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under LED where we sit down with the sharpest minds
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today we have a very special guest
Jaidin McCann who's a CEO of Jasper Consultancy
and also one of the most recognized leaders
in the executive search and human capital space
Jaidin's mission is simple but powerful
build organizations where leadership thrives
culture drives performance
and people love showing up to work
Jaidin welcome to the show
thank you so much for having me
I'm excited to be here
love it well
Jaden would love to open up with
you know hearing about your founder story and journey
take us through you know
some of the highlights some of the meanderings
that LED you to where you are today
yeah I mean
I had the really unique opportunity to be an HR
executive and and start an HR
department
and staff an entire hotel from scratch in college
so it's a really
amazing opportunity to take my textbook knowledge
and transfer it into real world application
and from there
I fell in love with staffing and was like
where can I go where there's
where I can just do this
and just recruit people and hire people
turns out there's a whole industry for that and
and so I went and you know
cut my teeth in technical recruiting
and grew my way up from there
um but once you're in the room really driving strategy
as I was uh
for that hotel out of college
I really miss being in the room
and I loved the strategy piece
so I went and started Jasper Consultancy
originally
to build talent acquisition and HR teams from scratch
I got this project offered to me
because of my background doing that for the hotel
and they were my first client
I actually just reconnected
with them last night at an event
as well so super cool
they're still a client of mine today and
and with that I then went and built a few other
recruiting firms for other
people and then after acquisitions and you know
moving around in six companies now
for myself or other people
um Jasper being one of them
and I rebranded Jasper as an executive
search firm just the way my career went
overseeing executive search teams
and building executive search companies
and it has been a fun ride ever since
wow
yeah that's quite the journey
um
something you said that stood out from our conversation
is you say that most companies focus on filling a role
instead of changing the trajectory of a business
of their business
and so I'd like for you to speak a bit about
you know what do founders
CEOs
leaders perhaps misunderstand about hiring being this
you know transformational experience
that can change the trajectory
of a company
oh my god
gosh absolutely
I could dive into this
for the remainder of our time alone
um with that
what I'll say is you know
the point of talent acquisition
you want high performers right
you want people to come in who are better smarter
than you are
and really gets yourself up and out of the business
as you grow companies
and you want top talent and high performers
and you use you know
engagement and retention and incentivization right
all to get more out of your employees
and make them more productive
but talent acquisition
plays a huge role in attracting that top talent
and especially in executive search
those are your leaders of your organizations right
they are leading the culture that you strategically
should have strategically set out to build
um they are transforming your teams
and your ability to perform and produce
and so with leaders they also drive retention
but they drive turnover
and it's turnover of your top performers
and your top employees
because they're the ones who can leave and will leave
they have confidence
in their ability to find jobs elsewhere
and so with that
who you hire as a leader of your organization
no matter what the vertical is so imperative
and executive search firms
outside firms but also
internal employees something we commonly see is
they bring on people who don't have
have and recruiters
I should say
who don't have experience in leadership searches
and I get a lot of companies that come to me
really frustrated with either their internal teams
maybe it's their agency that they've hired
that did their lower level searches
maybe software engineers whatever
might be and they say hey
you're already recruiting for this
can you place RVP of sales or RVP of engineering or CTO
whatever it might be um
and then they get really frustrated and they come to me
and what I will say is
it's just because they haven't had the training
and something I like to say is
would you trust a nurse to give you heart surgery right
nurses are imperative they're needed
they have their purpose
they're very skilled in what they do
and some might say well
they're both medical professionals right
we're we're all recruiters
but you have to be very trained and specialized
in your space and so where the frustration comes is
they're doing a lot of resume to job description
matching as you would with lower level searches
and relying on the company to
for culture but in executive search
we should be screening for leadership style fit
vision alignment culture fit right
there's so much that goes into it
outside of resume to job description matching
and you're gonna be really frustrated and disappointed
if you're hiring for just a resume match um
and then furthermore
a lot of CEOs and executives hire for who they need
today they're like
this is exactly who I need right now
and my advice to them would be
it's yes about who you need right now
but it's also who do you need in five years from now
and who has actually LED from where you are now
to where you want to go who's grown teams and
and who's gotten a company there before
because that's who you need
and it's not just about right now
