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A podcast about fascinating professionals, how they got to where they are and where they’re going from the lens HR, Recruitment and People Operations hosted by Martin Hauck.
Martin Hauck (01:36)
All right, we're back to another episode of From a People Perspective and I'm your host, Martin Hawk. And today we've got Joel. Joel, welcome to the show, man. Thanks for doing this.
Joel Lalgee (01:46)
Yeah,
great to be here. I'm really excited to have the conversation today and talk everything people in the future work.
Martin Hauck (01:56)
Joel is the realest recruiter. What does that mean? Why are recruiters not real, man?
Joel Lalgee (02:04)
Oh man, I love that. Um, yeah, let's not confuse it with the real estate recruiter, which all the targeted ads seem to add in there, but yeah, really where, where this came from, I actually like back in the day on Twitter, I was the human headhunter. And really the theme between the two is I just want to be a voice that is real. That's authentic. And
Martin Hauck (02:13)
no.
Joel Lalgee (02:27)
from both the candidate side and then also just from the recruiting side, having just a voice that is telling people authentically what's going on and just being real. I'm in the luxury, I have a luxury of not having to work with, know, not having bosses and not having the ability to get fired. And so I can say whatever I want. so whether it's talking.
Martin Hauck (02:49)
Yeah, yeah.
Joel Lalgee (02:53)
real about hiring managers and how they're dropping the ball in the process and not letting recruiters take all the blame. Or whether it's just calling people out, career coaches, resume writers, people are just putting information out there into the ecosystem that's not true. I wanted to be that real voice. And so I, when I joined Tik Tok, I had a lot of different names and one day I was like, I want to be, I just want to be real. And so thought I'll be the realest recruiter, which I realized isn't really even a word. ⁓ but.
Martin Hauck (03:20)
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (03:23)
It evolved and it stuck and then my wife was actually the one that suggested why don't you what do you just run with this? Why don't you just be the realest recruiter? So that's the heart of it. Hopefully people who know me offline Can testify to the fact that anything I put online all the videos I'm the same guy and that's always been the goal just being real authentic genuine And just given that real voice for recruiters as well
Martin Hauck (03:41)
Yeah.
Well, that's, that's awesome. And just for context for, for folks, cause my community is more on the HR side. We've got like about 30 % of the community, 30, 40 % of them are recruiters, mostly in-house. ⁓ but just for context on like you've got, are you up to 200 million views across all your videos? Like what's, what's the stat bank for you?
Joel Lalgee (03:56)
Yeah.
I mean, I probably say like average, we can a month, for example, probably about 20 million views a month on all channels. like Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, LinkedIn. ⁓ so yeah, if you add it up, it's probably, it's crossing into the billions at this point, which is, mean, that's unreal a lot of times, but that's what happens, you know, over time when you're just consistent with stuff on social media.
Martin Hauck (04:37)
Yeah, no, that's, I want to hear about the journey and we'll dive into it, but I gotta bust out the usual icebreaker questions, not that we need them, but like, all right, first and foremost, it's your midnight snack, what are you going to?
Joel Lalgee (04:39)
Crazy.
Yeah.
Ooh, I like that. Midnight snack. I'm definitely more of like a savory person, so I'd probably go with like some chips. Like I've really been on these, ⁓ my wife picks up these like ranch jalapeno chips. So that'd probably be my go-to. Sounds crazy, right?
Martin Hauck (05:13)
and chalapeno, dangerous, dangerous, spicy at
night. like top that off with some milk just to be able to go back to bed or something or who knows.
Joel Lalgee (05:21)
Probably
like, yeah, probably something like that. not milk though. Milk with jalapeno. Let me think. Maybe. ⁓
Martin Hauck (05:24)
of water.
Milk
cools it right like when you're spending they drink milk on hot ones, right? I guess they're not crazy spicy. It's just like a nice kick
Joel Lalgee (05:30)
True.
You milk like, and then lying down, I might throw up in the middle of the night. I'm big on like, I really like the sparkling ⁓ water. Like I'm big on those too. then, yeah, so nothing crazy over here.
Martin Hauck (05:38)
Yeah.
Nice, nice.
So I was listening to your podcast episodes and your intro for the latest one, you're up to like 119, 120 episodes so far. You've got like the intro is like hip hop and so that's a good segue into the next icebreaker. So if you had one album to listen to for the rest of time, as you can tell I'm a bit of a music nut, but what's your go-to album or artist?
Joel Lalgee (06:01)
Yeah, yeah.
Mmm.
man, probably Jay-Z, the black album. That's one that I really like. So I just listen to that over and over. I go through phases though. I, cause like I'm an avid gym goer. ⁓ and so I, and I find like when I'm running or when I'm doing like an exercise that's continuous, if I listen to the same album over and over it can like subliminally, I could track how far into the workout. ⁓ and so the black album is the one right now, but, ⁓
Martin Hauck (06:21)
blackout. Nice.
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (06:46)
I tend to like when I'm doing running, it's more of like that hip hop feel or like something that's continuous because it just gives me the energy. ⁓ But I'm in all sorts of music as well. But that's the go-to right now.
Martin Hauck (06:54)
Yeah.
Nice.
That's a go to good answer. Good answer. And first gig first like I got money for this, whether it's a paperboy or whatever. What was your first gig of all time?
Joel Lalgee (07:09)
Yeah. So I had a, so a lot of people don't know that some people do, I guess more people do now, but I'm from the UK originally. So when we moved over here, I couldn't legally work. I had to go through the whole process. So my dad was the only one who had the working visa. So as soon as I got old enough, you know, you're like 15, 16, I want to earn some money. couldn't legally work. I got a job as like one of my friends, dad's had like 20 properties and probably more than that. And then had like jukeboxes and all the bars and.
Martin Hauck (07:15)
Okay.
Mm.
