Shally's Alley by RecruitingDaily

The Art of Authentic Sourcing with Gabi Preston Phypers

• Shally Steckerl

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Can AI really transform recruiting without losing the human touch? How does culture impact the talent experience? What does a lizard groomer do anyway?

Master sourcer Gabi Preston Phypers joins on Shally's Alley to tackle these questions and more with host Shally Steckerl. Their candid conversation explores Gabi's eclectic career path and passion for efficient, ethical recruiting.

Learn why recruiters need to think beyond LinkedIn to find hidden talent pools and build an inclusive, comprehensive sourcing skill set. Discover fun techniques to handle odd recruiting requests.

Gabi and Shally also debate whether regulations help or hinder recruiting, trade search war stories, and translate British slang for Americans.

Walk away with tips to bring heart and humanity to a technology-driven industry.

Shally Steckerl:

All right, all right, all right. So, you know what I say, better late than sorry, and better late than never. So, uh, my apologies for being so late today. I hope you probably, um, haven't, uh, tuned out and went to go do something more important than watching this show, which is probably everything else that you do. So, uh, if you're still here, thank you, and welcome. We are live on Shalley's Alley. It is Friday, September 15th, I don't know why I always say that, because what, am I a clock or something? But anyways, it is Friday, September 15th, and our guest today is Gabi Preston Phypers, from, if you don't know this, which maybe you do, from Tooled Up Raccoons. Okay, so first of all, uh, hilarious.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

So cool.

Shally Steckerl:

what the hell? How did you? That's gotta be my first question. How did you come up with the name of a company, which I assume this is your company because you're all like CEO and founder. How did you name Tooled Up Raccoons? First of all, Tooled Up, what does that mean? And why Raccoons? Tell me the story.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

So come on. Here's the story. So me and my husband used to run a recruitment agency together. When we decided in this world of geniusness that we should actually create a tech company to help sources be better, it was at that point on LinkedIn where everyone was like, what's the most stupid question you've ever been asked in an interview? Right? Like, the best question in the world. And there's all this dribble about

Shally Steckerl:

me about your experience.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

that's even worse! It's like, so cringing! It's like, oh god, can we all get a little bit more creative in this world?

Shally Steckerl:

Tell me about yourself. How do you,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Claire, tell me

Shally Steckerl:

where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Yeah, I'll have your job in ten. Actually, make that five. You can just have a break now. It's fine. So, for us, like, the question that came out, like, the question that people kept asking was what animal best represents you. Okay? It's a question I hate. More than anything in the world in an interview. But it kind of got me thinking. And when we were enabling the company, it's like, well actually, what animal best represents a recruiter? And my husband being the man that he was like, A lion, a tiger. And you kind of got this posturing, right? You get the vibes. And I was like, well, what about a raccoon? And he was like, why? And he was like, well, because people hate them, but then they love them. They kind of want them. And then raccoons, rummage through rubbish all day. So, I mean, they're scavengers, and then actually the more I googled it, like, do you know the black mask that they have, the black

Shally Steckerl:

It's

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

fur? It's, well actually, it's nice to, it's minimized glare from light when they hunt at night. So I was like, that's a recruiter sitting late at night kind of scavenging the candidates.

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah, okay, no, I, nope, you lost me there, but keep going, keep going.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

I'm in this, okay? So if we

Shally Steckerl:

I turn the light on, but I'm too old for low lighting. I also have a backlit keyboard, but anyway, keep

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

oh Joe, I've got one as well, it lights up and everything. I need to have it lighting up. It's suddenly like dark outside and I'm like, what the hell am I doing? So that's where the

Shally Steckerl:

also, like, remote.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

look at you, see I can't be trusted because I'd probably like get angry and like throw it off the desk or something, at least when it's connected it can't, it'll bounce back. Um, so that's the raccoon element of it, and then the tooled up bit was, hmm, how do I say this? So, I didn't always used to be in recruitment, okay?

Shally Steckerl:

know that, yeah, I was reading your profile.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Very different

Shally Steckerl:

And you definitely have an eclectic sales background,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

I've done it all. I've done

Shally Steckerl:

I don't know what custody is, but

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Ah!

Shally Steckerl:

with banking,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Hey, I'll tell you all about that. You're gonna love it. You're gonna love it. But what was interesting is when I sat that side of the pond, and I was working in banking, and I had recruiters kind of trying to approach me to be like, you should come to this job. All the ones I engaged with were absolute tools, like, they just bugged me, like, there was no skill, there was no finesse about it, and I was like, well, let's tool them up, like, we're, they're just absolute tools, and Mitch was like, oh, we're giving them tools to be better. So you can take whichever line you want for why we're the tooled up part, but that's how tooled up raccoons came to being, should we say.

Shally Steckerl:

Please say raccoons again.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Raccoons.

Shally Steckerl:

Oh my god. I'm gonna play that on loop on my next rec raccoons, raccoons, raccoons.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Raccoons. I'll make like a DJ mix for you and send it over. How about that?

Shally Steckerl:

wiki, wiki raccoons, wait no, raccoons, raccoons, I can't say it, raccoons, um, I'm, I'm terrible with, uh, with that, other than the Hispanic accent, which is my original accent, I'm terrible with that, but,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

hmm.

Shally Steckerl:

I love that you have a raccoon icon on your Twitter. Uh, profile, but I hate that it's in your name because, because it's like my, my pet peeve. I do a lot of automation and when I scrape content that comes from, you know, aggregators and stuff like that, the name that, that the person has on LinkedIn ends up being the name that gets imported and the field first name or last name, if it has a character, it like just throws everything. Off,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

hmm. Why?

Shally Steckerl:

extra,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

love it. And that, to be fair, is why I do it. I don't do it for any other reason. Because what happens

Shally Steckerl:

it to disturb me. Okay, I get

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

I, you know, the problem is, is when you run a company, everyone likes spamming you. Like, they're like, I can do everything for you.

Shally Steckerl:

get spam that says, Hi Raccoon!

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Oh, dope. I get, Hey, Gabby. And it's because the emoji doesn't work for them.

Shally Steckerl:

it's like a square quiggle. Yep. See? No, I clean that up. I'm gonna always clean that. I always clean it up, but it's a hassle.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

these guys don't. And what I love about it is because I'm like, I don't even have to read the rest of the email. I'm like, you couldn't give a monkey's who my company is, what I've done, delete, delete, delete, delete. It's like, it's for me, it just does a really quick cleanse. If you want to talk to me, you want to invest in my time, write a bloody email and write

Shally Steckerl:

that's a really good reason to put an emoji on your name. But, um, I actually have a script that I run that cleans that up.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Yeah. But that's because you're clever.

Shally Steckerl:

No, that's because I'm lazy and I don't want to have to manually do it. And I also don't want to

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

we're kind of lazy though. Okay.