but it's strategically forward thinking right
we need leaders who will get you to where you wanna be
five years from now
yeah I
I love that
and it sounds of course essential in practice and um
at the same time
there are realities of sometimes needing to fill a seat
and some urgency
if there's a backfill or whatever might be
but I love this idea of
you wanna have a spouse specialist in the role
like bring in someone with that experience
for a mission critical role
I even think of an existing company
you know off it's
it's almost like treating HR
and people with the operation
national and financial rigor that you might
your balance sheet right
um like a CFO might do for a balance sheet and again
you wouldn't bring a an analyst
or even a mid level
finance person to do the job of a CFO and um
and so in that vein how should someone
how should a CEO think about measurement
and quantifying the impact of their people
so that they can bring some more of this
operational and financial rigor to the people
side of things
oh that's a good question and you know
with HR reports usually to many different people
we've now started seeing CHROs have seats at the table
but before we reported into CFO's
and that's still common
I've actually seen a lot of people change
CHROs to CLOs who see both and legal officers
so it's yeah it's a weird space
but one thing we've had to do
and been trained really well to do is
this is my boss behind me
hahaha
um is to really dive in and put it into financial terms
right we now have data
we can now do financial modeling around
what's the impact of turnover
the cost of turnover right
the impact of retention of high performers
and so I would say
putting it into a financial
accounting and financial conversations
helps us to drive those conversations with CFO's
and with leaders to say hey
we may not see a you know
very data specific direct impact
but we can say hey
this will increase performance
and this performance will increase revenue and output
and then
it'll also decrease cost by increasing retention
and reducing turnover
and we can grab those rough numbers per industry now
thank goodness we have AI modeling as well
we can do that so much easier
but with that
you can now have that data and grab those numbers
to say it
we can't say I will 6 x performance from your team
right but we can say this will increase performance
it's been proven it's in the data
and it'll on average
drive an increase in revenue of X amount
and so I think having those financial
having the financial acumen
as a recruiter is imperative
and as an HR leader is imperative
so you can have those conversations and really
really drive impact for your organization
but for your people as an advocate
um the United States is one of the only country
that list people on the balance sheet as a liability
instead of an asset and I'd say it shows
wow that's really interesting
whereas countries other countries do it as
as an asset and not a liability
the people side of things
yeah and I think
I mean it's just the way America is wired
and that's okay but it just means we have to respond
and have conversations a little bit differently
to push the needle forward
to really invest in our people
hmm you have these really good analogies
like the heart surgeon versus the nurse
the the
you know people being liabilities instead of assets
this is the stuff that really
it's like makes people think right
cause again
a lot of these CEOs are not in the day to day of
of HR and people and often times
it has this reputation of being like
fuzzy and hard to measure
and maybe they're more focused on product or operations
or whatever it might be and so this really
the way you're framing things is a real pattern
interrupt really interesting
okay so now people are bought in
executives
now have the business case on the importance of
you know finding that
transformation leader
talk a bit about your secret sauce
like what's your methodology um
to actually
identifying
and placing the right person in the right environment
and what are some of the signals that you look out for
that other agencies
recruiting firms might miss
great question
and I think a big part of that really goes back to
not being a resume to job description matching agency
we really do we take a huge
long intake to make sure we get it right
from the beginning
we get all of the stakeholders in there
so we can get misalignments
and flag those from the beginning
as well um
I would say we really did
I mean we care about people
and I behind every CEO
is someone who either founded a company
and has worked their butt off as a founder
to make their company successful
and it's it's a big deal trusting someone to
you know get you out of the business
but to do it better than you could right
and it's setting up a
a recruiting process for trust so that you can
you trust and can give that autonomy
and that delegation to your new CFO CTO
Chief People Officer whoever it might be
um but also
behind every large organization
is an executive who clawed their way to the nail
as just as hard to get there
and so when you see the person behind the
the company hiring right
it's not transactional it is very personal
and I we're really relational
and when you get to know the team
you can know okay
what kind of leadership style is going to get the team
where it is today to where it needs to be
you talk about the vision of the company right
where do they need to go both strategically
and then that leadership style plays into that as well
um and the culture fit right
it's hugely important
and there's a good balance between hiring your friend
that's a great culture fit
that maybe isn't a skills fit
I've seen a lot of founders do that as well
um and then also
hiring someone who's a super strong skills fit
but not a culture fit