Joel Lalgee (07:39)
⁓ it's kind of like a sketchy business, but he had me as his like handyman. So I would go into these rentals and. It was basically whatever he needed me to do. would do so at times it would like literally be like cleaning the walls, ⁓ cleaning them, taking all the tobacco off the walls. It's bombing them for bugs, ⁓ doing some demo. you know, and then other days he'd have me like restocking the jukeboxes with all.
Martin Hauck (07:41)
You
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (08:07)
only CDs. So that was the first job. ⁓ just cash in hand, you know, totally legal or illegal. ⁓ but you know, I wanted to get that. I wanted to get a car. So I figured the only way I could do it was a cash in hand job with, with a friend. So that was the first job I ever had.
Martin Hauck (08:22)
Nice
nice. What was the car? What was the first car you got with the? that's
Joel Lalgee (08:25)
It was like a Pontiac Grand Prix. ⁓ Remember those? was
like, everyone who was was driving those back when I was in school.
Martin Hauck (08:32)
Yeah, no, that is,
that's a chapter. That's a chapter in the life right there. The Pontiac that, ⁓ man, wild.
Joel Lalgee (08:38)
They don't even make them.
shouldn't have ended that one. Those are good. The sound system in that thing was amazing.
⁓ What about you? What was your first job? I'm curious. should... Has anyone ever asked you that?
Martin Hauck (08:46)
Nice. So.
My first gig
was, yeah, no, mine was, ⁓ as a paper boy. Yeah. Yeah, literally. Yeah. So the, had like, ⁓ I had like probably I had two roots. One was like a shitty newspaper was like the one that comes on the weekend with all the ads. And the other one was like the one that actually had like local news, like man saves cat from tree. No, no, no, no, cause I lived outside of the city about an hour away. So it was just like a smaller, like 200,000.
Joel Lalgee (08:55)
Really?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Martin Hauck (09:19)
person town. And yeah, I but no bike never did the bike like I was like I never understood that too because like paperboy the video game was like I tried once and I just I think I just ate dirt you know what I mean like there's like I'm never trying this again like I couldn't get the balance of like all the papers on one side and then like throwing it like it's just it was crazy I couldn't do it like there's some skill in that yeah yeah
Joel Lalgee (09:24)
Just on the bike then you just like old school like no bike.
Hahaha!
skill yeah all right
let's go I like that
Martin Hauck (09:50)
So yeah, like help me understand how did you, like we're obviously gonna talk about where you're at now, you definitely like where are you driving to with this Grand Am and like, where's your first gig, your first real gig air quotes and how did you get into recruitment?
Joel Lalgee (10:07)
Yeah, so I feel like I definitely have not had a traditional career path by any stretch of the imagination and definitely is still not traditional. I was like I said, I from England originally. So when I was 18, I actually decided not to go to college right away. my dad at that time was like, all right, well, you're not sitting around the house doing nothing. You need to go get a job. I could legally work in the UK. So I ended up moving back to the UK for about two and a half years.
Then came back to the U S graduate school. And while I was in, in college, it was like, wait to 11. And obviously you had the great, ⁓ recession. was like, were watching like the whole, remember sitting in finance class, not finance, he'd be like, this is amazing. What we're seeing, like we're going to read about. I'm like, okay, this is just big banks are failing. This is weird. But then when you get out of school, that market was very similar to the job market today. Like really tough. Like if you didn't know anybody didn't have connections, you just not landing a job.
so I eventually ended up taking a job at a, ⁓ at a bank, doing like retail banking. So it was very much, ⁓ consumer loans, mortgages ended up like being a bank manager. lot of hours in that job and quite frankly, just a terrible environment to be in because you're dealing with a lot of people who have lost their homes and they're looking to like refinance and like restructure their loans. and, but as I was doing that.
I was also like, just, I just think like, just wasn't that professionally like oriented. So I was very much about partying, having fun on the weekends and the job was just to pay the check. And so I did that for God, six or seven years. And then I had a friend who, ⁓ he had worked at Rammstadt previously and he just, you know, was a recruitment leader at that company and he had spun off and started his own recruitment agency.
Martin Hauck (11:46)
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (12:03)
And he was like, Joel, you got to come be in recruiting. Like you love recruiting. Like you get it with people. ⁓ it's, it'll be, it'd be fun. You know, you get, you'll get, you get to learn. like, I've never done recruiting. I mean, I've done some hiring for the bank, but I wouldn't call it recruiting. It doesn't matter. I'll teach you. I'll train you up and it's remote. And so this is 2015. I was like, that sounds amazing. you had me at remote. So, but he did say that the caveat was at that time I was living in.
Martin Hauck (12:14)
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (12:31)
like the inland empire, like LA area, was like, got to move back to Milwaukee because that's where the company is. Cause you got, want you to get a feel for like the culture of the company, even though it's remote. sure. So that was how I got started in recruitment. Classic got pushed into it. ⁓ and their billing model, wasn't contingency, it wasn't retained. It was actually an RPO model and kind of, kind of an hourly RPO model. So there's a number of companies that have kind of modeled that business. I think it's a lot more popular now.
But it grew out of the fact that budgets were down. He was still trying to help companies. so instead of saying, you know, they were like, Hey, the budget's really bad, right? It's it's we don't have budget for recruiting. He said, well, we'll, we'll see if we just did an hourly solution for you where whatever, know, whatever roles you have, we'll throw a consultant on it and they can just work hourly. So that being said, it was a nice entrance into recruiting because you just have work to work on right away.
Martin Hauck (13:05)
Yeah.
Mm.
Joel Lalgee (13:27)
Got to work with a lot of partners and it was just an embedded solution. So I got to learn really what goes on behind the scenes. And I got that ownership of the positions where I'm not contingent, where I'm trying to fight for hiring managers and try and fight for exclusivity. was like, no, I'm embedded into these companies, got to learn and see how they operated internally. And, uh, I loved it. And like he, he thought rightly, I, you know, I enjoy people. I'm curious.
