Recruiting

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Developer podcast, where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season of interviews, actually a second season of interviews. We're going to start a new interview this episode. This time we're going to talk with Nija Naik and we're going to talk about recruiting. Now, this is something that we have probably all of us run into at some point and in your career you most likely will, which is dealing with recruiter. These are the people that are going to help you find the jobs that are out there, connect those that are looking for jobs with those that are looking to hire. And we're going to talk about the different types of recruiters and how she spun that into a business and talk a little bit about the business side of it as well as we get further into that. But I want to go ahead and get us started. So here we go with our interview with Nija Naik. Okay, today we're going to talk a little bit about jobs and recruiting and how does that work and particularly from for most of us, what would be the other side of the table is people that are out there trying to help people that are finding jobs, that are helping them post a better job description and reach out to the right person for their job. Sherby's talking with Nija Naik and we're going to get quite a bit of information from her. This is somebody that is not just a, you know, just some recruiter. This is somebody that has a organization, has been in it in a long time and I think will give you a new insight into maybe how to approach things, how to represent yourself and then also what you're getting from the other side, the kind of work that goes into building a good job posting and things of that nature. So welcome, Nija, and why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Hey, everyone. Thanks, Rob, for the awesome intro and hi to everybody who's listening. My name is Nija Naik. I live in Houston, Texas with my husband and two kids. And, you know, I've been in the recruitment space for about 12 years and I got into it very randomly. I grew up wanting to be a doctor, actually, and then went to the first year of med school, realized it wasn't for me. And I've always been a hustler. I've never had a job, right? Like since I was 16, I've always worked somewhere. And so I was thinking I got to do something right until I figure out my next steps in life. And so there was a vascular and vein center that I was hiring for a recruiter. And that's really how I got into recruitment. It was it was really random. And since then, I worked with agencies and in-house at a couple of different companies. And, you know, my husband really motivated me to start my own business because the final company that I was at before, you know, I was I left and started my own business. It was just politically toxic culture there that I was not a big fan of. And so I was like, I can't do this. I can't live my life like this. And so I said bye and basically started my own business. So for the past eight and a half, nine years, I've worked predominantly with, you know, pre seed startups all the way to series E, pre IPO, and then even some enterprise companies and help hire tech talent. So that's my expertise. And now I have a team of about 45 people. So we do everything from helping people with work charts and hiring and all the things I go in between. Starting with that, let's start with your as an individual. Did you start right into your own company and had some people working for you? Or did you start off as a as a solo recruiter and then then built your business? Yes, I definitely started as a solo recruiter. You know, I was newly married at the time and I, you know, the business was my first baby and it was really hard for me to hand it off right away and delegate right away. Right. Because something that when you start getting clients and cold call, people actually sign, then it's like, OK, like I'm going to protect this with all my blood, sweat and tears. Right. And I'm not going to hand it over. So for the first year and a half or two years, I was a solo entrepreneur. And then it took some changing in my mindset to shift to like, OK, now I need to hire a VA. Now I need to hire an accountant. Like, you know, hiring key people to set the foundation. And then from there, it got easier and easier. But I think scaling is always tricky. Right. And it really messes with you because you're like, at what point do I let go? At what point do I hold on? What's the right balance there? Now, did you end up sort of transitioning by getting rid of the things that you didn't want to do or that weren't really your strengths first and then finally worked your way into it? Because I assume now you have other recruiters working for you. Correct. That's exactly what I did. I looked at what was what I consider to be not the best use of my time. You know, for example, sending invoices and doing some of the foundational work, like calendar meetings and calendar reminders. And I was like, I can have a VA doing this. Right. Like, I'm also not good at attention to detail. So like I needed someone I'm very much a big picture into sales and talking about all things recruiting, but I'm not good at like the detail stuff. And that stuff to me gets really mundane. And so I'm like, I'm going to hand that off. So I think that's the best way to do it is like figure out, hey, who can do this job better than me so that I could do what I like to do, you know, and stay in my zone of genius. And you've touched on the varying types of recruiters you have in-house, you've got agencies, you've got individuals. Can you maybe for those that are less knowledgeable about those, can you maybe give sort of a highlight actually from both sides is how those look to a somebody that wants to hire a recruiter or bring in a recruiter. And then also if somebody is working with recruiter, if there's maybe a difference in how they would approach or how they would interact with somebody in those different roles. Yep. So there's different types of recruiters. I think the one that everybody knows is the contingency recruiters. So these are recruiters when I work with clients, for example, I place somebody there and then I earn based on a commission, based on the placement. So if I hire somebody like this, an engineer, like let's say their salary is 100K, I will get 20K as part of placing that person once that person is on board and