Shally Steckerl:

says, Hi, Gabby, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That doesn't make any sense.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

It doesn't like, but this is the thing I get. I just, sometimes I think there's so much automation out in the world. That it's just, you have to find a way of quickly identifying the rubbish from the genuine. And this, for me, having that little raccoon is a nice little red flag that this stuff's automated and actually you haven't even researched my company or know what I do for a living.

Shally Steckerl:

funny. You know, I have a, I have a filter. Um, on my inbox that looks for, basically it looks for my official job title, if anybody is messaging me and their message says something Hi, Shally, as the official job title of name of company, blah, blah, blah, blah, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, so nobody who ever emails me uses my official title, and it's not in my signature, because in my signature I have a more, you know, So the only way they have my official title is if they literally scraped LinkedIn and are using the, um, the, the full global head of talent sourcing and people analytics. So it's like, hi, Shelly, as the global head of talent sourcing and people analytics, delete.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

But we, I think everyone in the world is getting to that point where there is so much mass mailing. We're all setting up little traps ourselves to be like, don't have to read, don't have to read, don't have to read these. Because you have to, right? You have to protect yourself against the rubbish that you're being inundated with and you have to cull it somewhere, right? So if you can cull it, why not?

Shally Steckerl:

Right now, yeah. Now, for those Americans, culling means, uh, getting rid of,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Oh yeah, sorry, I have to translate these things, I'm so British.

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah, cool, you know, we, in the United States, think that that's a very cool accent, second, or maybe first only to the Australian accent, which we also think is very cool, but reverse, I don't think is the, like, an American in the UK or in Australia with an American accent, I don't think is the same kind of like, oh, say that again! Yeah! Yeah. Yeah.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Do you know what? It's really true. I've never seen anyone come over from the States and had people be like, say it again. But when I went over to New York, honestly, everyone I spoke to was like, they would take little quotes from movies and be like, can you say this for me? And I'm like, what was it? The one they loved was Spot of Tea.

Shally Steckerl:

Oh, right, right, right.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Spot of Tea for me? I'm like, what are this. I should go back to New York and say it for them.

Shally Steckerl:

You're like, we never say that, that's not something that we say.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

No! But for some reason, I've obviously watched like a Jane Austen or read a Jane Austen

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah, that's why we think that, that proper British greetings are, like for hello, are like, pip pip.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Yes! Honestly, I swear every American believes that, which is kind of cute, kind of like that.

Shally Steckerl:

anybody say pip in the real, in the real

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

We can change it, we can change that.

Shally Steckerl:

I mean, you know, you say hello like everybody else, so,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

We're

Shally Steckerl:

ah, so, okay. Well, one of the questions that I, that I like to ask is, you, you, you, you sort of circled around it, but I, I'm gonna go out, out and actually ask it. What? Was it that, you came from another industry, and you said you had a search firm, and now you're, if I understand correctly, you're advisors, you teach people how to do sourcing, right?

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Yeah, we got, well, it's a tech, well, we do technology and the training

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah, okay, so you do technology and training, but you're no longer a staffing firm. Okay, but when you got into this whole industry, From the beginning, like way back, what was it that drew you in, attracted you, and um, and captured your attention? Okay, clearly you have some other skills as well. So you were doing this other thing, and you're like, Eh, I'm gonna leave all that behind, eh, banking, whatever, and I'm gonna go do this. What was it that grabbed you and said, come and do

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

How much inefficiency there was? So, this is

Shally Steckerl:

you thought, Oh, this is a really inefficient market, I think I'm gonna get into it.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

well this is the thing for me, okay, I am that, I want to say weirdo, I am that weirdo, right, I love operations, I love looking at operational efficiency, I hate wasting time, and I hate wasting money, and when I was in banking, like it was a really cool career, I achieved loads of stuff, get promoted really, really quickly, but it got to the point where I was like, I'm working for a big bank, there's only so much I can change,

Shally Steckerl:

right? The banking process is like,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

like the inefficiencies are in there and they're ingrained and

Shally Steckerl:

You're not gonna,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

to, you're not going to change it. So then when I stepped in, and was like, see you later after eight years in that, I actually did a small stint at a software company. I was like, this isn't my vibe. And my husband for years had been nagging me about joining the agency and I stepped in and said, look, I'm not going to recruit for you, but what I am going to do is I'm going to come in and clean your business. And he looked at me like most husbands would be like, thanks Gabs, that's massively complimentary. But what I meant by that is, I think there's so much recruitment,

Shally Steckerl:

been the way you phrased it, but I get what you're saying.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

possibly, but to be fair, that's pretty much me. We've been married long enough that he's like, I get your vibe, I see where you're going with it.

Shally Steckerl:

right, right, right.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

But the thing is for me, when I walked into the world of recruitment, and I could see the beginning point, the middle point, and the end point, like where we were all trying to get to, and then when you're looking at all the tech people are throwing into the process, all the dynamics of different platforms, all this kind of stuff. All of a sudden you unearth all the vast number of inefficiencies that are existing, but because people have been so long in the trenches doing it, they've almost become like, well, this is what everyone does. So I came in and was like, we need to change this. It doesn't have to be this, everyone else is doing it. Let's go and be a lemming and jump off that

Shally Steckerl:

I understand what you're saying, but,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

All of

Shally Steckerl:

me throw, yeah, but, big but, let me throw a big wrench in that. Um, totally with you, I've been doing this for 26 years. I 100 percent agree. Believe me, over those 26 years, I have done very much, a lot of what you're just describing right now. In fact, that's essentially really what I do, only I call it sourcing, but it's essentially efficient recruiting. Because sourcing is a part of recruiting and it's not, it's not a, it's not a separate job, it is a specialty.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Exactly.

Shally Steckerl:

a separate job. It's not like you are a sourcer, you belong here, you're a recruiter. It's, you know, sourcing is a part of recruiting, marketing is a part of recruiting, you know. So it's the same kind of concept, but really it's about optimizing efficiencies is really what it is. So I've been doing this for a very long time and you're in another country. So, I don't know how much of your optimization has applied here in the U. S. Much?

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Some businesses, yes,

Shally Steckerl:

Not a lot. Okay.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

but not a lot.

Shally Steckerl:

yeah, this is where I'm going with this. Um, there are some, uh, sadly, and unfortunately, inherent inefficiencies here cannot be solved. I think in other countries that don't have some of the, uh, obstacles, I'm trying to be polite here,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Oh, come on. I want you to say it. I want you to say it. What particular ones?

