EPISODE 115 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: ATTRACTING TOP-TIER TALENT WITH THE TEAM FROM HUNTSMAN RECRUITING
Sonya:
Huntsman Recruiting is a regional recruitment agency with a stellar reputation for attracting the best talent in the business for their clients.
Not only do they attract the best talent, but in the process of promoting these roles, they manage to promote their CLIENTS, by creating gorgeous job ads that position these businesses as great places to work.
I know why I think Huntsman are achieving the results they do, but I thought it would be helpful to hear from the people behind the brand. Rhyley Hunter and Kaity Fuller are the driving force behind Huntsman Recruiting, and I’m thrilled to have them joining me today! Hi team!
Rhyley:
We’ll take that any day of the week, that’s the nicest anyone’s spoken to me in months!
Kaity:
Well Sonya, you can deal with him directly from now on, because this is too close for my liking - we’re about 30cm apart!
Rhyley:
It’s the closest you’ll get mate, soak it all in (laughs)
Sonya:
The sledging going on between these two before we hit record… very entertaining!
I thought we’d start our chat today with a brief overview: How did you get started in the recruitment space, and what do you think sets you apart from other recruitment agencies?
Rhyley:
Originally I was recruiting for another agency in Wagga, for around four years, and they were brilliant; I had a ball with them. They had a really great culture and a great crew, and I loved every minute of it and learned a lot. They joined two other recruitment agencies in different states and things changed overnight there.
I’d always been fairly ambitious and wanted to have a crack and do something for myself anyway, but as soon as those little changes started to take place in terms of management, with commissions being cut overnight, I thought ‘hold on, this might be my chance’.
Probably a month later, I was having Sunday lunch with my Aunty and Uncle, and he was a successful gym owner in the past for about 20 or 30 years. I was telling him about it and he said “Mate, you’ve just gotta do it. Back yourself, have a crack, get out there - why not?” And he grabbed his iPad and got on Fiverr and started putting a logo together from that. He was like, “Here, we’re getting it done now. Go home and pull your finger out, start planning. Stop sooking about this and have a go”, and I remember just from that chat, I thought “Shit, I’m going to do this” and it was probably about 6 to 12 months worth of planning.
Back in 2015 we started Wagga Recruitment originally, and then 3 years later rebranded to Huntsman Recruiting, and… yeah. Just haven’t looked back from there. It’s been a fun ride, I’m definitely not getting any hair back soon, and had to put up with Kaity for the last seven and a half years, so it’s been tough.
Kaity:
Yeah, poor bugger
I cam on board about 6 months after Rhyley had started the business, I think in an admin part of the business
Rhyley:
I can’t actually remember making an offer (laughs)
Kaity:
I actually don’t think he ever offered the position, i just sort of turned up and he was like, “Ugh, she’s here”
Rhyley:
The locksmiths were there the next week, and that was it
Sonya:
That’s funny for a recruitment agency!
Rhyley:
Yeah, Kaity’s been fantastic, we definitely wouldn’t be where we are without her. It would have been 6 months in and Kaity came on board to do admin and payroll and support, things I’ve definitely been terrible at - and continue to be. She worked her way into a recruiting role and now is the COO and we’re going ahead in leaps and bounds.
Kaity:
I actually think, and this is for any candidates out there, I think I told him I could do accounts, and I had no idea. Fumbled my way through
Rhyley:
I figured that out pretty quickly mate, don’t you worry (laughs)
Yeah, so that was really it. So we just built the team all around it and built the brand
Kaity:
And different locations as well. So I guess when we moved from Wagga Recruitment… We were Wagga Recruitment and when we were looking for other locations, so Albury-Wodonga was another region we thought we’d like to tap into. Then we had a brand that was Albury Wodonga Recruitment, and it was just a little bit fiddly in terms of if we are to grow, how that looks every time we go into a new location.
So we wanted to… I guess create a brand that was transferable into different regions, and I guess that’s how Huntsman was created. Rhyley, do you want to speak about how Huntsman eventuated, and the name itself?
