In this insightful episode, Katie McConnell Olson, Founder and CEO of GrowthWise Search Partners, shares how she went from being burned by the recruiting industry to turning it upside down (which is really rightside up) one candidate at a time.
You will discover:
– Why you should never pay a recruiter a % of a salary
– What you have to do if you don’t offer remote work
– Why you should start doing stay interviews (and how to do them)
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach and I’m here with yet another high demand coach and advisor, if you will, and that is the one and only Katie McConnell Olson. Katie has become just a tremendous friend and colleague. There’s no one that is as driven as Katie, you’re going to hear that come through in everything that she says here. But Oh, what’d she do who she so Katie is the founder and CEO of growth wise search partners. She’s a connector. She’s an innovator. She’s a curiosity ambassador. And her practice brings transformations and solutions that help businesses accelerate both financial and human capital growth. Katie has an experience in serving clients of all sizes in all industries and consulting roles and on internal teams within her organization. Her focus now is in the middle market for companies with revenues from 10 million to 500 million, and a focus in particular on construction professional service, not for profits, and agriculture, companies. So Katie, so excited to have you here, it’s been a minute getting to this point, for you know, and this isn’t, you know, a typical kind of coach thing, one of the things that you do, folks didn’t get from the bios, you, you help find great team members, for companies. And you do that exceptionally well, I might add, I think I’ve shared this with you. But some of the worst experiences I had with advisors, when I was a CEO of my own company was actually those in the recruiting world, and just really got burned on multiple occasions had a really bad taste for it. And I want to thank you for turning that around. For me. Just seeing the heart and dedication and passion that you have for your client has been so encouraging to me. And you’ve given me new hope for the industry as a whole. But I’d love to before we get into the work that you do, and kind of the unique way that you and your firm go about doing it. I’d love to kind of rewind for a second and talk about what you were doing before you started growth wise and you How did that ultimately lead to that transition?
Katie McConnell Olson
Yeah, absolutely a bit of a checkerboard path for sure. As it always is, with an entrepreneur, I don’t know that anyone grows up and says, I want to be a recruiter, when I grow up, you know, no one knows really what that is. It’s something that you kind of accidentally stumble into. And that’s exactly what happened. So I actually have a degree in accounting, I came from the world of accounting, I have a CPA license, although I don’t practice anymore, I still hold on to that thing, I always joke with my friends, if they take it away from me, it’s going to be for something criminal, not because I let it expire, right. But that really is where the roots of my education came from. So I got a degree in accounting, I went to work for a large firm on the audit side. So believe it or not, there are accountants that don’t do tax returns. And I was effectively traveling all over auditing financial statements. So it gave me a really great insight into you know, how to companies run what’s going on behind the curtain and the backbone of an organization, which is the numbers side of things. And ultimately, I hopscotch through a couple of different startups. And like any good entrepreneur, they mostly failed. So I stepped on a couple of rakes along the way, and kind of accidentally found my way into hiring. So you’re absolutely right, Scott, it’s a dirty industry. I found my way into it, and found that out also, by working with a recruiter that was frankly, just a terrible recruiter, who wasn’t attentive, didn’t give me the time of day and was selling me like a piece of inventory. And somehow I ended up actually becoming one a little bit by accident. But I said, Okay, you know, I think I can learn how to do this, I had come from some startups and wanted to learn about sales, the sales metrics side of things, because most accountants are not trained to be salespeople. So I kind of flopped my way into recruiting. And that’s when I realized I love this, I love changing lives, I get to call people and say, hey, I can get you a job that’s closer to home, you know, changes your life. And conversely, on the business side, I’m telling the business, hey, we can solve this problem that you’ve had for a long time. Because now we can scale you past this hump, we can get you, you know, removed from the business, we can buy some of your time back with leverage. And so there was this incredible impact happening. And it was a really dirty industry, with a contingent approach, meaning charging a percentage of salary, which we’ll talk more about, but I don’t run my shop that way. And ultimately, I decided, You know what, I’m not utilizing my license, there’s way more that I can offer that I am not having the opportunity to unleash share, this isn’t going to be a fit for me. So in the process, as the universe would have it, I ended up going back into public accounting to lead recruiting for a public accounting firm. So kind of marrying the best of both worlds in an internal recruiting role. Very quickly realized the clients of the CPA firm need holistic hiring support. I can do this I have those skill sets I can bridge that together. And I said, I want to do this different, I want to do it under a noncontingent approach. So I don’t want to charge a percentage of salary, I don’t think it’s fair to pay a recruiter more for doing the same job and getting the same amount of value. Just because you also have to pay a candidate more money, it makes absolutely no sense to me why the industry has done and continues to do this. So I said, No, I’m gonna do it totally different. We’re going to turn it on its side, we’re going to do it around value, we’re going to work as a true partner for these companies, and we’re going to change the trajectory of their businesses. So that’s what I did. I started this practice area within the CPA firm, ran it for a few years really found my heart in small and midsize businesses. And then that CPA firm got acquired by a billion dollar company. So yeah, so ended up deciding that that wasn’t for me, that’s when I left and started growth wise search partners, same mission, same value oriented approach, same pricing model, but you know, a different struggle bus than being a part of a billion dollar company.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, and there’s so much to unpack in there. The first one I want to do, and we’ll get back to recruiting here in a second, but you went from CPA, right? Everything’s about the numbers to effectively HR, right, and in recruiting and everything’s about the people. And so two questions on that one? Why, why does being able to see both of those worlds give you a unique advantage? And two, what is it that? Why is it that so few people can bridge that gap?
