Shally's Alley by RecruitingDaily

Navigating the Clearance Conundrum with Tommy Weinert

• Shally Steckerl

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Navigating security clearances is riddled with roadblocks. From a shrinking talent pool to classified work histories, recruiting cleared candidates demands creative problem-solving.

Veteran cleared recruiter Tommy Weinert, co-founder of  Mount Indie,  joins on Shally's Alley to tackle clearance conundrums. He shares clever techniques for identifying and engaging passive candidates with top-secret access.

Learn unique search strategies like geo-locating classified government contractors through Google Maps. Hear Tommy’s insights on building trust and demonstrating industry expertise.

Tommy also discusses aligning recruiting metrics to business outcomes, the dangers of over-reliance on AI, and misconceptions about passive candidates. He advocates for developing talent through internal promotion over external hires.

Whether you work in cleared defense recruiting or not, Tommy’s personalized outreach and partnership philosophies will inspire smarter, more authentic sourcing.

Shally Steckerl:

Hey. All right. How's that for an introduction? Pretty awesome. Yeah, that's a, that's a way to kick off the show, right? Yeah. Thanks to Brooke for making that possible. She's just an absolute genius when it comes to that kinda stuff. That's rad. So. All right. Hey everybody. You are live on Shelley's Alley Friday, July 21st. Our guest today is Tommy. Am I saying this right? Uh, Weiner or Wiener. Got it. Weiner. Weiner, yeah. Okay. Yep. Tommy Weinert. Not to be confused with Wino, that's a completely different person. Yep. That's what happens late, late nights, right. On weekends. Yeah. Tommy Wino, so Tommy owns his own search firm. Yep. And focuses on specializes in security cleared candidates. So yeah. Top secret stuff. And he's based outta Seattle, is that right? San Diego. Oh, San Diego, okay. When was, I think in Seattle second Best West Coast. City, second best. Okay. All right. All right. Seattle is right, is what you're trying to say? Correct. Okay. Right. Yeah. I do like San Diego. Yeah. I think that's where we met. It was at an er, east San Diego a long, long time ago. Yep.

Tommy Weinert:

Many, many moons ago. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds right.

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, um, I actually, um, Uh, uh, interested in talking to you about a couple of things. One of them is, of course, the clear space. It's an area that's near and dear to me. I've, I've worked in a lot of different, um, Yeah. Top secret and, and, and above kind of environments, uh, with clients have even worked with, uh, worked on a project with all 16 of the clandestine agencies. Mm-hmm. and it's, it's kind of something that I have, uh, a bit of an affinity for probably, cuz I, I, I watched too much, Jack Ryan or, um, you know, those kinds of, uh, mission impossible and stuff like that. Just, it's just cool to, um, you know, to sort of be in that space. And it's something that a lot of people. Just don't understand or have no clue about because Well, I, I'll let you explain, but what, what makes top secret or cleared candidate recruiting so much different? You, yeah. You, you tell us and then I'll jump in with my 2 cents.

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah. I mean, first of all, it's at any time we're dealing with a candidate pool of 700,000 or less, there's only 700,000 contractors. That have security clearance out of 4 million Security Clear.

Shally Steckerl:

I'm glad. Just I, yeah, I was gonna say cuz there's four, 4 million T S S T I and above, but Yeah. 700,000 that are contractors. That's the Yeah. Thing.

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah. Yeah. So at any time it's a small candidate pool, which makes it very difficult, but then

Shally Steckerl:

limited candidate pool flat out and, uh, it's not the kind of thing that you can like, well, we'll just make more, let's send 'em to school or whatever. The adjudication process is not something that you can kind of wait for. Right, if you're trying to make a hire, unless you really are planning it way in advance, yes, that's a huge problem.

Tommy Weinert:

And then anytime there's a data leak or it slows the, the, the adjudication process down. So, um, and, and in Congress right now is discussing limiting, like taking security clearances away, which is absolutely insane. So that, that's something that they're discussing. They think that. For some reason, they think that we're giving away security clearances, like candy as they put it, which is just so misinformed.

Shally Steckerl:

But, so why don't they just revamp the whole system?

Tommy Weinert:

I mean, yeah, they, they're, they're in the process of doing it, but it's, uh, it's been challenging. And then another thing is, um, a lot of the people that we, uh, uh, they're hard to find. They don't wanna talk to us candidates sometimes with high security clearance, you know, they, they don't wanna. Be reached and for throughout the day, they're typically in, um, you know, environments to where they can't have their cell phones, they can't check emails. So it's a very tricky, uh, Environment to work within. But, uh, we love it. I've been doing it since 2008 and my wife and I run the company. Um, sometimes we ask ourselves why we've dedicated the business to, to this space cuz it is so challenging.

Shally Steckerl:

Well, you know what? You're gonna have a niche, right? So yeah. If the niche is cleared candidates, then you don't have to worry about industry, whatever industry, because that in of itself is a niche. Yeah. As long as you have something you specialize in, you have a shot at and an enduring going concern. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, why not, right? Yeah. If you know it. Did you, did you yourself ever have any kind of clearance?