Rhyley:
To be honest, I can’t even remember - we would have been carrying on with different names and I don’t know how it came to us… obviously it’s a bit of a play on my ego maybe with my last name, and with what we do in terms of going out there to capture people into our web, and to utilise our networks, we’ve definitely got nothing to do with the spider, but like I said, I can’t remember how it came about, we were stuffing around with a few designs and whatnot, and we ended up getting professionals in, they’re called Sunday Collective, Scott and Michelle Robertson, they were fantastic in helping us come up with the concept, and how it all looks and plays out.
We practise what we preach in terms of outsource what you can, spend the money and get it done properly.
Sonya:
Yeah, and I mean it’s such a strong brand, and it’s so different from the traditional stuffy kind of recruiter’s logos and branding out there. I feel like, in a regional area, it’s a big leap to take, to set up a brand that’s SO different. Did you ever have any worries about going, “ooh, are people going to take this seriously because it’s not the traditional blue recruitment kind of logo that everyone seems to have”?
Rhyley:
No, not at all. It was probably the opposite, like we love being a little bit different, being a bit quirky and being as authentic as possible, like it’s hard - throughout the years we’ve had to try and find the balance between carrying on too much on our social media and showing too much of ourselves, while still remaining professional and getting the work done. So it’s kind of trying to find a balance between that.
Kaity:
It’s been a bit of a swinging pendulum, there was a time where we were stuff around Huntsman, and that was really clearly videoed on all the socials, and it got to the point where people were asking, “Do you guys get any work done?” and then it swung to the other end where we took ourselves TOO seriously, so it was that fine balance of trying to put that personality into the sense of professionalism, as well.
Rhyley:
But in terms of the brand, we wanted to be different from the get-go, and we didn’t want a traditional - I still hate that traditional business model where all these conversations have to be serious and people put on an act in front of other people and try to be a better version of who they actually are. I can’t stand that, I just love that level of authenticity that as soon as you meet people it comes across straight away. So we’ve tried to create a brand that shows that part of ourselves as well
Kaity:
And a brand that’s going to be relatable as well. I think having sharp lines and clear black and white sets us apart in the market as well
Sonya:
Definitely, I’m a big fan. As a business owner myself, I know what a big undertaking it can be to find the right employee for a role. And this might be a selfish question, but I’d love for you to share the things you look out for - so, these can be red flags OR green flags - when you’re matching a candidate to a position.
Rhyley
I think the biggest thing, our #1 piece of advice for people, is to take it slowly when you’re working out your own brief, you really need to be 100% confident in what you need and require.
Take that time to be introspective and talk to your team, and to look to the future and understand exactly what this role entails and what you need them to do.
So not a run of the mill position description where you’ve got 50 things on here that people need to get done, it’s really nut that down into the top 5 or 6 clear objectives of what you need this person to do, and what will make this role successful in the next 6-12 months. I think that’s the first point of call, and then you’ll be able to develop your interview style and questions and what you’re pressing onto people around that.
We find if you don’t do that, it’s very wishy-washy and you’ll get that turnover, because you just won’t know what you want. We’ve been there ourselves, there’s been multiple times where we’ve made heaps of mistakes, and obviously for clients, having recruited hundreds of thousands of roles as well.
It’s really understanding firstly what you need, and then developing questions around that, set those clear non-negotiables about where you won’t settle for less
Kaity:
I also want to touch on that cultural fit, which is really important for any company or organisation, around understanding those values that you hold, and what your team hold. Because that’s something that, when you’re looking for staff, and there’s red flags you see in those interview questions that show if this candidate’s going to be a good fit or the right fit for their business.
Rhyley:
Another thing we do - some businesses won’t be able to do it - depending on what the candidate’s situation is, we like to get people to sit in with us for say the second or third catch up, and come in and have coffee, have lunch, sit down with the team for a four or five hour period and really get a feel for how they all interact with each other, how they’ll interact with the team members, then after have a debrief with your team to get theri thoughts.