because that also doesn't work out
and so when you're trained in those areas
and you have that skill set
it makes a huge difference
on who's gonna be the future
leader of your organization
but you have to take the time
to truly get to know the company
and a lot of agencies and even internal recruiters
it's very transactional right
give me a job description
give me an intake
tell me a little bit about what you're looking for okay
we'll go out we'll find that person
and then it's up to you to screen for that um
we let's take that off your plate too
and let's screen let's really get to know you
and let's screen for that as well so that way we
you have all these candidates on your plate
um I actually just filled a CTO role yesterday
but the CEO just said she's like
I have three people I wanna give an offer to
and I don't know who to pick
like that's a great problem to have
wow
but you know that when you send those candidates over
you've already done all of that screening for them
and so now
it really is up to them on
who's gonna be the best person
that they're the most excited about um
but you've done all that hard work up front
okay yeah
you mentioned a really interesting hiring dynamic right
given current like
industry shifts and just like
market realities that exist
where it sounds like it is a
a hiring manager's market instead of say
the candidate's market
where there are many more people
um who are looking for opportunities and
so with that in mind
with so many more people applying for roles
the hiring manager's job
being harder'cause so many more resumes
to review people to meet talent
the talent bar being so high in your case
like this person wanting to hire all three people
how do you advise this executive
this hiring manager on how to make those
that final decision
is there any guidance you provide them that um yeah
you might want to share
yeah I would say it depends on the hiring manager
we do score cards the whole way through
for those who are very logical driven numerical right
if you numbers are a great tiebreaker
this person happened to score
you know
five points more or even point five points more
so we do keep score cards for those that are that way
other managers are really intuitive and they're like
hey I like this person the best
but this is the person I need or maybe hey
they're all equal to me I like this person the best
that's who we're gonna go with
at the end of the day it is the CEO's decision and all
or the hiring manager's decision
but all I can do is advise and try and set up
as many parameters as I can for their success
so we do numerically score them
but a lot of times if you're an intuitive person
the score doesn't really matter
they're all qualified you like them all it's
it's gonna be your personal preference
especially when it comes to founders right
is this a person that you want
and excited to see more than your partner
cause that happens a lot
is this a person you can grab a beer with
or a non alcoholic cocktail
if that's you and your culture
but um
it really it really depends
it's really personal and I think like I said
I mean transactional agencies sure
you know let make a decision
but I really like to be a partner and an advisor
and say at the end of the day
it's your call and I like to we'll go back to analogies
I do this for candidates but also for hiring managers
we're bungee jumping
and we're sitting on the edge of a cliff
and it's terrifying'cause what if it's
what if you make the wrong decision
and all I can do is hold your hand and jump with you
but you have to choose to jump
yeah oh
I like that I like that question of
you know
would you wanna spend I know like the airport question
you know like 5 hours with this person stuck for like
a delayed flight
but do you like this person as much as your partner
right like
in terms of like spending time with them
and just like ease of conversation
but also like respect and admiration
for what they can do for your business
so that's such a great
question and shorthand to think about like
how do you feel about this person
so that's really cool um
okay so I'm gonna ask you
this next question is an opportunity to provide like
a spicy take um
like a real kind of like educational sound bite
so feel free to have some fun with it
it's gonna be around like
some of the numbers and
like
an industry contrast with some of the bigger players
okay so I'll frame it for you which is you know
you mentioned that Jasper has 100% placement rate
which is sounds incredible
while some of the larger firms average
you know 30 40% failure rates
why are some of these larger firms
you know failing so often
and how are you able to succeed where they don't
great question yes
and you can type this in to Google
and it'll actually pop this up for you
it's such a well known statistic in our industry
that other people don't know about um
but the big 4 retained executive search firms
while they are the largest uh
they do fail 40% of the time on average
and you actually pay out in three payments
one is the retainer right
initial
you want skin in the game and commitment on both sides
when you accept candidates into the interview process
and then 3 upon completion of the search or sometimes
sometimes it's final interviews
so you might not actually even accept to and give
an offer to any of them
but you've already paid out 100%
usually though
you're paying out at least 66% for a 40% failure rate
which to me when I started Jasper
I saw and I was like wow
that's great business for them
but absolutely unacceptable
if I'm putting myself in the shoes of a hiring manager
and being people focused
I really want what's best for them and their companies
right I mean
that's your runway you don't want to waste money
nobody does and so with that
I specifically structure Jasper around a contained