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah, we, we we're cleared, um, both my wife and I and, um, it's funny. Don't really do anything with it,, but, you know, it's, we're in the process of getting, it's not required in order to make placements, so,

Shally Steckerl:

yeah. Right.

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, it's not really necessary, but we're trying to get our company cleared to do some more, uh, specific work to the industry, but, um, But yeah, we've, yeah, of course.

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah. And there's a lot of ways that people get clearance. They can, they can have worked with the government, they can have worked with the, or have, uh, come outta the military and everything. Yeah. Something, you know, we might be an interesting thing to educate the audience about. And that is, most people don't really know, there's really only four types of clearance. There's Right. A lot of, um, Categories and labels that are attached to it, but there's really only four in the United States. Clearances, which is confidential. Yep. Right. Top secret. And sci, which is sensitive compartmented information, uh, which is a fancy way of saying you shall only have access to this data. Yeah. And no data. And then, you know, and that data in and of itself, whatever that is, um, is, is, uh, classified that way. And so that, those are, those are it. Now, beside that, what makes things really, really tough is that. There are so many ways in which people work with these clearances that are different from one organization to the other, whether it's Department of Defense, department of Justice, uh, fbi, and they say they all have their own this and that, and some have polygraphs, some don't. It gets really complicated and the. More clearances you have, the more likely that something that you worked on has to be redacted and can't even be put on your profile. Right? So all that to say that the biggest challenge in finding people with clearance is the fact that many of them. Well, they can't say that they have clearance.

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah. Tech, technically speaking, I don't think it's, but if they can . Yeah. I don't think you're supposed to say that. Uh, yeah. That you have one. So it, it does make,

Shally Steckerl:

I don't think having clearance is in and of itself confidential. Yeah. But if you have like, Sci HCS dash P, right? Or if you have Ssci ci Polly, now we're talking about, okay, this person has access to something specific that may make them a target for blackmail or, uh, terrorism or, you know, kidnapping, who knows what, right?

Tommy Weinert:

That's the one thing that I think most people don't understand about clearances is what the government is most. Concerned with is your susceptibility to blackmail. I mean, that's like the number one thing is that

Shally Steckerl:

Yes, that's what the poly is. Yeah. So it, especially the full scope. Right.

Tommy Weinert:

And then to your point too, the, the agencies, they don't honor each other's clearances sometimes, so, you know, so it it, it gets to be a big mess sometimes.

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah. But, um, it, it's a big mess. That's, that's right. At least the good news is if you've got top secret, then some of the other things you can kinda. Add on, tackle, on work on. But yeah, so doing a search, I, I, I, I did many, many searches. Probably not anywhere near as many as you, but doing a search, you know, you kind of gets tangled up with all these different acronyms and keywords. But I gotta tell you, man, I'll, I'll share my favorite tip. Yeah. And then you'll share your favorite tip. Not that we're giving anything away here, but Yeah. My favorite tip is it, it, it's easier to find what's not on the page. Than it is to find every possibility of what could be on the page. Right? That sounds cryptic and it's not meant to be, but what I'm saying is if you really wanted to capture every top secret, you know, let's just start with that, because confidential and secret, ain't that it, you know, it's not that big a deal with some of the things that, that you and I have done, but top secret and above is where things start to get fun, right? If, if you're looking for top secret and above and you want to capture every possible, Abbreviation or keyword or whatever. We're talking about several hundred different ways that these are put together from abbreviations like I S S A and SAP and all that stuff. So looking for all of these things would be a gigantic gargantuan pullan string, the likes of which you've never seen, or you can look for the absence of things like for example, if. I have this and that on my profile. I prob very likely, let's just say if I live near McLean, Virginia, um, in this particular zip code, it's very high probability. I probably work at the nsa. Yeah, just saying, right. Or um, looking for things like the word declassified or unclassified. Who puts declassified or unclassified on their profile? Well, someone who's also worked with the opposite of that, right? Yeah.

Tommy Weinert:

So what's your favorite? So some somewhat similar. So it's,

Shally Steckerl:

dang it. I stole your thunder. Sorry.

Tommy Weinert:

No, I'll give you two because there's one I really like. I'll start with that one is, So, for example, we use nsa. Uh, you know, tho those folks typically have like the highest clearance possible and um, they're not there advertising.

Shally Steckerl:

Well, screen poly. Yeah. Yeah.

Tommy Weinert:

So what I did was, what I was really having a hard time finding people. I literally went on Google Maps and the first thing I did was I would look and say, okay, what, what buildings are around the nsa? What companies are around there? You could see the names pop up on Google Maps. So I was like, okay. Uh, you know, yeah. Obviously people at those buildings have, uh, the current contact, right?

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah. You might not even be able to, like you were talking about, get into the parking lot. Yeah. With your truck. You might have to like leave it in your car or not. Or not even, or not even bring it in because, or even if you bring it in, there may be a, you know, dragnet that like blocks radio communications. So Yeah, totally. The fact that you're like on the grounds of that, of that area, you're probably. Involved somehow. Yeah.