I think it’s important, if you can do that, to see as much as possible.
Sonya:
Yeah, so kind of bring it into a more casual, social situation
Rhyley:
Yeah, 100%. Interviews are a hard one, and I’m trying to figure out the best way moving forward with them - an interview is who can perform the best on the day for that hour. It’s a performance, that’s all it is.
It’s trying during that interview to pull the truth from it, and a lot of it is just listening, you know, you’ll pick up on those little red flags as Kaity said, and it’s then continuously picking or pulling at that scab to unleash who they are, because a lot of people will have continued patterns in their previous employment of things that have happened.
Another good one too, I think, would be to… like, people really undervalue their reference check, but to be able to incorporate in your questioning when you are interviewing people is, “Ok so when I contact your previous employers…” And straight away, there’s that bit of a psychological change, because tthey’re thinkign it’s not IF I contact your employers, what are they going to say about your customer service, or whatever it is, it’s WHEN I speak to them, what are they going to say, what are they going to rate you out of ten in this field.
Straight away, they start thinking, “ooh shit, hold on, they’re actually going to contact these people, so I can’t lie, I can’t make up a story”, so you start to see that truth come out. But look, it’s a hard one - if people want to be sneaky, they’ll do whatever is required to you know, work their way in.
Kaity:
I also think from a candidate perspective - and I say this to all my candidates as they’re going through, too - it’s really hard to go into a room and having to sell yourself to people you don’t know in 45 minutes.
Sonya:
And the question of, “so tell me about yourself”...how do you answer that?
Kaity:
And the more I go back to, any candidates I interact with, the more personal you can be, the better .People want to understand who you are, because you’re not your job either. So, some of those similarities where, you know, Sonya you might love the wine, so do I, and then there’s that conversation barrier that will move into a conversation and those questions are raised from there. The more we can, I guess, and from a client perspective as well, I’m saying don’t have very clinical questions, because you’re not going to get the best out people either.
So they can read well on paper, you’ve explained them well from our side, the recruiter’s perspective, but if you’re going to ask clinical questions, they’re not going to perform to the way that we’ve sold them to you, either.
Rhyley:
It’s a two way street these days, gone are the days when it’s like, well why do they want to come and work for you, it’s a complete flip, so if you can lead that conversation with a bit of vulnerability or authenticity, and say “this is what we’re about here, i’m going to give you a bit of a window into who I am, and I want you to be able to do the same”
SO you can sort of lead that yourself, but yeah, it’s a two way street.
Sonya:
Yeah, well just listening to you two talk about the things you should be doing, I have several team members, and I must admit, I’ve never called a single reference for any of them, and my latest hire, she applied with me at 10am on a Wednesday morning, by 12 o’clock I had her in for an interview and I’d sent her an offer by 3 and afterwards, I just went “oh crap, I didn’t even check her references” (laughs)
To be honest with her though, I got a gut feeling. And I know you shouldn’t always go with that, but my gut has been wrong before and I’ve made some big mistakes with some hires across the years, but so far, she’s working out great, but I definitely had a moment where she walked in, and I got so excited and I didn’t even check her references so thank goodness it’s worked out.
Rhyley:
And sometimes it definitely does, they say ‘hire with your head’, but you’ve still got to - if you get that feeling, and your gut is your intuition anyway - so it’s like an energy people vibrate. And you sort of know from the get go, a lot of times Kaity and I will say, with things that have happened in the past, “you DID know that , there were signs there from the get go, there was just a bit of desperation on our part to go “I still think we can make this work…”
Sonya:
Kind of like a relationship you hold onto, right?
