Anställningsillusionen: Varför företag inte hittar den perfekta kandidaten

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Jessica Smith: The common themes that are going on with hiring managers right now, thinking that it’s an all you can eat buffet, basically of talent, thinking that they can get more and more talent. Goldilocks syndrome, so hiring managers that are rejecting one candidate after another because they’re not just right.

And then there’s unnecessary bottlenecking and adding more fluff. And what you’re doing is you’re really signaling to the candidate market that you’re not confident in your decision making. And I understand, employers want to say, okay if the candidate wants to be here, they will go through and run through our process.

But at the same time, too, you need to take a look at it like, you’re sending a bad message to this candidate. So they’re going to see that and say, oh my God, there’s so many red flags here. I got to bounce.

David Rice: Welcome to the People Managing People podcast. We’re on a mission to build a better world of work and to help you create happy, healthy, and productive workplaces. I’m your host, David Rice, as always.

My guest today is Jessica Smith. She is the Founder and CEO of Savant Recruitment. We’re going to be talking about the state of recruiting, the demands of employers, and why the market is in a bit of trouble right now.

Jessica, welcome.

Jessica Smith: Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. I definitely think that this is going to be a really juicy conversation. So I’m excited to dive in.

David Rice: Love it. For context, for all of our listeners, we’re doing this podcast at a time where Jessica’s in Canada and I’m in the United States and both of our governments have become essentially completely unhinged at this point and seem to want to start trouble with each other. So we’re here as an American, as a Canadian to talk in peace and show what rational thinking looks like.

Jessica Smith: I don’t even know the world right now. So yeah, it’s absolutely insane on the Canadian side. We’re definitely in it’s weird times, but just want to state that we are standing with our American people and we love the Americans.

We come in peace with the Americans. You guys have been our allies and our friends and there’s just no bad blood here. There’s, that’s it.

David Rice: Yeah. Most of the Americans I know are as baffled by this so called beef with Canada and like this desire to want to create a problem with Canada. I don’t understand. It wasn’t broke. Why are we trying to create a new situation? It worked fine.

Jessica Smith: Yeah. Perfect. It did. It did. It opened. I’m not going to lie. The way that I’m seeing things right now, it did open up obviously a can of worms in regards to what’s going on with our government specifically. We have a provoked government, which I think needs to be recalled ASAP.

I don’t think that was the appropriate case, especially when we are in the midst of potential tariffs, which we’ve already had slapped on us, but potentially more tariffs. But we are just, I think what happened, it lit a fire under us, and it got us to really take a look at what’s going on under the hood on how our government has been running things.

So that’s just my standpoint on it. And yeah, I feel like. Everyone is so split over this.

David Rice: It’s the same here. Not to talk all politics, but it’s almost like I’m beginning to feel more and more with HR, like you just can’t avoid politics in this arena.

Jessica Smith: No, you can’t.

David Rice: You know what I mean?

Jessica Smith: It’s funny because I was talking to one of my recruitment coaches and he’s based in the States. He’s moved to Brazil. And he also said, he’s I think it’s one of these things where. We’re at such a time that’s so polarizing that you can’t avoid it at all. This has to come into play, because it affects everything, and it affects everything, and it affects all businesses, not just some businesses, it affects all businesses, and this is the reality, we have to be talking about these things.

David Rice: Yeah, and it’s every person that you deal with at work we’re all in this together.

Jessica Smith: And we’re all baffled at the same time, like, all of us, so it’s just, I don’t know.

David Rice: Yeah, transitioning, you’re in the recruiting game and I feel confident that, a thing or two about ridiculous requests as a result, tell me what’s your favorite type of unicorn?

Jessica Smith: I hate when people use that term. I used to hear that back in the day, like 10 years ago when I was doing tech recruitment and I was just like. Okay, if you’re now in 2025 and people are still using that term unless you’re talking about a startup that is raising, I would honestly cringe at the fact that you’re calling a candidate a unicorn, right?

So it’s one of these things like, first things first, it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist. I’m sorry. There’s no unicorns out there. It doesn’t exist. Bye. You want me to give a couple examples on things that I’ve run across in my career, and I’ve run across a lot, me being in the tech space, especially one thing is when I get that request, we’re usually dealing with hiring managers that are looking for let’s say a full staff developer with years of experience, right?