Shally Steckerl:

Rules and regulations. So, for example, we have, and I can be very specific, we have something that's required here in the U. S. that most recruiters nowadays don't even know about, but it is an absolute requirement, and it's called an Applicant Flow Log. So, this applicant flow log, if you were in the business many, many years ago when it was still done in pencil and paper, you will remember having to fill out a document with the name of the candidate, the job that they applied for, and the reason that they were dispositioned, so that when you're audited, you can explain why you didn't hire Gabby and instead hired Shally, and why it's okay that you hired a male, not a female, and that that's not an adverse impact based on their gender. So, Right? Nowadays, ATS systems have built in applicant flow logs, but because there is the requirement to have that applicant flow, even though it's handled by the software and it's automated, there are certain things that we cannot do. For example, we can't just delete a rec because that deletes the applicant flow log.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

You have to mark it up something

Shally Steckerl:

That's right. We have to disposition people. So when you look at a recruiter, nowadays, you look at a recruiter's inbox in an ATS, and they have 5, 000 applicants, you are thinking, oh my god, that is so inefficient. Let me tell you how inefficient that is. And they're thinking, yeah, I can't do anything about it. I mean.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

But the thing is that I

Shally Steckerl:

just delete all the candidates.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

you don't have to, and I think this is the thing, when people look at efficiency, like, I agree, like, having that many candidates in there that have been rejected, aren't relevant, da da da da da, just because they applied, I have to retain them. That ends up being a mass load of data, but the thing is, for me, the difference between that causing me a pain, like, yeah, it sits in a database, yes, that probably is going to end up costing me money at one point, because I'm going to have to increase storages and all this kind of stuff, depending on the side of company, and you, let's be honest, every tech company in the world is like, well, you can hold 5, 000 records, oh, by the way, there's an extra charge of like 20

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah, but I'm talking about you have to disposition them to close out the rec. Yeah, so it's not the storage that I'm concerned with, it's, it's unfortunately the inefficiency of the process. And, um, let's face it, here's the real inefficiency. In amongst those 5, 000 are the 20 candidates that you really want. How do you get to them?

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

well, this comes down to the technology you're storing in, right? As far as I'm concerned, and this is where, honestly, from what I've seen in my bubble and the companies I've been interacting with, data gets stored in a graveyard and it gets dumped and left to die and you will never dig it back out again. Because a lot of these platforms, and this is where the disconnect happens, okay? A lot of people go and buy technology because it looks shiny and sexy and da da da da da. And they buy it based on this kind of shiny object, right? They aren't being taught how to acquire technology in a smart way and ask smart questions. So questions like that, right?

Shally Steckerl:

granted, but,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

in, how do I get it out?

Shally Steckerl:

but, you have to keep it in there because of the law.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Absolutely. But the thing is, just because you have to keep it in there should still be a data set that you should be able to access and pull out. So like you said, if there's 20 people in it, with that data that's being held, you've just bought a technology stack to hold it, right? That's what we've done. But

Shally Steckerl:

hmm, you have to hold it in

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

there are 20 people in there, that means there are potentially 20 people, let's call it 20, right? There could be 50, there could be one. You need to have a mechanism and a way. That is efficient to go and get that data out. If you have adopted a piece of technology that you can't go and hunt for those candidates to refine them and pull them back out in an efficient and optimum way, you made a really stupid purchase,

Shally Steckerl:

That's every ATS though. So everybody made a stupid purchase is what you're

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

But then, this is the thing,

Shally Steckerl:

Everybody made a stupid purchase.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Well, yeah.

Shally Steckerl:

I think you're right.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

I'm okay

Shally Steckerl:

don't disagree there, but that's what I'm saying is this is a built in inefficiency.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

It is. And I think, but for me, a lot of that inefficiency is driven as well. Like, when you look at a lot of those technologies that are built and designed for recruiters, they're not actually built and designed by recruiters, by people who have actually had to handle what's happening.

Shally Steckerl:

And that takes me to the second point that I was going to make about that. That's exactly right. So here we go to the second one. So you've got things like applicant flow logs and there are many others. Right? It's not just that. There are other, there are regulations that you have to post the job, so therefore you are forced to take applicants, even if, right, and, and the appropriate response, by the way, the appropriate response from the market to a recruiter posting a job to every job board with a description that isn't very specific is that candidates apply to every job. So you're essentially causing the problem yourself by posting jobs like that. But anyway, we're required to post it. And so there's all these regulations. But here comes the biggest problem of all in this technology space. And that is that Because of this rule, in the United States, where most of the software comes from, it doesn't come from other countries, and if it did, it can't work here because of this reason. All these ATSs are not tracking candidates. They're not tracking applicants. The whole name is a complete misnomer. An applicant tracking system doesn't track applicants.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Stupid, right?

Shally Steckerl:

tracking system tracks requisitions. The life cycle is around a requisition. Open, think about it. What do you do in an ATS? Open requisition, fill requisition, close requisition. Doesn't have anything to do with candidates. So, by default, the system is designed to manage a workflow of an activity that Being a process oriented person, you know, the workflow centers around open rec, close rec, open rec, close rec. The candidates apply, and apply, and apply, and apply, and apply, and apply. It, it, the system itself is just, the design of the system is inherently and permanently flawed. So the best way to solve this efficiency problem is, quite literally, to blow up the ATS. It should not exist.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

but this is the thing,

Shally Steckerl:

But it's required.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

to come back to my earlier point about looking at the recruiting process and being like what makes sense and what doesn't make sense, like you, like what you've just shared makes complete sense, and I'm sure there are loads of people watching this, nodding, going, you're so right, you're so right, but then what are they going to do next month, they're going to go and pay for that bill to that ATS,

Shally Steckerl:

You have to have an ATS for the applicant flow log. You have to have an ATS for

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

but the crazy...

Shally Steckerl:

and the OFCCP,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

But the crazy thing is, if the ATS, as it stands today, isn't doing the job it needs to do, is anyone else sitting out there going, someone needs to step up and build something that actually does what it needs to do? And the problem is, it's

Shally Steckerl:

many, many, many, many, many, many years ago, there was an ATS that had, um, don't laugh, but it had Optical character recognition, and could scan, because back then, people still faxed resumes, or even mailed them, okay? Or, or you, or you, uh, were, were bringing back paper resumes from a career fair, so, this, you know, this was a long time ago. This system, the very first of its kind, had the ability to scan documents and use optical character recognition, and as a result, it was really good at categorizing information. Ultimately, this led to a system where you could go in and you can, a keyword in, and add some simple math, Boolean, right, ATS is Sort of went in that direction for a little while, and because it was not used by most people, they then eliminated. So, what we have now are ATSs that essentially do not support field search syntax or Boolean. And there were, there, they used, you could, there was a time when you could go into the ATS and search for the name of the company in the email field, specifically, or the name of a job title in the job title field, or the name of a city in the address field. Now, none of them have that. Most of them don't. So it's gone backwards.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

The thing, and I think this is the problem,

Shally Steckerl:

imagine how, how efficient that would be to be able to search that way.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

I know, right? Like, oh my god, to be able to search something, heaven forbid! Like, why on earth would we ever do that in

Shally Steckerl:

Boom. Deleted. Yep.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

But this is the thing that gets me, and this is the struggle I always have within the recruitment space, and this is me coming in, kind of with a different background and kind of seeing things very differently and not being corrupted by the standard is when technology tries to push a boundary like that ATS kind of equivalent was trying to do, allowing you to search through it, etc. Because people are kind of used to this standard operating of rubbish, they just go, oh, like, it's doing something different. And it takes them a while in society for a wave of change to come through recruitment, no matter how much it makes sense. Right? It takes a wave of people to go, this is now how you search in this stuff. This is why you should search in it. And it's part of the mission I'm kind of going through and the conversations I'm having with people being like, Why are you using a filter in this platform? Like, look at where it's broken. Come on, kids. And especially in the world we're moving to where there's more and more applicants online and the technology and the number of candidates that are just sitting there, they can't be categorized by

Shally Steckerl:

Oh, but Gabby, now we have artificial intelligence and

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

They need to step up.

