maybe a little bit less, where they don’t have, you know, as many team members in the human capital function to help out with all these things. In some cases, it might be one person that’s running HR and is also in charge of talent acquisition.

Mhmm. What advice would you have for folks that are in that position where they’re on a lean team and there are so many things in front of them, you know, specifically as it relates to the hiring process, how can they start to build in the rigor that you guys have when it’s maybe one or two people?

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. That’s a great point. And we do have a robust team for our size at the moment. It has been a strategic decision to retain the recruiting team that we have.

Both of them came from an agency prior. And just knowing the, you know, very specific technical needs that we have, we found it to be a competitive advantage to have that. But you’re right. A lot of companies our size would not have that.

I think too, we want and expect to grow. So that is a big part of that strategic decision. I think the biggest thing is, you know, being clear is kind. So figure out what that process is going to be.

Be really clear about that with your leadership team. That may mean that you need to ask more from your hiring managers. You know, right now we have the privilege of having our recruiters finding candidates mostly proactively.

So we’re not just getting the people applying. We’re going to knock on doors.

And so if you don’t have that, then it does, need to be your managers to really tapping into their network.

Going to different networking things, talking about what those roles are. And I think we found the best hires are usually through some type of relationship that you have.

And then, you know, it might mean less interviews. You know, we have the luxury of being able to do that at the moment.

But you gotta just figure out what you can work with. Right? And, there’s risk, you know, with everything, with the way that we’re approaching it right now, it’s a risk that, you know, maybe it’s too much. You know, we have to talk about that sometimes.

And if you don’t have all those layers and it’s risky, you might not make the right hire. So it is, you know, comes down to risk management. What are you able to do?

What are you willing to maybe be a little riskier on?

And then just figure out what that process looks like and lay it out and be clear and just follow it.

But, yeah, every point in time, it’s gonna look a little different, depending on our resources and the situation.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. And that’s a really good point. You know? I like the reference to creating clarity. Right? So clarity in the process, but also clarity in the sense of being real with what resources you have, what process do you want to deliver. Mhmm. And if you’re on a lean talent acquisition team or you’re a one person team, how do you make that happen?

Mhmm. And so to your point, in some cases, that might mean, hey. We need to make our hiring managers and all these stakeholders an extension of the HR or the talent acquisition function, and that’s going to mean implementing things that maybe you guys don’t have to implement, and you’re doing things in a different way. And so I think it’s really important for anybody on a lean talent acquisition team to just be real with themselves about the resources they want, the process and experience they want to deliver.

And then your job is to be the problem solver and figure out how to make that happen.

MEGHAN FOCHT: Always. Right? Always. And I think, like, we’ve, we’ve tested out using HireRight to do references.

So if we really got strapped, if our growth started to take off, instead of looking to hire a support person, we may just outsource those references to HireRight. You know, so it’s also understanding in all the tools that you have, what’s available, and what does that growth or that shrinkage look like? You know, we’re in a position where the economy is quite interesting at the moment. We’ve got an election year. There’s a lot going on. How our clients behave affects our business, you know, pretty quickly.

So we do have to have the plan for what if we have to shrink? What would that look like? What would we sacrifice? Those are things I’m thinking about. I’m talking to my team about even though it might not be a fun conversation, because it might mean reducing our team. It might mean adjusting how much we’re doing.

And we also have to prepare for if we grow, you know, how are we going to manage that? How long until we have to create more support?

What does that look like?

You know, just all of that has to be if you’re leading the team, things that you’re thinking and planning for.

JOSH TOLAN: Yeah. And I think to wrap things up and to take it full circle, at the end of the day, it’s not too dissimilar from what your consultants are doing in the field. Right? You have a client that has some end state where they want to be, and the consultant has to figure out how to get there given the resources or the budget or the tools or whatever is in place. And similarly, if you’re leading a human capital department or a talent acquisition team, you know where you want to be from a hiring process standpoint. You know what types of people you want to hire. You know that you need to hire them in a timely manner.

And you wanna get people that are gonna stick around for a while, and so it’s up to you to navigate the internal resources of the team members you have and some of the external resources that may be available to you, whether it be tools or different channels or whatever that may be, and it’s your job to figure that out and then continue to iterate on it over time. So, Meghan, this was, very, very insightful. I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for joining me today.

MEGHAN FOCHT: Yeah. Thank you. It was a pleasure and certainly my favorite topic. So, you know, anytime I could talk about HR or how we navigate it is a good day for me. So I really appreciate it and hope that it is helpful for a lot of people and, just appreciate you thinking of me.

JOSH TOLAN: Absolutely. Thanks so much.