I like to have fun and I just think it worked out well. And obviously the market at that time, a lot of agencies were able to grow because it was demand for the work. So, ⁓ did that for about five years, the only limitation or the only thing that really made me even leave that company was when you're working as an hourly consultant like that, you just get capped, right? Cause it's all about utilization. And so if you want to make more money,
You got to work more hours, but even that gets capped because you can't work a hundred hours. can't work 120 hours. So I did that for about five years and, I just thought, you know what? I'm actually looking at a lot of these contingency recruiters and they seem to be making a lot more money and hate to say it, but they seem to be working less as well. Like they just get at leveraging relationships. Like, and, and I was like, why am I working 70 hours? And I'm just capped at this amount. So, ⁓
Martin Hauck (14:25)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (14:47)
I got out of that, company in 2020, ⁓ which obviously it was just like a crazy year as it was. And I went into full contingency, ⁓ recruitment and, and then, know, that kind of, then that same time period, that's when I started creating content. So I started creating content in 2019. And, well, really once I started creating content, I realized that that was going to impact a lot of what I was going to do, who's going to go on to do in the future. So.
Um, Left that company and then really since then, um, bounced around a few different agencies, uh, running like sales and business development. And then in 2022, really with just like the collapse that we saw in the tech market, which was the major market that we were going after. That's when I really started focusing on, um, what I do now, which is like media, uh, working with, uh, HR tech companies.
working with TA Tech, you want to call it that, working with these brands to get their name out, ⁓ doing speaking and consulting and kind of running media business. And then still doing contract work and still doing, taking on recruitment work, still doing some executive search within there, but kind of just balancing the two and really taking a hold of what I see as an emerging market, which is like the creator economy. You know, we're hearing a lot of people say that.
Martin Hauck (16:12)
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (16:14)
I
think I jumped on the create economy at like the right time. And I've been able to kind of ride that train for the past few years. And so, so that's kind of, kind of where I'm at right now doing media, you know, a lot within the HR tech space. So I'm sure a lot of the HR listeners might've met you at an unleash or a transform or, know, one of these conferences and then still doing the hands-on recruiting as well, which I think is important if you're going to be an influencer in a space.
Martin Hauck (16:40)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (16:42)
You never want to get too far away from the actual work. Otherwise, I think you just become reveler in overtime.
Martin Hauck (16:48)
Yeah, no, it's, it's interesting because, I'm, jealous to a certain extent because I've tried doing the light balancing both like, you know, running the community that I've got as well as doing the hands-on recruitment stuff. And that's my, I've been doing that for 10, 12 years. ⁓ and it's sort of like, I love the professionals, like my favorite, like you kind of fall into it, just like you said. And, ⁓ but in order to like,
do this to a degree like my my situation is a bit different, but it's kind of hard to like have a take and an opinion on things if you're not actually embedded in the day to day. So that's that's kudos to you and exec recruitment is a great way to stay stick in it because you don't need to do as obviously as many roles to sort of like make it make sense and you can pick and choose what you do, which is great. How did what like what inspired your first piece of content? What what got you on the ⁓
what pushed you in that direction.
Joel Lalgee (17:48)
Yeah. Like, you know, obviously as a recruiter, you're spending a lot of time on LinkedIn recruiter. And I think on the downtime, I would spend time on regular LinkedIn, or like the pulse or the newsfeed, whatever you want to call it. And, you know, when your agency recruiter, like, like I said, we had a lot of roles to work on, but we also did, you know, I did take on a, uh, what do call that?
a, like a revenue target or a quota as well. I was still doing sales. So even though I was working for like a non-traditional recruitment agency, I still was doing sales and developing business. And I started to notice like this reoccurring theme on LinkedIn where people were just talking about this idea of content and, if you create content, then you don't have to do as much sales.
Martin Hauck (18:22)
Mm.
Joel Lalgee (18:37)
⁓ and so it was kind of like a combination of like, just hate outbound sales. Like I don't know how to say it. Like I like sales, like I like solving people's problems and hearing what their problems are, but I hate like the outbound cold outreach, like cold calling, cold emailing, like just reaching out to people unexpectedly. I just didn't like that. I've never have liked it. I don't like getting cold, cold. I don't like getting cold pitch. I don't like any of that.
Martin Hauck (18:43)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Joel Lalgee (19:04)
And so this idea, started to kind of come across my newsfeed that if you could create content and build a brand, then people will reach out to you. And in my head, I thought that'd be amazing. It'd be amazing if I didn't have to cold call anybody and people reached out to me. And so that kind of, that was a big, I think a big inspiration for me to start creating content. But then as soon as I started creating content,
Martin Hauck (19:27)
Hmm.
Joel Lalgee (19:32)
I, probably say about two to three weeks into it. I just also realized like, Hey, I really enjoy this. Like I enjoy writing. I enjoy getting creative and it's adding an element to maybe what I'm missing in my job, which. Look, I love recruiting. love talking to people, but there is an admin side to recruiting that I don't love. Like I don't love the monotony of, ⁓ of some of the work. So this just added like an element for me to share my ideas, my thoughts, my strategies, what I was doing.
And as I started to do this, I also noticed other people in my organization, they started doing it too. Cause they're like, well, if Joel's doing this, maybe I'll do it. And I remember one conversation distinctly with a leader at my company and he was like, how do you come up with stuff every day? Like you're just coming up with it. He's like, I did it for three days and I can't think of anything else. And I heard that a number of times and in my head, I thought, okay, this isn't coming naturally for everybody else, but this is coming naturally for me. And I'm very much of that mindset. Like if you're.
