After leaving a toxic work environment, Suzanne Kelly vowed to never work for anyone ever again. She put together all she needed to start her own employment agency with just six months of planning. The years spent as a recruiter taught her the hiring process inside and out. She understands business and leadership. As a Chief Talent Advisor, she curates unbiased referencing for c-suite executives. When companies select their top tier candidates, they can’t accurately assess a candidate’s soft skills, work ethic, or integrity. With her proprietary method for unbiased referencing, she finds out if a candidate is exactly who they say they are even before they interview. Listen in as she shares her story with Jonaed.
As a Chief Talent Advisor, Suzanne Kelly curates unbiased referencing for c-suite executives. When companies select their top tier candidates, they can’t accurately assess a candidate’s soft skills, work ethic, or integrity. With her proprietary method for unbiased referencing, she finds out if a candidate is exactly who they say they are even before the interview. [Timestamp 01:26]
What makes her service valuable?
She’s doesn’t know the candidates so she’s the only one in the hiring process that’s truly unbiased. [Timestamp 2:11]
What kind of student was she?
She was an average student that didn’t like school. She wanted to travel the world as a flight attendant. Her father’s only requirement was that she take a business course in case the flight attendant position didn’t work out. [Timestamp 3:35]
What happened after high school?
She got married at an early age and didn’t follow her dreams of becoming a flight attendant. So instead she became an administrative assistant. Eventually, she was stuck working for a narcissistic boss. [Timestamp 5:56]
How she got started on her entrepreneurial path?
She got enough of her narcissistic boss and quit. She vowed never to work for anyone again. She started her own employment agency. Her first client was the very company she left. [Timestamp 7:21]
What helped her to launch her own company?
She believes that her childhood was a bootcamp for life. She grew up with three brothers that teased her relentlessly. Her father was a senior-level corporate man. She learned to have a good work ethic, to have integrity and to be disciplined from him. [Timestamp 9:03]
What attracted her to recruiting?
She was aware of the fact that she had good people skills. It was easy for her to talk to people and elicit information from them. She researched, learned it was a lucrative business and thought it would be a good business to pursue. [Timestamp 10:38]
What can a good recruiter do?
She believes that a good recruiter can walk the tight-rope between the candidate and the clients they represent. The companies were the ones that pay the fee but the candidates have to equally be happy. [Timestamp 13:22]
What was Suzanne’s recruiting style?
Very personal. When she witnessed a candidate fight back tears as she rejected a job because her husband didn’t think the job was a good fit for her, Suzanne asked to speak to the husband. She recalled his love of cooking (as the candidate had shared with her before). Since Suzanne also loves to cook, when she got on the phone, the first thing they spoke about was cooking. They spoke at length. The ice was broken and Suzanne told him why she felt his wife was a good fit for the job. He said that it was her decision. The candidate took the job and twenty years later, she’s still at the same company. [Timestamp 15:16]
How did her proprietary method come about?
She had a client that hired a new head of HR that was firing employees that had been there for ten or twenty years. There was a job the company asked Suzanne to fill. She presented the person she found but the new head of HR didn’t feel he was the right fit. Suzanne pressed and asked why. Her instinct was telling her he was inflexible. As a result, Suzanne rolled up her sleeves and found about eight different references for this candidate. She kept records of phone calls verbatim and compiled a detailed report that documented how this client was anything but inflexible. [Timestamp 21:45]
The reason for hiring mistake companies make?
Not doing a quality reference check that verifies a person’s soft skills and that they’re indeed the right fit for the company. [Timestamp 25:56]
What are the common mistakes some recruiters make?
They make it all about themselves and their fee. [Timestamp 27:00]
Why did she start reference checking?
She felt it was time for her to do something else and she felt that the reference checking process was broken. Seven out of ten employees in America aren’t engaged in their work. Companies are who they hire. [Timestamp 28:47]
Biggest lessons learned?
Hiring mistakes don’t discriminate. They happen to the best of us. [Timestamp 33:37]
Has the lack of a degree ever held you back from getting clients?
When people ask where she went to college, she tells them she has a PhD from the University of Hard Knocks. She feels she’s learned the most valuable lessons by making mistakes, falling down, being resilient, getting back up, and most importantly failing forward. [Timestamp 35:09]
Advice for those looking to get into recruiting?
Do your research and look for the driving force behind that desire. [Timestamp 36:19]
What’s changed in the recruiting industry since you started to now?
Recruiting should be human interaction, not a transaction. It's a tragedy that many extraordinary candidates out there have developed skills throughout their careers that are transferable, but they don't have someone fighting for them. They're being screened out based on keyword searches.[Timestamp 39:08]
What’s next?
Suzanne wants to really get involved in training. Many companies are selecting the best of the worst candidates. [Timestamp 42:46]
What Suzanne sees because of the work she does?