And then they’re looking for someone with at least like 10 years of experience from a platform or a framework that’s only been around for five years. So when they’re saying, find me this unicorn and I’m like what does that look like to you? And do you know how long this technology has actually been around?

And so I have to ask these questions. But another one of my favorites is when they are looking for a senior engineer who is also a product manager, who’s also a UX designer, somehow a DevOps expert and all of it. So they want all of it. They want the whole engineering team in one person and they only want to pay 80 K like This is like going into a Ferrari dealership and asking to test out all the models.

And just saying, Oh, but I only have the budget of a Kia. Do you know what you’re asking for? Do you know what you’re asking for right now? So I think at this point, some companies are just throwing out wishlists and just hoping that someone magical shows up. I will say that the reality is that unicorns don’t exist.

At least not at the price point. Many of these companies want to pay. So that’s my thought on the unicorn sentiment.

David Rice: All right. Full transparency. I had a feeling that’s how you were going to feel. So that’s why I asked the question.

We were talking before this, one of the things that we talked about was employers not being serious about hiring right now. And one of the signs of that I think is how absurd some of these hiring processes have become. You have process where people go into six, sometimes seven stages of interviews. How common has this become, and how are you advising companies to move away from this?

Jessica Smith: It’s so common. It hurts. It hurts. My mind is exploding because I talk to founders all the time and they’re running their processes like this.

And so I’m just going to say this. What’s gotten you from stage one employee to maybe 20 to 30 employees? And hypothetically, you come to me and you’re saying, okay, we’re looking at scale by another 20 to 30 employees. What’s worked from one to 20 or one to 30 is not going to work from 30 to 50 or 30 Right.

But you need to refine things. You can’t sit here and say, we’re gonna have a 6 to 7 stage interview process. Unfortunately, it’s way too common. Hiring managers don’t know what they don’t know. So it’s my job to come in and educate. So what I do when I’m working with a client. I learn about their hiring process and then before we get an agreement signed.

I will then walk them through what an ideal process needs to look like. Now, here’s the thing. I will ask them specific questions in regards to. How urgent the role is. For instance, I’ll ask them, when do you need this role filled by? And they’ll say, okay I get it done within 30 days. Okay, then I come back and I ask them what’s going to happen in 30 days if you don’t have this role filled.

And if they’re not telling me that they’re engineering departments, basically, that are going to blow up. I don’t really think about taking them on as a client just because it goes around the matter of urgency and we have a lot, we have a lot of people that come in and say it’s urgent.

But then when we start going through the process, we just, we start discovering that there’s more and more asks that they’re looking for. And so it’s my job before I take on that job order to sit with the hiring manager and to go through all the nights to have some must haves and go through qualifying them.

As a client, but still work finding that there’s constant changes that are always happening. And you learn that as you go through the process, but if you are a serious hiring manager, you’re going to also hold yourself accountable to those KPIs and not let a process that’s dragging too long. So when I talk to hiring managers, I also tell them, we’re looking for a 70 to 80 percent fit.

We’re not looking for a hundred percent fit. So any notion that you have. About trying to find that a hundred percent fit. It is rare. It is very rare. If I find someone like that and they’re a passive talent, we have to move. We cannot sit, we cannot put them through a six to seven stage interview process.

If I find someone that is literally so close, they pass their technical rounds, they come in with the culture, like they, they can do it all. We need to learn how to move. And so with that said, what I try and do is really cut the fluff. So I’ll walk them through the process basically is we’re going to try and get this done within 30 days.

I’m going to send you a maximum of three candidates, okay, within the 30 days. The first candidate I’m going to use as a calibration tool, so I’m going to try and get as close to the mark based on your ask, on your nice to haves, and your must haves, and the cultural environment. If for some reason, and so we also technically test them, they do well on the test, like they don’t get put in front of a hiring manager unless they pass their testing, but if for some reason that person doesn’t end up being a fit, I need good feedback on to why that is, I will go to the market and then find a second one.