hired. That's the first type of recruiter. This recruiter is really good for clients if you don't have an in-house team supporting you right now, or you want to augment your in-house team. And I'm going to talk about in-house in a little bit. But basically this is just for you to get more people out there. It's commission based, right? So even though there's a higher price to pay, you don't have to pay them until they deliver. So that's really good if you're like, hey, you know, I don't really want to pay somebody hourly, right? I don't want to pay them monthly. I just want to pay them when I get my results and I have the budget for that. Then that's for you. Now for the contingency recruiter coming from the candidate side of things, right? So if you're looking for a job and working with a contingency recruiter, know that they're going to work with you. But the way they work with you is going to be more of, you know, like a number of schemes. They're going to submit you to different companies and, you know, use your resume to basically pitch their services, get these companies to sign a contract with themselves. And ultimately you don't have to pay anything, right? Because the company will pay the recruiter. Your job is to just, you know, stay in touch with them, tell them exactly what's going on, be honest with them in terms of who you're looking for. So nobody's wasting their time, right? Because again, you're not paying them anything. That's the first type of recruiter. I think a lot of people are common with that type of recruiter. You've maybe worked with them as a company or, you know, as a candidate. The second type is a hourly or a retainer recruiter. So an hourly retainer recruiter is basically they'll, you know, clients will say, we're going to pay you like $5,000 a week to work on these 10 positions. And then, you know, basically the hourly recruiter will have, you know, whether it's a team or themselves, they'll work 40, 50 hours a week, right? Like this is like contracting, but you're part of the company, you're in-house because you have like, or not in-house, you're like contracting in-house where you're actually contracting with a client. And so then you're still trying to find good candidates to build those positions. But now you have a little bit of a safety and predictable income coming. Your job, your commission, you're not really based on just commission anymore. Now on the candidate side for this particular recruiter, they'll work with you like as if they were part of the company's team already. So, you know, they'll help you maybe with your resume, your LinkedIn, all of that. And again, you're not paying them. The company pays them to be on a retainer. And then the final type of recruiter is an in-house recruiter. So in-house recruiter is, you know, if my Facebook or my LinkedIn said, you know, senior technical recruiter working for Apple. So I'm actually working with Apple. I'm on W-2 with Apple. So my job is to basically I get, you know, a salary just like everybody else. I'm a salaried employee. And my job is to build positions that are just for Apple. So at this time, I cannot work with other companies because I may be violating my W-2 code of conduct. Right. And so for candidates, if you have people reach out to you from there, it's because, you know, they're working directly for Apple and Apple may be hiring, for example. So that's those are the different types of recruiters. And do you see from your experience that there is, and particularly even from your own personal experience, do you feel like you've got a better, I will say a better handle on positions and jobs for companies when you're in-house versus when you're contracting? Is there a different level of knowledge and familiarity that you run into in those situations? Yeah. So I haven't really been in-house, in-house because I have my own agency. So that's technically like not allowed. But when I work on retainers, I become part of the team. Right. Like I'm a contractor, but I'm part of the team. And so I feel like anytime you're on an hourly retainer as a recruiter, you get more of what's going on. You get more insights. You know, hiring managers are more accessible to you because they know they're investing in you, which means you have to, it's a give and take there. Right. Now, even with my contingency clients, so I'm very selective in who I take on as clients because even with my contingency clients, you know, I'm very high touch. You know, my team will send regular email updates. We'll tell you exactly what's going on. But a lot of agencies don't do that. They'll just accept clients and then they just, you know, throw them in the back burner and then they kind of move on. Right. But our agency is extremely high touch. And we're, we are more quality versus quantity here. So we would rather work with a limited amount of clients and really over deliver than take on hundreds of clients and then have jobs sitting there for like 90 days or even more. Right. That's not what I want to do. My job is to close the jobs that I get as quickly as possible because in both cases, like it's about building that relationship, building that rapport, and then ultimately, you know, affecting the bottom line of my business. And so now from a, I guess, sort of moving to talk about the, the hiring piece, and there's a little bit on the sort of the backend, I guess, of the, of the layoffs or the firing piece. Have you found that you have, particularly in the last couple of years, when a lot of people have moved around and things like that, and there's the, you know, the great resignation, all these kinds of things. Have you found yourself working sort of transitioning people out of jobs as well? Or is it, is it much more of that frontloaded getting people into jobs? That's your focus. Yep. So actually up until last year, Q4, we were mostly like, you know, just presenting candidates for job offers that we had. And then in Q4, we launched a new model where we now are working with people who are looking for transitions, whether it was a layoff, whether it was a furlough, or they're just like, hey, I'm happy where I'm at, but I could be happier somewhere else, right? And so really kind of working with candidates, and we have a contract for candidates. We have, you know, a whole process where we tell you what we're going to do, how we're going to approach companies without being spammy or scammy, and really just get