Use Case Podcast – Storytelling About Thriversity With Brianna Rooney

Welcome to RecruitingDaily’s Use Case Podcast, a show dedicated to the storytelling that happens, or should happen, when practitioners purchase technology.

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Each episode is designed to inspire new ways and ideas to make your business better, as we speak with the brightest minds in recruitment and HR tech. That’s what we do. Here’s your host, William Tincup.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is William Tincup, and you’re listening to the Use Case Podcast. Today, we have Brianna on from Thriversity, and we’ll be talking about the use case or the business case prospects and customers use to purchase Thriversity. So, why don’t we do some introductions?

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Brianna, first of all, pronunciation of your name, let’s just make sure, Brianna, make sure I’ve got that correct.

Brianna. Yes.

Yeah, that’s why when I said “Brianny,” I’m like, “That’s not correct.” I was thinking of LeBron’s son. It was on my mind. Sorry about that.

No worries.

I don’t know why his son was on my mind. We’ll put that off to the side. We’ll discuss that later.

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Anyhow, do us a favor, Brianna, and introduce both yourself and Thriversity.

Absolutely, yeah. I’m Brianna Rooney. I have been an entrepreneur for 14 plus years, little over 14 years, all in recruiting.

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I had a company called Techees, which was an agency. And it was actually sold almost a year ago today to a firm, the FinTech company. So I kind of warned them this last year. And then I started Talent Perch and Thriversity.

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Talent Perch is essentially an RPO model for recruiters. I live all in sec-C tech, so that’s my baby. And then I have been a huge advocate for learning and development, just training in general.

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So I started my YouTube channel, The Millionaire Recruiter, back in 2018. And that actually picked up, and it was just really my passion project. Because I’ve always been really big in training recruiters. And as you know, probably better than anyone, that there’s no standards. Anyone could get into recruiting.

Which is good. But also, the chaos of that is, a lot of people start in staffing. And then they basically hang out at [inaudible 00:02:21] they go corporate, they go internal. And again, like you said, there’s no standards and it’s the Wild West. And there’s no great training that kind of like, “Okay, here’s how to build a desk, or here’s how to,” whatever the bid is.

I love that you said Wild West. Because that’s actually in some of my biz dev emails, I’m like, “Hey, it’s the Wild West right now. It’s fourth quarter, you ready to go? You need help?”

Seriously. Seriously. So Thriversity is more, it’s connective tissue between the training content for recruiters. And I would assume that some of that is full cycle, meaning sourcing all the way through the hiring process.

Absolutely. Yeah. I’m a big advocate in full cycle recruiting. I know the trend right now is they’re starting to silo those roles, source [inaudible 00:03:11] first recruiters. I don’t understand that personally.

Nor do I.

I would change that.

Yeah.

I don’t get it. Also, it takes away the fun and it take… And I get why it started. Because you want to have the tender love and care all the way to the offer. You want your best people closing, all that stuff. But then you never give the opportunities to the ones that actually started it. It’s like, let them finish.

Right. And I think it’s something that’s also, probably technology drove some of these changes, because of sourcing technology in particular. They were really aggressive for folks that just wanted to find talent. Like it’s a puzzle piece. “I just want to find talent, I don’t want to talk to them.”

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And so, which again, there’s a utility for that, but it’s also, if you’re going to carry forward that conversation, finding them is becoming easier. It’s not always that way, but it’s becoming easier because of tech.

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And so that’s almost like, okay, you’re going to be automated out of those positions, in the future, not now. But at one point, finding talent’s not going to be the problem. It’s going to be talking to talent, selling.

Exactly.

And engaging, communicating, et cetera. Anyhow, I got in the way of what you were talking about.

Yeah, no, no, no. This is all good because this is why Thriversity exists. So you just alley-ooped it for me. So I saw that the Millionaire Recruiter was having a bigger following and people were like, “Oh my God, there’s no training anywhere.”