Rhyley:
Yep, exactly
Kaity:
I’ve held onto this one too much (nods towards Rhyley)
Rhyley:
Yeah, she’s a bit of a clinger
Kaity:
(sings) I’ve got to break free…
Rhyley:
I’ve tried to encourage her to spread her wings multiple times, but…
Sonya:
I read in one of your posts that 50% of businesses in the Riverina are struggling to fill job vacancies. What do you think business owners are getting wrong when it comes to listing their jobs on Seek or LinkedIn?
Rhyley:
I think they’re, probably first of all, making it about themselves, not about who they want.
So that’s a big thing when we go to market, we try and.. The first 3 or 4 paragraphs of a job ad need to be about them (the candidate). So it’s the old, “sell then tell”. Sell to them first, all the benefits, why make the move? Why your company or that role is going to push their career forward, or their lifestyle, or salary wise.
Kaity:
Or something that’s going to resonate with them, that they’re lacking in their role or their life at the moment.
Rhyley:
It’s that two way street, it’s all about why people would want to jump on board and work for you as well.
But the biggest thing we see, not just in the riverina, but nationally or internally in recruitment, people have a huge list of exactly what they want in a candidate, “you need to be able to do this, this, this, this and this”, it does nothing.
Recruitment is marketing, that’s the way we truly see it, so it’s got to be about what’s in it for them. Even in our video marketing that we do, and we’ve really established our brand around it, and we really think it’s the way of the future, and we’re starting to see other people doing it too, which is great, but it’s got to be all about the candidate.
So you’re not doing the world a favour by offering a vacancy by any means, and that’s the mindset of a lot of people, and that’s what Kaity was trying to get at before, it’s gotta be all about them, and not about the person they’re trying to attract.
Sonya:
I think that also, your job descriptions, they’re entertaining. Like, they suck you in and make you want to read them. I read everything you guys put up, just becuase the descriptions are so entertaining. There was one I was reading a little while ago and you’ve got Beyonce references in there, so it just grabs you. Who is writing those captions and those descriptions?
Kaity:
Everyone the team
Sonya:
Yeah ok, so it’s not just coming from one person, fantastic
Kaity:
That’s something we try to foster in our team, especially recruiters, is that creative aspect of, like, in video marketing, we’re in front of the camera, we’re writing those scripts, we’re storyboarding how that looks for clients…. That’s the fun part of the role, being creative and selling a vacancy like they wouldn’t be able to.
Rhyley:
Yeah, and in saying that as well, our entire team, we get them to go through a copywriting for recruiters course as well, it’s on how to write compelling job adverts. It’s not something we’ve just sprung ourselves, it’s something we get everyone to complete as well. But yeah, creative content is always something I’ve loved to write as well, and we’ve filtered that through the organisation, we want everyone to be able to come to the party with that and be creative.
And Lauz who we’ve just put on as well as a marketing coordinator, she’s been brilliant as well, but it’s definitely been a skill we’ve all trained ourselves in, and have had to constantly train and develop.
That’s a huge point of difference to us, our main thing is our marketing, and again, we want to try and be quirky and different but still understanding from our perspective that it’s about our client, so we can be as creative as we want, but if it doesn’t match their brand, it’s wrong.
Trying to get that balance between allowing us to be full blown mad and crazy with out videos, and still understanding that affects their brand and who they are, so it’s a bit of a tricky one that we’re still trying to work out.
Sonya:
So talk to me a bit more about the video side of things. I have been saying for years that video is ‘it’ when it comes to content, and I think the local area has been pretty slow to catch on, but you guys have forged ahead with that.
Obviously video production can be expensive, it takes time, it is a lot of effort, it’s a lot of work - and you deliver a really beautiful, polished product at the end of the day. What kind of impact do you see from that, will you continue doing it, how do you roll out these marketing videos?
Kaity:
I guess where the video marketing stems from, in the middle of covid where the confidence in the market had shifted completely, and I guess candidates weren’t looking, and we had to differ ourselves with how we were attracting candidates, and that were visual.
So, gone are the days where you post a job ad up on Seek, and you get 820 applications, that’s not where it’s at anymore, and anyone who’s in recruitment will understand this. So, you know, basic administrator roles would have 120 applications, you’d have 10 great, 5 interviews.
