Episode 28- Hiring & Recruiting with Suman Cherry

 In this episode of "Small Business, Big Moves,". Thomas Bennett is joined by guest Suman Cherry to explore creative strategies and innovative approaches that have propelled small businesses to new heights. Discover the steps to Hiring & Recruiting for small business.

Connect with us on social media:
- Facebook: Thomas Bennett
- Instagram: @Thomas.mbennett
-YouTube:@SmallBusinessMoneyConnector
- LinkedIn: Thomas Bennett

Subscribe to "Small Business, Big Moves" on Your Favorite Podcast Platform for more inspiring episodes on innovation and entrepreneurship.

Small Business Big Moves is a podcast where innovation meets entrepreneurship. Join Tom Bennett as he explores all things  business growth! From business funding and business tax credits to conversations with leaders who have grown successful and innovative businesses! 

Transcript

Speaker: 0:03

Welcome to Small Business, Big Moves, a podcast where innovation meets entrepreneurship. I'm your host, Tom Bennett, and we'll explore all things business growth from business funding and business tax credits to conversations with leaders who have grown successful and innovative businesses. Welcome to the show. Today's guest will be Suman Cherry and Suman, I'll let you introduce yourself.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Hi my name is Suman Cherry. I am the CEO of Cherry Talent Group. I'm a mom. I live in Houston. I'm not sure what else you want to know.

Speaker: 0:35

I appreciate you sharing that. I know we were going to talk a lot about hiring today, recruiting, some of the some of the things that go into a business, but I wanted you to take it back to the beginning and jump into where you started and what got you into what you're doing today.

Speaker 2: 0:51

Yeah. So I have been always been someone who really liked working with people, like even as far back, like in college, I worked in weight loss sales. So I always liked that type of consultative base, like helping people solving their pain. And then when I after I graduated college, I actually wanted to be in public relations. So I did that for a while. And then I had an opportunity to get into an associate recruiter role and it was just very much my calling talking to people all day. Okay. Understanding their stories, fighting matches for them, and that whole piece. So I, I started off in medical recruiting. I did that. I worked with doctors pretty early on, which was obviously a very lot, taught me a lot working with doctors. There's a lot of requirements. Then I moved into I moved to Houston and moved into oil and gas. So a lot of engineering, project management executive level roles. And then about six years ago, I sort of transitioned into construction recruiting. So I've been doing a lot of construction recruiting, but I've since branched out quite a bit. Most of my career, my 20 years has been the contingent based model of recruiting. So most people are familiar with it in the business world, you know, most typically in the traditional model, you pay, pay a placement fee for recruiting. So you don't pay any upfront costs. And then you pay a 20 to 25 percent fee of the first year salary. And then there's another guarantee. So that's kind of been the model forever, right? Everyone's always uses that model. I had a client come to me in COVID and asked me if I'd be interested in doing some contract recruiting for them. And I was like, sure. Cause I had kind of. Gotten really burned out on recruiting. And so I was actually taking a different path in my life. I was actually moving into coaching and life coaching and this, all this other stuff and kind of doing more of the healing side. And then I started doing contract recruiting and it was just a very different it was just a very different space to be in because you're working more intimately with your clients. You're working more intimately with your candidates and you have this ability to really navigate some of the pitfalls that happen in, in, you know, hiring, you're able to navigate some of that for your clients. And it was very successful. So then I just kind of rolled it out about two years ago and it's been unbelievably successful. We've hired, What four, five people this year so far, and we're looking for more. So it's just clients love it. Candidates love it. It's very, it's not transactional. It's very consultative and we work as our clients matchmakers to find their perfect match.

Speaker: 3:22

Absolutely. That's exciting. I love it. I love that matchmaking approach because I think one of the one of the biggest issues we see in the small to especially the small business space is really being able to find and hire the right people. And you might you might find someone that's a great candidate up front, but then Then two months or three months down the road, you realize that this isn't a isn't a fit at all. So walk us through some of the like the pros and cons of some of the different hiring practices out there and why why some of those older models may not, may not work today.