And if by the second one, we don’t hit it out of the park, we’re going to try for a third. If by the third one, we’re not hitting it, there is a problem. So I give it either three candidates or within the 30 days and if we can’t hit it out of the park within the 30 days or within that third candidate, there is a problem there and we need to have a discussion like it’s a serious discussion of about what is it truly that we’re after because now we’re starting to draw the process.

People are not going to take it seriously. And another thing too that I want to bring to light is when you’re running a process on your own and you’re making it 6 to 7 interview stages, I Employers have this notion right now that it is an employer market, and yeah, we have a lot of layoffs that are going on right now, but if you were running a recruitment agency to go out and find passive talent for you, to expect someone that is a passive candidate that is already working a full time 40 hour job, sometimes 50 hours, maybe 60 hours per week, depending on where they’re working, to expect them to come through And go through a six to seven stage interview process.

They are going to sit there and say, WTF, actually, this is turning into a hazing process. It shouldn’t take this long to come to a decision. And there’s so many more problems that I can go into why this is going on right now. I wrote a newsletter on it the other day about the common themes. So that are going on with hiring managers right now, thinking that it’s an all you can eat.

Buffet basically of talent, and that’s standing in their way, thinking that they can get more and more talent Goldilocks syndrome. So hiring managers that are rejecting one candidate after another because they’re not just right, And then there’s unnecessary bottlenecking and adding more fluff. And what you’re doing is you’re really signaling to the candidate market that you’re not confident in your decision making.

That’s really what it is. And so they’re not taking a look at what this looks like to the candidate. They’re taking a look at what it looks like to themselves. And I understand, employers want to say, okay if the candidate wants to be here, they will go through and run through our process.

But at the same time, too, you need to take a look at it. Like you’re sending a bad message to this candidate because If your interview process is like this is a gateway into how you behave as a company. So they’re going to see that and say, Oh my God, there’s so many red flags here. I got to bounce.

David Rice: I think a lot of it’s just based in delusion. I think it’s particularly true in tech where everybody thinks of the next big thing. And the, they read a blog post about the Facebook hiring process. They think they can do that too. And if you’re going to do that, though, you have to be offering what Facebook offers.

Most smaller companies can’t do that. So I guess, how do you help them see where their competitive advantage is, where it isn’t, and then how do you basically do a better job of meeting candidates where they are?

Jessica Smith: Yeah, I think it was a very different landscape. So I want to paint a picture when I was doing recruitment about 10 years ago, still doing tech recruitment.

It was a very different landscape than what it is. Now the landscape has definitely changed. I remember working with clients that were able to get things done within about two to three interview rounds. That’s the way that it should be right. They were like, okay, there is an actual need here. I don’t know where we lost the plot, but somewhere in the last couple of years, we have really lost the slot like really badly.

I remember, so just the Facebook analogy here. So I remember I was working at a company and we had just gotten acquired. And when the new person that had come in that was overseeing me was, asking me about specific talent, he had requested that I go out and find a candidate from Facebook, I positioned back and said, Oh we’re not Facebook.

So how are we going to be like Facebook, first of all, and second of all, can we pay Facebook money? He was like no, we can’t pay that. I’m like, So in what world do you think it would be acceptable for me to go and try and recruit and headhunt someone out of Facebook without something intriguing to actually grab them?

Because we’re not going to be able to just sell them on a such a great culture like. It’s just not realistic to me. It’s also an ego thing that’s going on. We want people that are coming from the best of the best. We want them coming from here. We want them to have a strategic background, or we want them to have a specific degree coming from a specific university if they don’t have, a bachelor’s degree in computer science that needs to come from this university or XYZ.

They’re no good to us. They’re no good to us. It’s top liver. And I just think it’s such a mistake to be thinking that way because you are closing yourself up so much in the market and you need to have as many options as possible because you’re going to close yourself off. You’re not going to be able to fill the role as quickly as you would have liked if it is actually urgent, right?

So when we’re getting specific requests, yeah. Hypothetically, if that came up again, ever, we want a candidate from Facebook, all right, tell me what you’re paying. That’s the first conversation. Tell me what you’re paying. What can I go to the table with to go coerce someone to leave Facebook as a path of talent?