Shally Steckerl:

and sourcers are going to be obsolete because you can push a button on your AI system that matches the requisition with the candidate and you get the perfect candidate. That is going to solve every problem that has ever existed in recruiting.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Well, do you know what's going to happen? And this is one thing I'm actually proud of

Shally Steckerl:

I've heard that, I've heard that same thing at least seven different times over the last 26 years with every system that's ever been invented and it's always not been the truth.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

But do you know what's nice about it?

Shally Steckerl:

I would like for it to be true.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

The part of AI, the people that it kills are the people who just weren't very good at the job in the first instance. The people who are exceptional at what they do. Who are true recruiters, who are like, I know how to hunt. I don't just post a job and wait for magic to happen. I know how to hunt. I know how to engage. I know how to deal with my candidates. I know how to deal with my clients. I need to know how to deal with my hiring managers. Those people will survive and they will conquer and explode. And AI, in its various elements, will be a supporting factor, but it won't eradicate them.

Shally Steckerl:

As, yeah, just like email. Email is a supporting factor, but email doesn't recruit.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

But it doesn't kill a job. Your inability to do a job efficiently and effectively. Is what your demise will be and we have had for many, many years, I've always said, I think recruitment should be a regulated process, right? I do, I think there's so many sharks out there,

Shally Steckerl:

is, it is regulated here.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

well, slagging in the UK, we need to adopt that process. We need to

Shally Steckerl:

No! No, please don't, no! It's

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

why? Why is it terrible? Why is it terrible? From a candidate and a company perspective, why is it a terrible position?

Shally Steckerl:

Because the, well, depends on, let me, let me, depends on the regulations, right? But the, but the regulatory oversight, uh, again, another thing that a lot of recruiters, even experienced recruiters, but especially recruiters with, you know, that are just coming into the, into the market in the United States, are completely unaware of, is that here in the United States, we have seven different governing bodies. That regulate recruiting. And most recruiters are only aware of one, maybe two. They're familiar with the EEOC. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, um, which is the only one that is actually empowered to levy criminal charges that could actually land you in prison, right? So that's a real regulatory body. And then there's another pseudo regulatory body, which can only levy fines, and that is the OFCCP. But those are the only two most people know. What they don't realize is that there are Sarbanes Oxley oversights, that there are privacy law oversights, that are, that, that have regulatory oversight. There are seven different government bodies that have the ability to affect your recruiting, shut down your recruiting.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

think that's mad. I mean, when I'm talking about regulation and monitoring people, I'm not

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah, what are you talking about? That's what I

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

making a job for the sake of it. That's seven bodies. Let's just amalgamate them and have a rule book. This is what you can, can't do. Merry Christmas. Conform or please exit stage. Right, right. That's what we're talking about here. But that is, that is excessive and would explain why when we did, um, recruitment in the US, like 80 percent of our turnover came from US clients at one point in time when we had the agency. It was massive.

Shally Steckerl:

Oh, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Explain that. That's interesting.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

So when we ran our recruitment agency, we were UK based, had US clients, and within a year, probably sub a year, 80 percent of our revenue came from US.

Shally Steckerl:

Wow.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

So, like, we were really, like, at the end of the day, like, we walked in and went, we know how to hunt the best of the best, let's go play, because that's what we're good at, right? We're good at finding people and, fingers crossed, people think we've got the personality to hold up a conversation with most human beings. But what was interesting is, when we went to insure our business, our insurance went absolutely schizophrenic.

Shally Steckerl:

you went to the U. S.? Oh,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

of how much revenue, so it wasn't the fact we were just in the US, it was the fact that the majority of our revenue was coming from the

Shally Steckerl:

The mark, yeah. Okay.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

therefore, there was only one insurance company in the UK that would insure us. And our insurance went triple. And even after we kind of closed and paused the agency while we focused on developing our technology, because we were like, you can't do both, like, we just have to hunker and go. And especially building tech, that is a fully, hmm, involved experience, should we say. Even after that,

Shally Steckerl:

yeah. I know what you're talking about

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

it off. We paused the business three years ago. And because of U. S. regulations and all this kind of great stuff and that oversight, we've had to keep paying insurance for the last three years to cover our bums

Shally Steckerl:

from,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

in case something comes back.

Shally Steckerl:

Even though you no longer do, but I see what you're saying. Yeah.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

lot of people don't realize that. They're like, I'm just going to get up today and I'm going to go wander over to the U. S. And you're like, well, you can. Fill your boots, but let's, let's apply some thought and process. But again... This is people thinking they're gonna go everywhere, but back to the point of like this regulation, I do think like the fact there's seven bodies in the U. S. that have various influences over

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah, we have the Department of Labor, the Department of Labor, which, which has, uh, which has to do with the EEOC as well. We have the Department of Justice, we have the Department or the Office of Personnel Management, but then there's also, um, uh, the, uh, The family and personal and medical leave. So there's basically, um, medical oversight because of medical privacy and so on. Uh, disabilities is a thing that, you know, there's medical and there's also civil rights act. And so it's, it's oversight or, or regulatory can be a protector, but it can also be crippling. Yep.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Oh yeah, and I mean, to be fair, let's be honest, from my, my days in banking, like within the last kind of three years of my career. The regulations went like that, and you were basically, if you move the page left, orange has got to become your new color, right? It's like, it was so dangerous, and the risk of being put in prison for moving slightly wrong... For many people it's like, this is not worth it. I'll see you later. It gets too much. But then on the flip side of it, you've got so many recruiters out there who are rogue and they're doing weird and funky and wonderful things in their own little bubble. There has, I kind of feel for a lot of companies that lean into some of those agencies where you're looking at them being like, You like want to scream at them and go, please let them go. Like they're not looking after you. They're doing weird things. They're very ruthless. Like I heard a recruiter.

Shally Steckerl:

You're taking chances, I see what you mean.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

I, yeah, like the recruiter many, many years ago who worked in an agency and they presented a couple of clients. Worships, or candidates rather, to this client. This client was like, I want to interview two, interviewed two of them and wanted to offer the job to like, was like, I'm going to offer you this job. The one is one was going to have a higher salary than the other. So what this recruiter did, because obviously they're driven by commission.