Speaker 2: 3:57

Well, I mean, I'm not gonna say anything negative about anything because, you know, obviously they serve purposes and for some companies, maybe they are a better purpose, right? So, you know, there's really been only two ways of recruiting. You do it all in house or you have, you know, external recruiters handle it who are specialized, specialized in those specific niches, right? So on the external, in the internal recruiting model, you have to support having those recruiters. So in order to have Internal recruiters. They have to work on average. I read a statistic. They work on average 20 to 25 positions at one time. So that's a lot of capacity to hold. So their screening process, it's, it can't be very extensive. They're really just like matching skills. Like, okay, checkbox, checkbox, checkbox. Okay, great interview. And so there's not a lot of pre screening going on in that process. And also, I think that when you are on the internal recruiting model, you're very much set up in a box. You don't have the opportunity. Cause I'm talking to a lot of people in HR and internal recruiting, and they've said like the biggest challenge for them is they might see an incredible candidate that doesn't have all the skills, but matches up in a lot of other soft skills, but they're the managers aren't open to it because they have this very fixed idea of what they need. So recruiters are much better. I feel like I'm maneuvering through that and kind of really showing up as consultants and that standpoint on whichever side you look at recruiting. The external recruiting model. So here's, here's my challenges with it, so to speak. First of all, I think it's very expensive. I think it's very expensive. I think if you, I had a client who had hired five people and I think their spend that year was over 150, 000. And I think three of them left three within the year. And, and they didn't, you know, the agency had a six month guarantee or, you know, some type of guarantee, but, and, and regardless, they were so not happy with the quality of the candidates, they don't want to work with that recruiter to replace that candidate anyway, so that's, there's a lot of risk. The other, I feel like is a really challenging piece is that there is a lot of attachment to candidates, right, because you only make money if you place a candidate. And I'm not saying that all recruiters do this, but I know for myself, I have, there's candidates out there and they're like, Oh, that's her. That's that woman that did that to me. I know, right. Early in my career, but we are salespeople. We work as salespeople, right? So we're trying to, you know, we're trying to like, Give the best light about a client, you know, we're not going to be sharing everything and vice versa on the client side. So, and there's a lot, I think we're looking more at ability more than anything else on the external model, like, it's very transactional in nature, because we have a lot of candidates we speak to are like, thank you for not treating me like a robot. Thank you for treating me like a human being on this call. You know, we get those compliments every single day and that just shows you what's kind of happening behind the scenes. And also they're having again to work on 10 to 15 positions at a time because. And the amount of energy and time they put into a position is relative to, honestly, what's the lowest hanging fruit, and what's going to be the easiest one to place. And that is the reality and I'm not putting anything down about recruiters, but they work in a very stressful hustle environment. I was there for many, many years. That is not at all what I've created. That is, everything is completely the opposite. The only similarity is obviously we are an external agency, but our, but ours is very much like a consulting. I mean, from the very beginning with our clients, we set the responsibilities. These are the responsibilities that we hold to you for us to work with you. Like we will not deal with like not having feedback. We do not do ghosting that, and not all clients are the right matches for us, and that's okay too. Right. We've had clients that weren't, we also, when we're, when we're talking and we're talking to our clients, we're helping them on the job description. Cause a lot of times clients don't exactly know what they need. They might need, they, they're like, they give you this list and you're like, okay, well, that's four jobs, so let's. Figure out the essentials. We create that with them and then we actually create the post and we get it drafted and we send it out and we like, we actually market it. So that's another piece that's very different. The other piece that's different, very different is that we do a scoring system and our interviewing process, so we score our candidates.'cause we understand that like a a person is more than their ability. So we look at. You know, things like humbleness and smart and people smart and motivated and hungry and these very soft types of skills that are really the reason why a lot of the hires don't work out. It's really not usually ability. It's the other piece. So, and then our process itself is very streamlined. We help you with that whole process. And so, yeah, I mean, it's very different. I wouldn't say it's similar in any way to either model, actually. Yeah.

Speaker: 9:06

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I I'm, I'm familiar with both. I I've seen both. I was I was probably in spent plenty of time in corporate before I realized that it wasn't a Wasn't for me, but yeah, I've been through through all the interview processes and different kinds of recruiters. I mean, I know plenty of times you just feel like a number on the wall and they'll either place you or place someone else in it as long as they do that, then it's all good.