Martin Hauck (20:09)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Joel Lalgee (20:31)
If you enjoy doing something and then you're good at it, just double, double, double down, triple down on it. So that was kind of, that was kind of the beginning of it. ⁓ and I will also say too, like at that time period, I wasn't on any social media. Like LinkedIn was all I was on because I had got to a point about three years earlier where I. Watch a Ted talk. And basically the premise of the talk was social media is entertainment and it's a waste of time. And it's been disguised as.
Martin Hauck (20:47)
Right.
Hmm.
Joel Lalgee (20:59)
social networking, it's been disguised as like communication, but it's really entertainment and it's there to drive ads. And when I heard that Ted talk, I was like, I don't want to waste my time with this. So I think sometimes people can think like, especially looking at where it is now, they can look at it and be like, ⁓ like Joel just like loves social media. Like I don't actually love social media in terms of like
Spending a lot of time and wasting wasting time and even on my personal's personal side of things like I only create content I don't actually spend a lot of time scrolling and like doom scrolling and those types of things and so LinkedIn was the only side I was on that was the only place that I created content and it just kind of I guess snowballed from that from that place obviously
Martin Hauck (21:49)
Nice, nice. Was there? ⁓ Well, it's interesting in terms of it being like social media and it's entertainment. And so you have this view of it. What I've seen at least is the content you're putting out. Well, like I've heard edutainment, right? Like the content you're giving, like we were talking before we hit record where
like every day you're doing a session that just gives back to candidates. Like you'll just do like this one to many approach where you're giving advice to folks in a live stream. Like that's huge. Like that's not like doom scrolling. That's like, shit, I want to learn about how to elevate my career. Like that's actually, you're making a positive impact with what you're doing versus like, you could be making just goofy content that doesn't have anything, like, and there's a mixture. Like there's,
I've seen some of your shorts and they're like super entertaining, right? And it's like, there's, you gotta have a mixture. guess like over time, it's probably evolved. You've been doing this for six, seven years now. What, how, what would you say has been like, what stands out to you as you look back from where you are right now? Like what, were you like, okay, like I'm really proud of this or this was really cool. Like an unexpected like result from doing all of this.
Joel Lalgee (23:13)
I think the biggest, the first of all, biggest shift that took place was by 2021 to 2022, which was when I really dove into video. So for a long time, it was a lot of just text-based things. And I actually had the idea that text is better for people because it doesn't demand as much time. Somebody can read a text post in 10 seconds and react with a video. If it's a minute long video, you're asking people for a minute of time. So that's a big investment for people. So that was actually my mindset.
Martin Hauck (23:28)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (23:42)
Um, and it was actually my sister, uh, cause I'd been on Tik TOK in the past. Like I actually experimented with Tik TOK back in 2019, um, through, for, for various reasons. And I'd grown a little bit of a following. Like it was like 13,000 people. was like, oh, okay. Like I, I. But it was all kind of memes and this weird stuff I was doing. So it didn't connect up to work. So after a few years of doing that, I stopped completely and just focused on LinkedIn and grew that following. And then my sister texted me and said, Hey, I just went viral on Tik TOK.
I was like, ⁓ cool. You know, that's awesome. And so I checked out her video and I was like, interesting. And then I got into the feed and I started seeing a lot of career coaches and career advice. I was like, wow, this con this platform has evolved because when I was on it, it was very much like kids and just like, it was just, you know, entertainment. Suddenly there's this evolution of career content and advice. ⁓ and a lot of it wasn't really good advice. And, and so I was like, you know what?
I can kind of leverage my following. have a LinkedIn to add some credibility. I think I could grow a following on the platform. So I did, I started adding video into the mix and I think that was a huge change because video. And for anyone who's looking to build a brand video is so powerful. And like even formats like this to podcasting, like long form video, long form podcasts, video. That was the single biggest change. And then.
Martin Hauck (25:07)
Hmm.
Joel Lalgee (25:10)
to fast forward a few years later in 2023, I started going out to events and I started to see, and this was probably the biggest surprise and like just the biggest bonus in what I've done. Like I think going to events and having people come up to me and say, I'm a huge fan of your content or like, really I've been following you for years. It was just like surreal and not in a way where it's like, ha ha, like, yes, I'm so great.
But just like, all right, cool. Like one, I made an impact. Like what I'm doing does actually matter to people. And there's different levels to that. And I think at HR, like definitely there are some people like, and you'd be surprised at the people who, you know, watch the thing. Cause think people have an idea of, of Tik Tok within itself, but you know, really established professionals being like, Hey, I love your stuff. Like, I love the things you're saying. I can't say this. You're saying it. Thank you.
Martin Hauck (25:40)
You made an impact. Yeah.
No.
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (26:08)
But like when I go to conferences that are really recruitment based, like I just got back from RecFest, which is a great conference for recruiters. TA week is another one that I go to. Some of these recruiter focused events. Those for me are the best because that's where like I can just tell I'm really hitting and resonating with that audience. I think that for me, like encourages me to then to keep on going and keep on creating the content.
Martin Hauck (26:28)
Hmm.
Joel Lalgee (26:38)
Uh, whereas before, you know, for a few years there where it was like during the pandemic and no one's really going out, like you literally can feel like you're just kind of throwing things into like the universe and I don't know what's happening. Um, so that was, that was like the bi- the biggest surprise. And to your point, when you're building a community, cause there's, there's differences, right? Like obviously that I'm, there's a community that I'm kind of building with my content. Um,
Martin Hauck (26:46)
Yeah. Yeah.
Hmm. Yeah,
you've got an audience basically.
Joel Lalgee (27:07)
Yeah, I'm growing an audience, right? And there's a difference between growing an audience and having a community. so I think with what you're doing and building a community, then one community, I think is a lot more work and it's a, it's a lot more time. Um, there's, it is definitely a difference between the two and, I think the similarities, uh, but both are, both are valuable and both there are, are kind of needed as well. So I think community to me, I've tried to build kind of communities before.