Shally Steckerl:

Okay. Yeah. Oh, oh, come on. No,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

they didn't get the job and only told the person who got the highest salary they got it so that they could earn commission. And do you know how I found out this story is because they were wearing a bright shiny new Rolex. They were like, that bought me this. And I looked at them and was like, you are kidding me. And she was like, that's quite normal in our business. And I'm like,

Shally Steckerl:

not. That's not

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

no, it's not. But the thing is, little things like this that are so unethical and so inappropriate.

Shally Steckerl:

what you're saying. Yeah, that is a completely different. That is a complete. So that is essentially what happened in the day. You know, over here, we used to have, um, I don't know what the other, the other countries did with this, but in the United States, we used to have the essentially telemarketing or, um, you know, phone solicitation for business. And there, there was a very big company that made a ton of money by using telemarketing. Yeah. calling people at home and, uh, telling them that they were raising money for the fire department or the police department or the fraternal order of police or the, you know, whatever. And people would donate thinking that they were giving to that organization and this company could get, they could get away with it because every year they wrote A small check for, I don't know, 100, 000 to these organizations, and then they would say, you know, so if you dig into the fine print, they would say, yeah, we're, we're raising money for them, but we only give them 1 percent of our profit. mean, it was like a total scam.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

But this, but the thing is, there's so much of that that happens, as it

Shally Steckerl:

That was, that was, that is now, it is, I mean, that is illegal, but I see what you're meaning. Yeah, but it wasn't.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

the thing is, is that, I mean, it's crazy that it wasn't, but this, it's those kind of things that happen behind the scenes in some of the darkest corners of recruitment. And don't get me wrong, there are plenty of agencies I know, if someone rung me, I'd be like, go work with these guys, I would stand by them.

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah, it's crazy.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

But the problem is, because it happens behind closed doors. You have no idea how many other businesses are operating in this model, and therefore

Shally Steckerl:

I don't.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

doing a disservice to both the company and to the candidate. And it just, for those moments, I'm just like, we need to get our stuff together. We'll say stuff because we're live. Wrap our hands around it and basically suffocate the toxicity and the poor performance in these kind of situations. Need to be suffocated and removed from the industry because that's what drives a lot of the agency to Canada and client dynamic where they just don't like each other, don't want to communicate each other because they feel like they can't trust each other, but they can't trust because you've got a few rotten apples, right?

Shally Steckerl:

And so this is why you got into the industry. All of this came out of, why did you get into the industry, by the way?

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

I know, right? And this, but this is a

Shally Steckerl:

That's how you got into the industry.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

It's amazing. One question. I have got so much passion from what I see, what I hear people doing. And I'm just like, it doesn't have to be this way. We have a choice to be better. And it's actually looking at recruiters and going, don't be beaten. Because there are a lot of recruiters out there just being like, oh, I just recruit. I kind of do this and I get treated badly and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, we all have a choice every morning to go, this doesn't work. Let's make it better, and we have to come together and force that topic and talk about it openly.

Shally Steckerl:

know, I was gonna, so the other question I was gonna ask is what keeps you captivated, but I don't think I need to ask that because it's pretty obvious now

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

All of the above.

Shally Steckerl:

But, right, so that's why you got into it and you're still into it. But what I do want to ask you is, thinking back to Narrow your focus to the last three years after the search firm, because I'm most curious about that. So in, after you've shuttered your, your, your, um, practice of recruiting and you went into the practice of advising, consulting and building a technology, um, what has been the single most unexpected benefit? of being in the sourcing industry. Something you never thought you would actually get out of this, and you're like, wow, I can't, you know, this is a, this is a benefit of being in this industry, but I would have never expected it.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

a really good question. Do you know what's weird?

Shally Steckerl:

Well, I know a lot of things that are weird.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Yeah, a lot of things are weird. One of the things I never, ever thought I would get out of being in this industry. was being surrounded by a group of people who really get it. Like, do you ever walk around thinking I've dropped off the edge of a planet and no one understands me?

Shally Steckerl:

Me? Yeah, 26 years ago, I started feeling like that, and I still do.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Oh, no! You need to come to some sourcing events with me, like, we'll be fine, I'll look after you.

Shally Steckerl:

let me tell you, a lot of, a lot of my friends, people that know me, my close friends in the industry, they call me the Nikola Tesla of recruiting. They all say, way, way ahead of your time, all this stuff you're talking about will be important in a hundred years, but you'll be dead by then. That's the story, yep, I'm telling you, I'm not making this up. It's the story of my life. So yeah, I very much walk around like I'm basically an alien from another planet at all of those events.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

what, I, I don't know, you need, you need to change the events up. And do you know what's really funny, is when I first started in this journey, and being like, this is what I think, da da da da da da da, I absolutely felt like that. I felt like people were looking at me and like, you're absolutely crazy. What the hell are you talking about, Debbie? And what's been interesting over these last three years and kind of how I've grown, kind of my knowledge, my presence in the industry, people trusting my opinion, coming to me to ask for guidance and advice, is I found myself all of a sudden surrounded by people who want to be better, who want to excel, like all this kind of stuff. And I've actually found a group of people that I actually love hanging out with. Because they want to be better, they want to push boundaries, and they're not willing to accept the status quo.

Shally Steckerl:

Don't you think you have a very myopic view though, because you run a business telling people how to do better sourcing, so of course the people that are around you are going to want to...

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

hey, who cares how it

Shally Steckerl:

Self fulfilling prophecy!

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

get me wrong, like, hey, it means I'm doing a good job,

Shally Steckerl:

I really like this because I'm surrounded by people that want to learn. You run a learning business, oh yeah!

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

to me with I'm cool with that. It means I'm doing my job properly. If they're coming, I'm doing my job properly. But it was... What was really interesting is actually just seeing three years ago, the difference between three years ago and now in terms of people's mindsets on kind of what they need to be doing with sourcing, how they need to be better, and the fact they can be better and it's not like this majorly complicated world that only the geekiest of geekiest of geeky people live in. We're starting to see this wave of more people come in. You're welcome. I mean, we need you guys. We need you guys for the team, but there are people who find that overwhelming, right? I've definitely spoken to people, they're like, I can't do maths, I'm like,

Shally Steckerl:

And or not, that's it. You're done.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

know, right? I always say to people, I'm like, when was I was like, two seconds ago when you got on this call with

Shally Steckerl:

Thanks, Bullion!

