Uniting Hiring Managers and Recruiters - Collaborative Recruitment Approach

Get ready for a recruitment reality check on Talent Takeover Unfiltered! This episode is nothing short of revolutionary, with Tyke Lewis, VP of Engineering, joining forces with our audacious hosts, Brianna Rooney and Taylor Bradley.

Tyke isn’t holding back as he lays bare the essentials of a dynamite hiring manager-recruiter partnership. This episode strips away the fluff and gets down to the nitty-gritty.

🔥 What’s Inside:
- Tyke’s unvarnished views on syncing hiring managers and recruiters for epic wins.
- Brutal honesty on what works (and what bombs) in hiring dynamics.
- Essential, no-BS strategies for anyone in the hiring trenches.

🎙️ If you're all about challenging the recruitment status quo and crave some straight talk, this one's for you!

#StraightTalkHiring #RecruitmentRethink #CareerGameChangers #UnfilteredRecruiting

➡️ Press play now for a raw, unfiltered dive into the future of hiring!

We are on Instagram. See you there.

Creators & Guests

Host

Brianna Rooney

I am the CEO and Founder of TalentPerch, Techees Recruiting, The Millionaire Recruiter, and now Thriversity. My vision for the last 14 years has been to change the way the World views the Recruiting Industry. Even though I have two little kids, I remain firm on maintaining a work-life balance. I believe you can be as successful at work, as you are at home. You don’t have to choose. The choice is, to be present and rock everything you do!

Host

Taylor Bradley

Chief Strategy Officer, Talent Leader, Advisor, Podcast Co-host. I specialize in turning DIRT to GLITTER ✨

Producer

Kait Vickers

Guest

Tyke Lewis

I’m a startup engineering leader and builder who is happiest when building with other people. I've been running engineering teams for over 15 years. The majority of my experience is running product engineering groups at startups. I also advise startups on hiring, building, running engineering teams, and building 0-1. I'm currently the VP of Engineering at Vanna, a company dedicated to improving the lives of people with Serious Mental Illness.

What is Talent Takeover Unfiltered?

Hosted by Brianna Rooney, The Millionaire Recruiter, and Taylor Bradley, The Humble Hustler. When it comes to working hard and keeping it real, we know our S.H.I.T. (self-care, happiness, inner peace, time). Two women who’ve made thriving in chaos and finding the meaning in the madness an art form, provide you an “under the hood” view of all things recruiting in hopes to bring respect and awareness in a relatable way to a long underrated industry that’s oversaturated with “experts”.

welcome to Talent takeover unfiltered

when it comes to working hard and

keeping it real we know our [ __ ]