Tommy Weinert:

A lot of those locations are kind of like out in the middle of nowhere. So the popul so live there, bases are supporting the base. So, um, yeah, we did, I used to do a lot with Google Maps, like literally I went to Street View once and walked around on Street View and you could read the signs on the buildings and you could be like, oh, that, that's a defense contractor.

Shally Steckerl:

That's a defense contractor. Really read the signs on the bill. That's nice. Like virtually walk the virtual tour.

Tommy Weinert:

Totally. I mean, you can go down the rabbit hole real quick, but like, that's the stuff I do when it's like I can't find people. Yeah. And I start looking at stuff like that and I'm like, okay.

Shally Steckerl:

How I, or what else? The ancillary, what's, what's around there? Companies, locations. Um, you know, there, there's a, here's another one, and, and I'm gonna, I don't want to go down this rabbit hole too much, but like military service for example, certain, um, Certain, uh, like crosswalk codes or the Army calls them os the Marines call 'em o t, the Navy calls 'em n ec and the Air Force call 'em afs sc. But basically it's that code. Yeah. Um, that, uh, that, that, that is your sort of job, like your job code almost. There are several job codes. That you just don't have, like, for example, certain communications equipment. Yeah. Or access to Keyhole, for example, that if you have, you have clearance because you just, you, you to do it. You were there and you may have left the military, but you still have that ability to get reinstated sometimes or whatever. So, yeah.

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah. And it's also like when you're, when you're in the industry long enough, all you can start. You understand the contracts, and so I know on this contract, that contract requires that clearance. So if somebody's profile comes up and they're on that contract, or I figure out they're on that contract, I can infer what clearance they have. It's the the really good defense crew recruiters. How to infer the clearance and just say, oh, you have this clearance because of X, Y, and Z. They worked

Shally Steckerl:

on this. So they have that. Yeah, they worked on the ego project, so they have that, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that, that brings me back to one of the things that we wanted to talk about, which is, um, you're very big on, as you refer to it, old school. Now, that's not just because you and I are both old, but what you mean by old school is what exactly, and, and your emphasis is on what?

Tommy Weinert:

Well, I guess the way to sum it up, it's outbound, right? I mean, we, okay.

Shally Steckerl:

It's, it, it's outbound. It's finding and reaching out to, okay.

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah. High touch. Um, I think the phone is the best way to get in touch with someone. Um, you know, I, I, I believe that, I don't believe there's a difference between a candidate on a job board and a candidate on LinkedIn as far as quality goes. I know, you know, a lot of people think that for some reason passive candidates are better than active candidates, which are, uh, you know, I don't agree with. Um, but to me it's, it's, you know, recruiting is sales, uh, and, uh, it, everything stems from that. But, um, starting with that and then learning all the cool new things, you know, utilizing the new technologies, but the basis is always your search has to be good and your outreach has to be, um, you know, aggressive for a lack of a better term because there's a ton of noise in the market. Um, MySpace is highly competitive.

Shally Steckerl:

Well, well, we'll hold on though. So like, yeah, just, I, I wanna, I want to challenge you with this mm-hmm. right here because it can be a point of contention. Yeah. Um. You and I accept the usage of the word aggressive in a positive environment. Correct. But for other people, that may not be the case. So yeah, let's, let's, you and I can agree that aggressive is what, is, is the, is the, the, the proper positive way of aggressive is to be persistent and not give up. And, you know, so that that's, but, but some people interpret it as stocky or stock ratio or whatever, right? So really what we mean here is. Assertive and not, uh, not taking no for an answer, but not in the pushy way. Um, as in like the candidate says no, and you keep pushing, but not taking no for an answer for yourself. Right? Like, not giving up, like if you, you know, if you reach out to somebody, th this is a, this is a challenge that I have a lot when I'm coaching recruiters and they say, well, my, you send out how many messages because I've got a seven message cadence. And they're like, that's, that's too much. That's it. That's a cadence, and it's like, it's aggressive, right? And they say aggressive now in that environment as bad. That's not good. That's aggressive is bad. Well, hold on a second, pause for a minute. How do you know they even got the first message? 100%. You don't even know if they got it. So to, to the person receiving it. This is not seven messages. This may be only one. Yeah, because they didn't get the first one, or they didn't get the one to this email. You sent it to the other email, or they didn't get the email at all. So you text them or they, you know, so it's not, it's seven attempts. But it's not, yeah. Seven messages that you know got delivered. It's not like you're, you know, in their face. It's So, I just wanna make sure that people don't think what you mean aggressive is the other aggressive. Tommy Weinert: Yeah. Lemme also add some further context too. So back to what I said earlier, you have to do your search right as a recruiter. Like you have to find the right people targeting. Yep. And if you find the right people for the right job and you truly believe that is the right fit, They are not going, when, when candidates get really upset is when you miss the mark. You know, you miss the mark. Yeah. And, but you're absolutely right. Aggressive to me is being systematic. Mm-hmm., it's about, you know, another negative. Now everything I say sounds negative, but like executing a, a strategy saying like, this is how I'm gonna go through it. I'm gonna executing, you know? Yeah. We're all over the place today. Yeah, it's, it's about basically having a plan, working the plan, and going all the way through with the plan, because the plan works. And, and this ties into the other thing they were talking about before, which is response rates. The response rates are cumulative effect. Your response rates to your very first email is gonna be dismal, and the response rates on LinkedIn are, you know, eight to 12% nowadays. It used to be they would send you to LinkedIn jail if you got 13% response rate, um, or, or lower. But that's, you know, because people are just not, they're not getting the messages, they're not reading, they're not checking their email or it's not even coming through. There's so much clutter in our inbox. Yeah. So part of it is actually kind of breaking through the clutter and I often get third and fourth email responses where the person says, I'm so glad you sent that cuz I didn't get your other me. This is the first message I got.