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

right? You're doing it. And it's just been fantastic just to see how the industry is starting to shape and mold around recruiters getting the fact they need to step up and that it's fun and it's enjoyable. And that's kind of been my biggest. Kind of surprised, I thought they'd be harder to convert, but they all want to be better and I love that. It's that mentality in recruiters. There is this commonality

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah, you know what? That's true. I I think the way that you phrased it, um, the way that you phrased it is, is, is, That's a true statement. In general, when it comes to, not so much in recruiting, or in the old, you know, old school recruiter, but in the sourcing space, and people who want to learn sourcing, who are recruiters, so they're recruiters that want to source, there's definitely a much Bigger appetite and interest and curiosity in improving and getting, and sharing and, you know, and getting better collectively. In the old ways of recruiting, it was the opposite. It was very much, let's, it's our trade secret, let's hold it. And I think, I've had conversations with other guests on the show about this. I think it originated from, um, the, back in the agency days, maybe even before your time. The agency mentality was you own the candidate. So this is my candidate. And if you made a placement with that candidate, you got a commission, right? That isn't really, even in modern agencies, that isn't the case. Now, some agencies still have candidate ownership, but a lot of modern agencies pool their candidates and they get, everybody wins when they make a placement, even if Shally found the candidate, and Gabby was the one that made, you know, so nowadays that's changed, and I think that's where the mentality came from, is that sort of hoarding mentality, it's mine. Now that isn't the case, so we're a lot more at liberty to, um, help boost each other up, yeah.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

I mean, but what's interesting is I've definitely, like, there was a client I spoke to a couple of months ago, and it was so weird. I was like, right, we're gonna do this, we're gonna level you up, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, do you want to bring your colleagues in? And she was like, no. Like, really firm on it. And I was

Shally Steckerl:

This is mine, I'm the one that wants to learn.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

know why? Because what they do is they have a team of recruiters, and when a job comes in, do you know what they do with it? They throw it right in the middle, and you grab. And whoever gets the best candidate first, so you're all like hunting and trying to get there first. So it's like a mass competition. I'm looking at her being like,

Shally Steckerl:

Boiler room? That's like a

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

fund this thing? It's such a weird mentality. So there are those kind of dog eat dogs, but I definitely agree with you. We're starting to see that world of, we're in this together to get our candidates, like, get our, like the clients we, and companies we support, the best talent. Let's all hunker in and push forward in whatever dynamic that does. And I think a large amount of that for agencies is the way their commission structures have been shifted. Right? That drives a lot of decisions people make because it's money, right? It's money. If I give you half of what it was meant to make of 100%,

Shally Steckerl:

Right, right, right, right. But you know, uh, in, in the UK, and I think also in other, um, um, other former British colonies, um, the, the, the, the tipping mentality isn't there. So for example, if you are, um, a waiter or waitress in a restaurant in the UK, you're paid an adequate salary, and tips are not a required part of your job. But here, that still hasn't changed. It's still very much, so I think the mentality here still, culturally, is still very much of everyone, you know, everyone fends for themselves and has their own, um, you know, everybody makes their own tips, so there's still a little bit of that that I think is the scrappy American culture of make your own way, you know?

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Which I get, though. Like, I

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah, that's how we are. I mean, I'm not, I'm not criticizing. I'm just saying

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

It just, but that's the thing. And I think that's what's always really interesting when you look at the cultural differences and dynamics of agencies in house in different locations. There are so many additional extra kind of things going on around them, right? Kind of like what you're talking about, like tipping, like how they make their money, how they earn it, kind of that all drives

Shally Steckerl:

cultural difference. In some countries in Asia and, um, in, I don't want to come out as, uh, come across as ignorant and try to name a country, but there are countries in Asia, for example, where, um, The culture is one where if you require the favor of a god, one of your deities, especially for those countries where there's religions that have multiple gods, if you require the favor of a god, you essentially, uh, give them a gift. So basically in those cultures, you bribe your way to get what you want. And that's, that is an accept that, you know, if, if I want this favor from this god, I essentially bribe them and then I get this favor. So. If you translate that to other industries and you know people in the United States go well that country's just corrupt They're so corrupt. That's not corruption. That's just cultural to you know greasing the wheel or or giving somebody An incentive for doing something is actually there You know, it came from where they were. So, the culture that you were raised in and what's considered acceptable really has a huge impact.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Massive. And I think

Shally Steckerl:

In other cultures that don't know that, it's hard to operate.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Well, this is true. Like, we sit there and you talk about agencies, right, who are like, I'm going to go and operate in this business, in this business, in this country, in this country, in this country. And you're like, that's all they're thinking about is, what's my insurance? How do I set up? Do I need a certain number of employees who are in that location? Yada, yada, yada. But they're not actually stepping back and going, what's the cultural differential? That could impact how we interact with

Shally Steckerl:

Think about it, Gabby, think about it. Here in America, when you do a good job, we tip you. In Asia, we tip you so you do a good job, and we call that a bribe, but it's the same, we're still tipping you, we just tip you before you do it, I mean,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

What was it?

Shally Steckerl:

not a bribe.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

well, there's a group of people in the UK, we will not label them, but, people know who I'm referring to if we talk about this, that when you pay them, agnostic of what you pay them, what they'll always do is give you some of that money back. So if they, if they did a piece of work for me, and they paid me, as a gesture, they would expect me to give a percentage back.

Shally Steckerl:

Okay, so that's a tip,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

It's like a goodwill gesture, right? It's like a reverse tip. It's like, oh, you paid me 100. Actually take a tenner back only 190. Again, it's that bond and that relation. And it's an unwritten rule, but it happens with every transaction. But I think so many people out there running businesses, especially, recruitment or agnostic, like, or anything else really, you have to think about the cultural dynamic of the candidates you're talking to, the companies you're operating with, what is going on in their world. Where actually you can be complimentary, or are your cultures so extremely different and you're being ignorant of their dynamics and your dynamics, that actually you're just gonna come at loggerheads. Before you even get off the market to actually present candidates and move through that hiring

Shally Steckerl:

translation for Americans, loggerheads is like butting heads.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Yeah, same thing. Oh yeah, I Brit's chatting again. Like, you need like a dictionary.

Shally Steckerl:

I gotta translate

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Can

Shally Steckerl:

man. I love it, but I gotta

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

for Brit? That'd be my next piece of tech. Translate English into

Shally Steckerl:

I studied, my undergraduate was in intercultural and cross cultural communications, and I've lived in a lot of different continents and countries, so, um, I'm kind of, uh, an a fan, I guess, or a, or a, or a, whatever the word, I'm a geek about translating meaning, because very often people who are from that culture don't realize that it doesn't come across. So, sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful or interrupt you, but that's where, that's my geeking out.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Keep translating. I love it. I need someone to translate for me. Do you want to come with my other calls as well? You can also

Shally Steckerl:

Absolutely, yeah, especially as you're calling to the U. S. so much. So, normally, Gabby, I would, uh, I would ask a question around, um, a difficult role that you worked, but I, I'm much more curious in the last three years of your career, so let me flip that question around a little bit, and I'd love to ask you about what is the most odd or unusual, uh, request that you got? For sourcing, like, someone came to you and said, I'm having the hardest time finding this, and you were just like, wow, I've never heard of that before, like, what is the oddest Yeah, you got it.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

A lizard groomer.