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And I was like, “All right, it’s time.” So I wanted to build a real learning management system, the one that takes people from the beginning to the end. Encompasses all the clothes. We specialize in teaching tech recruiters specifically, but we do also teach non-tech recruiters, which actually we have renamed. I’m wondering if you like this name. We have named them Renaissance Recruiters-

Oh, nice.

Because I think they need a cool name. Yeah.

That’s nice. Well, the last two people that were great at multiple things were Leonardo and Michelangelo. So the Renaissance makes sense on a certain level, because since then there hasn’t been a human being on the planet that’s been great at multiple things.

That is true.

Renaissance makes sense.

Thank you.

Let’s go back to, it’s actually the Italian Renaissance. There was a French renaissance that was different. But anyhow, I love the name, actually.

Thank you.

Because they need to be great at multiple things.

Exactly. And what was interesting, and so when I started, well, let’s take back a little bit. When I started Talent Perch, I brought in Taylor Bradley, who now I host the Talent Takeover Unfiltered podcast with.

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But I brought her in because she was like an RPO specialist. She won RPO Woman of the Year, stuff like that. And I was like, “Cool, that’s what I want to build out.”

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And she’s a Renaissance Recruiter. And so what was really interesting is bringing… I’m used to tech and she’s Renaissance, and we just live in two different worlds. And we didn’t realize, or I didn’t realize how different those worlds really were. Until we started colliding, and I was like, “Oh my God.” Because she was used to doing things a certain way, I’m used doing certain things a certain way.

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And it was like these two titans like, “Okay, how do we live together? What’s going on?”

Again those standards, and if people came up through the corporate world, came over from HR, can drop somehow into recruiting, and then you drop them in a staffing environment, it’s literally a fish out of water. And same thing, you pluck somebody out of AMS and you drop them in a John Deere or some type of corporate environment, and it’s shock and awe.

Yeah, absolutely. So I think we both had shock. It’s exactly what it was.

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And so when we were building Thriversity, what we wanted to focus on, it was not only building up tech recruiters and agency recruiters, because again, very different. Internal versus external is a completely different world.

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So again, I’m used to moving at a certain pace and she’s used to moving at a certain pace. But they also, Renaissance I think holds more recs.

Right.

Than tech recruiters.

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So, yeah, go ahead.

No, no, no. And so the content, it’s, do you build the LMS? Are you using another LMS to put your content into it?

We’re using an LMS to do it.

Yeah. Good.

To build…

No, no.

Is its own thing, right?

No, and I would advise you never to go down that path. Because just there’s some great wide level products that are out there that… But you’re putting content in short form? Long form? Obviously it’s video, or audio.

Yeah.

So have you built curricula and you’re taking people through the process?

Yep.

So I’m assuming it’s a kind of a signup, it’s a SaaS model?

Yeah, so we have a couple of different things. Actually we started to do some live facilitation, because I just love it.

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But what we realized was people don’t want live facilitation. They like it when they can do it, but they all have jobs, they all got other things to do. They want the own self pace.

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So we have the videos, we have the handouts, the downloads, all of those things. And then what we decided, “You know what people really need? Is they need some coaching. And they need it at their own pace, and they need it throughout the year.”

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So I don’t know about you, but I think a good recruiter can pick something up, or I should say a good trainer can teach within six weeks. And then they’re like, “Okay, I think I know how to do this.”

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And then I think three months, they’re like, “Okay, I’m getting a little bit better.”

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Then it’s six months and a year. I think that’s kind of how the aha moments in recruiting goes. So we’re offering those 30 minute sessions with them. They have six, they have a whole year to use it. And we tell them, “Hey, let’s do a couple role plays. You definitely know how to do a phone screen. You need to know how to close someone. You need to know how to talk to a hiring manager.”

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So we definitely recommend those role plays with us. And then kind of say, “Hey, why don’t you just take your three when you need us? When you’re having a hard search or stuff like that.”

I love that. So you’re on demand, and that’s just a part of the subscription?

Yes.

Okay.

We have it at a couple different levels.