⁓ I think there's a ⁓ lot more time intensive. think there's just a lot more work that goes in like events as well. Like just planning events is insane. ⁓ now I get to partake in communities and events, which is great. I'm happy to do that. ⁓ but it's just a difference between the two. So I think I have a little bit more time to be able to do some of the more hands on work as well. Whereas I think when you do a community, people, think underestimate how much work goes into it.
Martin Hauck (27:41)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I'm still catching up.
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (28:05)
and
how much work it takes to really get like an engaged community. Anyone can start up a Slack channel, but to have like an engaged community that shows up, that's, you know, kudos to you, because there's a lot of work that goes into that.
Martin Hauck (28:10)
Yeah.
Thanks man. No, no, it's, it's, it's, mean, it, feels nice. Cause HR people kind of are like really giving and engaging on their own in the first place. But I've, I've seen other HR communities and they're, definitely not, not as many folks helping each other out. So there is something there and it was like, you always kind of like worry, I'm sure like yourself as well with your audience, like, okay, if I put out this post, is it too real? Like, is there such a thing? And like, then you lose them kind of deal, but you're always trying to like evolve and, and
and grow, I guess you've got like a really interesting vantage point from like the recruitment perspective, because what's cool, what you're talking about, like you, talk and engage and create content for sort of like the recruiters, but you also deal and do content for the candidates as well. So like two sort of like distinct sort of profiles. And so you have this, like you talk to so many people and you hear from so many people in all the respective channels that you have.
Like what, from your perspective, like, like your vantage point, like what's in, in like the biggest aspect, you're like the realist. There's no BS with what you're like, what's, what's standing out to you is like, what's going on in the industry right now that people just aren't getting or like there's, and you're like trying to shout it from the rooftops. Like, why aren't people like seeing what I see? Cause you have this like unique perspective.
Joel Lalgee (29:44)
Well, I would say, I think a lot of people are, seeing a lot of the things that I've seen over the past few years, which maybe, maybe they haven't. think a lot more people are becoming aware of this. I think having knowing that so many people who are working in the people function right now are struggling when it comes to finding new roles or jobs. I hear from a lot of talent leaders, a lot of HR executives, a lot of HR leaders, like, Hey, if you find yourself on the job market,
It is, it's, it's tough. and, so I think there's that awareness of a lot of things I've talked about over time are becoming more clear now, now for people. But I think one of the things that has been a challenge for me or something that I saw early on, and this was like going back to when I got in recruiting is fundamentally people have just a wrong idea of what recruitment is. And obviously if you're in HR or talent acquisition, like
Martin Hauck (30:37)
You get it. Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (30:37)
You know this, but most
candidates, they think that the job of a recruiter is to find them a job. Like, so fundamentally, like it's, that's going to create. Mass confusion and frustration towards talent acquisition, recruiting and HR. It's just, it's going to create problems. And so one of the most common comments I get is find me a job. And so I'm constantly having to say, no, recruitment and talent acquisition. The core job isn't to help a candidate.
Martin Hauck (30:42)
Let's go.
Joel Lalgee (31:06)
find a job, it's to help companies connect with the right talent for their openings. Now it might feel like when you work with the recruiter that they're helping you and they can help you if you're fit for the position that they have. And other recruiters will spend time on helping people with resumes. And that's great, but that's not the core role that they're, you know, that's not their core job responsibility. The core job responsibility is to connect companies up with that talent, help the companies fill these open positions.
Martin Hauck (31:20)
Yeah
Joel Lalgee (31:35)
So I think that that's that's just always been a thing and that's always been again why I want to get on lives and just kind of like Help educate people because then I feel like as the recruitment industry it will help us Because people won't just point the finger go. Well, that's the bad guy. That's the gatekeepers like no other thing I see is people don't realize that the hiring managers are the ones ultimately that are producing
Martin Hauck (31:47)
Hmm.
filled with pain.
Joel Lalgee (31:59)
They are. And it's like, I've talked about this a lot where you can have the perfect tech stack. You can have the perfect ATS, CRM. You can have everything in line, but if you don't have that hiring manager that's willing to like listen to you, willing to work with you, willing to be flexible, willing to be part of the process. Good luck. And I don't think it's like the recruiters always the bad guy. They're the bad person when the candidate accepts a counter offer. They're the bad person when the higher manager doesn't give feedback. So I just want to bring that education to the market as a whole.
Martin Hauck (32:28)
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (32:29)
And I think the big trends right now that we're you know, compared to 2021 where companies were really fighting to get applicants for their job, everything is flipped over. now biggest problem teams have is they're smaller and they're just getting bombarded with applications. And, and so it was just created, we've created this like weird numbers game that from a candidate perspective, I get where people say you shouldn't be applying there as many jobs, but it's like, they're forced to.
Martin Hauck (32:40)
Yeah.
haha
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (32:59)
because there's so many people applying. And then the other issue is AI on both sides promises efficiency, it promises time-saving, but when candidates have AI and companies are trying to implement AI, it's just creating a little bit of a mess right now. And so the last event I was at, which I think a lot of people would have seen probably at HR Tech if they went to that,
Wreckfest we saw the same thing where there is a plethora of AI interviewers right now that are trying to solve that problem. They're trying to say, hey, you can't possibly look through all 500 incoming applications. Let's have another data point other than the resume. Let's have a some sort of assessment. Let's have some sort of AI interview, however we do that, it's text-based or audio-based, however you want to play that. And so I think that's the state of where we're at.
Martin Hauck (33:39)
Yeah. Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (33:56)
And then last thing is I'm seeing a lot of is this word uncertainty. Like it's been a word that people have been using a lot since the pandemic, but it's, it's just continued. And as long as we're in this uncertainty and that's the environment, not as much hiring goes on. There's not as much growth mindset. And, ⁓ I just think like, as long as we're in this state of uncertainty,
It just is creating, it's creating a challenging environment for everybody.