The extraordinary, fully engaged superstar leaders all have the same qualities. They put people first. They can have a thousand employees and they know almost all of them by first name. They know their families, they have empathy, they have faith. They do a lot of philanthropy and they give a lot and they're selfless. Anyone that's fortunate enough to work for people like this, it can really be life-altering.[Timestamp 45:15]
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[00:00:00]
Jonaed: Welcome to the 21st episode of the No Degree podcast. This is your host, Jonaed Iqbal and today’s guest is Suzanne Kelly, a Chief Talent Advisor and Strategist. She does unbiased referencing for high stakes hires. She's also a consultant and speaker and trains companies and their hiring practices. Suzanne started her career in an office. She could not work under her boss and decided it was time to go out on her own.
She got into recruiting and the rest is history. Learn how Suzanne use her emotional intelligence to navigate her business and win over clients, all while delivering as much value as possible. Subscribe to our Patreon@ patreon.com/nodegree. Every contribution is appreciated. This show is impossible without you. Let's get the show started.
Welcome to another episode of the No Degree podcast. Today, I have a special guest, my mentor, Suzanne Kelly. Suzanne, can you introduce yourself?
Suzanne: Sure. Well, I'm so happy to be here with you today, Jonaed, and thank you for having me. I have a company that does something unique, especially today, when you think about this whole situation with the Covid-19 and how important it is to have the right leader in place that can manage through a crisis. What I do is unbiased referencing at the C suite level. For companies that are looking to bring on CEOs, CFOs, anybody in the C suite, I have my own proprietary method for unbiased referencing. It's investigative, it's forensic, and it establishes whether or not a candidate is exactly who they say they are during the interview.
Jonaed: So, you're the type of person that the CEOs, CTOs, Chief of Staff, the really high level position, those are the people that you sort of vet?
Suzanne: Yes.
Jonaed: Okay. So, you make sure that the right people aren't in place.
Suzanne: I think what makes me so valuable is that I don't know the candidates. I'm the only one in the hiring process who's truly unbiased. I'm not recruiting them. My background was recruiting for about 20 years. I understand hiring inside and out. I understand leadership and I understand business. So, I kind of think of myself as the extension of my client's team where they'll select their top tier candidates. But what they can't establish is what the soft skills are, because those are really hard. Like what is someone's work ethic? What type of emotional intelligence do they have? What is their integrity? All the things that really are impossible to assess unless you've worked really closely with someone in the past or unless you've lived with them, it's really hard to know what lies beneath. The thing that gets me up out of bed every day, my “why” is this one question. How can we trust a candidate is who they say they are? That is my purpose in life, is to help companies land the best possible leaders.
Jonaed: Wow. You do an amazing job at it. How'd you sort of get into this? What did you want to be in high school?
Suzanne: Okay. First of all, I was a very average student. I didn't love school. I was really average. When I graduated high school, my father who's extremely intelligent, very high IQ, not a lot of EQ, but a lot of IQ. His IQ compensates for his EQ, that's for sure. My EQ probably compensates for my IQ, but he told me that I was not college material. He just said that “This isn't an option for you. You’re not college material.”
Jonaed: What did he think you could do?
Suzanne: I told him that I wanted to travel the world and I was 17 years old when I graduated high school. I wanted to travel the world and I think the best way for me to do that is to become a flight attendant. So, he said, “Okay, if that's what you want to do, that's what you can do. But first, I think you need to get some business skills so that you can go to work. If this doesn't work out, if your plan doesn't work out, then you can fall back on going to work for a corporation as an Administrative Assistant or something like that.” His sights weren't set very high for me.
Jonaed: Did you become a Flight Attendant?
Suzanne: As soon as I graduated high school, I contacted all the airlines and I got applications for Flight Attendant and employment applications.
[0:05:00]
What happened while I was in this business school that he sent me to, you know, this was a year program and he said, I had to do this. By the way, my father was the type of person you really had to listen to him. He was a little bit controlling. It was really like it was going to be his way or the highway. So, I agreed that I would do this and I would go to this school for a year before I send in the applications. Right before I was ready to graduate from the school, I sent in all the applications because I knew that was what I had my heart set on. But what happened while I was in school is, I met my future husband. I ended up not pursuing my dream to become a Flight Attendant and travel the world, and I ended up getting married at a very young age.
Jonaed: Then where did that take you?
Suzanne: Which I wouldn't recommend.
Jonaed: What career did you end up in?