it's a mix of contingent and retained models
um and what that is
is we do still want that retainer right
we want skin in the game exclusivity
we are gonna personalize a recruiter
who's the best fit to recruit for your role
and put them in there working on your position right
so they need to get paid unfortunately
they can't feed their families uh
without that um
and so we do want that retainer and skin in the game
but then we don't take another
fee until you have a signed offer letter
and then we have a 90 day backfill guarantee
so we'll backfill it for free
if that person doesn't stay for 90 days
because we do want to place for retention
not just that transactional
so with that I would say and to answer your question
our models are different
which allows my recruiters to be really focused
on placement uh
they need that placement to get their bonus
to get their commission and to get paid
they also need them to stay
unless they want to do free work with no bonus
or commission which they're gonna have to do um
so they're really focused
and it's incentivizing them to do that um
on the flip side in the bigger agency model
and I've I've lived this in the agency side
where we have a quote
and it's called move closest to the money
when you have to prioritize your time
you have a ton of roles all at once right um
if you personally had six different roles
you're working at the same time
and you get paid commission
and this company has already paid 66% and said hey
we actually decided to switch strategy
or we don't really like any of these candidates
we want to start over
anything where you don't fill it on the first try
and you have to start this again
if you're prioritizing your time
would you rather start this new search from scratch
who hasn't paid anything or start this search over
where you just have a third left
and you've already been paid up right
so when you think the incentivization structure yes
it's great for business right
you're getting a ton of money even if you drop this
but from incentivizing your employees
and where they're gonna prioritize their time
it's not as efficient and so that's really what I
and maybe it's my HR background
but that's really where I'm coming from
is how do I incentivize my employees to perform
the hundred percent placement
you see some boutique firms with a 98% placement rating
right
when you're really small and you have very few clients
it's really easy to focus
on those clients and get those placements yeah
the hundred percent placement rating is really
I mean caring about your people right
caring about the company we're very
very people focused
and we don't stop until we find this person
we do actually
uh set records right
we just filled one in 35 days
average is 45 days right
so we do outperform the market
market rates um
yeah but with that
if for some reason you switch strategy right
we're not gonna say okay
charge us a new retainer
because it's now a director instead of a VP right
we're just gonna
we're gonna restart the search and work with you on it
because we're human and yeah
we should approach each other as human
and so with that I think
there's just a big difference in the way we view
business hmm yeah okay
yeah it sounds like you are
you and your team are really in the trenches
until the job gets done and you're not stopping haha
until you've got the right person in the right seat
for this company
no matter how long it takes and how many iterations it
might take and yeah
as a founder um
that just very comforting right to
to have someone else with that founder mindset of like
do whatever it takes um
to get that goal like kind of in the trenches with you
so that's um yeah
that's I think that's a real point of differentiation
um is there a
a story you might share
where things took longer than you were expecting
or you were on a job for like 6 months
or whatever it might have been
just to get the right person in the role
oh my gosh
the longest one I think I've ever had was 9 months
uh so that's honestly not terribly long
yeah for executive searches
uh especially in bigger organizations
but it was actually for a seed going on Series
a startup
and the reason that it took so long is because and
and I Learned this the hard way
initially during the search
it was a VP of engineering and they
you know the hiring manager loved a ton of candidates
and the CEO kept saying no to all of them
and so eventually we're like okay
let's all get back together
there's clearly misalignment
the CEO was not in the intake
so now Jasper has a policy where we really
really want as best as we can
all of the interviewers in that intake call
so we can get misalignment down
from the beginning I advise this to every startup firm
whether you're executive search or not um
a lot of times in those take calls
a hiring manager will say oh
we're looking for someone that does this and the
you know CEO or somebody else might say wait
what no I thought we were looking for this
let's get that behind closed walls together
figure that out
and that way we don't waste hiring manager time
my time candidate's time
because rejecting them out does affect your employer
brand right
and how they feel about your brand
um yeah
with that one learning experience there
they there was misalignment between the two
and then they kept changing the role like oh
it's a VP now actually
we want it to be a director actually
I think we only need a manager no
just kidding we want it to be our CTO
so with each time a CTO search is very different
than a director or manager of engineering search um
and so you have to restart the search over again
and so that one took nine months
and it was infuriating OK
that's OK yeah
you know we did it in the end um
and then the same search
actually the CEO was dead set on giving the offer