self-care happiness inner peace and time

I'm Brianna Rooney and this is Taylor

Bradley hey y'all and we have thrived in

chaos and turn it into an art form so

Taylor what are we doing here today

we're here to give you a raw under the

hood view of all things recruiting and

finally give credit where credit is due

to a long underrated industry that's

full of quote unquote experts all right

well then let's take this show to the

road hello welcome to Talent takeover

unfiltered we have another very special

guest and I will say I don't think one

that we've had um in this role before we

have Ty Lewis who is a VP of engineering

normally we bring in ta and Recruiters

on this but I love what we're talking

about because we want to unite hiring

managers and recruiters how do we do

that and actually I found Ta on LinkedIn

on on uh on on the feed he's just like

speaking to all these great things I'm

like that's a recruiter heart but he's a

VP of engineering I have to talk to him

hey Ty Taylor hi hi thank you for having

me I'm so excited to be here and excited

to chat yeah awesome okay well I mean

like let's just let's just talk about it

what um I guess when in your career

because you've had you've had quite a

great career you know we'll we'll

definitely sh um your LinkedIn so we're

going to check you out but um when in

your career did you decide wow

recruiters are actually my friends CU we

don't hear that often

yeah ah it's very interesting uh very

early in my career I started hiring and

um I I looked to my peers to see how

they were reaching out to candidates how

they were engaging with uh recruiters

and was honestly underwhelmed um I hear

so many of my my peers would talk about

the importance of the relationship with

product managers or the importance of

the relationship with their designers or

their QA counterparts um and they seem

to put so little energy into the the

relationship with their recruiter and um

I I maybe was fortunate um and and I had

just a wonderful recruiting partner who

was easy to talk to and fun and

energetic and the two of us hit it off

and um my roles got hired so much faster

and there was such high quality

candidates coming in and everybody

started looking to me to to ask me what

is different what are you doing and how

is this happening and I

realized uh putting the time and the

energy into the relationship with your

recruiters makes so much of a difference

in terms of uh Ling good candidates

engaging with good candidates um and the

speed at which you can hire people and

so um not only is it fun but it worked

out so much better in terms of filling

my team love it like who would have

thought you have a good relationship and

they do a great job for you

right so do you think that you would

have um Place such an emphasis or value

on having that good relationship with

the recruiter if the recruiter didn't

have like that great energetic

personality or were you like no I know

this is the success to good hiring that

I need to establish this this

relationship with them or was it

specific to that one great recruiter

yeah um it's I mean it's definitely not

specific to that one great recruiter I

think that one great recruiter helped

break the seal for me helped me

understand the importance of this

relationship and since then I've taken

it with me to every recruiter that I've

worked with

um either inh house or um you know

working with sort of any recruiter that

is that is there to help me that um some

aren't quite as energetic some aren't

quite as positive but I still understand

the the importance of a good

relationship there so I think this this

one recruiter just really helped me

understand that a really healthy

relationship can make all the difference

so you really vibed with that one

recruiter but I you mentioned that

there's some recruiters that haven't

been as energetic what steps do you take

if you're you know cuz we talked talk

about how important it is as recruiters

to have this great relationship with the

hiring manager and how to overcome these

challenges with challenging hiring

managers but what steps would you as a

hiring manager take to overcome maybe

and and I'm not articulating this well

but you you're not having the best Vibes

or the dynamic doesn't seem as great or

there maybe the recruiters a little bit

standoffish like what do you do to

overcome that to get to that point in

the relationship where you're you can

have a successful recruitment cycle yeah

it's a good question

um I think there there there are a

couple things that I've done um one and

kind of the easiest one I I don't see

this with a lot of other hiring managers

is just taking the time and making it a

priority to spend time with them um I

think so many H managers are overwhelmed

they have meeting overload they feel

like they don't have any time and so

they don't have time to speak with their

their recruiting partner and taking the

time meeting oneon-one meeting regularly

reviewing resumes together scouring

LinkedIn myself and sending those over

to my recruiting partner and then

talking about them with that person

makes such a difference in kind of

building trust establishing um that

we're doing this together that we are a

partnership um I found to be incredibly

helpful um and I'm an extrovert and so I

like being positive and talking and I'm

a little bit bubbly and so sometimes the

the bubbliness uh is is can can win

people

over I love bubbly like it's you never

hear many people describe themselves as

bubbly it's always like you're

describing someone as bubbly I love that

um you kind of brought me to so I love

the partnership aspect of things because

in recruiting I mean we've definitely

that's what we teach recruiters hey this

is a partnership like this is you know

it doesn't work if you're not you know

um talking together and working it out

and all those things do you feel because

obviously this was this was seems like

more of just your nature you figured out

how you could win in hiring you figured

out how to do it quickly but do you feel

like maybe this should be in hiring

managers kpis you know like they they

their goals should actually be directly

with recruiting and with the recruiting