Martin Hauck (34:27)
No, no, it's definitely things that we're seeing and hearing on the on the community side as well. ⁓ I guess, from from your perspective, what would you say, like, there's a lot of noise with, you know, candidates and like, all these tools are coming out and kind of reminds me of like the crypto space, like there's Bitcoin and there was Litecoin and then there was one
Joel Lalgee (34:51)
NFTs.
Martin Hauck (34:53)
Yeah, 1000 other different cryptos that all just copy pasted and just like everybody's trying to rush to solve this big problem of like, there's so many applicants coming in. And we just did a conference or summit this week. And, you know, one of the lightning talks we had, Mary did this awesome job of talking about like spotting fake candidates and, and the challenges behind that. And it's just like, this massive
waste. So I'm sure there'll be tech that comes out, but are there any fundamentals that people can sort of bring about as like recruiters, that just like, even though there's all this craziness, like what, what's your advice to those folks that are like, yeah, I'm getting, you know, 2000 applicants. I don't know where to start. Is it, is it just outbound sourcing on your own? Like, or are you actually going through these candidates? What do you think?
Joel Lalgee (35:47)
I look, I think there's a couple of, there's a couple of ways that you could approach that. I mean, one way is like, don't post as many jobs. Um, you know, and I think for some companies you've got to post a job. So good luck with that. Um, but you have not posting, not posting jobs, uh, is definitely doing more of the outbound sourcing. It definitely could be a solution, right? If you don't want to have applicants and don't post as many jobs. Um, that could be, that could be a possible solution. I think.
Another one that I am actually excited about, mean, when I look at these AI interviewers, if you pick the right one and you implement it in the right way, it's going to solve the problem. And I think it will solve it in two ways. Number one, there's no way a small team of recruiters can go through every single application. There's no way. So obviously AI provides that different...
Martin Hauck (36:29)
Mmm.
Joel Lalgee (36:46)
data point for them to look at. think if you're going to look at that tech, look at the people behind the technology. Like that's a big one for me. Like look at the, just look, cause there's some people that care and some people that don't and put your like people brain on or you know, your, HR cap on and just go, okay, are these genuinely good people that care or are they just trying to like build something and sell it? because there's a lot of people in our ecosystem that come in and they go, obviously hiring's broken. It's a ripe market for disruption.
Martin Hauck (36:52)
Hmm... Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (37:16)
But they're in it for the short term. So look at the founders, look at what their background is and just get that sense. Like, do they actually care about people? ⁓ because that's how I make decisions on like partnering with brands. Like if I get a bad feeling about a brand based on like the interaction I have with the founders or the people involved, I'm not going to work with the brand because tech will change and evolve people and like character that stays the same. So just look like, are they people who have been in
Martin Hauck (37:35)
a hard pass.
Joel Lalgee (37:45)
HR and talent acquisition. Do they care? Like, do they sound like they care? ⁓ but I think what obviously on the, the, the inbound application side from recruiting an HR, it does solve that issue. But I also think we basically, got to curb the amount of jobs that people are applying to. So we have to figure out a way not to make it harder for people to apply. Cause I don't like that terminology, but we got to get away to kind of curb just this mass applying that's going on. And one way is.
Martin Hauck (38:02)
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (38:15)
Is to say, Hey, for every job you apply to, you're going to have a 20 to 30 minute conversation with AI. Like the screen, you guaranteed the screening call because I promise you this, if you, if you guaranteed a screening call, you're going to be picky around the companies you apply to. Cause you're not going to want to have exactly, exactly. So, and, and I get where like the ick comes in and people like, I don't like this. Like I would never want to.
Martin Hauck (38:24)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's your time. Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (38:43)
I would never want to interview with AI. It's like, yes, I agree to a certain point of view. Like it's not the ideal situation, but we've got to change this behavior. And the truth is what I've seen, I've gone on the streets and asked real people. So I unleashed one year in Vegas. I went out of the conference walls. I went on the strip and I asked real people. said, do, would you care if you were talking to AI or a human recruiter? And it was split.
Martin Hauck (38:50)
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (39:14)
At some people, one comment stuck out to me, this young woman I interviewed, said, you know what, I would rather talk to AI because every time I've talked to a human recruiter, they've judged me. And I felt the judgment. I said, that's so funny. Cause everyone's saying that AI is more biased. So I think like, just because you wouldn't want to do it, it doesn't mean that people wouldn't. And I think again, what we've got to change is this behavior, which is, Hey, I'm just going to create a perfect resume with AI. ⁓
Martin Hauck (39:23)
Hmm.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (39:41)
And I'm going to bomb my resume out to thousands of places. That's what we got to curb. Um, so yeah, that's my kind of thought with it. And, and again, I know I, I, I also get where like recruiters come from. We're like, well, that's going to replace my job and those types of things, but it really won't. We just, this, in this amount of time, we've got a lot of supply of candidates and we don't have as many jobs. got to curb this behavior because it's just, it's, it's overwhelming. Everybody.
Martin Hauck (39:44)
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (40:09)
Nobody is being helped by how the situation is right now.
Martin Hauck (40:12)
You still need a human in the loop. that's, know like that's buzzword bingo one on one right there right now, but like, sure. There's 2000 applicants for one job instead of the 50 that there used to be. At some point a human's going to need to like interview and vet these candidates. So if you've got 10 amazing candidates to review instead of like having to do 20 or 30 before you can actually, it's actually like your job's not going anywhere. In fact, you get to have.
Joel Lalgee (40:24)
Exactly.
Martin Hauck (40:41)
more conversations with great candidates and yeah.
Joel Lalgee (40:45)
better conversations too, because
a lot of times when you're screening somebody, how, okay. So when you approach a screening call with a candidate, you've got a resume, you got a LinkedIn profile. So you've got some information. ⁓ but now you can actually have like maybe five questions that you would have asked originally in a screening call. You can already go in with that Intel and you can dig a little bit deeper.