Speaker 2: 9:29

Well, yeah, I mean, there's so much pressure on you all the time. Cause you're only as, as valuable as that last placement. Right. It really is like, I mean, I can remember being in bed when I had, cause I had a A very successful contingent recruiting firm several years ago. And I can remember having these like 40, 50, 000 deals and like laying in bed and be like, Oh my God, is this going to come together? You know? And I mean, I think about that time. That's why I created something different because I didn't get to be present with my daughter when she was really little. And it was like very difficult in my marriage because when you're under that much stress, it's hard versus now I've created something that's very much more flowy and aligned from just a different space. You know.

Speaker: 10:13

Definitely. And then are you are you, do you all ever get into like personality tests or do you, do you do any of the areas? How are you finding out? Like I know you focus on the matchmaking, so that sounds a lot more a lot more in depth than just just trying to find someone a job.

Speaker 2: 10:30

Yeah, I mean, here's how I go at personality test. We, we don't use personality tests. I mean, a lot of my clients do, do the disc assessments and some of the different tests. I think there's I think they're, they're helpful. I think there's some use to them, but I don't think they should be so black and white because you just don't know the situation. Maybe the person like took the test and they were, you know, you don't know what's going on in their own personal life, or maybe they try to answer a certain way. I don't know. I just don't always, think that they're always 100 percent accurate and that there needs to be other factors. No, when we, when we're asking our questions, they're very specific types of questions to invoke specific types of answers. We're trying to gauge someone. We have noticed that people who are humble, people who are people smart, people who are motivated, hungry. They have specific characteristics and specific ways their mannerisms are just to be completely honest, and we are processes we do initial screen so we kind of ask those questions to get the understanding. And then we do a zoom call with every single candidate as well and during that call we're really evaluating. Did they show up on time. Did they reschedule three times? You know, I mean, these little things that they ask questions during, because we, we want to look, because it's very, the most challenging one to know is people smart. Like, does someone really have a higher emotional EQ? Is someone a really reactive based person or responsive based person? But there's a lot of questions and we poke at people a little bit, just a little bit, not in a bad way. But we ask them questions about failure. We ask them about people that about mistakes. We ask them questions about who's better than you. I mean, we ask questions like that. And people who are responsive based, who have more self awareness, so to speak, they understand that they can they can they can own up to their weaknesses, not in a fake. You know, I care too much sort of way, you know what I mean? Like a real, a realness. So we want to approach it like a real conversation, not just me. Let me look at your job. Okay. So you did the here, Oh, 2000, 2012. You did here. Okay. Check, check, check. So it's just different.

Speaker: 12:37

No, I love that. And it's it is a way to to really find out if they're A true fit and can line up because I mean, just like you said, just poking him a little, nothing bad, but I mean that that can easily kind of determine if you think this is a fit for the role or not right up front. And kind of tying into that, I know I think two of the biggest things that I think they're missing in a lot of small businesses, but are also two of the most important. I know we touched on this as well, but is company culture and core values, right? I know a lot of people will say they have core values and maybe copy and paste some of Google. Yeah, seriously. And I would go as far as to say the some of the most successful small businesses really live and die by. Those core values their employees get bought into it. And I think that ties directly into culture but are you able to Somehow tie that into the interview process or kind of vet that a little bit up front

Speaker 2: 13:37

I mean, we definitely discuss our clients core values But the truth is most of us have like as organizations have the same type of core values. I mean We all want people who take responsibility. I mean, no one's going to say, Oh no, I want someone that doesn't take any responsibility. We all want to live from a place of connection. I mean, there might be exceptions to this authenticity, right? Transparency and leadership. We want people who are hungry and motivated and buy into our story because we all have a story about our company and we want people who also want to be part of that story. People who are engaged, right? So yeah, I mean, the questioning that we're asking is all. Those questions are core values, right? Because we're judging, do they take accountability? If we ask them to do something, do they do it? Do they follow up? Like, cause we don't change people's resumes. Like if someone's resume is a mess, like I know in the recruiting world, sometimes there have been instances where people change resumes and polish them up. We don't do that. We have them do it. We're like, okay, this is a template. You can choose to do this. You're an adult. And then. If they choose to do, they do. I mean, and the same thing with our clients as well. We don't, we, we treat everyone like they take their responsibility. We have ours and this is their responsibility and everyone has a choice in it, if that makes sense.