team in general or like how do you

motivate them to do it like I'm just

thinking like your best case scenario

let's solve for the worst case or even

the average yeah it's interesting um my

immediate response is I don't want to

tell anybody else about this because I I

get so many of the Great candidates as a

result um no I'm just joking I I think

what's really interesting about that

question is it's unfortunate that people

need external motivation to make these

things happen what I've found is when

you take the time the energy working

with your recruiting partner and looking

at LinkedIn and scaring resumés and

brainstorming together um you hire

significantly faster and so you're

saving a lot of time and so it's not

even like it's this big investment that

you're supposed to do and the company's

telling you that it's important it's

it's you win by by taking this time and

energy and investment you are getting

higher quality candidates faster um and

so yes if if this is what people need to

kind of push them over the edge to to

feel comfortable taking the the leap in

doing this then absolutely kpi is great

um I think if people are wanting to hire

high quality candidates and that's the

kpi then I think the solution to that is

build a really strong relationship with

your recruiting partner agreed how do

you so I I know like there's been hiring

managers that have like oh my God I have

like the best recruiter I'm so lucky

like like just like how you're how

you're vibing now but then internally

recruiters get put on different projects

different hiring managers how and then

now you have to redo this relationship

and spending the time and stuff how

would you recommend internally like that

should be

handled um are you asking how companies

should handle it or how a hire a manager

a well maybe just a hiring manager

because it's like you don't want to be

bummed you and you don't want to be like

oh my God that was just a waste of time

like I maybe I'm asking too too too

biger a picture like to suic of a

question here but like I guess it's just

like how can you build rapport quickly

while still getting to your end goal

yeah um one thing that I found I I

worked at both small in big companies um

and so even when I'm at bigger companies

where there's a reasonably sized

recruiting team recruiters talk I found

that when recruiters I think a lot of

recruiters experiences is that their

hiring managers aren't easy to work with

or enjoyable to work with and so when

you are that person um you're talked

about and you stand out and recruiters

tend to like you and so one of the

wonderful things that I've at least

experienced in my you know in my time

doing this is if I'm going from one

recruiter and I've worked with a

recruiter for you know a couple hires

and we've had a great time um and

another recruiter is assigned to me or

something like that um the previous

recruiter will talk to them and often

times they already even know maybe who

the hiring managers are at the company

that are standing out and so sometimes

that alone can be incredibly helpful and

kind of ease the transition um and I

always like having a an initial kickoff

sometimes I do like I do weekly one-on

ones with my recruiters but in the very

beginning it is half an hour or two half

an hour sessions and it is nothing about

recruiting it is nothing about the roles

that we're trying to fill it is just who

we are getting to know each other the

the the positive experiences that we've

had and and just really getting to know

each other as people um I think that's a

huge kind of foundation for this kind of

relationship and if we jump so quickly

into this is what I need from you and

this is how quickly I need it uh I think

just you get off on the wrong foot it's

like music to my ears I can't even like

when you're saying we just spend an hour

getting to know each other I'm like what

like in in any roles who does that these

days which I think it's so there's so

much value in that um that approach but

I was wondering so is this internal

recruiters that you're talking about

like the the dynamic is that who you

work with primarily uh yeah it's a good

question

um primarily yes um but not exclusively

um I've I've a lot of what I've been

talking about applies to all Rec

Critters um I've done this with folks

internally externally um I I mean I and

one of the the things that's sort of

interesting about one of the things you

were saying just before this is um I

think it's a little bit different in a

remote world I think when we were in

person and recruiters are you know

you're you're talking you go out to

lunch you have you get coffee you spend

some time together it's easier it's more

natural to take that time to get to know

them and in a remote world where

everyone is stuck in meetings all day

long and doesn't want to spend more time

in meetings that's the last thing that

people want to do is just have get to

know you time and um so I think that

that is is important um but I think that

is important regardless of if that

person is internal or external I think

the the only complication is some like

if if that external partner is not

someone who you're going to be working

with for a long period of Time It's

Different um yeah and and I think it you

know depends if you're working with a

team of people and but also I I think

these are these are important

relationships and these are important

conversations um and you know it's kind

of fun yeah that was going to be part

two of my question was like do you apply

the same approach with external as you

do as internal and you said yes um so it

sounds like that's the case but it's how

would you recommend that hiring managers

stick to your approach or do an approach

like this whenever or take an approach

like this whenever they will be working

with different recruiters whatever so

whenever I did internal recruiting we

tried to align like this is the

recruiter that recruits for sales this

is the recruiter that recruits for

engineering like you try to align it to

we the same recruiters is going to work

with the same hiring managers and an

effort that they'll want to build those

relationships that they'll have that