And the facilitated, obviously that’s bespoke, I would assume, that’s facilitated, if they want that they can buy that for their company and multiple people, one to many, et cetera? Or is that one to one?

Absolutely. So what we’re starting to get asked for now, and boy do I love live facilitation, especially if it’s not remote. I love going in the office. But we’re getting asked for, how to train on inclusive sourcing and hiring manager training. Which I am super excited about. Because of course it’s always the recruiter’s fault. It’s never the hiring manager’s fault.

Right. So what in there is, or is there anything, not to be assumptive. Is there anything in there related to process or tech for the…

Absolutely.

Tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah, yeah. So we take them through the whole process. So I deem six cycles to be a full cycle recruiter. So obviously we talk the top of the funnel, we talk how you actually build what I call a sourcing map, first and foremost. Where you’re just finding common denominators, you’re looking at a team.

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So for example, you’re talking to a hiring manager and they’re like, “Yeah, of course, we want A players, we want top schools. We want all these things.”

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And then you do a sourcing map on your team and you realize, “Well, on paper, they’re kind of like a B minus. So we got to talk through that. How are we going to do that?”

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Or when they say, “Hey, we’re looking for certain diversity numbers this year.” And, “Okay, well let’s take a look at your team.” It’s a whole system. So we walk them through that process.

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We walk them through the process of how you even present a candidate. How does that phone call go? What are your notes about them? How you have to advocate for them. But you also have to be really realistic. So you don’t, losing that clout with the hiring manager.

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And then we walk them through the whole process of taking them through the interview, talking to them at every given moment, asking essentially the same questions a lot throughout the process. Because as you know, things change.

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And then all the way to close. And because I’m a tech recruiter, I’m very used to speaking VC and equity and stuff like that. So that’s something that I get really excited about. And I have that in my course. Not only to teach them what it even means, a few different facets, but also we give them a little mini project and have them research some VCs on the Midas list. Because it’s like, “Hey, you guys need to know where and why.” Right?

Right. You shouldn’t be blindsided by any of this stuff.

No.

So let me get your take on three things as the way that you teach this, or just your take in general as well. Job descriptions, intake meetings, and objection response.

Yep. We teach all of that. Job descriptions, I love talking through job descriptions. Because as you know, they’re either a big wishlist or they grabbed them from some other company and they strapped their logo on it.

Yeah. We’ve all made, all of our hands are bloody here. So I’d love to actually do the archeology of one job description and how many times it’s been stolen from other places.

Love it.

Right? Because everyone’s hands are bloody. There isn’t anybody that’s recruited, that their hands aren’t bloody. Okay, we’ve all gone into Career Builder or Monster, Indeed or Zip or whatever. Cut, copy, made some changes, posted again, et cetera.

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What’s the best way, and this is probably leading into the intake. What’s the best way for a recruiter to make sure that they whittle down the wish list to the most salient, critical things that the hiring manager needs?

So what I have them do, I’m a little old school with my highlighter, but of course you can highlight on the computer. But I tell them to highlight what they deem important. When they’re reading the job description, what do they think are the non-negotiables? And what as a recruiter do they think-

Oh, that’s nice.

“Oh, we could probably budge with that one.”

So non-negotiables is the language that you use.

Yeah.

That’s great. I love that actually.

Oh, thank you.

That’s good language. Because again, it’s that there’s no coming back from that. That’s a non-starter, non-negotiable. Great. Okay. If I know that, then I can navigate around that.

Exactly.

I’m sorry, I interrupted you.

Yeah, no worries. It’s just a conversation. We got all good stuff. So we’re going to then take that, what we said it highlighted, and we’re going to bring it to the hiring manager during the intake. And we’re going to talk through all of that. And then we’re going to talk through, again, what could we budge on, what could we wiggle with and why? And what are the parameters?