Speaker: 14:54

Absolutely. It definitely makes sense. And I know we touched on it earlier, like you gave that example of one of your clients, they had hired, I think, five people and spend like 150, 000 or somewhere around that and three of them left. Right. I think we, we see it all the time in the workplace just with churn and burn. I know. I don't think the pandemic helped that either, but what do you and I remember cause I was in I was in HR and payroll sales for probably about five or six years. So I remember at the time, all those statistics were pretty important to me. Now, obviously I forget most of them, but I remember there was always statistics about like the investment in in hiring an employee. Yeah, and then like 150,

Speaker 2: 15:36

000 or something like that.

Speaker: 15:38

Yeah, like 150, and then the training, and then getting them onboarding, and then next thing you know they get a, get a better offer or something else comes up.

Speaker 2: 15:50

Yeah, I mean, I think the thing is, is that the, I mean, I think there's twofold. I mean, and I think there is a candidate issue and I think there's an employee issue, right? So I think from a candidate issue I do think, and I hope that no one will get mad at me for saying this, but I do think some candidates think the grass is greener. Work is work. I mean, it's a job. And a lot of times we take jobs that we're not really sure about, but we need them and then we aren't really wanting that job. We're actually just really focused on the next job, like the higher up job. So I, I see it with resumes. Like I see with canned clients and these really good cans. I'm like, stop moving, please stop moving every six months to a year, because it does make it challenging. You know, because it doesn't show stability, right? So there is that piece. The other piece of the coin with, is with employees. They are employers, I'm sorry. Employers overwork their people until they wait too long to make changes. To hire people, to get rid of the wrong people in the organization. So someone who was very engaged and very excited, I've seen this happen, like these candidates who just like loved their management, loved their company. And then some person came in and other manager came in and they senior manager went over and then half the staff left. So, I mean, this happens all the time, right? So I think there is an engagement issue as well. You know what I mean? So and I think also employees want more flexibility. I think, you know, companies that don't have transparency are very fear based and it's authoritarian sort of way. It's very outdated. And I, I think, you know, people don't want that anymore in their lives. Like they, and good, the truth is good candidates, like great. star plus candidates, A plus, they're always hard to find in any economy, good, bad, anything else, you know,

Speaker: 17:50

that's, I'm so glad you said that because it's so true is like, if you break it down to like A, B and C employees and hires, right. The I think the, the C level, it's like the C grade. It's a lot easier to kind of find them and promote them with just like kind of simply having that conversation, finding out what drives them and then you can match them with a job that pays them more, or maybe they have. Remote ability, or maybe they're working a four day work week. Who knows who knows what it is. Right. But then when you get to like the B B grade, right, you have people that are probably satisfied with what they're doing. They're not really looking, but they'll. They'll entertain offers, right? I feel like that's plenty of people. And then, like you said, those, like the A level players is they have a great job. They're killing it at what they do, not even really thinking about a new opportunity and you really like back to like the sales point, like you said, is you really got to go in there and. Somehow persuade them that, hey, there actually may be a better option out there and it's that they're you could almost take them from what they're doing.

Speaker 2: 18:54

Yeah. And in some cases we, I know we do approach passive candidates, but again, And this is something I coach my recruiters on. We're fact based. We don't, you know, we're very fact based. So if a client says to us, like, so what do you think? Do you think we should hire them? We are not your company. So we will come back and say, look, this is how we scored them. How did you score them? Let's have a conversation about them. Is there other questions that need to be answered? This is how they interviewed with us. These are our notes on it. So it's very fact based because. We don't, we don't, we want people to find their way again, like we're matchmakers and we influence it by giving our perspective on the conversations and as a consultant, but ultimately it's always the client's responsibility to choose if they want to hire someone, which is very different for the contingent model because you know, I've been there, right. I have been there. I've been on pins and needles. Like I was telling my husband the other night, I remember like, It was like 10 o'clock at night, and I had been working with this candidate for six months, and I was just like, oh my gosh, and it was a hard position, like it was a needle in a haystack position, and I'm waiting for her to call me, and she calls me, and she decides to take the job, and I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, but then the other side of that, I had a candidate, I worked for six months, he was perfect for the position, and he said no. You know, and I, I tried so hard. I remember I spent hours and hours and hours trying to persuade him. He does not speak to me anymore. You know, I burned that relationship with my behavior. I mean, that's the truth, you know, no,

Speaker: 20:26

it makes sense for sure.