Katie McConnell Olson
Yeah, knowing Great question, knowing the numbers is the backbone of how any businesses run, right? I mean, I don’t know about you, but I don’t do this for free. And we can’t, we can’t create sustainability for free. So knowing the metrics is so so powerful, and bridging that with human capital is so so powerful, I think, you know, we’ve got accountants on one side that are, we like to say the CF know, right, they have to be risk adverse to serious with money. And then we’ve got HR on the other side that wants to spend, spend, spend, because that’s how you engage employees and create retention is you’ve got to invest money into your most important and oftentimes the largest line item on your p&l, which is your people, right? And understanding both sides of that, where we can go, Okay, let’s look at the ROI of that, and those decisions. And also look at the people side of that and marry that together. It’s why we say that we’re in the human capital business and not in the Human Resources business. Because while we are a resource, I really like to look at it from the perspective of ROI and the numbers. So if you call us and say, Katie, we need to make a hire. My first question is going to be what is your business objective that you’re trying to accomplish with this hire? Because why are we spending money if we’re not, you know, accomplishing something with that? Yeah. So I think the marriage of those two and being able to look at the multiple of what, you know, you know, purchasing a tool in the form of an employee is going to generate those conversations are not conversations that are often hard with your Human Resources team. Yeah. Right. And then the other half of that, of course, is knowing accounting comes in real handy when we’re doing accounting hires. Right?
Scott Ritzheimer
Right. Right, right, right. Now, you position the company, and it’s even in the name as as partners along the way. And so what what’s the what’s the mistake that folks make when they go out and they just find a recruiter? Right, as opposed to finding a partner like yourself?
Katie McConnell Olson
I think there’s a lot, right. I have a lot of opinions about this. Because as I mentioned before, recruiting does have kind of a stink on it. It’s a tough industry. A lot of times the mistake is Hey, recruiter, here’s our job description. Go bring us humans, you know, and in, it’s sure, I mean, I can sell you resumes. That’s not the business that we’re in. My job is to really understand what your problems are. So I can advise you how to solve that problem. Oftentimes, we hear clients start with well, I need someone that has five years of experience with, you know, sage, 300 software, is that really what you need? Or do you need somebody that can X, Y, and Z. So really, we spend some time unpacking that. And then we develop a strategy before we just go find people. Oftentimes, what a client thinks they need isn’t where they end up. I’ll give you an example. This morning, we gave an offer letter for a controller for a construction company started with we need someone that has done an ERP conversion, and that knows construction. The person that we’re giving an offer to knows neither of those things, however, is the best fit to really scale the company to double where they are right now, which is where they’re going and be that bridge for the personnel and the employees. So come to find out through that education process, what they really needed wasn’t what they thought they needed. And that happens all the time.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah, it’s so true. And looking back at my own mistakes in the space. I expected someone to do that, right. Because that’s just how I would have done actually done it. And I didn’t realize that what I was getting was, hey, we’re gonna find your resumes. And so what ended up happening was we didn’t ask for the right thing we didn’t even know to ask for the right thing. I mean, I think this is true for a lot of folks, the reason you go out and get a recruiter is because you can’t recruit yourself right? Now that is until that you have someone that you trust that you realize the dynamic gain from that. But that first time out you there’s something flawed about the way you’re approaching it, otherwise, it would probably be a little easier to find somebody. And so again, what I love about what you’re doing, and the approach that you and the firm take is helping identify what are those flaws and what we’re asking for. So that we’re actually asking for the right thing first, before we go and spend a bunch of money and a bunch of time trying to cram somebody into a hole that they’re just not going to fit.