You’re struggling to get 30 candidates apply, and probably 2 decent applicants from that.
Rhyley:
And this was 3 years ago, it was a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. Our job was much easier back then. The job market has flipped now, it’s a candidate’s market, and you’ve got to do things a little bit differently and put yourselves out there, out on the line, to attract the right people these days.
Kaity:
So through seek, it’s now like utilising newspaper to run adverts. You’re not capturing the people you want to, because people aren’t looking, or they need to have something that’s in their face. I think that’s why this video marketing has generated so well, and how they’ve been delivered too.
Around being creative, I think that’s something that comes naturally to us, and being in front of a camera - well Rhyley’s more so…
Rhyley:
I’ve got a head for radio
Kaity:
That’s why you don’t see him too much…
Rhyley:
More hair on my chin than my head
Kaity:
But how we could sell a client, but also attract a candidate at the same time, it’s just completely different to what anyone’s doing, not just regionally, but nationally as well.
Rhyley:
And in terms of results, it genuinely gets results. So the numbers Kaity was saying with seek these days, there might be 20 or 30 instead of 130 applications come through. And it still has its place, you might get one gem out of that lot, but a lot of it’s just a time waster. With the videos, we’re spending about 750 or a grand on sponsoring that post out there on Instagram and Facebook, and we’re getting about 20,000 hits. And when you can truly target the demographic you’re after as well, and interests, and whatever else that might be. Say a construction estimator role, we can target the pay packets they’re looking at, the location, the building game, or whatever it may well be, you can really hone in on that, whereas with other forms of traditional advertising it’s not - a bit of a spray and pray approach anyway, you just don’t know what you’re going to get.
And we’ve utilised it ourselves, we’ve used it to recruit recruiters, and it works, and it’s just a great branding tool, especially for our clients, but for us as well.
And to be honest, it’s something that we just love doing, It’s just a bit of fun, but it gets results, so it’s not just this rubbish thing that we enjoy doing, it genuinely works. I just love that targeted demographic - for me, just to get the right people in front of you, and to see someone then in that role 6 months on, that’s what does it for us.
Kaity:
Similar to our job adverts too, they’ve had to be honed over the years. Looking back at our first video ad, it’s cringeworthy to where they are now. It’s something that we’re getting better and better at, in how to storyboard it, what we want, and what we see our viewers wanting to see from a role, and it’s getting better results, too.
Sonya:
I think as well, you’re playing really, really well into the algorithms on social media as well. Every platform at the moment. If you are sponsoring those posts on Facebook and Instagram, or even on LinkedIn, the cheapest kind of ad you can run is a video views ad. So if you’ve got a video you’re going to reach so many more people anyway, so that’s great.
Rhyley:
Yeah, And even little things like, since we’ve had Lauz in the role, she knows all those analytics and what’s going on in those marketplaces in socials so well, but even little things that we’re starting to learn now is like we shouldn’t sponsor that video now for our clients or for ourselves straight away, you need to organically let that run for 7 to 10 days as well -
Sonya:
Get some social proof
Rhyley:
Yeah, otherwise things like, Facebook and Instagram will say “hold on, Huntsman are going to throw money at this so let’s give them no reach at all, naturally, until they throw some money at it, and they get in the routine of like, money money money money
Sonya:
At the same time with that, if they see that people have engaged with you organically, it’s going to cost you far less to reach people when you do put ad spend behind it. So yeah, it’s clever.
Rhyley
No, it’s nuts. But just lastly on the videos, it truly comes down to the quality as well, so we’ve tried doing it in house, we’ve done amateur stuff here and there - and everything’s played its part to where it is now - but utilising Threefold, Devlin and Kate, they’re a professional team, they’re fantastic to work with, they come up with creative ideas that help us as well. So a lot of the time we’re not just doing it ourselves, we’re utilising their creativity. But yeah, what they bring to the table, and again we’re happy to pay good fees for that service, it’s making sure if you’re going to do it, do it properly, send the money and get a professional videographer.