Speaker 2: 20:28

Anyway, so I don't want to like, I don't think it's all bad. I mean, I work with, I know a lot of amazing continued recruiters that are incredible. I think the model itself is just outdated.

Speaker: 20:39

No, I would agree with that for sure. Yeah, like you said at the beginning, it definitely might work for some industries or some companies. I know it's still still common, but I definitely definitely prefer the alternative. And then I know we talked about it. To write obviously the pandemic was a was a big issue and just just the way everything went right. I know a lot of people decided to whether it was step away from what they were doing or or just stay at home, and then had that shortage and in employees or hiring, what were some of the strategies, whether it was like back then or where we are now that you that you've been able to like implement or overcome that and deal with that shortage in hiring?

Speaker 2: 21:20

I mean, I think, you know, it's, it's, it's like anything else, you just have to be persistent, right? There are employees out there. I mean, potential employees, but, you know, you have to go through a lot of different channels and have a lot of different conversations and connect with a lot of people, you know? So I think it's the same as it was before. And I think it's also, you have to have those real conversations with your clients. Our clients are getting a lot more flexible about working from home, some more remote based. I mean, I'm seeing that more and more, you know, like, Oh, you know, flexible three days or this days. So I think. Companies also have to have that deeper understanding that again, if you're a really awesome, you know, a plus candidate, you're going to have a lot of options. So you're going to have the company's got to be flexible as well with that piece.

Speaker: 22:11

Absolutely. I appreciate that. I know I know we threw a lot at him today, gave him a lot of value. I appreciate you kind of going through going through all and on recruiting. I know it's much different than what we we typically cover. So I was like, I really want to get you on here and give some value to how important that is in the small business space. But what, what is there anything that we didn't throw at them or anything that we didn't cover that you think we should leave them with today?

Speaker 2: 22:35

I mean, I think one of the pieces that's another piece that small businesses and probably all companies really need to get really good at is onboarding, you know, keeping those new hires engaged because, just because you were able to secure them, you need to, they don't know you, they don't know you, the people, the organization, it's your responsibility as leaders to keep, you know, to be focusing on them and checking in with them, getting to know them and welcoming them. Cause I've seen situations where, and it's happened to me where I've placed very, like, incredible candidates and they didn't stay. And it was really that it didn't match what, you know, the onboarding wasn't there, the training wasn't there, the one on one time they thought they would get leadership wasn't there. And so they felt kind of ousted and kind of thrown out and then they ended up leaving. So that would be something that I would really say that if you are hiring, you need to have, make sure you understand how you're going to train them and what types of ways you're going to keep them engaged.

Speaker: 23:37

That's great. It's so true, too, because I just think back to, like, when I was in the corporate world and being in the HR space, right? Selling, like, HR and payroll technology. We I go through the same software that they're using when I'm on boarded and a lot of it was like obviously you have the hr companies and the onboarding technology that they use But I think it's much more than that I think like you said it is that that human touch where someone is actually helping you with the onboarding instead of just Sending you a link fill it out and then You'll start Monday. I think there's much more that goes into that to a successful onboarding. And then I think, yeah, I think that's a huge a huge piece from the start, like you said, that that can cause an employee to leave if that's not a good experience.

Speaker 2: 24:24

Yeah, because I think you have to build that trust with them and they have to know that you have, they have, you have their back. So, I mean, even, you know, it is like the onboarding, but it's also like having those conversations like early on, like, what do you really want to do with this company? And like, how can we help you get to where you want to be and level, you know, those types of conversations and checking in with them and having lunches as a team. I mean, These are things that I really implement at my company. I really, really want us to have fun and for us to get to know each other and for there to be connection because I know that if my people are engaged, they're, they're going to be much more successful in, in, in their roles. And that's, and that's the case with any company, you know?

Speaker: 25:09

Yeah, 100%. I mean, there's a There's, there's no way around that. I think like you said, when they're when they're engaged and it's a it's a good environment and good culture, they're much more likely to stick around and just feel like they're just there for a paycheck or whatever that may be.

Speaker 2: 25:23

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.

Speaker: 25:26

I know we we gave him a lot of good value today and that that's going to be a wrap for this episode of small business, big moves. If you know anyone that would get value out of this or enjoyed the episode, what we ask is that you share or like and review the podcast. And in the meantime, you can find me on all social media at Thomas Bennett, and we look forward to seeing you all in the next episode.