them the right, you know, position. Because I do think that finding the right job, it's not, you know, you have to have that marriage. It's not like buying a pair of jeans and you can throw them out every day. Like you can't just get a new job every day. That's not going to look good. It's going to hurt your credibility extremely. So my job and my team's job is if you want to find a job through us, we want to make sure that you can stay there for at least a year or two years, right? And affect the company's retention in a positive way, because it's a win-win situation for everybody in that situation. So yeah, we started doing that in the last six, seven months now. We've had some really, really good success where we've placed candidates who come to us, you know, kind of just saw us on LinkedIn or our website. And then we've been able to place them to companies who, you know, who are looking to hire for that specific skill set. Now you work, are you, do you work nationally? Do you keep it more local to your area or how do you, how do you work that? No, we're actually global. So we actually have a couple of clients in Europe right now. We have a client in Asia right now. So we're very, very global. And I think especially post pandemic, right? There's, I mean, right now you just need a computer and internet, right? And you can literally do any job, you know, if, if the hiring team and the founding team is okay with that. So yes, a lot of my positions are global. So, and then sort of as a follow-up to that is how have you seen a change or have you in the last, you know, last couple of years in particular in like face-to-face meetings and how you actually know or vet, you know, prospects and even, I guess, customers to some extent. Yep. I've definitely seen more of a transition to face-to-face and like specifically I've seen a huge rise in like, you know, team offsites where, you know, people, if, you know, like, for example, one of my clients is in the Bay area. And so in February, they hosted an offsite in Colorado where they invited everybody that was, you know, domestic and invited them over just to kind of have a one week of like activities where they get to, you know, know the team. And so for companies that are predominantly remote, they are doing more and more of this where once or twice a year, they get the teams together. And it's really cool to kind of get together and work on like, you know, just work with each other through obstacle courses or critical thinking or icebreakers and get to know each other. And then I've also seen a transition where people are now, you know, of course, a lot of companies are like, come back to work, like COVID is no longer as big of a threat as it used to be a couple of years ago, right? So I'm also seeing more of that transition, but I see a lot of companies moving more towards a hybrid model, right? More than just remote or in person. I'm seeing a lot of companies say, okay, like come in at least two to three days a week here, you know, for this reason, right? Now we have other companies, you know, where they do require people to come into office full time. And that's really where I see a lot of my clients that are candidates are like, ah, I love the remote. I want to go back to a remote company, right? So that's why they want to work with me is to go back to a company that's hybrid or remote, because they got used to that flexible lifestyle. Yeah, that does seem like that. And I know a lot of people I talked to the same way is that they would much rather in developers in particular, because it's just, you know, give me a laptop and a room and I'm fine. I don't need to travel anywhere. And then it's I get to, you know, somewhat get to work more through that. Now. So that's one area is definitely the the remote work and desire to do so I think has changed dramatically in the last few years. And I think if you went back even probably even three or four years ago, saying that, hey, I want, you know, a hybrid model or full time remote removed your opportunities, you know, reduce your opportunities quite a bit versus today, I think it's it's much more accepted. What are some other things that you run into that are, I guess, this is this is again, a sort of a two part question, things that you would like to see brought out more in resumes on that, you know, from the resume side, as far as you know, things that would help you place somebody better. And then also maybe a couple things that you don't see very often that that people seem to be like, I guess, are surprised that this is something they should either ask for or specify. Yeah, really, really good question. We actually just did a workshop on this a couple weeks ago. So I think the biggest thing with resume is one, make sure it looks clean. I'm going to start with the basics and then, you know, kind of talk about other pointers. So make sure it looks clean and it looks organized and your dates match, right? I see so many people where their dates don't match. It doesn't seem coherent. What's going on, right? Like that's that's the thing. Like it's really important to do that. Secondly, when you are listing out your skills and qualifications, always talk about the impact that you've made. Because a lot of us will say like, I have experience with the skill or I have experience with react on front end. And I've done this. But like what impact did that have on the company? Were you able to launch the product quicker? Did you have more customers come to you because of your skills? Right? Because employers and recruiters, we want to see the impact that you've made in your organization, right? Like we know you probably know react and that's great. But where does that lead to? I also like when people add numbers. So like once the company hired me, we saw a 45 percent increase in blah, blah, blah. Right? We I was able to hire seven people on my team within a span of six months, like numbers, you know, we are we are visual beings, right? So when we see numbers, it's like, oh, wow, that's actually really cool. And so really giving people that employers and recruiters at time to see that, right? Because again, a lot of people don't talk about numbers, they just talk about I did this and I did that. And I'm like, that's great. Like, what does that tell me? What's the big picture here? Right? And then the other thing is, the other question you asked was, what's something that you should list that people