which is great if if the CEO should give the offer um
but he was a really amazing engineer
who built an awesome product
who didn't really understand
the people side of the business
as much and he gave five offers
and they all declined and I kept offering like hey
do you want me to give the offer
do you want training or advice on how to give the offer
he's like no
no no
finally his board stepped in and said hey
you're not allowed to give the offer anymore
Jaidin's gonna go ahead and give the offer
and with that we placed the next person
it was phenomenal and then
we actually ended up placing six more people with them
building out their leaders
and so within was it three weeks
they wanted more of these leaders
but just in different capacities and like
we're also gonna have this person and this person um
so it was a really great success story in the end
but that one that one took forever
wow what a story yeah
it sounds like you
you were like a strategic advisor
not only did you facilitate the search
and bringing the candidates in
perhaps the interview process
but a lot of like coaching
and then also the most critical stage
which is like the offer presentation
um yeah
like
was there just a level of like e Q communication and um
you know this
this part sort of part of the conversation
we can decide whether we want to keep it or not um
but uh yeah
was it like just like
you being able to handle things in like
a more calibrated way that sealed the deal
yeah I think a lot of times I mean
hiring managers are amazing at what they do right
whether you're in marketing or HR or finance
or engineering right
whatever it might be hiring managers are really
really good in their skill set
and there's a reason that us recruiters
are subject matter experts in what we do right
and that's that's why you bring us on
that's why you hire us is
cause it's not your subject matter expertise
so I think that sometimes
hiring managers get in their own way
and one thing that I say commonly
that I've Learned to say nicely
um that originated as
why are you paying me money
if you're not gonna listen to anything I say
has turned into now hey
you're an amazing subject matter expert in your field
and what you do there's a reason that I'm here
and I'm a subject matter expert in what I do
I'm happy to coach and train so that you can
you don't need me every time
and you can be better in this area
and and you don't need me there for scalability
sustainability but I'm here for you if you need me
and then I offer advice
I really do and I ask questions usually that probe
for example
I just was working with this first time founder
and I said hey
what does your interview process look like
and she's like I don't know what should it look like
and I'm like okay great let's set that up together
and then I said what are you great
this is who's hiring what are you each measuring for
so it's not just a hey
tell me about yourself in your background
in your resume great
what do you think about this
and it's the same conversation you have
like
three or four times throughout the interview process
um and she's like
oh we're supposed to be measuring for stuff
I was like yeah
let's break that down right
and so then we we create scorecards off of it
and it's a lot of advertisement
but honestly I think it's worth it
because it not only makes them higher
better that time
but it gives them the tools in their toolbox
and their knowledge to where
even if I'm not there
they're now a better hiring manager
and are able to better hire
for the rest of their careers
yeah yeah
are there um yeah
I'm reminded of when I was doing some hiring when I was
you know working at a fast growing tech company
we adopted and I just discovered
cause we did not have a process
but I found like Amazon's hiring methodology
I forget what it's called
like the acronym star or something
um but there's basically a set of yeah
if you wanna speak to that or like
is there a
a framework that you might advise or give a company
that's a part of your own proprietary method
um or are there resources you kind of point them to
yeah I mean
the star method or the par method
essentially they're the same thing right
that's just how you respond to interview questions with
like situation and then the action I took
and then the result that he had um
so that's more of like an interviewing tip
but on the candidate side um
what I really like to do is I
I like to have one person measuring for vision
alignment and like culture fit right
and so breaking it down always yes
is skills assessment right
we want to have someone who is a subject matter expert
have that conversation
especially at the executive level um
we're really good at
at bullshitting our way through interviews right
yeah yeah
I mean people are and
you know when you know enough in your field
let's say the CEO was a software engineer
but you're the marketing executive
you know way more about marketing than that person
you may or may not be a fit for that role
but they're gonna think oh wow
they're so smart they know so much about marketing
right um
it's kind of how we feel about
a lot of technical recruiters
who don't really know the technical language
the language and the lingo
but they're hiring for tech roles
a lot of software engineers can slip through the cracks
but that's why we have hacker ranks
and code assessments right that
that candidates go through to test their ability
so I always like to say hey
who's measuring for their skill set
that is a subject matter expert in that space
even if it's that doesn't work for your company
your startup right
who's another CMO that you know
that is willing to give their time
a technical advisor right
who is that person and then culture style
leadership fit alignment
I think that should absolutely be the CEO