So there has to be a good, compelling offer there in the package, as well as obviously environment. I’m sure, people have various reasons on why they would leave organizations, but You can’t just say, Oh, someone’s going to snap their fingers and leave Facebook tomorrow. We need to come to the table with something extra. What is that?

David Rice: I say this as somebody who’s been through, made it all the way to the end of the Facebook interview process. It is stressful. Like you have to think about what you’re doing to candidates, and like when You know, recently Zuckerberg went out there and said, they’re going to cut low performers.

And I’m like, internally, you talk about how 95 percent of the people who apply don’t ever make it to the end. Nevermind get an offer. They don’t even make it to the end. So this is like a very small group of people that you’ve filtered it down to and you’re labeling them low performers. Like they’re supposedly elite, so either your hiring process is broken or you don’t do anything to set people up for success.

Jessica Smith: Just remember, I don’t know, I don’t know if you saw the other end of that, he then pivoted to say, I’m not only just firing low performers, but we’re going to be bringing in AI. To replace, and so now we have to start looking at that as okay are you actually doing that as a company that is looking to be more efficient?

Are you trying to be a company that is trying to cover for the fact that you’re doing layoffs right now and you just want to say, we want to be efficient? What is the actual drive behind the layoffs? We still don’t know what that answer is.

David Rice: Yeah. Thinking about the AI thing, like it’s obviously going to be as prevalent in tech as any other sector.

And, everybody thinks it’s going to change the game or you can lower head count. But I also feel like we’re at the sort of tail end of that. If you think about that Gartner hype cycle, right? The peak of inflated expectations. And, we’re headed towards that trough of disillusionment. And I think how that looks is because of people over investing in this thing and failing.

How do you see it playing out in the market over the next year or so?

Jessica Smith: I definitely think that we are in a hype cycle right now. I read a stat the other day that about, I don’t know, 60 to 65 percent are still scared of AI or refusing to implement it, which is fair. But AI is here. What I can say is AI needs to be looked at like a tool and not the be all and end all because there’s still a lot of human elements in regards to running processes at organizations.

It can’t just come in and fix everything. I know specifically and I’m just relating into talent acquisition on my end. In a software engineering department, though, it could be a very different ballgame, right? You still need people that are going to need to know how to go in and code. You’re going to need people that know how to deal with AI and code the AI.

And if they’re doing a personal AI on their own or for the organization, something that they’ve built in house, you’re going to need people that know how to do that. But if you’re going and saying, we’re going to use chat for everything, go nuts. We’re going to, we’re going to get some AI agents.

And to the organization again, go nuts, but I think that companies right now they’re at the testing phase, which is fine. We’re just not at the phase in AI right now at the maturity phase that it needs to be for it to be the, this is the answer to our organizational goals because it’s not. And like when I deal with it into Intel and acquisition as well.

There are people that come in and they try and tell me, AI tools and whatnot, and I’m like, yeah, then I don’t think this is gonna be great candidate experience, and there are other things that I take a look at, but specifically when it comes to especially hiring managers looking at AI, it’s just like, how are we going to be able to improve specific things?

There’s certain organizational things we need to fix first before we even get into that. My thing is like AI really, truly just needs to be looked at as a tool at this point. This is not the soccer replaced. It’s anything basically, it’s just going to help you work more efficiently.

David Rice: Yeah. No, I absolutely agree with that.

So I had a question cause like I thought something that you put out an article recently talking about Canada’s tech ecosystem and how it’s at a bit of a crossroads. And then you were talking about how stability is an illusion. I’m curious, from a talent perspective, where is Canada’s tech industry struggling?

Like, where does it need to be taking on more risk on the talent front?

Jessica Smith: So just based on what I’ve seen, we had some really successful years. 2021, 2022 was a stellar year. Canada was getting funding left and center. We have a lot of people in our tech ecosystem that have a ton of potential.

But the biggest issue that I’m seeing right now is that there’s huge risk aversion. And so Canadian companies tend to be overly cautious when it comes to hiring. But whether it’s requiring way too many qualifications or hesitating on compensation or taking forever to make decisions, we can take a look on the hiring front from that.