Tommy Weinert:

100%. 100%. I get that a lot.

Shally Steckerl:

Like I, so, right, like it happens in office, you're like, okay, this is why. Yeah. Yeah.

Tommy Weinert:

And and to your point too about the clutter. The clutter is gonna increase tenfold with all of this AI tech. I mean, it is about to get noise in our space. And so strategic timing, strategic messaging, all of this stuff is gonna be. So much more important because, you know, the firms that do spam like crazy have just been given the, the keys to the castle to spam like nuts with all this new tech.

Shally Steckerl:

So Tommy, you just gave me a really good idea. We need to invent an email chat, G P T that filters the emails and only sends you the ones forwards, the ones that you actually wanna read. So you can tell your chat. Bot. Bot. Oh, filter. Yeah. Hey, chat bot, or Hey, chat G p T. Only send me recruiting emails where the recruiter is recruiting for these types of roles. All the other ones just reply with, Hey, thanks, but no thanks . Product idea. Ding. Where's my light bulb when I need it?

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah, we need copyright quickly.

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah. So in your opinion, um, cumulative cumulatively in the total sum of whatever your cadence is, I'm not gonna ask you to gimme any secrets, but what would you consider is an, is a, is an end of cycle response rate that's acceptable once you've sent all your emails, texts, whatever it is that you normally do? What is in your opinion, uh, uh, an acceptable, we could do better, but we also could do worse? Yeah.

Tommy Weinert:

Response rate, I, I would say acceptable is 50%. And I would say you should shoot for 70.

Shally Steckerl:

Um, again, cumul, like after you've done all your campaigns. Cumul

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah. Ul, yeah. Right. Something I think that we're, my team is probably between 50 and 70%, but it, again, it's a different market. Um, but the whole beauty about response rate is a higher response rate, the lower amount of outreach you have to do. Right. So if you get really good at messaging, You're not sending out a ton of messages if you're finding the right people and contacting them, but I, I would say 50% is acceptable. But I do know that a lot of industry is, is closer to 30 and, and it is industry specific. It is. So the clear space, we may have a higher response rate.

Shally Steckerl:

That's possible. Yeah. Cuz 50 is a little bit. On the high end. Um, yeah. You know, even for, for us, when, you know, we are doing all of the, the different campaigns in my teams, and when I, and when I teach this, I, I target a minimum of 30%. So I'm, for me, acceptable is you gotta pass the 30% mark or you're just wasting clarify, wasting your time. You're, you're wasting so much time and energy and work and effort and you're actually ruining your brand if you're sending out so much garbage that only 30% of the people reply. So you need to. Target at the, at the end of your cycle target 30%, 50% would be great. Um, but you know, gone are the days when I used to get 85, 90%, um, oh yeah. Forget that.

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah. That doesn't happen anymore. I mean, and the other thing that, to clarify is like we, uh, for everyone listening, a no is a response. Right? Right.

Shally Steckerl:

A reply. That's right.

Tommy Weinert:

A reply, any type of reply. That's right. So whether it's on LinkedIn text mm-hmm. phone, email, um, You know, as long as they get back to us at some point, we consider that a response.

Shally Steckerl:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because, yeah. Hey, you know, ideally if, if, if my message is really targeted and the, and the list is very targeted and I'm reaching the right kind of people, my, my most preferred answer is a yes. But my second most preferred answer is a no. My right least preferred answer is nothing, because then I have no idea if I even got through. Yeah. Right. So just tell me, Hey, no thanks. That's fine. I, all it takes for you to get off my list is say, uh, no thanks or not, not for me, or not interested. I'm not gonna bother you again. I'm not gonna waste my time or yours, or, you know, so, yeah. Yeah. Speaking of, um, a highly targeted a a and this is a, across the board, you make a, you made a funny reference to unicorns. Um, yeah. Do you wanna, do you wanna share that with, with, with the, uh, with the audience that you, you say there's no unicorns. There's only what?