Suzanne: I ended up going to work for a commodities trading firm. I worked in many capacities. I worked for the firm for a few years. I worked at the precious metals on the precious metals desk. I worked in traffic initially and logistics. I then went to work for like the second in command because I really did have great skills from the school that my father sent me to. I ended up working for the second in command. I was his administrative assistant and he was so incredibly abusive. He was just a real narcissist and I learned a lot during that period of time. But I also learned a lot about what I didn't want in life and Jonaed, this guy was so bad. He was really like a malignant narcissist, all about power and ego and control. I know that he saw me as an object. He really felt that he owned me. He would want me like, you know, right next to him all day long. I had a boatload of work to do, but if he saw me doing it, it was crazy. It was almost like he wanted me to do it, but he didn't want to lose my attention. It was like he had me like by next to him at his disposal all day, and then I'd end up working all night to try to get my work done. It was just a really crazy situation. So, I had finally had it up to my eyeballs and I decided that I was going to quit. He did something one day that really ticked me off.
I went to Human Resources and I told them that I can't work for him anymore. They said, “Well, we're wondering. We're all wondering what took you so long?” So, I left and I said, “Okay, I'm going to start my own company cause I don't want to go to work for anyone ever again after this. I temped for six months and during that period, I put everything I needed together to start my own employment agency. That's what I did and that led me into a career of just about 20 years of recruiting. By the way, my very first client was that commodities trading firm that I left. Within the first week in business, I made $4,000 and he got wind, the guy that I worked for got wind that they were working with me. He went to the CFO and he told the CFO that he didn't want that company working with my company. The CFO told him, “Just so you know, she left you, not us.” So, they continued to work with me.
Jonaed: That just shows how important it is just to -- People can see people who bring good value. Let's go back to the business school. What type of business school was it because it seems like it was actually a decent program?
Suzanne: It was like a one year intensive program that taught me typing, grammar, English, letter-writing and all different kinds of things that would allow me to be a phenomenal administrative assistant.
Jonaed: What were the skills that really helped you launch your own company? Because launching your own company isn’t easy, especially as early as you did and being as successful. How did you sort of go about it?
Suzanne: Okay, so let me go back to my childhood. I grew up with three brothers. I call myself the unspoiled daughter. They were relentless. I mean, absolutely relentless. They would torture me. They would tease me. My childhood was kind of like my bootcamp for life and my father was really emotionally disconnected. But what he really did for me is through his actions, he demonstrated -- because he had a really senior level position. So, the things I learned from my father were his work ethic, his integrity. He was really disciplined. He was a corporate guy. I don't really ever think of myself as a real corporate person. I think of myself as an entrepreneur. I think it was just in my blood because when I left that company, it was a decision that I made. I left the company and then I decided right then and there that I was going to start my own company and I always felt like I wanted to do something on my own. I wanted to be the founder of something, and that was kind of like the catalyst. I think that working for that malignant narcissist was one of the best things that I ever could have ever done because it led me on that path.
[0:10:33]
Jonaed: Why recruiting? Out of all the businesses that you do, what attracted you to recruiting?
Suzanne: I always felt that I was good with people. I always felt that I had the personality to talk to people and to elicit information from them. After I researched it, I saw that it was lucrative. I thought I want more. I don't want to have a glass ceiling on what I'm able to make. I really do believe in working smart. So, I thought that that would be a good business to pursue and it worked out for me.
Jonaed: Now you started the recruiting. How'd that go on the first year? Obviously the first week was good, right? You picked up and you've got your former company that you worked there. How did it go? Because I assume there's always ups and downs.
Suzanne: Oh yes, there are always ups and downs. But what I was able to achieve throughout that career was longevity amongst the companies that I worked with. That's something that I'm really proud of and what I learned, and I think back then when I would interview candidates, I had an office. I would have them come into my office. I think a lot like you, I think this is why I admire your style because I feel like you're an old soul, but what I would do is I would always -- I always had a willingness to talk to people. It didn't matter who it was. I would always talk to them. I would always make it about them. Always. I wasn't thinking about it and when you do that, that's when the magic happens because that's what gives you the ability to learn a lot about someone and what they really want and what's really best for them. I would always lead with this. I just want you to know that I'm going to help you as best I can, but at the end of the day, this is your life.
You're the one that has to live it and you're the one that has to be happy. So, my objective is to get to know you as best I can so that I can do everything in my power to help you find a job that's fulfilling for you.
Jonaed: Wow. Was that common in the recruiting industry or was that just something the way you did it and it was something that set you apart from your competition?
Suzanne: Jonaed, I honestly don't know if that was common in the recruiting industry. Probably not, but I didn't care because I didn't care what anybody else was doing. I kind of had blinders on and I was just focused on what I was doing and all I wanted was to just be the best that I could possibly be. I would also take that approach and replicate it with my clients or vice versa. It was the same thing. I think when a really good recruiter has the ability to walk that line, that tight rope between the candidates and the clients and to represent each of them just the same. The companies were the ones paying my fees, but the candidates had to be equally as happy. If I would work with an executive and they would tell me that, “Listen, I want you to go out there and recruit me and a player.” I would always ask them, “What's in it for them? Because I can go out there and I can source you and hand pick the best possible candidates. But you got to give me good reason to make them want to come and meet with me and interview with you.”