If we want to compete globally, I would say companies need to take more bets on high upside talent, and that means hiring for potential and not just checking boxes, but it also means being willing to pay for top tier engineers and product leaders rather than just assuming that they’ll take a discount just because the jobs are in Canada.

And what we’ve been noticing, there’s a lot of back end conversations that are happening right now. In my ecosystem alone. So I live right outside the Waterloo corridor. Waterloo is a very well known area for a lot of tech talent. A lot of tech talent ends up leaving Waterloo to go to the valley. That’s just what it is, but I’m noticing that things are getting worse and worse over here due to the lack of investment.

And the mentality is basically just go to the U S because of the risk aversion that’s happening. But then I also look at things and I’m like, okay, and I’m looking at data every single day, and I’m looking at where these funding routes are going, and I’m just not seeing a lot of it happen in Canada, the main places in Canada where I am seeing it is Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto, but everywhere else is just struggling right now, and now we have high unemployment rates, and all that stuff.

And so when people are looking to build their companies, or potentially look for a job, the first place that they’re considering now is not Canada, they’re considering the U.S., so they’re considering international, especially now with what’s going on with the tariffs and stuff like that, right? So especially it’s very prevalent right now in 2025, and it’s opened up a huge floodgate of questions that we need to be asking ourselves as an ecosystem on how good are we really really, how good are we?

Because we can sit here and gloat left center and say, we are for innovation. We are for these people. We do want to keep the jobs in Canada, but we’re not making it easy for them to stay. We’re not so There’s a lot of preferential treatment that happens as well in these ecosystems. It’s a lot of it is based on who you know, rather than the talent coming in through the door.

And if you’re not in with the right people, you don’t know where the right executives, whatever the case says, it’s, we’re not giving you a shot unless you’re like unestablished, but then I have to question like what we really stand for. In Canada, because on one breath, we say that we’re here for innovation, helping new startups thrive and getting them to the point that where they need to be.

But on the other hand, we’re acting in a way that is gatekeeping in a sense. And so because of that, it’s posing a problem and on the back end. So we have this virtue signaling going on that we’re still about this. But then on the back end, you have a bunch of founders. that are saying we’re not getting help, the help that we need to be able to actually thrive.

So we have no choice but to go to the U.S. market or go to other Avenues or look for business in other ways. So a lot of that has been going on and because of what’s happened with the tariff threats, it’s just opened up a new ballgame on what’s really going on in this ecosystem.

David Rice: You mentioned the U.S., talent going over there and I’m curious because U.S. startups you had mentioned in one of another article you wrote that they’re basically saying with their job ads that they don’t know what they want, right? I’m curious in terms of those job ads, what are they lacking or, I’ve seen some pretty ridiculous things, right?

So what are some of the things they’re doing that are just a waste of time or just plain dumb?

Jessica Smith: I just feel like they pop their job advertisements into ChatGPT thinking they can call it a day and literally I’ll look at job descriptions of Oh my God, this is a nightmare. I need to have I need to message this person and let them know you’re not going to attract the talent that you need with this job description.

Specifically, so I’ve run into job descriptions. We are looking for senior software engineer doesn’t list the years of experience that the senior software engineer needs. Okay. They have to have java. Okay. Is there anything else that they need to have? It’s so bare bones that I’m literally like, okay, so they’re basically throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing who sticks.

And then on top of that as well, they’re not listing the pay. And They’re in a state that should be listing the pay because it’s illegal not to list the pay, so then you don’t know what it could be a senior software engineer that’s coming in and asking for 250, 000 to 300, 000 and then, the person that’s hiring for the role is going to say that’s too expensive, that’s not what we’re looking for.

We need to get more specific and more real with what we’re asking for and stop rushing the job descriptions and just throwing it up to call it a day because you are going to open the floodgates of applications. People literally do not care despite they should care again, your company is not special.

Okay, so I just want to throw that out there like we literally we need to get more organized and more specific and what we’re asking for here. Because then we have on one hand employers that are doing that. And then on the other hand, they’re complaining that they can’t find the person that they need.