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And then from that, I teach them how to essentially say, “Okay, great. I’m going to give you five profiles. And in those profiles I’m going to sneak two in.” So I’m going to give them what they want in the three, exactly. And then I’m going to sneak two in that, I feel like based on their team, this could probably be a fit. And then let’s see what the hiring manager says. But then we talk through it again.

So what about different scenarios in terms of like, “Okay, is this a new hire? We’ve never hired for it.” So there’s that. Backfill, you know all the different scenarios. But a backfill, “Okay, we had seven of these.” Or it’s additive. “Okay, we have 12 of these, we need two more. Okay, got that.”

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Or, “It’s someone that we need to hire that we’ve never hired for and we don’t even know where to start.” And then that’s just four random scenarios, of course you’ve got a hundred more. But how do you teach scenarios? Like, “What is this? Oh, this is a backfill. Okay.” So what makes that different? Or what’s similar in that scenario that recruiters can use in terms of getting started?

Yeah. For me, actually, all those scenarios are kind of the same. I guess there’s just a couple of different questions I would ask.

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So for a backfill for example, I’d be like, “Great, what can we tell them? Where the person go and why?” Can we tell them? How are we going to navigate that?

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So I think that one is a little tricky, especially when it’s a secret search. That’s definitely its own separate thing. And that’s where it’s like, “Look, companies recruiters are your brand ambassadors. They’re also your biggest tool to get this going. And we are able to do secret searches.” Can you imagine telling someone else, “Hey, product manager, can you build a product no one knows about, we’re signing NDAs, we’re doing all that stuff.” But we don’t need all of that red tape as recruiters.

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So yeah, I guess to answer your question, we definitely do role play different scenarios. But I don’t think starting a brand new search would be one of them. We try to talk like, “Hey, why don’t you ask them, how long does it take to get filled? How many people do they think is a healthy pipe?”

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And so we definitely ask those questions. But again, a lot of companies don’t have data, and when they do have data, it’s not even accurate. So I tend to not go there.

Is there any interest in training around recruitment marketing or employer branding?

Oh, so, yes.

You just “Oh”-ed me, that was awesome. “Oh.” Pause. Okay. All right. The water hose is about to come on. Got it. All right, here we go.

I feel like I’m on my soap box. “You ready?”

No, no, you’re good. You’re good. You’re good. This is why we’re here.

So I just think companies get this wrong a lot. And again, I talk about us being brand ambassadors, and they just don’t treat us like it. As we know, our industry, it’s not great when you Google “recruiters are…”

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And so yeah, we need to be trained in all of that. But we have not developed a course in that specifically, because I definitely want to go internal on that and really have the TA team understand why the recruiters need to know the ins and outs, the why behind the product, the why behind hires, all of those things.

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We definitely have that a little bit in the hiring manager intake. And then we definitely train, so we do mock interviews with recruiters. And we definitely train them to ask those certain questions, on, “Hey, how well do you prepare us?”

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I do have a template on what I call a pitch for clients, and there’s like all those nitty gritties in there, all the good articles, all the up and coming press, all of that stuff. We ask those questions.

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But I really think that it’s the responsibility of the company to understand, “Wow, we are literally, by us sending messages, outreach messages, that is marketing. So you guys should pay attention to what is actually being sent out and what our LinkedIns look like.” I think it’s such a tragedy that they don’t go further with recruiters.

So tech talent today, what do they look… What are the questions that they’re asking? We’ll just flip this on the side. What’s important to them today?

We’re still in the remote land, so they just want to know, “Hey, am I getting paid?” So I’m used to doing the Bay Area. So it’s like, “Am I getting paid Bay Area money or am I getting paid Alabama money, if I live in Alabama?”

Right.

That’s a biggie. And because I feel a certain way, it’s kind of like, “Okay, that’s a little hard for me.” But again, it’s up to the clients. It’s up to their companies. And that’s a little challenging.

So remote first, is the job remote, check. Now, then next question. Is the pay commiserate to the skills, not necessarily the location?

Exactly.

Got it.

That’s a biggie. Definitely ask their REST diversity numbers. Do we know what the team is? Stuff like that.