Martin Hauck (41:03)
Yeah, yeah.
Joel Lalgee (41:07)
So can have more detailed conversations. You don't have to scratch, you don't have to be like, so tell me about blah, blah. It's like you're, you can ask the AI to do that. So you can come in with more Intel. And the truth is, is even if they look, if they tried to take recruiting recruiters out of the equation, you know, maybe with some of the people who designing this technology that I've never really like been in HR recruiting and dealt with higher managers in their mind, they're like, recruiters are doing a screening. We all know there's a gut check that happens and there's like a gut.
kind of like intuition that we get after you have to recruiting for awhile, you get to know people and you get to feel out. That is going to be hard to replicate. And all it's going to happen is, even if they take the human recruiters out and the promise is hiring managers can do their own recruiting. All it's going to take is a few bad candidates that AI sends through and the hiring manager is going, I don't want to waste my time with this anymore. back a human. And it will happen because it's just the technology just isn't it's.
Martin Hauck (41:57)
Yeah, yeah.
Joel Lalgee (42:03)
It's good at like looking at what's been said and summarizing and giving you data points, but knowing people and like being able to match people that's emotional intelligence is, it's just not there right now. And so we still need, you still need that, that recruiter that knows the hiring manager more importantly, kind of just knows like how they are.
Who's going to be a fan. And we all know what I'm talking about. Cause when you have that conversation, like when you have that conversation with like the right person and you just know, you just know.
Martin Hauck (42:38)
Yeah, you're on them. You're you're just
you're like, you're like, yeah, you're high fiving yourself. You're like stoked, right? AI is not having that AI is not like, I found this AI is not coming to you and saying like, this is the one
Joel Lalgee (42:46)
No.
No, it's, and, and again, it's like, that's where, that's where the human human comes in. I saw a great tool the other day that like, kind of. It was like, yeah, gave you like green check lights and it had like the red things and it like was just giving you Intel to go, Hey, you need to dig deeper into this. Cause it wasn't clear within the conversation, the resume. I'm like, yes, that's good because I can go into the screen and call. And then it creates a better experience for the hiring manager.
It creates a better experience for the recruiter because they're having a better, more in-depth call. And then for the candidate, it's better as well, because you're just able to, you're able to not apply and go into a black hole. So I think we just need to take a step back and, and again, like, because there's so many of these tools. say, just take a step back and like, whether it's looking at your other HR peers and your other TA leaders and asking them like, how are you approaching this and how are you doing it?
that's important as well to get those referrals, but have the conversations with the founders, the people who are behind the technology and just go, do you care about people? Cause ultimately if they don't and it's a money grab, I wouldn't work with a company like that. I'd work with the people because again, the tech's gonna evolve, but the people behind it, that's what really matters. And when I look at the companies that have done well, it's always like the founder or the like the founding team.
They are always like people, people, they're always people that care about people. I've seen very few technologies where like they've lasted more even than a year when the founder is just like, you can just tell like, that was my third starter, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it just didn't there for the money. Like they never survive in this game. ⁓ they, yeah. And it's like, again, what is the problem here? We're trying to solve.
Martin Hauck (44:23)
Hmm.
Yeah, yeah. They don't care about the problem. Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (44:37)
We're trying to create better experiences for people. And we're trying to connect people up. And it's like, if they don't have that vision, if that's not in their vision statement, if they're just like, yeah, having broken, we're trying to fix it. It, they're not going to last. So just like build that relationship with them, whether it's going to the conference and demo and just like observing how they are and how they interact with people. I honestly think that like the people behind always matter. It is always matter.
Martin Hauck (45:00)
Yeah.
Yeah. There's been this trend in the conversation where, ⁓ you spot like patterns pretty quickly and like, you know, you started seeing people like talk about content. I think pattern recognition is huge for recruitment, just in general, being able to like, okay, I've talked to like 400 people, what stands out from the top 40 people. and I guess like,
you know, AI is here and now and it's present and we're focused in on that. But what, what are you paying attention to just above and beyond that? Like, like what trends are you seeing that are like, that are exciting for the recruitment space and for a recruiter? Like you're excited about it's not technology that exists today and like, we've got these AI interviewers, but what are you sort of like thinking and seeing if you had your own crystal ball?
Joel Lalgee (45:47)
Yeah.
I really
feel like we kind of talked about a little bit when it's like that human in the loop, but like, what does that mean? It's like, to me, that is all about relationships. And I think we've gotten to a point where I feel like the relationship building has just, we've struggled with this relationship building. And I see it like across demographics. And a lot of this, I think it really is to do with just the pandemic where we're all in isolation for that amount of time.
And it has kind of like messed up things within relationships. And this is just even outside of work. Like I've noticed this like in my personal life with people, like I've seen people who have been friends for decades suddenly get into this like huge fight. And like, there's just so much like, and obviously we see it with politics, right? There's so much division. And I think we're going to reach a phase where we do get to a point where like the tech is good enough to where it handles a lot of like the screen time and a lot of things that we've wasted on screen time.
Martin Hauck (46:38)
Hmm.
Joel Lalgee (46:50)
⁓ and we're really able to focus on the relationships and like the skill, you know, skills and that, ⁓ emotional intelligence and how well people connect with people. just think those things are going to matter more. ⁓ one, one of things I thought about this last conference I was at was like, how cool would it be? How crazy would it be if we all had like the matter Ray bands on, and we could see like someone's like profile.