And then you go back and you do Discover and I’m like I see why. So it’s, I think that people who have not had experience hiring before, have hired in just such a small way. They should be reaching out to talent acquisition professionals, even if it’s for free here’s what’s gonna happen. Here’s how you’re gonna run your process, and here’s what needs to be done.

And we need to rework your job description and do these things if we’re going to attract the right talent. We need to know exactly what that is that we are, we’re looking for. And I also just feel like employers just don’t know what it is. And the easy way out is to just throw spaghetti at the wall.

I’ve seen some really awful job descriptions, and I’m just like your role has been open literally for the last two months, and it has 300 applicants is it urgent at all? And they’ll be like, Oh, yeah, it’s still urgent. I’m like, your job descriptions lacking a little bit here, right? So how have the applicants been?

It’s not what we’re looking for. Like clockwork every time I ask, it’s not what we’re looking for. And I’m like, okay, it’s mind blowing.

David Rice: No. And yeah, my favorite ones are the ones that are just like, you’re like, who wrote this job description? I’m like, who hurt you? You know what I mean? Cause there’s like anger in the job description or the requirements.

Jessica Smith: I’ve seen those ones too. And they’re literally rage fault. Must not have this experience or must not have worked here, which that’s like a legal, you can’t do that. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, who is advising?

David Rice: You must be able to listen and take feedback. It’s Oh, there’s a better way to phrase that.

Jessica Smith: It’s so bad.

David Rice: It just cracks you up. You’re like. We went from 10 years ago, everybody was putting these things in there. They’re like, looking for a game changer who finds it difficult to switch off and then you like translate that. You’re like immuno genius that’s susceptible to burnout. , like, it’s like now we’ve moved into this other area where it’s like the job requirements are just like, what?

Jessica Smith: Who wrote? Oh my gosh. They’re true. They’re insane. They’re insane. Again, it just comes down to education. It really just comes down to education. A lot of the startup founders, their first time startup founders, maybe their second time startup founders, maybe they’ve never had a talent acquisition team.

Maybe they’ve never talked to an HR person. Maybe they’ve just hired, up to 20 people and they’ve had success doing that and they’re running things the way they think it should be running, but things may be breaking on the back end or whatever the case is. And they just haven’t seen the value in bringing in a talent acquisition person to help them guide them down this path, but I think my advice to everyone that is running a company, whether you have a talent acquisition person in house or not, just go make the effort to go talk to someone so that they can run you through what a process would look like.

Talk to a professional about this. Actually, because if you don’t and you continue to scale at the rate that you guys supposedly want to scale if you’re in that position where we’re like, we want to scale by another 50 to 100 people. All right, great. How much time do you have enabled to do that?

Or what’s your KPI on that metric? We want to do that within the next three to six months. I’ll be like, there ain’t no way there ain’t no way diluted. You can’t with the process that you’re running, especially six to seven interview processes. No way. That’s not happening. We want to hit this. Here’s what’s going to have to happen.

David Rice: That kind of gets it my last question was cause a lot of companies on their early days, they may not have like HR folks or even like they might have one person, but they can’t handle hiring on top of everything else that they’re doing. I’m curious so from your perspective, what’s that key point in the growth in the scaling process where they need to have somebody internally involved in how they’re recruiting, essentially.

Jessica Smith: Three ways I look at it? Okay, so one, you have a really strong year and annual recurring revenue. You crushed it. You need to be hiring. So you need to figure out what that looks like and which departments are Meeting of the candidates that you need. So you have a really strong year. And that’s when you start looking at things like, okay, now it’s time to scale, you get a huge cash injection, right?

So you’re an investor that comes in and they, they say, we’re going to give you 4 to 5 million. So they’re going to give you more money so that you can start scaling your team. That’s another avenue you need to be looking at. You need to start talking to recruiters at that point. Early stage startups tend to wait too long to invest in recruiting support.

So the key inflection point is usually around 50 to 20 employees. If you are planning to scale fast, I would say that you do need a dedicated person just to ensure you aren’t hiring reactively. A lot of companies will try and wing it with hiring, but the longer you wait to put structure around it, the harder it gets.