Sonya:
100%
Kaity:
It’s also selling this to clients as well, and showing them the benefits of using and creating an advert that can last over the years while they’re recruiting.
Sonya:
Absolutely. We use Devlin and Kate all the time, we’ve just launched our new website and they’ve done some incredible footage for us on that. Devlin comes up with the wildest ideas, it’s fantastic. He’ll say “I’m thinking this” and I’ll say “Really?” and then I’m like “Ok, just do it” and it’s always great.
Rhyley:
You’ll have to ask him about one of our videos that we didn’t put out there (laughs)
Sonya:
Didn’t make the cut?
Rhyley:
Nah, it was a little TOO mad. Like i said, we try and dance on that line of professionalism and playfulness, and this one was a little bit too mad
Kaity:
Let’s just say Rhyley and food porn just do not mix… you’ll never want to look at a set of eggs again
Sonya:
Well I’m going to have to find that - I actually work in the same offices as Devlin and Kate, so I’ll have to go and knock on his door
Rhyley:
I thought that, so you guys are in at Hustle?
Sonya:
We are, we love it. So I’ll be hunting that one down now that you’ve given me permission
Rhyley:
Have a bit of a look, make sure you’ve got a spew bucket there
Kaity:
You’ll never look at Rhyley again
Sonya:
Maybe it’s a good thing that I’m going to watch it after this interview
Kaity:
This might not make it on the Boom Your Biz Poddy…
Rhyley:
And I saw as well that you’re a big T Swift fan, I was having a bit of a stalk on your self
Sonya:
I am, and I didn’t get tickets!
Rhyley:
You’re kidding
Kaity:
Oh you didn’t!
Sonya:
Absolutely devastated
Kaity:
They will pop up… I reckon she’ll put on more shows.
Sonya:
I’m confident that I will get a ticket, but right now I’m kind of devastated, so I’ve been playing her albums on repeat, crying in the corner, it’s been.. Just…
Rhyley:
I saw back in November, you had a podcast around her marketing, and how clever it is. I thought that was hilarious, like how obviously that was 7 or 8 months ago, but now, every second blog post I see on LInked in is about Taylor Swift’s marketing and how clever it is
Sonya:
I’m a trendsetter, what can I say
Rhyley:
Yeah, trailblazer!
Kaity:
There was a Netflix doco on her, wasn’t there?
Sonya:
Yeah, yep
Kaity:
I had a mate say that was the best documentary he’s ever watched
Sonya:
It’s won a TON of awards, and I would highly - even if you’re not a fan of her music, I would highly, highly recommend
Kaity:
Just how she’s changed her appearance over the years
Sonya:
And different markets as well, and I think as well for her, that she’s gone from being small time country music singer and gone through all these other genres and basically taken a whole bunch of people along for the ride from being teenagers to in their 30s now, which is part of the reason why she’s got that massive fan base
Rhyley:
You still can’t go past Love Story, that still brings a tear to my eye
Kaity:
Back to December gets me every time
Rhyley:
What was that other one? Oh, You Belong To Me. Banger. Love that.
I’m a Hilary Duff fan, to be honest.
Sonya:
Oh gosh, that’s a bit of a throw back
Rhyley:
That’s on my gym playlist. Give it a go, a bit of Hilary Duff.
Sonya:
So we’ve talked about how you guys are so creative with your marketing when it comes to actually finding the candidates, but how can applicants get creative to make sure they stand out when applying for a job. And do you encourage this, or do you just want a resume?
Kaity:
This is something that I HIGHLY encourage with any candidate that I see, especially like, I’ve been recruiting a non-exec director role, and I’ve had a number of applicants from that process say, “how do i better present myself in roles like this?”