um is this person a great leader for the company
are they gonna lead the teams
with the culture that you strategically set out to have
and what is their vision for this team in the company
does it align with the CEO or CTO
or whoever it might be's vision for that team
in that company there's just certain things
I do have frameworks I have things of that nature
happy to share with anyone who's curious as well
um but I do think that's also what makes it successful
is you're measuring for the right things
rather than
going through the same questions and interview
like four times to get the job
and it's based off of intuition
and how well they told you about their background
yeah okay
um so
before we move on to some of these industry
shifts that are happening
especially with technology and AI
um maybe a bit of a
like a rapid fire question
um so
you know what are some
maybe two green flags or one
or two red flags for executive search candidates
um that may be
you know non obvious right around like
look for these things
I know something that comes to mind is
if someone can bring in if an executive
can bring in a bench of people
that they've worked with in the past
that's always good like higher one to then higher 10
um but yeah
from your experience what are one or two green flags
and maybe one or two red flags
that a CEO and a hiring manager
should keep in mind when bringing someone in
that might be an X factor
for getting that kind of leverage
you need out of an executive hire
great questions and yes
the team is absolutely one of them
if they have employees
that have worked for them in the past
that they're willing to leave their current roles
to come follow them again
that's a sign of not just a skilled person
but a really good leader right
somebody that people want to follow and get behind
absolutely
other things I really look for
there's a key question I really like to ask
and I'll just give my secret sauce away to everybody
but um
one thing I really like to ask is
what
accomplishment in your career are you most proud of
and to me that tells me how you're aligned
and what you're more likely to do again
so if you're looking for a CRO to come in
and scale revenue
uh then them saying hey
well I grew revenue to X to y in two years
you're like great
they're aligned for that if they say
oh well
I built a team from you know
two employees to 200 employees
that's amazing but are you looking
for this person to be building a team
cause that's something they're gonna be excited about
and wanna do again
and if you're right now trying to grow revenue
cause you have no you know
revenue coming in and you're not
you're not in a scaling mode right now
that's not gonna be the leader
that you probably want in there
um yeah
there's always further conversations on that
but that's a really good way to see
is this person a fit and really aligned
and excited to do what we want and need them to do
there's a lot of CRO's
CTO's that can come in and do the work
but in terms of retention
in terms of culture fit
and the way they bleed their excitement into the team
and lead that team you want them to come in excited
to come to work every day
excited for the projects they're working on
the team that they're working with
and if they are working on something
that they were most recently
or most proud of most excited for in their career
you're gonna see that show up
so that's something that I always look for with like
a key quick question
I like that it's um
it speaks to the work that they're more proud of
and also the magnitude
of the most significant accomplishment too right
so if you are again fast growing
highly ambitious deep tech company
and someone's greatest accomplishment
didn't really speak to the level of impact
that you'd like to see then that also shows you um
is a good signal as well so yeah
I like that question let's talk
let's shift gears a bit and talk about AI
what I'd be curious to hear about is
on the hiring side of things
you know what
how are you using AI as you in your own firm
as you interface with the companies that you work with
to bring more perhaps
like depth of research you're able to do with AI
doing the heavy lifting
and maybe like candidate analysis
and really how is AI
showing up
as you interface with the clients that you work with
good question I've seen this
I can talk to my own firm
and then I can also talk to the industry
um but in my own firm
AI is wonderful and it is a tool
we should all be leveraging
to make ourselves more efficient and productive
and I absolutely preach that to my teams
I do that myself um
I actually was able to you know
change out my marketing team and save so much in cost
because of the rise of AI
and you always want to double check the work
make sure it's in your voice
you train it in your voice
it's aligned to what you actually think
and train it in your past material
but you're able to do I mean
6 months worth of posting in a couple of hours
and just set it to automate right
it's so handy with that though
I really do believe that AI
is a tool to make us more productive
it is not to replace certain roles
and I think recruiting especially executive search
with soft skills being so vital and important
is one of those sales is another one
I actually met a woman that she owns a recruiting firm
and the entire firm is AI sales and AI recruiting
and AI bots go out and do all of it
and it can call it scale
like 2,000 people on the sales call right
it just and it's a numbers game for sure
but she's seeing great success and well
I think in the short term that's phenomenal
I think in the long term
what's actually gonna win and play out is
the human connection piece
in a world of AI and if I come to you um
I'll use an example from a client
but one of my clients they say hey
you have a