Jonaed: And what's the response when they hear that? Because I assume, they don't always hear that, right? You got a lot of people saying yes, yes, yes.
Suzanne: Let me think about it. I think what really gave me a leverage is that I worked with some amazing companies. I wouldn't work with anyone unless I felt that they had something of great significance to deliver to the candidates that I was representing.
Jonaed: What were some companies that you worked with?
Suzanne: Bridgewater
Jonaed: When did you work with them because now, they're so big, right? When did you start working with Bridgewater?
Suzanne: It was like 2000.
Jonaed: Wow. How many employees were there?
Suzanne: 35
Jonaed: Wow. Now it's thousands, right? Anybody in the financial sector knows them. How was it to sort of work with the company and did you expect to see it get to where it is today?
Suzanne: I met Ray Dalio and I asked him, “Tell me a little bit about yourself and why would somebody want to come work here?”
[0:15:07]
Jonaed: What was his answer?
Suzanne: Nobody knew. I had no idea. I had no idea whatsoever of what was in store. But I'll tell you, the first person that I placed there, I recruited her to work for Bridgewater. She went in for the interview, and by the way, she's still there. She went in for the interview and she really loved it. I believed with all my heart and soul and intellect, that this was a much better opportunity than where she was at that time. It all really made perfect sense. If I believe in something, and if I believe in someone, I'll go to the ends of the earth to fight for it. She went on the interview, maybe it was a couple of interviews, and I was working with the COO. We made her the offer, and then she told her husband. Her husband didn't think that it really was enough, like it really made sense for her to make a move at that time. He did his own analysis of it and he felt that it was kind of like 50/50 and I knew that he was wrong. He was absolutely wrong. I knew it. I just knew it. I felt it in my heart and I felt it in my soul.
When she told me that she wasn't going to take the job because he didn't really feel, he wasn't like on board with her, and he didn't really feel that it was the right move for her at that time. She was fighting back tears. She was choking back, and at that point, that was when the switch flipped for me and I said, “Do you mind if I speak to him?” I'll never forget where I was sitting at the time. It was a Friday night and I had just come in from dinner with a client. I picked up a message from her on my voicemail. I called her back. It was probably at this point, 8:00PM when she said that to me and I knew how upset she was and I knew how right the opportunity really was for her, how much I believed in it, that's when I asked her if I could talk to her husband. I knew I would always get to know my candidates really well. So, I knew that he loved to cook and I love to cook. When he got on the phone, I said, “Your wife mentioned that you love to cook, you're a really good cook. She tells me about these dishes, this dish you make and that dish you make.” Well, that immediately broke the ice. So, we had a conversation about food for probably about 30 minutes. Once the ice was fully broken, then I started to tell him all the reasons why I felt that this was a really great opportunity for her and why I really believed in it. By the time we were done chatting, he said, “It’s her decision. She can take the job if she wants it.” And she got on the phone and she was like, “Thank you.” She was so happy and she took the job and 20 years later she's still there.
Jonaed: That's great. So, you really know so much about your candidates, right? I know I talked to other people and recruiters and it's like they don't even know the last job, right? They don't even know most of the things. What was it about you that wanted you to learn more and how did it help you in this instance to help you with that? How else did it help you?
Suzanne: By the way, let me just tell you that every Easter, every year, at Greek Easter, I sit at their table for dinner. They always invite me and their kids call me Aunt Sue. She had no kids at the time. So yes, I think it's really important to, I mean, not all recruiters need to sit at the dinner table of their candidates, but I think that it's really important to get to know people so that at the end of the day, you're doing what's best for them, not you.
Jonaed: Indirectly, you're ending up doing what's best for the company because you know whether or not they're a good fit.
Suzanne: Oh, for sure. I also know whether the company is a good fit for them.
Jonaed: What are some other industries that you serve, recruited for?
Suzanne: I had a really nice circle of industries. I worked at one point. I did a lot of work in the reinsurance sector. I did work in publishing, financial services organizations. I did work in the travel industry for a really upscale travel company that I did a lot of work with. I felt that what I had to -- market research was a really big one for me, custom and quantitative and syndicated. What I felt was that I had a lot to offer candidates that I would meet with all these different industries that I worked in, all these different sectors, and I ultimately became a generalist. Because if you're recruiting for a company and they want you to fill a role and they're thrilled with the job that you've done, and then they come back to you to fill another one.
I just didn't have -- because my clients were all like small to medium sized companies. Not all of them, but many of them were small to medium sized companies like Bridgewater that were growing exponentially. I just didn't have the heart to say, “Sorry, you got to call somebody else.”
[00:20:22]
Jonaed: Then you just got better at it.