And it’s a great one, because i think more people should do it, and be more personalised on their CVS. At the end of the day, you’re selling yourself on paper. What’s going to stand you out in front of other 30 to 100 applications on paper, and I think that’s where people can really get creative around being personalised in their approach.
The things that I just think are so clinical - and I’ve said clinical a couple of times now - is hard-working, enthusiastic team player…
Rhyley:
Self driven
Kaity:
Self driven
Rhyley:
Motivated.. You should see Kaity’s resume (whistles)
Kaity:
Good looking… funny…
Sonya:
Charismatic…
Rhyley:
Humble…
Kaity:
Humble!
But these are the things that you’re like, “no one is an enthusiastic, hard working team player. Like, come on. Give me something that’s going to resonate. And we do it on our profiles, on our website, on our LinkedIn. I think that’s where people can really start to see the benefit of telling people who they are, more than just their job.
Sonya:
Yeah, absolutely. After I finished Uni I went off and did the whole uni thing, and came back and worked in a call centre of all things until I found a real job. And a job popped up with Alzheimer’s Australia, and my Mum was actually diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s when I was 19, so I was about 22 at the time, and this job came up for basically the Marketing and Events Coordinator for all of Victoria, and I was not qualified at all. It was a massive, massive role and I just had no chance - but I went, “you know what? I’m so passionate about this organisation, and I do have some marketing experience, I do have an events background, I’m going to go for it.
So I actually ended up building a website, filming some videos, and doing a really, really interactive application that addressed each point that they were looking for, and I got the job.
Kaity:
Love it
Sonya:
And again, not qualified at ALL, but I got it because they could see the effort, and I could talk to - even if I didn’t have all the points that they were looking for - I could talk to other experience I’d had that I could bring into that.
Personally, I love if I get really creative applications from people, and I’ve also had experiences where… one of my current team members actually, she approached me and said “hey, I really want to work for you,” and I didn’t have a role going at the time, but she sort of demonstrated her value and what she could bring to the business.
And again, probably a gut feel, I created a role and offered it to her within 24 hours of meeting her. And she was like, “I just wanted to have a coffee and to meet you, I wasn’t fishing for a job necessarily”. So yeah, I think it’s interesting when people do make that effort, it does stand out.
Rhyley:
It definitely works, and I still remember when Ellie, she’s on mat leave and I don’t know if she’ll come back or not… She’s a beautiful person, and early childhood educator to begin with, and she used to teach my daughter
Kaity:
And my son
Rhyley:
And just this beautiful person. It was the first video we did advertising for a recruiter, and her written response to that was hands down the best I’ve ever seen, for anyone coming into our business anyway, and the way she went about that was brilliant.
Kaity:
She was like, “I’m juggling 30 kids now, so” and we could understand where she was coming from, going “oh, she’s going to be find in this role if that’s what she’s doing at the moment”
Rhyley:
But yeah, the way she went about it and put her personality and sense of humour in there, it intrigued me straight away. I remember reading it on my phone at 6 o’clock that morning, and I thought “yep, we’re going to put her on here” - same as you, you can see that effort from someone and you know, “hold on, I can work with that if that’s what they’re going to be like”.
We made the offer to her, and the way she went about that, we got these handmade cookies delivered to us, with “I can’t wait to be part of the team” and we’re like, “shit, this is going that next level”
Look at how they get people on, how they onboard people. In terms of what we do, as soon as we sign someone, they’ll get a pack of $150 gift voucher, a pamper thing, a bottle of something to have a drink, movie tickets, all this sort of stuff that says ‘welcome to the team, go and relax, get yourself right, can’t wait to get you on board”.
So as a candidate, the more you can do things like that to differentiate yourself. It’s surprising how little people do that. It’s minimal effort, and away you go.
Kaity:
I came across a candidate just recently - and the process wasn’t through us - and she came to us to ask for advice, and she goes, “I’ve got my portfolio here, I’m going for an interview, but at the end of the portfolio I’ve got some coffee vouchers for them to use, because I know they’ve just moved into a new space in Wagga, and their office is pretty much 3 doors down from the coffee shop - do you think that’s too bribey, and I was like, “absolutely not, that is brilliant”.