a 40,000 dollar sign on bonus you're able to give out
and normally I would use it as leverage and I'd say hey
if you sign in the next 24 hours
I'll also throw in a 40K sign on bonus right
I can give it to you either way
I'm gonna give it to you either way
but don't tell um
but with that if I know you
and I know that you're getting married this year
and I come to you and say hey
I wanna give you a 40K sign on to pay for your wedding
you now psychologically are like
oh my gosh this company doesn't just care about me
but like me personally outside of work right
and they're willing to do that for me
and it's a better connection
you've now made with a real human
who knows you who knows how to incentivize
versus an AI that just sends you an offer and says hey
you know your offer is blank with the 40K sign on
LA LA LA um
you're way more willing to accept the offer
of this company
because you feel more belonging in this company
that psychological safety
is necessary within that company um
so yeah all to say
like the rise of AI is awesome
I'm super excited about it
um I don't think it should replace recruiters or sales
I think it should be leveraged to make us better
we do you know
AI can help us find candidates that resume
a job description piece matching piece
wonderful right
wonderful now we can spend our time still interviewing
getting to know the cultural piece right
all of that the leadership style piece
but it saves so much time and energy on the resume
and the job description matching piece right yeah
so I think it really it really depends
there's right now
AI video replacing the recruiter phone screen
which I think can be really beneficial
for certain high volume jobs potentially
uh for me
what I like to use it for is pre screening
and I have people record videos on
for some clients saying hey
this is who I am this is my background
and just you know
just like on a recruiter phone screen
you would talk through that
now I can go through and view that
but it actually gives me a sense of who they are
they're you know
and just given what we do for a living right
you get to know them a little bit better to say
is this person gonna be more of a personal fit
for who we're hiring for
and it allows me to not waste as much as my time
getting to know that already on a bunch of phone calls
but I can do it at scale
by just reviewing a bunch of videos
and then deciding who I'm still going to call
should not replace it and yeah
but it can allow me to make those decisions
and use my time more effectively
yeah I love that
I love the idea of again
since every single role is getting so much more inbound
given the current market dynamics
that top of funnel
might be handled intelligently with AI screening
and keyword matching and all these sort of things
but then once we get the key people further down
this is where you and your relationship
and your pattern recognition truly shines
um because you've seen it many times before
you are a high EQ person
and I love the example you gave around okay
you know
someone is gonna make they're ready to make a decision
perhaps you've got this 40K signing bonus
it's being strategic around like when you present it
and in your case just knowing that
you know they got a wedding coming up
and they just feel seen and like
heard based on conversations you've had for them and
you know
the right time to perhaps bring that incentive in
for the highest chance of success
for the CEO and the hiring manager
that is such an intangible that of course
like AI would not be able to do and that's so valuable
that's the difference between like
landing the candidate and not landing them
because they might go to another opportunity
so I I
that's a really good example
I like that yeah
there's even cheaper ways to do it right
without 40K sign ons but one time
we sent a baby onesie with the company logo
because they were having a baby
uh and so it was just a simple little way to say hey
we really care about you um
you know
and start kids off young by wrapping your brand
I love it
great well
Jaidin as we start to
to wrap things up here you know
what is a a key message
that you want to get out to our audience of founders
CEOs executives that are actively hiring
you know if you could put your message on
on a billboard for people to read
what might that message be
oh my gosh um
I would say
whether it's me or another executive search firm
uh find a firm that really cares about you
and the success of your company
and that isn't transactional uh
really get to know the firm
whether you have any now or not
it can also be proactive but
but really developing that relationship
so that when they go in and do a search
they know you
they know where you're going and where that vision is
they're aligned to you and just make those connections
with executive recruiters and executive search firms
you specialists who specialize in leadership search
I promise you it will save you money and headache haha
um yeah
but yeah I would say really
really build relationships with executive search firms
and executive recruiters ask them questions right
you don't have to have a search
actively going to get free advice
and we are an asset to you or we should be
that's great and what's the best place for people
to find you to learn more
yeah
you can find me on LinkedIn looking up Jaidin McCann
you can also go to our website
Jasper consultancy.com fill out the contact form
and we will absolutely be in touch
we will be on honored
and excited
to help you find the next leader of your organization
that really helps transform you
and builds you to the next level
perfect I think that's a great place to wrap Jaidin
thank you so much for your insights
and our conversation
beautiful thank you
oh my gosh I'm like so nervous
I'm like shaking over here
that was great