Tommy Weinert:

There's no unicorns. There's only horses that we put horns on. And like, what I mean by that is we should always be looking at hiring capable people and, and whenever possible, hiring them into their promotion, not. Hiring into lateral moves. And again, I get it as recruiters, we don't make the, we don't make the requirements, but it's, it's working with the hiring managers to, to like pull the horn off and say, let's, what are we really looking for here? And then find somebody that they could like cultivate into that unicorn employee. I just, You know, the, the term unicorn, purple squirrel. It's like when you're meeting with your hiring team and every wreck is a unicorn. It's like unicorns are supposed to be like incredibly rare.

Shally Steckerl:

How come every one of your positions is a unicorn? Is a unicorn. Yeah. Because it really isn't. That's the truth. It's not, it's not. I, you know, to use the purple squirrel analogy, just get a squirrel and spray paint it, you know, . Yeah. Um, so yeah, I like, and it's not, it's not that you're like, Cheating the system, putting in, you know, a square peg into a round hole or whatever. It's that the, the reality is that those just God descriptions have been, have grown and adapted over time and have evolved to include the things that that candidate that. Left that position learned while they were on the job. So when they originally hired Tommy, the job description was A, B, C, and D. And then Tommy on the job learned H Y Z and, and L N O P. And then when Tommy leaves, they want to backfill that. And so now the job description's got all these other things on it and you know, nobody might have that because nobody has the com combination of Tommy's background and Tommy's recent experience. So, you know those, yeah, those wrecks can, can kind of accumulate. A history with them or mm-hmm., the opposite of that, um, can be a little myopic in, in having something that doesn't exist. You know, we had a, a friend of mine, a guest on the show that that goes through this, what he calls live sourcing with a hiring manager. Um, you might, you might do this too, on, on the intake call with the hiring manager, he actually pulls up his seek out and when the hiring manager says, okay, we need them in this state. He pulls in the state and then these companies and these job titles, and then he shows them, here's the town pool, and he's like three people and the hiring manager's like, yeah, oh wow, that's it. And he's like, yeah, well, let's start taking some of these things off and see what happens. Yeah. And I remember's like, oh, wow, that's a much better talent pool. So yeah, it's, it's, you're, you're just kind of setting realistic expectations.

Tommy Weinert:

Right. Well, the thing about that methodology is it benefits. So most of our businesses that we work with are small businesses, and if you as a company, care about retention, if you care about keeping employees, bringing people in to promotions, training them, teaching them is the best way to retain your, your employees is giving them a, you know, a rewarding environment. Not bringing people in from lateral moves and they get bored and leave. So where, where it actually seems like I'm cheating the system by giving you someone less qualified, I'm actually helping your retention and helping you get more for your money because you're gonna get someone that hopefully stays longer if you, if you treat them well.

Shally Steckerl:

Um, that's a good point. It doesn't just put a year in and then bails out. Totally.

Tommy Weinert:

So we, I think it's a really, really good methodology for all companies because I. If you look for people that are constantly promoted and you're promoting them into their next role, I mean, that's, it's a really good baseline for how you can bring people in. And, you know, also from an HR standpoint, like you're not bringing everyone in at the max of the pay band. You're bringing someone in lower and they can grow within the pay band and, and, you know, earn actual raises versus cost of living adjustments. So it, it helps the candidate and it helps the company and it helps the recruiter. It's a, it's a no-brainer. It's a really good strategy.

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Remember when we used to call those cola? I want my cola, cola adjustment. Yeah. My cola my cost of living adjustment. Yeah. So, um, what let's, let's like travel back in time, what captured your interest and attracted you initially to recruiting and sourcing?

Tommy Weinert:

100% desperation. Okay. Is what got me there. That's what captured your interest. Well, so honestly, I was working in a hotel and I worked with a bunch of my friends and they slowly started like getting jobs somewhere and making good money. And I'm like, what are they doing? And I quit my job and didn't have a job for like a couple months and it was just living by the beach and uh, I needed a job. And so I went and learned how to recruit at this small company that was like insanely good at training recruiters and. They really cool. You know, it was, it, they, it's a huge company now, but they're a small business.

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah. You got lucky. A lot. A lot of recruiters don't get good training. They, they just kinda get tossed into the deep end of the pool and, you know. Yeah.

Tommy Weinert:

We got insane training. It's awesome. Insane training. Yeah. Yeah. Like, uh, really in intensive hands-on training course. In my interview they made me, uh, call someone and with zero recruiting experience in the interview. They're like, get on the phone. I'm like, what? Just to see how you do.

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah. You, you might bumble it around, but yeah. Yeah. So, so you got put outta desperation, but why, so what captures your interest now? Why, what keeps you in it? It can't be the same thing. Um, no. Or something went horribly wrong.. That,

Tommy Weinert:

that would be really bad. I'm really, I'm a passionate person and I know the space really well and, um, you know, my wife and I started this business in 2018, and obviously we have the energy of owning our own business. Mm-hmm.. Yeah. But um, I just think we're really good at it and I think that it's a space that a lot of people recruiting is a space that I think a lot of people don't really understand how critical it is to organizations' growth. Oh yeah. And especially in my space, recruiting can really affect. I mean, it does affect every company. The, the defense space is ultimately just a large staffing space, and companies live and die by their chairs too

, Shally Steckerl:

lot of rotating. Tommy Weinert: Yeah. So I, I mean, I like it and I think that it's also a space that is ripe for, um, like real, real leadership, not just like, you know, people saying the same stuff over and over again, and, yeah. Um, I we're just really passionate about it and I, you know, I never thought I would be, but, uh, the older I get, the more I really, really enjoy it. And, you know, we have the opportunity to train a lot of people too, and we get a kick outta training teams and, um, helping people see the light on, on, you know, different ways of recruiting, but it's, it's something we've become very passionate about.