Suzanne: Oh yes. I just kept getting better and better, and then the projects became more and more challenging. I said it was like, I would make the analogy that I was no longer looking for a needle in a haystack. I was looking for a needle in the Himalayas because the jobs were so specific that I would have to really, which I did a lot of anyway, but go out and map these candidates out and then try to hand pick them. That meant stealing them away from the companies where they were currently employed. None of which, were my clients, I would never do that.
Jonaed: No, of course not. Did you ever get pushed back on your process because you do things a lot differently than other recruiters? Do you ever get pushback from the companies or since you delivered, it was a nonissue?
Suzanne: Do you mean pushed back because, why?
Jonaed: Just like you believed in the candidate and they're like, no they don't fit our profile. They don't fit this checklist. They don't have this experience or something. Stuff like that.
Suzanne: My candidates and I had wonderful relationship and you know many of them. I also did a lot of work in trading. I know that I was the recruiter of choice and most of them would give me the projects based on exclusivity. They wanted me to fill the jobs and they knew that I was going to come through for them. But there was one company that I worked with where they brought in, it was a family owned business. They had been around for over 80 years and they reached a point where they needed to bring in a new head of HR. I was working with pretty much every business leader in the organization until she came on board.
When she came on board, she started, most of the employees were there for decades, and the company treated them so well. It was just a happy, wonderful place to put people. This head of HR came on board and started ousting people that had been there for 10-20 years. The best way that I could describe her is that she just looked down at people. She was making these unilateral decisions that this person was no longer appropriate for the company, and these were employees that were loved. She was just a cleaning house unnecessarily, and it was wreaking havoc throughout the company.
I remember that there was this one job that they asked me to fill. It was a senior position because I had already had the relationship with the company, she didn't bring me in. But she was involved in the hire. I presented this one gentleman and I thought he was just absolutely phenomenal. She interviewed him and the leadership team interviewed him and everybody loved him except her. She said, because she didn't feel that he was the right fit, that they weren't going to be moving forward with him. I asked her why, and she said, “Because it's just an instinct. I just don't feel that he is flexible.” This is kind of when my whole method of reference checking was born. This is kind of weird when it all started and I just couldn't believe it.
I rolled up my sleeves and I went out there. I must have called at least eight different people that he worked with at every level in the past. I collaborated with him on it and I told him who I wanted to call and asked him if that was okay. We discussed it and what I learned after this incredibly in-depth process was that he was anything but inflexible. All the feedback was typed up verbatim, the telephone numbers, the email addresses, all the contact information was there. It was a full transcript and so I brought it to her and I presented it to her. I told her, “You know, I think that you really might want to read this before you completely dismiss him as a candidate.”
And she did. I watched her as she sat there and read all of these insights that I had elicited from various professionals that he had worked with at every level. After she finished reading it, she looked me right in the eye and she asked me if I made it up and I said, “Well, listen, you know the numbers, all their contact information is there. They're all expecting your call. I already gave them a heads up that you might be contacting them, so feel free and have the conversation yourself. They hired him, and now today he is part of their leadership team. That's about 18 years later.
[0:25:06]
Jonaed: Your process really ends up giving them a lot of value that they don't get people who stick around just one, two years, right? They get people who truly grow within the company.
Suzanne: I could name at least 20 people off the top of my head that are still in the same companies and thriving 20 years later. But it doesn't happen by accident, Jonaed It happens by being the kind of person you are, by really investing in someone, and I'm not just talking about your time, I'm talking about your energy.
Jonaed: It's very clear that you really take this seriously, right? It's a totally different level that when they work with you, they get something totally different. It's kind of interesting how this lady was the result. That's when your process was born. So, now you started doing the reference checking. How did it evolve over time? Because you produce this report, what happens next?
Suzanne: Well, let me just say this. Good candidates are screened out just as much as bad candidates or wrong candidates. Not all candidates are bad. Some of them are the wrong fit. Some of them are bad, some of them are toxic, but some are just the wrong fit. Good ones are screened out just as much as the wrong ones are screened in. What I believe right through my core is that it's really impossible to know whether someone that you've just met and put through an interview process is who they say they are or where you think they are or who you need them to be. The diligence that goes into doing a really quality reference checking process, and I mean unbiased, not references that have been curated by the candidates. It slips through the cracks and the number one reason for hiring mistakes is because companies can't assess the soft skills during the interview.
Jonaed: What are common mistakes that recruiters make?
Suzanne: How much time do we have?
Jonaed: We have time.
Suzanne: Okay. In my opinion, the common mistakes that recruiters make, not all but many, is that they make it all about themselves and about the fee. I mean, I want you to follow in my footsteps because I'm no longer recruiting and you really have what it takes to make such a tremendous impact on companies. They need people like you to be out there developing their talent selection pools. They really do.
Jonaed: I know, thank you. Where do you think recruiting has gone wrong? Why is it because you have the clear success stories? I think some of it comes from the companies too, that they're kind of -- or do you feel it's from more the recruiter side.