Martin Hauck (47:02)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (47:16)
And then we could have our jobs on the backend and then we could just like walk around. We're like recruiters that are walking in the coffee shops or these events. And we're just like, you're a fit for this role. Let's have a conversation. Like that's what I think would be awesome. ⁓ but I, again, I think like the things I'm seeing the most for is like curiosity, really genuinely connecting with people and like wanting to get to know them. Like those things are just going to matter more. And I think that we are going to reach a phase.
where I think more people are going to want to kind of just control the scroll. We've gotten into this routine where I see it all the time where people are just so engrossed into the digital. But anytime I get into a real world environment where people are connecting, I'm sure you see this as you build in the community, there's a deep desire for real connection and just real... ⁓
Martin Hauck (48:10)
Yeah. Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (48:12)
You know, so I think those are the skills that are going to matter and the people who are good at connecting up people are going to matter. yeah. And then as far as skills, I'm like, I think it's less almost like techie skills. Like obviously there's still going to be room for that, but a lot more on like problem solving and like, what are the problems you're solving? What's the value you're bringing? I think people who are curious and are kind of like, again, with AI, like leaning into it and just trying to understand it versus.
Martin Hauck (48:28)
I love it.
Joel Lalgee (48:40)
trying to learn a tool, like trying to understand like what's going on. That's where a lot of the opportunity is. Um, and then good old fashioned like relationships and just getting to know people like giving back to people. and, uh, so that's, I I'm seeing a big trend with that as well. And it's exciting because at the end of the day, like I do love, I love credit content. Obviously a large portion of my business is like digital. Um, but
Martin Hauck (49:04)
Hmm.
Joel Lalgee (49:06)
I give, I give one example, Mark Smith, who he leads talent at Medtronic, he did a talk at REC Fest and he had basically had like a brain injury from like cutting down a tree and one of part of the recovery was like less screen time. And so he just did this awesome talk about like how his leaders like disconnecting and encouraging your team to like disconnect and getting back to like deep work.
that's non-distractable and he said 26 minutes, that's how long it takes for you to get into deep work. like he helps his team like, hey, get windows of time where you're not checking Slack, you're not checking emails, trading these boundaries. So I think we're gonna see more of that and just learning how to like balance like, yes, digital is important, building a brand online and online stuff is important, but people, that's the most important thing, real interaction.
Martin Hauck (49:32)
Hmm.
Yeah, nice.
Well, I love that answer because usually when I ask it, everybody's just doubling down on AI and there's valid reasons for it. like, it's, I'm optimistic about all the things that it comes with, but now I really dig that approach. Like curiosity, the soft skills, relationships, like those things aren't going away. And if we're spending less time building it up and being good at it, that's, that's going to be like a high value, like
Joel Lalgee (50:10)
Yeah.
Martin Hauck (50:26)
skills to have. So kudos to that angle. Yeah.
Joel Lalgee (50:28)
Well, and that, and that's like longer term, right? Like I,
I'm like zooming out. Cause again, even with content, like one of the things that one of the, one of the conversations I had early on was my wife. She's like, this will only last for two weeks. And as soon as she said that I was like decades. That's how long I'm going to do it. And to build what I built online, it's taken years and years and years. And every time I see Gary V or I see some of his content, he's like, you've created for a couple of months. He's like, try 21 years. And so.
I think there's an element of that. Well, yeah, sure. In the short term, like we're going to figure out, Hey, how do we implement AI into the process? You know, but that's a six to 18 months cycle. Like we've hit the exploratory. We've seen what it can do. It's game time now for the next six to 18 months. Like how do we actually implement this into processes? But I'm talking about zooming out past that. Like these human skills, the, the emotional intelligence, understanding people, relationships. ⁓
That is going to matter. It's going to be, it's going to be crucial. Like getting back to those human relationships. I just don't see that being something that doesn't matter in the future.
Martin Hauck (51:32)
Yeah.
Yeah, well, let's mark our calendars for five years and see see where we're at. Age like milk, yeah.
Joel Lalgee (51:39)
Someone snippets that and it's like, they're like, dude, you're yeah.
He's like Joel's half robot now. Like that, that went terribly. ⁓ man. Yeah. Love to. And, ⁓ yeah, if you're in Chicago area, you're in, ⁓ you know, that, that Midwest, let me know, man would love to meet up in person as well.
Martin Hauck (51:47)
I appreciate you making the time today, man. It was really good chatting with you.
Yeah, no,
I'm I'll be down at Transform. We're partnered with them so we can probably we can make some time for that for sure. And I'm I feel like our next spot in the US is going to be Chicago, so I'll definitely drop you a note where and how should people find you if they haven't already. What's what's the best way for folks to get a hold of you?
Joel Lalgee (52:08)
Sweet
Sweet. Love it. Yeah.
Yeah. So the realist recruiter, if you type that into Google, you'll see all of the social channels and then on LinkedIn, if you look up Joel Lology, I'm the only one, ⁓ can connect with me and just do me a favor because LinkedIn actually has a connection limit of 30,000, which is absurd, but it's how they save on in-mails. They don't want everybody to be able to DM people for free. Obviously they have a business, but if you just type in, heard you on the podcast, ⁓ you know, happy to connect up, but I'm really looking to connect up with.
Martin Hauck (52:39)
You
Joel Lalgee (52:51)
leaders in TA, HR, practitioners, people who are doing the work. and you know, I run a podcast as well, co-recruiting is no joke. So if you're, you're probably more on the TA side, if you're a leader and you want to get involved in the podcast again, always look at people in different industries. Um, you know, sometimes outside of tech, but you know, hospitality, uh, retail, healthcare, always love to get perspectives. And I think from my audience, that's really trying to just like figure out what's going on behind the scenes.
It's great to hear from people who are doing the work and putting the processes together. So connect it with me. ⁓ and then I'm always at events as well. So if you're ever wondering, just check out the social channels. say where I'm at always down to meet in real life and just connect and hang out and, ⁓ and, and interact in the real world. So always good.
Martin Hauck (53:39)
Awesome. Thanks again, Joel. Appreciate it. Cheers.
Joel Lalgee (53:41)
Awesome, Martin. Thanks a lot, man. We'll talk soon.
All right, bye.