Shally Steckerl:

Cool. Cool. Yeah. What, what's been the most unexpected benefit of being in the industry?

Tommy Weinert:

Um, honestly for me it's, I mean, the unexpected benefit would be the freedom. It's just given, it's given, you know, me, I've just, I feel like I never would've started a business otherwise, and that has just led me onto this path of being an entrepreneur with my wife and. Um, I never thought I would own a business, right? But the company I came from was so good at training and showing, you know, people every aspect of the business that, uh, when I left I was prepared to, to start a business with my wife, and I never thought that that was in the cards. I think maybe, but. So definitely, definitely happy and grateful to be in this.

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah. Totally unexpected that you ended up being a, having the goods to be a, an entrepreneur, even though that wasn't even, that wasn't even on your, yeah. On your radar, huh.

Tommy Weinert:

And let me just at a smaller level, like being able to talk to anyone, which is like, it's crazy, like in recruiting like that, the value to just, I could talk to anyone about anything.

Shally Steckerl:

Like it does give you a pretty broad understanding of like business, right? Yeah, you get into, so you learn about so many different aspects of, of industry and economy and

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah. Yeah. It's a really cool industry and I, I just, I hate when people treat recruiting as a, um, junior function within an organization. I've just always like what, you know, recruiting is not a junior business function. It is quite arguably the most critical function to your business and. It's interesting that that, you know, kind of gets that wrap sometime within organizations.

Shally Steckerl:

Uh, yeah, you know what, to the life for life of me, I can't explain. I've had conversations with, with some of the top CEOs in the world, um, CEOs of, you know, Microsoft and, and Cisco and, um, Companies like that, and I've had conversations with startup CEOs and CFOs. I've tried to wrap my head and understand why there's such a disparate view of, of the function, but there just is this almost extremely polarizing ex just. Wide gap between those that really value the function, like, uh, Steve Bomber and, and it's like this is the lifeblood of the company. It's the most critical thing, like you just said. And then the others that are like, eh, anybody could do it. Let's just, let's just hire somebody that can read. And, you know, maybe not even that, you know, like, it's like, wow, okay. How, how do we go from here? Like, how do we go from here to there? How do we go from Yeah. A, a search firm that, that. Demands and commands and earns 35% fees still today to we're only gonna pay the sorcerer $22 an hour. Yeah. And it's like almost the same job. I, I, I know it's not, it's a different role, but, right. But I mean, like, the value of this versus that is so broad. Um, I've never really, I've tried to explain it honestly. I've tried and I've asked some pretty, I. Smart people that are real, really well connected about it, and I get different answers every time. Some, some say that it's a perception of value. Some say that it's simply that they don't see the, um, they don't see the, the level of difficult, they, they don't realize how difficult it is. My, my take on it is, frankly, most people that don't get the value have no idea what the conversion rates are like. How much work goes into it. They, they think the ones that don't get it outpatient, that, that, that pay $22 an hour for a sourcer. They think that you just push a button and pop the next candidate comes out of the vending machine and it's like that easy. Yeah. Post a job and boop, you know, but even if you post a job, you may or may not get any applicants, and even if you get lots of applicants, They may or may not be the right ones. And even if they're the right ones, you still have to talk to them. Some of 'em, you still have to sell. You still have to negotiate. There's so many other things that go into the activities, but yeah, CEOs don't want to hear about activity. They want to hear about the outcome.

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah, so, so I think, yeah, and I think part of it is, um, You know, we hear a lot like recruiting needs a seat at a table and like, I don't think recruiting needs a seat at the table. I think what recruiting needs to do is align their objectives with the top line objectives of the organization and report on that. And I think recruiting metrics are horrible at doing that. Like mm-hmm., time to fill, everyone talks about that.

Shally Steckerl:

It's terrible. Does, that's absolute all time.

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah, and I think it's our job as recruiting leaders to go to management and say, look, what is important to you? Is it, is it really retention? Or do you wanna build your team up as quickly? Is it product delivery? What is important? Yeah.

Shally Steckerl:

Is it really time? Is it time? Is it quality or is it cost? Right?

Tommy Weinert:

They're gonna say it's, they're, they're gonna say, getting the right people in the right seat as quickly as possible, say, okay, our metrics are now gonna be aligned to that, and that's how we're gonna report and that's what, how we will. You know, drive forward. But I think in recruiting, we're really bad at having those conversations. Yeah. And it's critical to do that, uh, because we, I'll just say, you know, this one story, I went and into a bu uh, leader, a business unit leader, and he told me, you know, my recruiting data was BS and I didn't know what he meant. Mm-hmm., I'm like, this is the real data. And he educated me basically like, I don't care about anything you're reporting, like this doesn't matter to me. That's kinda what I'm saying.