may not list? Right? I think two things that come to mind. The first thing is skills and hobbies and, you know, anything that you do that extracurricular, right? Because it's really not it's really good to build rapport with someone. If you're a tennis player and your employer that interview you was like a tennis player, like in high school, that's something that you can bring up. Right. And sometimes I look at that when I talk to kids, I'm like, oh, that's really cool that you play tennis. Like I did, too. Tell me a little bit more about that. It gives a really nice way to build connection and build rapport. I think that goes a long way. So don't discount those, right? If you're volunteering, if you're doing extracurricular activities, that makes you a human being, right? You need to show people that you're not just a developer. You're also you have other components to your life, right? And so be human on your resume. I think that's huge. And the second thing is if you've ever had an employment gap, mention that, right? And I think this is something that people are always like, should I, should I not? And I'm really a big proponent of mentioning it because I think at the end of the day, Rob, it's really about transparency. Right. And so the more transparent and honest you are, the less questions or reactive the employer or the recruiter is going to be. And so instead of saying like, hey, why do I see that you have it to your work gap? And if you say right there, like, hey, I was busy raising a family or, hey, like we had just transferred and I just didn't have it in me or I took a mental health break because that's what my body needed at the time. Own up to it, right? Because the more you own up to it and the more transparent you are, the better it is. Because a lot of people lie about that. A lot of people don't even talk, like they'll have a gap in the year and they don't even mention it. But if people do reference tracks, like that stuff comes up, right? And you're LinkedIn, like stuff is going to follow you. So just be truthful, be honest. And employers and recruiters really respect that, especially towards, you know, this culture of equity and inclusion and all the things, right? Because I think that's going to be, I think, a key. So those are the two things I've definitely recommend you mention regardless. Scott Payne No, it actually brought up, I had a thought as you were going through that. What do you think or how do you see the impact of people that have their, basically have a personal website where that's sort of their resume, where they sort of point people to that. And then sort of along those same lines is people now have video resumes. I've seen people that have do that. They'll have a YouTube thing or something like that. How do you see that as a replacement or maybe as an add-on to what they're doing? Yeah, I definitely see those two things as an add-on. And I'll tell you why. So a lot of companies use applicant tracking systems, right? So if you've ever gone on LinkedIn or wherever and you're like, apply for the job now, and you click that button and it makes you enter like your first name, your last name, your email, upload your resume, right? And so when you upload something that the applicant tracking system hasn't seen before, like a video resume or a website, it's going to be like, you know, it's not going to highlight the relevant words, right? And so when you come across to the applicant tracking system, and if it's not your, you know, usual word doc or PDF or whatever, it may mark you as spam, right? Or you may be at the bottom of the aisle or pile. So it's really, really important for you to have a resume that's like a regular good old boring resume. And then of course, as you're filling out the application, there's also a thing that says other websites or portfolio. That's where you can add your video resume and you can also add your website link, right? So those things should be in addition to not to replace your LinkedIn profile or resume. Now between LinkedIn profile and resume, I always recommend that your LinkedIn profile is always updated because that is like people seeing you, even maybe when you're sleeping, right? And so you want that stuff to be always updated. But with your resume, like I don't know the last time I updated my resume, to be honest, but it's always a good idea to update it every three to four months. Or if you finish a key project that you're like, oh, I think this needs to be on my resume, right? Even if you're not looking for a job, like put it out there because you never know. Someone might reach out and be like, I have this amazing opportunity, send me your resume, right? And then you're like, oh, now I need like two weeks to do my resume. So always keep on adding to it as much as you can and in real time, because then it doesn't feel like a chore and it doesn't feel boring, right? But the more you're on top of it, the better it is. Yeah, that makes sense. And I like how you say that, yeah, even when we're sleeping, people can see us these days because it is, it's out there and you never know. And particularly in a global situation, they may be a completely flipped calendars from yours, but they're out there looking for you while you're out cold and sleeping. And we will go ahead and pause right there. I don't want to get too long. This is one of those, it was a little bit difficult to figure out where to split it, but that's where we chose to do so. So we're going to come back next episode. We will continue and wrap up our interview with Neha. We're going to talk a lot more about the approach that she takes. We're going to get a little bit more into the sort of the intangibles and some of the other things that you're going to want to know and think about whether you are on the hiring or the hiree side of the table and how good recruiters could maybe help you with that. That being said, we'll let you get back to your day. So go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next. Thank you for listening to building better developers to develop a newer podcast. You can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success. Please check out school.development.com. That is where we are starting to pour a lot of our content. We've taken the lessons, the things that we've learned, all of the things that make you a better developer, and we're putting it there. 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