And I usually end up telling founders like recruiting is not an afterthought. It’s more of a growth strategy. So we are strategic partners to your organization. We want to make sure that we’re able to do this successfully. In order to do that, we need to implement some process in place. And that just goes back to the six to seven interview rounds versus the two to three interview rounds, because we have certain metrics and KPIs, right?

Plus, we also have to talk about time to hire, time to fill, quality of talent, what it’s going to take, what has worked in the past, what hasn’t worked in the past. We go over everything.

David Rice: This has been great. I really appreciate you coming on the show.

Before we go, there’s always a couple of things that we like to do. First thing, I want to give you a chance to tell people more about where they can connect with you and find out what you have going on, find out what content you’re putting out, all that.

Jessica Smith: Yeah, so I am on LinkedIn, so you can find me on LinkedIn or you can find me at savantrecruitment.io. From there, I do run a newsletter page on LinkedIn where I pump out newsletters basically on a weekly to monthly basis.

It just depends on what’s going on because I want to make sure I’m adding value to the market and what’s actually going on and what’s being discussed about. But my newsletter is, It can get spicy sometimes in regards to what we’re seeing in the talent acquisition space. So it’s definitely something that I direct basically everyone to, if you want to keep up to date with what’s going on in the market, especially in tech, come follow my newsletter. But yeah.

David Rice: Excellent. The last thing we have a little tradition here on the podcast. I always like to give our guests a chance to ask me a question. It can be anything that you want. I’ll turn it over to you, ask me anything.

Jessica Smith: Yeah flipping the script, you’ve seen a lot of hiring trends and absurdities, which I know that we’ve talked about. What is the wildest or most frustrating hiring practice you’ve come across lately?

David Rice: Oh, gosh. You know what it is? It’s the amount of work in these tests or assessments, quote unquote. Some of them, I’m like, they’ll tell you two to three hours to complete this assignment, and you look at it, and you’re like, That’s like a three day assignment.

If I was working for you, and it’s essentially, you’re trying to get free labor out of people or get ideas for these actual problems that you have. I think this is what’s happening, but in any case, it is ridiculous. It’s too much. Like you have to hone that down into something that can be handled in like at least one day.

They should be able to do it in an afternoon and show you what you need to see. Otherwise, it’s not like a really useful thing unless you’re going to offer them pay to do it. That’s different if it’s going to be like a bigger project, but I think the like level of not understanding the job seekers themselves, like this is not if they’re out of a job, this isn’t the only interview they’ve got.

Probably. They’re probably going through five others. You know what I mean? And then if they have a job, They have a job, leave them alone, make it easier for them. So yeah, like the level of assessment I think is, it’s a little out of whack with what you can realistically expect from a person or reasonably expect from a person.

Jessica Smith: Yeah, for sure. I think also too, like something that I think a lot of candidates, although they understand that assessments are part of the process, Candidates would probably be more prone to go towards a organization that’s going to get them the path of least resistance because this company is not making it a basic hazing process to get through.

I understand, like I totally understand why companies are doing these assessments. They want to make sure that the talent is a capable fit that they can get through these things that they are going to actually. They’re going to be able to hack it and they’re going to be scrappy and they’re going to be able to do these things, but I’m on the same sentiment here with you.

It’s just, it’s getting excessive and there’s just a better way.

David Rice: Yeah. It’s totally valid to do it. You have to assess them somehow. I get that, but you just got to keep it within a certain reason,

Jessica Smith: like maybe one assessment and that’s basically we don’t need to be doing like five or six assessments. And, yeah.

David Rice: I mean, unless you’re like recruiting an executive, okay, maybe, but for a mid level.

Jessica Smith: Oh, there ain’t no way.

David Rice: I don’t need to be going through all this.

Jessica Smith: Yeah.

David Rice: All right. This has been a great conversation. Thank you again for coming on. I love having you.

Jessica Smith: Thank you to a fellow American and thank you for having me on. I appreciate that. Until next time.

David Rice: Until next time.

Listeners until next time, if you haven’t gone over and signed up for the People Managing People newsletter, be sure that you do that, peoplemanagingpeople.com/subscribe.

And until we meet again, 80%, that’s all you need to match. If you want to see a unicorn, go outside on Halloween.