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah. This is what matters. They don't like, they don't, they don't wanna see the activity. It makes They hired you for the activity.

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah. Yeah. They wanna see the results. And I think they wanna, the outcomes we're so activity focused.

Shally Steckerl:

They wanna see the outcomes. They wanna see the outcomes. That's, that's so true. And even as a, even as a search firm where your, ultimately, your reward is your commission, you, you get paid for the, for the hire. E even as a search firm, hires are still not the outcome. Right. That's the result. But the outcome is, like you said, the right person in the right job at the right time. Getting somebody that's gonna do the job well and is gonna, and is gonna come in and do the job sooner or soon enough to not cause problems, you know, or, or delays or whatever. There's a lot that goes into that. So the outcome is really filling it on time and with good quality. It's not just a hire because that's how you make mistakes. That's how you, you know, yeah, let's just hire somebody cuz we could just hire anybody. Right? You know?

Tommy Weinert:

Right. And on time does not mean less than your time to fill on Time means when is it needed?

Shally Steckerl:

When is it needed, and how hard is it gonna be? And did we have enough runway? Right? Right, right. If, if we know this job's gonna take three months to fill and you tell me that it's gotta be filled in two weeks ain't happening, baby. It's just that. Yeah. I mean, but I have to have the data to be able to tell you how long it's gonna take. I can't just say intuitively, oh, it's not gonna, it's gonna take this long. Well, really well look, in the past, these other similar jobs or these other similar companies have taken this long. Um, and here's the reason why. Here's the size of the market and here you wanna dive into the data? Sure, we can do that. But let me tell you, this is how long it's gonna take. Set the expectations, right? Otherwise, yeah. You're just, just, just destined to, um, taking nose dive. And as far as the seated table, Tommy, let me ask you this. Yeah. How did they get to the table? They got recruited. Right? Right. Yeah. I mean, how many people at the table have been recruited? So they gotta know there's gotta be somewhere deep down in their, in their psyche that they, that they realize that we have a seat at the table vis-a-vis. We put them in that seat.

Tommy Weinert:

Well, the funny thing is, is like the, and this is not a knock, but like, I mean, executive search firms make a ton of money and a lot of of that is retained mm-hmm. on. And so they know how much they, you know, spent to get executives at the table oftentimes. Right. So, yeah, you're right. It's, uh, Yeah, it's an inter, I mean, this could be, I could talk about this.

Shally Steckerl:

Sure. The value of a, you know, senior level executive that's a game changer is a, is is a force multiplier. And the value of someone that may be an entry level role is not the same, but that's why you don't pay the same. However, the value is still the same. You know, it, it, the price may be lower, but the value is the same, you know? Yeah. It's just price versus value is a completely different conversation. Um, yeah. Yeah.

Tommy Weinert:

So what, back to original point. Yeah, you had two real quick. So the pairs, like, like the, the hiring manager sourcing that you mentioned, like doing the live sourcing with the hiring manager, that's a great way to like start getting them into our heads and seeing what we're dealing with the, with the market and, and being a little bit more collaborative and kind of, you know, elevating the reputation of the function. But anyways,

Shally Steckerl:

very wise for one so young. What is the single most single, most difficult role you've ever worked? And I'm interested in the why it was difficult. More so than the, you know. Oh, I know exactly what it was. Yeah. Most people do. Most people know exactly what it is. Yeah, it's the hill. You tied on . Yeah. Sometimes twice.

Tommy Weinert:

I don't wanna say, I don't wanna say too much, but we were, um, this is crazy. We were hiring F 15 instructor pilots to live in Saudi Arabia and teach the Royal Saudi Air Force how to fly the F fifteens that we just sold them. And so they had to be us F 15 pilots. Uh, as you can imagine, the fighter pilot community is very small. Yeah. And very connected. And once we called one and told 'em what we were proposing, we pay, word got out. I think that one person just told all of them like, this company is gonna call you. And they're nuts. And uh, so every time we'd call these fighter pilots, they would just, you know, we did, we did end up hiring a couple of them, but I'm not kidding you. We were.$200,000 short on salary from the first offer. Wow. 200,000. So they were demanding like 300 to 350 if I, if I'm remembering correctly, this was a long time ago. And, uh, I mean, that was nuts. That was absolutely crazy. And. Think about the job. Like they, they were teaching people how to fly fighter jets.