report CU I imagine that would get hard

and people would be less motivated to

want to establish the relationships and

to get to know you and spend that time

if they're like I'm just going to have

another recruit a different recruiter

next time you know so do you do you

recommend aligning to where you're

working with the same recruiter is that

approach that you would take yeah I

think

so or are you like I like to get to know

different people so I'm I don't mind

working with different recruiters even

though so and so is a proven recruiter

we have a great relationship bring on

any

newbies yeah I I mean it's it's a good

question and I don't know that I have a

one answer I think yeah it depends a

little bit um I think Rapport has a lot

to do with it and having Rapport might

be might be more important than someone

who has a particular Specialties if

you've been working with them and just

have a great Rapport and have hired a

bunch of folks together um but I also

think it's as a hiring manager probably

as a recruiting partner as well um it's

it's really important to be able to get

good at building rapport with folks

quickly and so having that experience

and having more repetitions doing that

is also a a great skill to be developing

because if you're a higher manager now

you're likely going to be a higher

manager later and you'll continue to

work with lots and less of recruiters

and the more reps you have building

these relationships I think is really

good so how would you recommend training

highering managers and I'm very

selfishly asking so we have like we uh

we were thinking as from the recruiting

standpoint it's like look this is broken

this relationship doesn't exist like it

should like you said hiring managers

don't take the time and essentially it's

like you could give a little to get a

lot right but like you have to show them

data and so we developed hiring manager

training and we're like oh this is going

to sell like hot cakes because this is

like we have to make this faster we have

to make it a more enjoyable experience

and it's like we got crickets over here

right so obviously companies don't want

to you know do training for Hing

managers but I feel and let seems like

you feel the same way this actually

could be super valuable so like just

let's just say you're the trainer of all

hiring managers because you've got

you've got it going on what would you

really um what training would they be

going through and and what would be what

would feel worth their time it's not a

sexual harassment training certification

right this is like this is real stuff

that you could use at every single

company yeah it's it's a really

interesting question before I answer

that I'm I'm kind of curious why was

there not reception to what you shared

with with companies well so they because

they were treating it like a sexual

harassment training we're okay we're

going to take all of like our hiring

managers and it was like hey can we just

have like a digital course yeah you

could or we could align it and roleplay

on what's actually going on in the

organization what is the challenges hey

let me uh let me take a survey of the

recruiting team and the hiring managers

let's figure out what's broken because

it's not a one-size fits-all situation

but I remember um when Tay and I were

building this um she was like there's no

way companies are going to let their guy

Hing managers they're they get paid the

most sit through four to 6 hours and

role play and like figure this out and I

and I was constantly like why not but

Taylor you're probably better to answer

this because you were on that page yeah

so I I've worked with clients pretty big

clients that required all their hiring

managers to go through hiring manager

interview training like it was it was a

requirement it was one of their goals

they had to do it and it was all day

long and they had to sit through role

plays and they I mean they hated it it

was like pulling teeth but they were so

efficient so at hiring it was also they

had slas built into their goals about

being responsive and providing feedback

within you know 48 hours and they're

just it they had an amazing hiring

process and like won awards for um their

approach to recruitment but I think

oftentimes companies don't really going

back to like what we said in the

beginning of this conversation hiring

managers and com companies and some

hiring managers don't really see the

value in recruiting or think it's like

how hard is it to go find me people you

know just go out there like they don't

want to invest the time this is not

where they feel they need to invest time

in so it wasn't one of those things

where people are like I need this

training no no one was raising their

hand to take it and then I yeah having

been in corporate for so long I was

telling Brandon no no companies that I

know minus that one with that being the

exception are going they value

recruiting enough to take their hiring

managers or or employees out of

production for a whole day or half a day

or whatever it is to put them through

this so they should value it in summary

it's so interesting as a as a hiring

manager and I'll answer your question in

a minute but as as a hire manager one of

the things or maybe even as a

engineering leader one of the things

that I've been told so so many times is

you should be spending 40 to 50% of your

time recruiting if that's true if I'm

spending nearly half of my time

recruiting how can this not be a

priority and how can these kinds of

relationships and the process and the

quality of candidates that we're looking

for and the quality of the relationship

which results in you know better quality

candidates and so on not be important um

and also what's interesting is I am

responsible for the time of my the

engineers on my team or at least when it

comes to recruiting and so if I'm

sending candidates to folks that are on

my team and they're low quality then I

am wasting their time as well um which

is which is very interesting to me

because as a hiring manager um it's it's

important but as a engineering manager

just a manager of people it feels like a

horrible use of time to not be spending

the time

doing I mean all of these things which