Katie McConnell Olson
Exactly. And a lot of recruiters will just go try to find you people, oftentimes you make a hire anyways, you get lucky, maybe there are a middle of the road performer, but it warms the chair, right? And if you’re approaching something from the perspective of well, this person is better than an empty chair. Okay. But we’ve all made that mistake, myself included, where you make that decision, and then come to find out it wasn’t actually better, and now you’ve got a big mess to clean up. And maybe it would have been better to be more strategic and holistic, our approach is going to be more strategic and holistic. So you’ll find us asking questions like, Are you sure you really even need to make a hire, not to talk myself out of a job. But if we can work with what we’ve got here and rearrange some things, then you know, it’s more of a consulting project for us. And then you don’t need us on the sourcing side. Sometimes the issue is that you just need access to more candidates. We’ve got all the tools and expertise to make that happen, too.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Well, the the WHO has declared an official end to the COVID 19 pandemic. So everyone, you know, three, three tears, the the effects of that are far from gone, right? They’ve just radically changed the way that both employers and employees work find each other everything about this world that you’re dealing with day in and day out, what are a few things that that companies really need to pay attention to right now, when they’re going on the search for top talent?
Katie McConnell Olson
Well, this is the ongoing debate, and I’m sure we’re all sick and tired of hearing about it, but remote work, I mean, that genie is out of the bottle. So for some companies, especially in the trades, they never went to a remote workforce. You know, say what you will about that. However, for certain types of roles, especially those back office, for example, administrative and accounting, it’s become very difficult to find talent for companies asking for 100% in office. So if that is the direction that you’ve gone with your business, which I fully support, what else are you doing? Because otherwise, you’re inherently not as attractive in the market. So I think market positioning around those selling points, and we’ll hammer on that with clients a lot, because I will sit down with a client, hey, why does someone want to come to work here? Oh, well, our culture is great. We have Christmas parties, our benefits are great. Blah, blah, blah. Everyone says that, what is what are you doing that no one else is doing? You know, medical insurance is not a magic benefit. It’s a it’s a requirement. We just came out of a pandemic, people want health insurance, right? But what are you doing that makes you unique in the marketplace? Really spend some time thinking about that? Because that’s your secret sauce. And that’s your brand, right? That’s your recruitment brand. So I think that’s something to really think about is that market positioning? And, you know, what makes you unique as an employer of choice?
Scott Ritzheimer
And I think we tend to downplay this, right, at least, you know, virtually every client I’ve worked on in this space, we tend to just kind of assume that it what it is to work here is good, maybe slightly good or you know, than the one next year, but we don’t really know how to articulate that. I was working with a group and they’re, they’re in an industry there, their turnover is somewhere around, you know, for the industry is around 45%. Ballpark is labor industry is tough work. And there’s we’re sitting consistently under 10%. And, and they’re looking at it saying like, hey, we can’t find any good people. And it’s like, well, what are you doing to sell the fact that people will come and actually want to stay? Right? So what are some examples of those selling points that that you’ve seen work really, really well?
Katie McConnell Olson
Well, it depends on the target profile. I mean, if you want people that are Go, go go that really want to, you know, climb the ladder and are very aggressive go getters, you know, the fact that you’re doubling your revenue, or you’re doubling your expanded reach, or you’re growing into new Metro market, those are all selling points that are going to be attractive to a candidate profile that wants that too. If that’s not where you’re going, that’s totally cool, too. And that’s a different business strategy. And maybe it’s hey, we’ve been around for 200 years. I’m we’re not going anywhere, especially in the construction industry. You know, we have a client that works mostly with federal and government contracts. Those are Long term, those are stable, those are not going anywhere in an industry that’s seeing a lot of ups and downs. That can be a real strong selling point for somebody to say, Hey, I’m gonna have job security and stability, and then you’ve got that alignment there. So I think thinking about, you know, why you’re a great place to be, and also the types of people that you want to attract that want to be there. Pull your people. I’m big on stay interviews, especially right now, you know, we’re in a period of, we’ve seen some layoffs with larger companies. We want to keep the workforce that we have, let’s ask them why they’re excited. And let’s do more of what’s already working.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah. And so what would be a couple? Someone’s never done a stay interview, right? Maybe they’re not even that great at doing exit interviews. And we’re still working on doing great incoming interviews, but they’re like, Okay, I see it, you know, like, so much has changed. It’s been a long time since we stopped looking at is a stay interview, at like their annual review. How do those differ?