Shally Steckerl:

Why didn't you just call Tom Cruise? I mean, really just totally

Tommy Weinert:

That is the hardest, that's the hardest thing we ever worked. And um,

Shally Steckerl:

I bet I had something similar to that. Not that hard, but it was test pilots. For a different SCRAM jet. Um, so they, in the us not, not anywhere near as hard as like, you know, going somewhere else and all that, but it was test pilots. And, um, my creative solution to that, I'm not, I, I'm not shy to to tell you, is I ended up figuring out that a lot of them were hobbyists and used, um, RC. You know their remote controlled jets in their spare time and with their kids and whatever. So a lot of them actually like join these clubs and go on these airfields where they could fly these. Fake combat, mini remote controlled jets and stuff like that. And I was like, wow. So I found a couple of these clubs reached out to the clubs and like you said, that once, it was, once word got out in the club, all the club members are like, Hey, check this out. This is pretty cool. It's, they're testing this technology and, you know, um, so that was, that was pretty interesting. Another time I had a, I had to hire a flutter engineer. I don't know what that is. They're the ones that, um, they're, it's a combination between, you can't get this degree anywhere. Um, it's a combination between material science, statistics, and math. They're the ones that use telemetry to measure the flutter of, uh, wings in supersonic. Jets. Oh. In order to detect at what tolerance levels, how fast they can go, what the material. So they're, they're, they're basically taking the, the, the, the SCRAM jet to the limit until right before it fails. And they gotta test that, um, with telemetry and calculate it so they can make improvements on it. It's nuts. And the reason is because nobody goes to school for that. You, you have to have, yeah. These three very different skill sets come together. Um, and there's not that many jet makers. Yeah. You know, supersonic jet, there's only a few of them, so . Yeah. That's crazy. It was really

Tommy Weinert:

weird. Yeah. Nutty stuff.

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah. So yeah, thanks for sharing that. Um, yeah, of course. We're getting pretty close to wrap up. So I, I've got, I've got a wrap up question that I always ask and I started asking a new one, so I've got, I've got my usual wrap up question for you. I'm sure you know it's coming, but here's the other one. Who should be our next guest?

Tommy Weinert:

Ooh. Um, who should be your next guest?

Shally Steckerl:

Um, it's totally fine if they say no, but just like, you know, who do you think you'd want? Who would you want on the show? Even if they say no. Okay. Have you had Susanna, have you had Susanna Frazier on yet? No, I have not.

Tommy Weinert:

She would, she would be great. She's a hoot. I love her. She would be really good to, to chat with.

Shally Steckerl:

I know her. That's good. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. All right, cool. And then here's the wa here's the whammy. What would you like our audience members to. Walk away with and kind of noodle on. So it could be a question or a statement. I don't wanna make it a closing remark, but something that you want them to think about, um, contemplate, consider whatever. A lot of folks watch this show over the weekend. So yeah, something, give them something to think about or a question to answer to themselves. Um, that's important.

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah, I mean I think it goes back to, um, well, lemme say two things really quick. The first is considering a career in cleared recruiting. I mean, it is a. It is a incredibly stable market. Uh, it's, I've been in it since 2008. Do you remember something pretty bad was happening around then? And, uh, I mean, this has been a very stable market. So for recruiters dealing with layoffs, um, I, I, you don't have to have previous experience, uh, recruiting cleared people, just, we always are looking for good recruiters in the market, so that's one thing. But the other thing is back to the getting a seat at the table type of discussion. Mm-hmm. is how can you. Better inform your, uh, counterparts in hiring Uhhuh, um, about it. It, it, you know, the, the saying is always recruiting is broken, but it, it's not, it's, it's hiring, hiring is really wounded right now. And how can you kind of help inform your, um, leadership and, and your hiring managers that they play? Arguably a more critical part in the hiring process when it comes to metrics than we do as recruiters since the ball was in their court for the majority of the process. So it's how do you have those informed discussions with them? Um, that type of discussion benefits the entire industry. So I would, that would be my, my people would noodle on how they could accomplish that. I think, uh, that's what I'd one of the walk away with.

Shally Steckerl:

That's cool. And I see what you did there. You used critical in both senses. You've got critical hires and in this case, critical as in like in the er, on the verge of . Right. I didn't mean to do that. So, hey, I picked up on it though. That was good. That was crafty. I like that. I like that. That's really good. Yeah, so think about. What your role can be in, bring in elevating this conversation. Forget about the seat at the table and you know, loft the ideals. Just convey the point of view that our metrics are not really doing their job, that we need to look at out outcomes and how do we, and how do we have that? What do we need to do to present this so that they start getting the value and not just looking at us as, you know? Um, resume screeners.

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah. We're per, it's a partnership. I mean, it's a high, it's a partnership.

Shally Steckerl:

100%. Yeah. But what do we need to do to prove, like, what are the, yeah, what do we need to show? What do they need to see so that we can prove it? Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty cool. We ha you got some applause from the audience. Oh, good. Awesome. Wow, man. Well, hey, this was great. I, I kept you a little bit more than the 30 minutes, I promise. Yeah. But it usually happens. We have so much fun. I need to just tell people this is an hour long show and then end it early. That that's what I need to do.

Tommy Weinert:

Yeah, no, I appreciate you having me. It was, uh, it was, thanks so much. Yeah, it was great time. This was fun. Yeah. Thank you.

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah. Cool. Well, everybody have a great weekend. We'll see you back here next Friday and be kind to each other. Take care.