Suzanne: Look, you know, recruiters don't discriminate. They're internal and external. Oftentimes, internal recruiters are bogged down with a lot of racks on their desk. I think where it all begins Jonaed is, has the recruiter really earned the right to be there? What qualifies them for this role and for being in this role? Do they really thoroughly understand hiring, and what the process looks like? How collaborative is it? From the corporate side, if the business leader doesn't value talent as their greatest asset, and they're not rewarding whoever the individuals are in the organization that are leading talent, if they're not rewarding them accordingly, and if they don't value them as their greatest asset, then they're probably going to end up selecting the best of the worst candidates. Let’s face it, every company is as good as their people.
Jonaed: Everything you said is spot on and I hope companies and business owners really take it to heart. When did you transition away from recruiting and why did you go more towards the reference checking?
Suzanne: I felt that it was time for me to do something else and I really came to believe that the reference checking process is so incredibly broken. If you look at the odds of out there today and it hasn't changed of hiring rights and what it looks like, I mean, the accuracy is about bad of a coin toss. Then you look at the state of employee engagement in the American workforce, and roughly seven out of 10 employees are not engaged in their work. I think if all the dots are not connected between leadership, management, hiring, interviewing, reference checking and all of that, then there's going to be a breakdown. Here's what I believe. Look, most people are not pros. They're not hiring ninjas. But they need to be, or they need to at least know how to best align themselves with someone who is.
[0:30:00]
If you don't know what that looks like as a business leader, then how do you know how to select the right recruiter? That's the thing. All the dots need to be connected. I think business leaders need to wake up and say, “Okay, why isn't my company more successful?” And when you think about the opportunity losses of not having the right people in place. Because if you had the right people, you might be able to grow your company from, let's say a $500,000 company to a $2 million company in three years, or to a $10 million company in three years or 20 or whatever it might be. But with the wrong team, you're going to pretty much stay in neutral, or your company might be decimated.
So, we are who we hire, and hiring mistakes don't discriminate. But I think it begins with the basic foundation of what hiring is supposed to look like and how you can best leverage through the process, the people, and getting that right. I think as far as recruiters are concerned, there are many out there who have simply not earned the right to be there, who don't make it about the candidates who it's supposed to be about, and don't give them the time of day and are looking to just make a fee. Then there are a lot of companies out there that are so desperate to get a seat filled that they settle on the best of the worst. So, I think it's really important that companies know how to assess recruiters. I think also candidates need to be equally as selective as to which recruiters they choose to work with.
Jonaed: So, in general, you would say that if the recruiter's good, you feel like they're looking out for you, you're probably going to get a better experience and end up at a better position that's right for you.
Suzanne: If that's the case, then that recruiter is like gold.
Jonaed: One of my friends said that a position he got recruited into, he had a good recruiter and the recruiter says, never base your career off a recruiter. He said that recruiter actually had his best interest in mind. It's kind of funny. Now, you obviously made a lot of good decisions. What were some things that you sort of made mistakes in business? What are some things you would have done differently or big learning points?
Suzanne: I want to say one thing. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I would pick up the phone and call maybe the COO of Bridgewater, or I would call the president of a trading firm that I worked with, or whoever it might be, HR. I would pick up the phone and call that person and I had good relationships. What I had with my clients was trust. They trusted me and I would say, I have a candidate that I want you to meet. I could see them fitting into actually one of three areas. I'm not sure which they might be the best fit at, but they could fit into either one of those these areas, and I want you to meet them. But I'm not going to send you the resume because if I send you the resume, you're going to think that I'm crazy, but you must meet them and they would always meet them because they trusted me. After they would meet them, I would say 9.5 times out of 10, that person would get a job that was like so far off. If you looked at the resume and you looked at where they landed, didn't make sense. It just didn't make sense. But that's why I'm telling you it's so important to get to know the person.
Jonaed: I think in any business, right? Getting to know the people just completely changes the dynamics and completely puts you at a separate level. So, what were the sort of the mistakes you've made or some big lessons that you've learned throughout your business career?
Suzanne: The biggest lessons that I've learned, and when I tell you that hiring mistakes don't discriminate, I'm telling you that hiring mistakes don't discriminate. They happen to the best of us and they happen to even the most skilled interviewers. I would say that the biggest mistakes in my life have been hiring around hiring, whether it's hiring the wrong web developer or hiring the wrong contractor or entering into a personal relationship or a business relationship with someone. These types of things happen at every single level of our lives and I think that the same principles that apply to business, hiring in business should apply to every single area of our lives. When I talk about reference checking and I talk about hiring, it doesn't limit itself to just companies. When you think about candidates, they need to be equally as diligent and equally as savvy when it comes to vetting companies. I would say that the biggest mistakes that I've made throughout my life were entering into the wrong relation. You know, you get better and better and better at it, of course. Hopefully you do. But I would say that those would probably have to be the biggest mistakes I've made, and I've made plenty.