Katie McConnell Olson
I mean, it can be I just actually taught a class on this last week. So I do have some great resources on state interviews. Anytime you’re engaging, it’s better than not engaging, right? So it doesn’t have to be a formal, oh, I’ve set up a two hour appointment or a big employee survey, some companies are doing that, that’s awesome. It can also be as simple as walking down the hallway, or, you know, in a virtual environment, doing a quick check in during a one on one and saying, you know, have a couple questions for you. What do you love about being here? Would you tell your friends to come to work here? And if not, why not? You know? Or what can we do better? To make it more enjoyable everyday? And if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing? I love the magic wand question because it feels very magical. And less, you know, if you could fire somebody, who would you pick? You know, and more like if you could, if we lived in a world of magic, you know, what would make it even more magical? Those are easy ways that you can get a lot of really great insights. And then the follow up is you’ve got to do something with it. Right? Otherwise, you just lose credibility.
Scott Ritzheimer
Right? Right. Yeah, so good. And I want to shift gears just slightly, because we’ve got a decent part of our audience that maybe they’re not in the business owner leader side of this thing, but maybe they’re out there. And they’re considering, you know, changing their careers. They’re actively looking for a job, what are a few things that that you that you’re seeing in the market that can really help set them apart?
Katie McConnell Olson
Yeah, and I think follow up, especially for small and middle market companies. For the really, really big companies, of course, you’re kind of going into a database, it’s all about, you know, customizing your revenue, putting those keywords in there that match the job description, getting real custom for the smaller companies follow up goes such a long way. I’ve had a couple of examples where a candidate got passed over, they came back and talk to one of my recruiters and just said, Hey, you know, I saw that you sent me a decline. That’s fine. I’m just curious why because I have this, this and this, well, that we didn’t see that come through on your resume, we didn’t know that, you know, it looked like you were in Tennessee, and we’re hiring in Texas. So give us a little bit more intel. But that follow up and opening up that line of communication can go a long way. And we do notice as well, if you’re aggressive, we pay attention. I had a candidate, the candidate we gave an offer to this morning, she sent a thank you note to the client on last week and said I really want this job. And that bluntness of live a hungry person that is really excited about opportunity, and really wants this was what really won them over.
Scott Ritzheimer
And I think that goes straight to the heart of kind of a lie that’s going on out there as though businesses need you. And just, you know, it’s a it’s a an employee’s market, right. And, but if you want to take ownership of getting the job, right, like the one that you really want, I think that we have to be careful not to just buy into this, like, oh, there’s plenty of opportunities out there, you know, they have to, they have to bend to me. And I think even if it is an employee’s market, right, or, or a candidate’s market, I think those little things that you can do to set yourself apart, give you the opportunity between you know, something that maybe you’re gonna want to leave in a year or two, right, or something that you can really sink your teeth into and commit to for the long haul.
Katie McConnell Olson
And it’s not an employee’s market anymore. It’s a, I think, we’ve got some kind of parody happening. And I’m feeling a shift, big time that we’ve seen in the past couple of months. In California, these big big companies are doing a ton of layoffs in the tech space, which doesn’t really help small and middle market companies. Frankly, it’s a completely different skill set. It’s a different type of candidate. So it’s not really doing anything for the talent shortage, but what it is doing is shifting salaries, and I’m seeing employers take back a bit more control. I’m seeing that across the board across Metro markets across the US and across types of positions. So arguably, I don’t know that it’s complete Then employee market anymore the way that it was a few years ago?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah. So good. Okay, so I want to ask this question I ask my guests, and it’s this what’s the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing that you wish everybody listening today knew?