Oh, wow.

[inaudible 00:19:05] yeah.

Wow. And we haven’t even gotten into the product or the languages or the, whatever.

No.

You’re being screened in and screened out at this level, from their perspective.

Yeah. It’s pretty big. That’s again why recruiters have to know a lot. Because then they’re not even going to the next round. That’s what’s crazy.

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And then they do definitely say, “Hey, what’s their tech stack? Do I have to code in it?” And then additionally in the interview, “Can I code in whatever I want?” Which is important.

Yeah. Do they want to know about what the organization’s going to teach them or what they’re going to learn? Or is that just they’re self learners and they’re going to learn elsewhere?

It depends on the role.

Got it.

So I would say as far as tech, like software engineering, they don’t care too terribly much. Because I think that they’re used to being, they have a big learning stipend for the most part. They get the equity. They’re better.

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Now on the Renaissance side though, they definitely want to know all of the learning and development that they have internally. Which I think is great, because now as we see, people just tripped into recruiting, now people are making conscious efforts into going into recruiting. So therefore they’re caring a little bit more about training.

So what’s your favorite interview question for tech talent? I’m fascinated by this, by the way. Because it’s not necessarily a knockout question. Every position’s a little different. Also every client’s kept a different bit. But you’ve got one in the back of your pocket. I know, you’ve been doing this too long. You’ve got a favorite go-to.

Well, yeah, but when you ask that, of course I’m thinking my favorite one for recruiters, which is obviously different than engineers, but-

Well, let’s do both. Yes. We’ll bifurcate. Yes. Let’s do both. What’s your favorite, which one’s for tech talent and which one’s for recruiters?

So tech talent, I definitely like to ask them what is their favorite project that they worked on and what did they do on the project? I need to see how they communicate and I need to see if they’re proud of their work and if they’re passionate.

So what you’re gauging there is the breadth and depth of their experience at a project. Because, “I might’ve worked on this project, but I was a spoke.” Versus the wheel. And then the other is passion. So the more they talk about it, they geek out. If they start geeking out about this, whatever was built, then you can say, “Okay, they’ve got passion. Okay, okay. Well, we can transfer that passion. Because you can’t teach passion.”

No. Exactly. And when I work with startups, that’s what it’s about. A lot of times it’s not even about their tech skills. For the most part, they can do the job, and you can also train, right? But it’s the passion and it’s the desire to build. So that’s important.

And for recruiters. So, come on, this is going to be fun now.

Why is a manhole round?

Oh, that’s an MBA question. That’s interesting.

Really? I didn’t get my MBA.

That’s an MBA question. Actually I had to study that question because McKenzie used to ask that question back in the nineties.

Oh, that’s funny.

And I actually know the answer. But that’s fine. But that is a good question. First of all, it gets them to think. Which is really one of the things that you’re probably trying to gauge is, “Okay, what’s your ability? Not just the answer, but what’s your ability to then answer? And even if you don’t know the answer, what’s your ability to process the question?”

Exactly. It’s not even, I could care less if they know the answer. Exactly right. I just want… They’re normally scared out of their mind. The look on their face, they’re like, “Ugh.” But it’s like, to be a recruiter, you got to just constantly be on your toes.

Oh, yeah.

So it’s like, “I want to see how you answer it.”

Yeah. Comfort zone, there is no such thing. You’re always going to be in a state of ambiguity, with clients, with candidates, with hiring managers, with everybody in the mix, you’re always going to be kind of… Which is great, if you know that, if you’re comfortable there.

Yeah. It’s always fake it till you make it.

This has been… Brianna, you’re amazing.

Thank you.

So, thank you, A, for the time and wisdom, and good luck with, both for the work you’re doing with Talent Perch and Thriversity. Just good luck with both ventures.

Thank you so much, William. This has been fantastic.

Absolutely.

Went by so fast.

That’s how it happens. And thanks everyone listening to the Recruiting Daily Podcast. Until next time.

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