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah, no, okay, uh, explain.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

So, there was a company that I was talking to.

Shally Steckerl:

I'm so glad that this is G rated.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

I wanted... It is, luckily, I'm sure there's other things I've probably been asked, but I'm just kind of blocking to the back

Shally Steckerl:

I'm glad you didn't go that way.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

I know, right? I'm being censored. Although it's a Friday night in the UK, no one's had enough alcohol for that story. But this guy was like, Okay, so your technology, could you help me find a lizard groomer? They actually wanted a

Shally Steckerl:

wh what, what does a lizard groomer do? I mean, like, please explain.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Honestly, it was a lecturer who teaches people how to groom a lizard.

Shally Steckerl:

How would you, wha t t to what end?

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

So, like, if you have a pet lizard, like, a bit like having a

Shally Steckerl:

OOOH.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

or a cat, or a snake, or whatever, like, they need looking after.

Shally Steckerl:

a pet groomer. It's a pet groomer that specializes in lizards.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

uh huh, but they wanted someone who lectured on it. They wanted a lecturer of lizard grooming to go into a college or whatever and teach these students. I was like, I actually thought they were joking. Like honestly, I was like laughing and he was

Shally Steckerl:

thinkin you're jokin right now.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

yeah, you're going to find one. But it was, he was like, how can I write a Boolean string to find people who've done it? And it was hilarious. It was like, I think it's one of the funniest strings I've ever had to write in my life. But it was so cool because I kind of liked how far it had to push me outside my comfort zone of like the normal, like, Can you find a software developer? Or it's like, can you find a chef? Or can you find...

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah, I just found somebody for you, if you still want, I just pulled a...

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Like, it's Gabby's clients listening.

Shally Steckerl:

was, I thought you were making it up, so I went and I found somebody. Yep, I have, I have someone who actually teaches lizard grooming.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

It's amazing, right?

Shally Steckerl:

This is real. This is

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

a real job.

Shally Steckerl:

just found somebody that, as, as

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Oh,

Shally Steckerl:

talking, so... Yeah,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

it's so cool.

Shally Steckerl:

So that begs the question, or at least in my mind, um, there must be a significant volume of people who have lizards as pets.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

You were just you, so,

Shally Steckerl:

But that's why, yeah, I didn't know that. So, where I, where I grew up was, uh, a, a, a part, it's another, it's another country outside of the United States, but, um, where, where I grew up, it was a semi arid environment. So, some people, uh, would, would call it subtropical, it's somewhere between subtropical and semi arid. Point being, it's fairly dry, doesn't rain often, but when it does, it pours. And so, a lot of the plants and a lot of the, uh, the, the flora and fauna, uh, are, are, um, uh, adapted. Keep retaining water and you know things like that. So, uh, iguanas in particular are very common and in my, in my house, in my yard, we, there was an iguana whose territory that was. And, you know, this iguana

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

not leave.

Shally Steckerl:

No, this was their, this, this was the iguana's territory, and I, they're, they're pretty territorial. I, I saw that iguana chasing other iguanas away, um, and as I was growing up, this, this iguana got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and, and it was a mama, and I saw its little baby iguanas, and long story short, um, Seeing how that iguana lived, and having essentially been that iguana's, uh, associate from a distance, I could never in a million years ever imagine petting it. Which I think is the definition of a pet.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Oh, don't. People are weird. They've got weird pets. Like, honestly, the things that you can have as a pet nowadays,

Shally Steckerl:

I respect the decision to have an iguana as a pet, but I was just, this was not a very friendly creature. I used to imagine that it was a dinosaur.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

mean, they basically, some of the monster ones are dinosaurs.

Shally Steckerl:

This thing, I mean, I, I knew it when I was, you know, a youth, and claimed its territory, and eventually, by the time I left that house, and, you know, went to college, and all that, it, it was a massive reptile. Yeah.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

gonna, let's be honest, I wouldn't want it as a pet, and I definitely sure as hell wouldn't want to groom that thing.

Shally Steckerl:

Uh, that's what I just said, yeah, I don't, I don't think I'm going to be grooming it.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

No, so we won't, we won't let you apply to that job, right? No automatic applying on LinkedIn, okay? You've got to promise me this. I

Shally Steckerl:

unless that's what you really like.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

if it makes them happy. But yeah, that

Shally Steckerl:

are very, as passionate as Gabby is about optimizing processes, if you are passionate about rounding out the sharp pointy things on iguanas, then this would be the job for you.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

the weirdest, and I had, and it was a live search as well to prove the tech worked. I always do it with people who come and go, what does your tech do? I'm like, why don't we just do a live hunt? We'll see what it does. See if it helps you. If it doesn't help you, you move on. I move on. If it does, we could marry

Shally Steckerl:

Gabby, at the risk of, at the risk of being extremely offensive here, which I probably will be, and so

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Christmas. Come on.

Shally Steckerl:

in advance. Um, that was, you answered my question so beautifully, that was definitely one of the oddest, I have examples of odd ones, but that was one of the oddest I have ever encountered in my life.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Yes.

Shally Steckerl:

However, I will tell you that is the absolute worst way to prove your technology.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

No, it's not. It's wicked.

Shally Steckerl:

tell you why. Because those really odd searches, it took me all of like less than a second to find somebody.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Oh, yeah.

Shally Steckerl:

They're easier to find because of their oddity,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

I know, right?

Shally Steckerl:

speaking. So

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

to you and

Shally Steckerl:

want to prove a technology, hold on, let me, let me, let me. Explain why, I don't want you to be offended, but I want to, let me explain why. The most difficult, uh, people to find are the ones whose skill sets are not distinguished.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Agreed.

Shally Steckerl:

And that, that would prove your technology if you could use the technology to find somebody that was a perfect fit for a account manager.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Oh, yeah. But this is the thing. So when we do a live search, I completely agree with you.

Shally Steckerl:

Not a lizard grooming account manager, just an account manager.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

oh, yeah, we can do all of it, right? But what I love,

Shally Steckerl:

I think you get me, yeah,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

to, yeah, I know, I completely get you. To you and I, that search is like, right? There you go, right? It's done. But the thing is, when you step back and you kind of walk outside of the world of like,

Shally Steckerl:

because the recruiter went to LinkedIn and they typed in lizard groomer and they got zero results and they're like, there's nobody out there, yeah,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

you're like, no, sure as hell there isn't. So for you and I, it's obvious. But this is the interesting thing, like, that for us was easy. Like, that didn't take me two seconds to solve that problem. And I'm not a specialist in that field.

Shally Steckerl:

You want to know what I did?

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

you one. What

Shally Steckerl:

to know what I did?

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

What?

Shally Steckerl:

To do that search?

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

I loved it! Yeah, go on, show me what you did.