is really interesting yeah well think

about how many managers are actually

trained internally you know like think

about who's actually made a manager oh

the person who did this job the best is

or who's been here the longest okay

great you're a manager it was never like

hey do you like to lead do you like to

Mentor what's your what's your theory on

this I mean like I know take you speak

to that a lot on how you can be a good

manager I mean I this goes like this is

literally goes hand inand and the lack

of training it does it does and and

what's interesting is going to your

earlier question of what would I include

in the training I think a lot of it is

starting with the outcomes because um I

find recruiting to be fun not a lot of

engineering leaders find recruiting to

be fun and so for me it's intrinsically

it's just like yeah let's do this this

this is going to be great um but that's

not the reason that I do it the reason

that I do it is because the quality of

candidates is higher when you build

strong relationships when you can work

really well with your recruiting partner

they have a much much much better

understanding of what you're looking for

and so often recruiting managers aren't

technical I'm I'm in a technical role

I'm looking for technical people it's

it's really hard to have them know what

I'm looking for if I'm not spending a

lot of time talking to them

brainstorming with them giving them

feedback on the candidates that they're

sending in um and I think sometimes

giving feedback on the candidates that

they're that they're sending to me that

takes trust and trust is built you

establish that by having a good

relationship um and the other one in

terms of outcomes is I hire much faster

I there's for many reasons um one is the

quality of the candidates is just higher

and so when you have higher quality can

is coming into the funnel you're more

likely to land somebody um and I was

talking with Brian about this earlier

but this is my little known secret so

don't tell anybody um sly oh

well are we live okay

um but when I'm working especially at

bigger companies where there's multiple

recruiters and I have an open role and

I'm amongst 10 other hiring managers

that have open roles when the hiring

manager and I have a really good

relationship and a great Dynamic and

there's a candidate that comes in that

they know is a great fit for me and they

don't really understand if it's a great

fit for some of the other roles because

they don't have as good of an

understanding they send them to me even

if I'm not the priority hire even if

they shouldn't be sending it to me and

so I I skipped the

line and and and it's it's fantastic

it's it's it's fun you get incredible

candidates and um and I don't think it's

well can argue if it's fair or it's

unfair but I think just the more that

you can really help your recruiting

partner know like get into your mind of

what you're looking for and what makes a

good candidate on your team and why are

the why are the current employees on the

team doing well and what does it mean to

thrive and all those kinds of things

mean that the kinds of candidates that

you're going to get are just going to be

a better fit for what you're looking

for managers leave and join I mean sorry

people leave and join companies because

of managers you know and so it's like

you can highlight like you know like oh

my God Ty's amazing so if I'm talking to

a candidate I'm GNA pop him up like oh

my God T so amazing the way that he he

leads and mentors he really cares like

he's built a relationship with me he'll

build it with you like that would be my

prep right cuz that's my job my job is

to prep people well I've also had to

prep on the other side hey you know what

this hireing manager means well but

comes across a little aggressive just to

let you know you know it's like hm which

one is which way is a candidate gonna go

right you know what's the easier sell

yeah little bit easier I so we're coming

up on time so I think I know I would

love to hear as I know our listeners

would what is your broke to boss

tip ah it's it's a great question I I

mean I think so much of what we've

talked about kind of rolls up into this

but if you want to hire faster and if

you want to hire better quality

candidates invest in your relationship

with your recruiting partner you said

that during the conversation I was like

that's a bro to bosson that's such a

good one from a hiring manager's

perspective invest in that relationship

if you want to hire faster and get the

best quality can I love it so I'm going

to go against the grain here for a

second because I cannot leave this

conversation listeners you will thank me

for this what can a recruiter do though

to make themselves a great partner I

just want to touch on that really

quickly and I know we're out of time but

I have to yeah it's a it's a very good

question um and I I welcome the question

because I don't get that one very often

um be curious about what the hiring

manager is looking for and I think I I

think i' I've found a lot of recruiting

or some some recruiting partners that do

this very well where they really want to

get to know me they really want to get

to know the team they really want to get

to know what are the kinds of candidates

that are or the kinds of employees that

are thriving at the company um and when

they do that it opens up the hireing

manager the hireing manager love like

people love to respond to questions like

that and when especially when they get

to talk about themselves with their own

team and so when when those questions

are brought to the H manager they get to

say this is what's great about the team

or this is what's good about you know

this kind of candidate and I feel like

that Curiosity leads to really

interesting

conversations perfect love that and love

that another episode Taylor was just

talking about how she always has to ask

the why so that's a great quality

recruiters ask why ask how yep like

Taylor thank you so much um and we will

see you you know every single week but

great great great nuggets reunite tyer

managers and HS that's right thank you

for having me this is a ton of fun

thanks

y'all