[0:35:09]
Jonaed: Did the lack of a college degree ever sort of hold you back when getting clients or what was the situation regarding that?
Suzanne: It's never held me back. When people ask me where I went to college, I say that I have a PhD from the university of hard knocks. No, I have a doctorate. I have so much life experience and I've learned my most valuable lessons by making mistakes, falling down, being resilient, getting back up, and most importantly, failing forward.
Jonaed: What did your father end up saying?
Suzanne: My father is just so emotionally detached. But he's never really said anything. Recently he called me. He started asking me about my business. He said that “I'm really glad to see that you're making such great progress.” I think that's what he said. That was really it. Throughout my life, he's just not that kind of a guy, but what I'm really grateful for is that I got his work ethic. I got his integrity. I don't know what else I got from him, but those are really big things and I'm really proud of my work ethic, and I guess, what I've achieved.
Jonaed: What advice would you have for someone looking to get into recruiting to date? Because oftentimes I see a lot of recruiting positions. They say, must have college degree. How would someone sort of counter that? How its own break into the industry to serve, get that experience?
Suzanne: I would tell you that I have worked with some really top executives and I've been dealing with business leaders throughout my whole career. Not one of them has ever asked me if I had a college degree ever. They come to me for advice. They come to me as a subject matter expert in the area of all things hiring. It's never come up. I've gotten where I am because I've taken risks and I would say for anybody that is interested in becoming a recruiter, I would do my research. I would do some soul searching and find out exactly why you want to become a recruiter. What's the driving force behind that? If it's about money, I would say maybe rethink that because I believe that we should do things in our lives for the right reasons. Do things not for money, but because they give us fulfillment and they make us happy.
I know you love what you do. It's written all over your face, and I've known you now for a year and a half. I know that you not only love what you do, but you're damn good at it. You are the poster child for what it would take to be the traits of a good recruiter because you care about people, you have empathy. You're an incredible listener, and you make it about others. You're selfless. These are the things-- and you have a willingness to do. Here's another big thing. You have a willingness to do whatever it takes, no matter what that is. I think back on my days of recruiting, when I would identify some top candidates for a certain project that I was working on, and maybe they were working an hour away or they lived an hour away. The way I did it was you meet people face to face, and that's how -- I mean today, you can certainly make a connection with people over the phone. It's just not the same as connecting with someone in 3D. I would go out of my way to meet people on a Sunday or a Saturday night or at 6:00AM or whatever it was that worked for them. If I believe that they had the potential and it was something that was right for them and my client could gain from it, I had that willingness to do that, and I think that that's what's lacking in large part with a lot of recruiters today.
Jonaed: How has the industry trained since you got right? Because obviously technology has changed a lot of things. How's it changed and you know what's gone better and what's sort of gotten really different?
Suzanne: Technology is a beautiful thing and AI is a beautiful thing, but what I've seen in terms of the biggest changes in recruiting is that it's become a lot more personal. Recruiting should be a human interaction, not a transaction. I think that what happens is, I don't think I know, that extraordinary candidates. Remember I talked to you about how I would pick up the phone and call the COO of Bridgewater or another executive or an HR contact that I had, and I would tell them that I had a candidate that I wanted them to meet, but I refused to send the resume. I would let them bring it in with them when they arrived and they would agree to meet them.
[0:40:03]
Well, I think that's almost unheard of today, and I think it's a tragedy because there are so many extraordinary, extraordinary candidates and people out there that have so much to contribute and that the skills that they've developed over through their careers can absolutely be transferable into other areas. But if they don't have someone fighting for them and advocating for them and they're being screened out based on keyword searches, what an injustice.
Jonaed: I see it all the time because I do resumes for people and before I do a resume and after I do the resume, they're the same person, right? Nothing has changed except a few hours. Now all of a sudden, they get more interviews. So, it's kind of interesting that do people not deserve to be found if they don't necessarily have the top notch resume? I've worked with people who, you could tell that they're the ones who would have the typos on their resume, but they're good workers and they're good at certain roles. I know they'll get passed up based on their resume.
Suzanne: First of all, nobody should have typos on the resumes. I’m sorry. They shouldn't. It's just not professional. Anybody can reach out to anybody that has a good command of grammar and English and can have them resumes that have typos. It's careless. But I think that people do not deserve, nobody deserves to be passed up for a job. I mean, look, you asked me if somebody deserves to be passed up for a job based on their resume. I think the answer is it all depends. If the resume is not appealing, and it's too busy, resume screeners or individuals that are reading resumes, and if they're looking at them in abundance, they're going to be looking at them pretty quickly. It's important for the resume to stand out, and I know that you do a great job. When I saw the couple of resumes that you did, and believe me, I'm not blowing smoke your way, I was blown away. I think it's really so professional and impeccable. But also, really easy for the eye, really easy to read and you know, they capture your attention and they're very clear. It's important for people to do everything in their power to try to stand out among all the noise, especially today. The investment of time and energy that we put into things on the front end almost always pays off on the backend. We get into things, we get out of things, what we put into them.