Katie McConnell Olson
I’m gonna pull one of my favorite quotes of all time. And if you’ve heard me speak before, you’ve heard me say this. If you want things other people don’t have, you have to be willing to do things other people won’t do. Super simple, but it’s one of my favorite all time quotes. If you want things other people don’t have, you have to be willing to do things other people won’t do. I think it transcends everything, especially business and especially hiring, people are not just going to line up around your doorstep and bang on your door to come work for you because you’re doing the same thing that everybody else is doing. So what are you doing to set yourself apart? How are you putting yourself out there? How are you taking risks? And how are you doing the work to generate the results that you want? In every aspect of your life? And especially in hiring? Yeah. And it’s really simple, right? Like, do hard things?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s one of those things. It’s funny, I was talking with a client yesterday, and I was like, there’s, there’s simple versus complex, right. And there’s simple versus difficult, we have to be really careful with our definition of simple because if we go after things, because they’re simple, aka not difficult, we’ll miss out on the real work, right, the work that actually matters. However, if we don’t do something that simple, you know, but we do the thing that’s complex, we end up just getting washed up in a whole bunch of complexity. And it’s nasty. So I have to be really careful with that simplicity thing, when you’re going after simplicity, which most business strategies that are the most effective strategies tend to be the simplest, relatively speaking, that’s not the easiest, right? And so again, I love that idea of if you you want something different, you have to do something different. And don’t be afraid of hard work. There’s Yeah, you could go on about that for a very long time. You and I are on the same page there. So I do want to shift gears on you one more time, though, I’m gonna have you take off your advisor hat, you’ve given us a ton of amazing advice. Have you put on your CEO hat and talk to us about what the next stage of growth looks like for growth wise search partners? And what challenges do you think you’ll have to overcome to get there?
Katie McConnell Olson
Yeah, the challenges I think, depends on the day because you’ve got your good day and your bad day. And you know, one day, it’s amazing. And the next day, you have a shoe thrown right into your face, right? And everyone that runs a business, has shoes come in at their face all the time. I think for us, sustainability, stability, and impact. So on average, we hire about 120 people, for companies across the United States per year. That’s one of my metrics, I’d like to see that number of double growth is that that number keeps growing. And what it takes to do that, of course, is that we add more people, we add more clients, we add more resources, and we create a sustainable system so that we can keep adding business impact.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah. Excellent. Now, I know there’s folks that are listening. And they’re like, yes, we’ve tried to recruit a thing. It’s not worked, or I’ve heard the recruiter thing doesn’t work. And we never wanted to try it. But this idea of having a partner that will come alongside us and can actually help us find the people that we that we actually need, not just the ones that we think we need.
Katie McConnell Olson
And that doesn’t charge you a PS fee for you know, the more they paid up, like incentivizes all the wrong things. I could go on all day about that. But I’m really, really not for the contingent approach, because it’s just not pro business. So if you have had a bad experience with a contingent recruiter, I get it. I’ve had a bad experience with one too, when I was on the candidate side, it just doesn’t make any sense. So definitely, if you want things other people’s don’t have, you have to be willing to do things other people won’t do, which is try a different model. Right?
Scott Ritzheimer
And how can folks find more out about you and your work?
Katie McConnell Olson
Well, hopefully I’m very accessible, because we are recruiters. So we’re a little bit you know, out in the market. growthwisesearch.com is our website. I’m very on LinkedIn. I’m always posting soapbox moments such as these where I can get on a rant and talk about you know, how we can disrupt the industry one hire at a time, so you can find me Katie McConnell Olsen CPA PHR or through Growth Wise Search Partners on LinkedIn.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic, fantastic. Well, Katie, it was an absolute pleasure having you here. Thank you so much for coming on the show. And for everyone listening you know, your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care
Contact Katie McConnell Olson
Katie is the Founder and CEO of GrowthWise Search Partners. She is a connector, innovator and curiosity ambassador. Her practice brings transformations and solutions that help businesses accelerate financial and human capital growth. Katie has experience in serving clients of all sizes and industries in consulting roles and on internal teams within organizations. Her focus is in the middle market for companies with revenues ranging from $10M – $500M with a focus in construction, professional service, not-for-profit and agricultural companies.
Want to learn more about Katie McConnell Olson’s work at GrowthWise Search Partners? Check out her website at https://growthwisesearch.com
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