Shally Steckerl:

It's probably

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

it in Google,

Shally Steckerl:

It's probably really stupid, but literally I went and I did a search for, uh, pictures of lizards being groomed,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

yep.

Shally Steckerl:

and one of the top results was somebody that was teaching how to groom lizards. It was just like, okay, that's...

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

amazing. This is, but the thing is, for you, that's so like, second nature,

Shally Steckerl:

not think it would work. Seriously. I was just like, pictures of lizards getting groomed. Oh look, that's what Gabby's talking about!

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

It's like, look, I found you on the internet, let's play. But this is the

Shally Steckerl:

I wasn't trying to find you a candidate. I was just like, is this really real? Does it really happen? Do people actually groom lizards? So literally, I was like, are there really people that groom lizards? Pictures of lizards being groomed. Yes! And there are people who teach you how to

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

the thing, though, like, right, what's so funny is like, that naturally, for you, was a logical process to go through. But I think so many people, when you look at the hardcore sources, In this little huddle, the bubble is quite small. It's not as big as we think it is, and when you look at actually how many people sit outside that, that kind of thought process that you went through isn't normal for them. It's not what they

Shally Steckerl:

for calling me weird, I, that's a very polite way of saying I'm weird, I

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Hey, hey, I'm in that party with you, right? You and I are as weird as each other, which I'm absolutely okay with. But there's,

Shally Steckerl:

in a pea, two pods in a pea,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

hey, at least we've got someone who understands each other, right? We have solved something tonight. We're not alien anymore. We can do it together.

Shally Steckerl:

So there must be another pod in that pea as well, who should be our next guest?

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Ooh, do you know what? I spoke to a really cool woman today. A lady called Sandra Feldman. Have you ever come across the wonder that is Sandra Feldman?

Shally Steckerl:

F. E. L.? Feldman?

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

So she is F E L D M A N N.

Shally Steckerl:

Alright,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

She is speaking at the Sourcing Summit with me in October, which is amazing. I'm so excited to be speaking at that. But we kind of started chatting off the back of it, and I had a call with her today. And her energy and her vibe and her passion around all things kind of communicate, communicating with candidates. Like how to do that better, how to look at the psychology elements of it. I was blown away by her love and passion for it. She's your girl. You've got to give her a shout.

Shally Steckerl:

All right. I love it.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

More women corrupting your world. What are you going to do on a Friday

Shally Steckerl:

No, that's not corruption at all. So, um, the, uh, last question I have for you, because we're getting pretty close to the hour here, is I, I, often people will watch the replay of the show, um, over the weekend, because it's not always convenient for them to... Stop working in the middle of a Friday. So, I want to, I always want to give them something to really think about, and they've gotten a lot to think about here, but I want, is there something you would like to share that would be a thought provoking idea or question for people to chew on over the weekend?

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Do you know what the simplest question is? If you are sourcing candidates, are you truly being as inclusive as you could be on your searches?

Shally Steckerl:

Uh, yeah, yes. Is that the answer? Yes, but you're telling them to

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

some people are wanting. For some people, that answer is actually far deeper. So a lot of people won't have, like, for you, for example, you have that conviction in your answer because you know how to source. And you, you have this full skill set on how to navigate all these requirements. For a lot of recruiters out there or people sourcing, whatever you want to call them, they will always have in the back of their mind, they're like, have I done the best search? Have I got the best talent? Have I got the most inclusive talent? Like, they'll have these niggling doubts. And the reason I ask that question is because if you are having that niggling doubt, Today's the day to change it.

Shally Steckerl:

And if you're having that doubt, I applaud you because you're thinking about the right thing. So the question, sorry, I probably should have let you, the question is, um, if you're sourcing, are you being inclusive? Are you finding everybody or are you, okay, I love that. Um, I think a good, a good, a good tit for tat there would be if you're posting your job on LinkedIn, are you being inclusive? Because only certain people go to LinkedIn.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

100%, 100%. You have to think outside the box. Like, it's not just one dynamic. And I know there's lots of sourcers out there who are like, have a love affair with x ray, or have a love affair with in platform sourcing. For me, I have this love affair with knowing all the skills. Knowing how to do all of it, and then I know how to push and pull it depending on where the candidates are. And I think all recruiters should have that full armory, as we call it, so they can do the best by their client, their candidates, whoever it may be that they're doing this for. And you can sit there at night and go to bed and go, I've absolutely owned that. I have given you the best of the

Shally Steckerl:

I have. Yeah. And simply going to LinkedIn isn't it. I got to tell you, I've been, I've been doing this for a very, very, very long time. And I was early, very early on LinkedIn. In fact, one of the first 100, 000 people in there.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Don't

Shally Steckerl:

And I was,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Do

Shally Steckerl:

I was actually instrumental in helping them build that they didn't want to get into recruiting. But anyway, what I'm trying to get to is long story short, I used to tell people about LinkedIn as a tool, but You know, now everybody uses it, and unfortunately, now everybody depends on it, and never have I ever been as convinced that a lot of folks are not on LinkedIn as I was yesterday. So in all my years, I still look, I still experiment, I still ask questions, and I still learn. And what I learned yesterday, because I was challenged by a task that I had to complete on behalf of a business leader at our company, and this challenge, um, this request was that they wanted to be able to aggregate the background profiles of all of the people at the company that had a particular job title. Now, there are 30 people at this company that have that particular job title. And, my first instinct was to go to LinkedIn because it's the easiest place to get a profile. Now, keep in mind, the objective wasn't find the LinkedIn profiles, it was find their background. We wanna, we wanna, we wanna know where these 30 people came from because when we hired them, we didn't, we didn't, um, retain their, their information. So, I want to see the background of these 30 people, so I went to LinkedIn and I tried to find all 30 of these people. I only found 17. I know their names. I know their email addresses. The other ones are not on LinkedIn. They are not on

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Nice.

Shally Steckerl:

LinkedIn. And I'm not talking about private accounts or whatever. You know I know how to source. They were just not on there. So that is, that is a huge,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

Lesson,

Shally Steckerl:

Yeah, I was shocked. I mean, that means that a little bit less than half, 13 people out of 30

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

weren't there?

Shally Steckerl:

had no LinkedIn pro, yeah, even though I knew that mentally,

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

You validated

Shally Steckerl:

had such proof of like, there's definitely a lot of people that are not on LinkedIn.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

But this, but again, like, that's a fantastic evidence that they're not there, plus the evidence and kind of more weighting behind the argument of every recruiter should have a full set of skills. You can't, you can't in, you

Shally Steckerl:

way to end the

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

claim and get out.

Shally Steckerl:

I love it. All right. Mic drop, Gabby. All right. Thanks everybody for joining us. We'll see you next Friday. Gabby, we'll hope to have you on the show again. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. I know you have other things to do. So this is a generous gift to to all of us and uh, well, bye everybody. Be kind to each other.

Gabi Preston-Phypers:

See you later!

Shally Steckerl:

Take care.