Jonaed: No, I think you're absolutely correct. You want to put an effort and you want to invest into your career. So, let's slowly start to wrap things up. What are sort of the next steps for you, because you're doing a lot of these unbiased reference checks, what's the goal for you?
Suzanne: I do them for companies and it's very comprehensive. Each project takes between seven to 10 days to complete. It's done before the hiring decisions have been made. Otherwise, if someone is psychologically involved, invested in a candidate, it's almost too late. I would say that I really enjoy that work, but what I enjoy most, I have a team now. It's a small team, but I'm continuing to build a team. But what I enjoy most is training and really imparting the insights that I've gained throughout my career. In the area of hiring and reference checking to companies out there who can really turn their companies around by implementing best practices in hiring and best practices in reference checking. I'm not talking about run of the mill average, check the box, broken component of reference checking, I'm talking about -- it doesn't have to be the magnitude of reference checking that I do at the CEO and the C suite level, but companies can do a much better job of what they currently doing most of them by creating a hybrid between what I do and what they do.
For me, it's really getting more involved in the training. I would tell you that if a hiring process is fundamentally broken, again, the reference checking doesn't really matter because most likely companies are selecting the best of the worst candidates. They have to get there, a good hiring dashboard in place, and then the referencing goes hand in hand with that.
Jonaed: I definitely see you doing that and I definitely see you impacting many companies and getting the right people in and changing the way companies think. Because I think now more than ever it's needed, right? Especially during this time where you kind of see where the true leaders, they stand, they rise up and then bad leaders are exposed, right? You see these companies and the leaders who are really looking out, who are slashing their own salaries to keep their company afloat versus other leaders who are just not taking care of people. The good hires and the good leaders really set the standard.
[0:45:15]
Suzanne: Oh my God. And you know what? I would say that what I see among the diligence that I do, and I do it very regularly, is that the extraordinary, fully engaged superstar, A player leaders, they all have the same qualities, all have the same qualities. They care about their people. They put people first. They can have a thousand employees and these leaders that I'm referring to, they know almost all of them by first name. They know their families, they have empathy, they have faith, they are the leaders. They do a lot of philanthropy and they give a lot and they're selfless. They're amazing. Anyone that's fortunate enough to work for people like this, it can really be life altering.
Jonaed: Thank you so much for your time. I know the audience will get a lot of value. Thank you so much for the impact you've had on my life. I've grown so much in the past year and a half, and I still have a lot of growing. Thank you for always pushing me and striving, helping me do my best.
Suzanne: You're doing an amazing job and I can tell you, you're impacting more lives than I could ever imagine just in the work that you're doing. By the way, the work that you're doing by helping people with their resumes is a wonderful precursor to recruiting. I'll tell you why. When you do your intakes, it's like you're interviewing them for a job, right? You're investing your time and your energy to get to know them. There probably isn't any question that you can't answer about any of the candidates that you're helping do their resume. Can you imagine if you started picking up the phone and making contacts with companies out there and telling them about these candidates that you've met and they start asking you questions. You're like a pro, you already know everything there is to know about them.
Jonaed: Yes, I mean that's the next step. Thank you so much for helping me with that step. So, I know…
Suzanne: Thank you for having me.
Jonaed: Always, and we look forward to many more interactions together. Thank you, Suzanne. We'll have all your information in the show. How would someone get in contact with you? They're interested in learning more about you.
Suzanne: My website is Suzanne Kelly, S-U-Z-A-N-N-E-K-E-L-L-Y.com. My phone number is 212-715-3949. If anyone has questions, they can reach out to me or they can find me on LinkedIn.
Jonaed: Okay. I’ll have those in the show notes. Thank you. Have a good one.
Suzanne: Take care. Bye.
Jonaed: Another great episode. Thank you for listening. Hopefully this information was valuable and you learned a lot. Stay tuned for the next episode. This show is sponsored by you. No Degree wants to remain free from influence so that we can talk about the topics without bias. If you think the show’s worth a dollar or two, please check out our Patreon page check out our Patreon page. Any amount is appreciated and will go towards making future episodes even better. Follow us on Instagram or Snapchat at NoDegreePodcast. On Facebook @facebook.com/NoDegreeInc. If you want to personally reach out to me, connect or follow me on LinkedIn at Jonaed Iqbal, spelled J-O-N-A-E-D, last name, I-Q-B-A-L. Until next time, no degree, no problem. No degree.com.
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