Sonya:
Yeah, I think that personalised touch, that little bit of extra effort goes a long way, doesn’t it?
Kaity:
It’s just the thought of people going, “I know they’ve just relocated, what’s something to welcome them to the area,” and you get to see people’s values from that, too.
Rhyley:
It doesn’t even have to be a monetary thing either, it can just be to show interest. If I’m employing, I’m always impressed if people have listened to one of the podcasts that we do, or they’ll mention an instagram video like you did today. They’ve actually done their research here, they’ve shown interest, so those sort of things go a long way as well.
Sonya:
So there you have it! Straight from the mouths of the experts.
Thanks so much for chatting with me Rhyley and Kaity - a lot of listeners are business owners, and I know this episode has given them a lot to think about when I’m recruiting for my next role… And also, I need to get my face out there and be on video more
Kaity:
I think you need to!
Sonya:
I get these moments where I just go all shy and hide, so… that needs to stop!
Rhyley:
You’ve got no excuse if you’ve got Threefold in the office!
Sonya:
I know I know… well I’m often in a meeting room and I’ll see Devlin creeping, just taking behind the scenes video footage and I’m like, “What are you doing, I haven’t done my hair today Devlin, please!”
So if anyone wants to find out more about what you guys do, potentially they want to work with you to have you be their recruiters, they want to check out your incredible videos and the job descriptions we’ve been talking about, I do want to include some of these in the promo for the podcast, but where do they find you?
Rhyley:
Instagram’s probably the best bet to be honest. They’ll just get more of an idea of who we are and our personality, and a lot of our information on there. If it’s job hints or tips for clients or candidates, it’s all on there. You can contact us through that, or our website, huntsmanrecruiting.com.au, we’re all on LinkedIn, starting to crack into TikTok
Kaity:
Yeah, watch this space on TikTok
Rhyley:
Any socials
Sonya:
Have you guys signed up for Threads yet?
(pause)
Rhyley:
No, what’s that? (laughs)
Sonya:
So Instagram just - well Facebook, Meta - released a new app yesterday called Threads. So, it is their answer to Twitter, and it’s just basically exploded. So jump on make sure you claim your handle now for your personal names and also Huntsman
Rhyley:
It’s a new social media channel
Sonya:
It is, yep, so if you search in the App Store for “Threads - an Instagram app” it will come up and yeah, I’m amazed. I’ve had all these notifications pop up with, “such and such is following you” and I’m like “ooh, I haven’t heard from taht company or that person for a while”, so yeah. Get on it.
Rhyley:
Quick question for you. In terms of businesses utilising multiple channels, like we’re on Facebook, but we’re definitely not as active as Instagram. Instagram and Linked in are out two main ones, but do you find businesses try and get into way too many things?
Sonya:
Oh, absolutely. I say to them, “pick one core channel, then you can repurpose the content from there”, so for a lot of our clients, it’s going to depend. If we’ve got a ecomerce store for example, facebook is going to be the main platform. That said though, when it comes to the advertising side of things, we often see more conversions on Facebook, but your organic side of things and your paid ads are two completely different beasts.
Kaity:
It’s really funny because where we sit as a business, where we sit as a business is on Instagram, but where we see results is Facebook, especially for video marketing.
Sonya:
Yeah, so I almost think Instagram is that top of the funnel, your day to day posting, you’re focusing on that, and then you’re getting the conversions lower down the funnel on Facebook. And often it will be people who might have seen something from you on Instagram, but they’ve been lurking, then they’ve actually taken action on Facebook.
Rhyley:
Yeah right. Alright, well thank you. We’ll go jump on this Threads and have a bit of a look.
Sonya:
Beautiful. I’ll go follow you guys. Thanks so much for coming on.
Rhyley:
Thank you so much for having us Sonya, we really appreciate it. It’s been good.