Why Has Recruiting Not Changed Since 1996?" with Matt Schalsey, CEO, PerfectHire

[00:00:06] Alright, everyone. We are excited for this one. We are talking to the CEO of PerfectHire, Matt Schalke. I always say your name wrong because I can't say anything. And we're talking today about why recruiting still feels like we're still doing the same thing since 1996. And I have a huge affinity for this topic because I get mad at people who are still trying to run everything like we live in 1996. So I'm excited for this one.

[00:00:33] I think there's going to be a little debate as we go along. Just so everybody knows, Matt came from the sales world. And so this is going to be an interesting conversation. I can't wait till Ashley goes ballistic. So I'm going to go ballistic. Oh my gosh. Well, welcome to the show, Matt. Welcome to the crazy. Welcome to the crazy, Matt. Oh, I'm here. You guys know I live for the crazy, so we're good. We're set. Yeah. Can we talk about how we know, Matt?

[00:01:02] Yes, sure. Why don't you tell the story? Because I think that this is super important, TBH. There is a redheaded woman located in Nashville, Tennessee, that whenever we were hopping, what was even the name of this bar? Do we remember? Does anyone remember what the name of this bar was that we were at? No. No. Okay. No. Do you remember the name of Nashville?

[00:01:27] I thank you very much. I remember a few details. Anywho. So we walk into this bar and there is Olivia, who is the partnerships person with Matt's perfect hire, which I'm sure we're going to get to here. She's kind of gross. She's awesome. But literally the kindest, most littlest angel on the planet that you could ever meet. Just a true Tinkerbell of ladies.

[00:01:50] And I saw someone named Monty Mader, who, which for some reason, I don't know why, but her name reminds me of Mader from YouTube. Yeah, I know.

[00:02:01] I love her too much to tell people, but here we are. So point is, is I remember Liv being like, ma'am, ma'am, you can't come in yet. You can't come in yet. And I just bypassed the nicest person on the planet, walked straight to Monty and was like, like, she was like, like practicing singing, like doing real things. And I was just like, stop the show. I was like, are you who I think you are? And she was like, I didn't even know that.

[00:02:27] I am. Oh yeah. She was like, who do you think I am? And I was like, do you do stuff on Instagram? And she was like, yes, that's me. And I just started bawling my eyes out crying. And then I think once Liv saw me like obviously having a visceral reaction physically and tears, she was like, you know what, you go ahead, you go ahead. Okay, honey, you got like, she was like, that lady's a mess and a mop.

[00:02:50] And you know what's worse? I hadn't even drank anything by that point. I had one shot from Jamie Leonard that ended up being the pre-nail in the coffee, if you will. It was, it was the catalyst for the whole evening. But the point is, is the way that we met Matt is because he hired two phenomenal people. One Liv, two Monty. And literally, I was like, I need to know who this man is, because this is one of the most brilliant events I've ever been to in my life.

[00:03:19] So okay, that's how I know Matt is through his selections. I love it. Because they were darn good ones. It's so funny, because everybody talks about Liv all the time. And it's so funny. It's like, nobody really cares about me. It's all about Liv. And it's like, I think about this. I don't know if you guys have ever watched Veep. But it's like one of my favorite shows. Anyways, Selena is just like, she's making her vice president candidate. She's like, oh, this is the best choice that I made.

[00:03:44] And I'm like, I say that all the time about Liv, because nobody gives this shit about me. It's only about Liv. So it's great. I love her to death. She's phenomenal. And Monty, you know, it's so funny how that story came to be. I don't know if anybody ever told you guys. But when we took a family trip down there, we went to a bar and Monty and the monsters were performing. And I literally just started following her. And then I was like, hey, we're hosting a party. I want you. And she's like, I don't perform at that bar. I was like, but I want you like make this happen.

[00:04:12] And so now her and I text all the time and we talk. Jealousy, though. That's cool. There may or may not be a surprise performance this season at Rackfest as well. Yeah! Let's do it. I'm not going to lie. Pedito already texted me. Yeah, yeah. Okay, it's happening. She's coming back. He snitched it. Yeah. But this is a hot tea drop. Bah, bah, bah. There it is. That's dope. We have the hot press, Dez. We're the first one to it besides Pedito.

[00:04:40] You're also a trendsetter, too. I mean, you were customer number two on our new agency platform. I am. So she's setting the whole trend on that side as well, too. I am. I needed it. I needed it. We're going to get into that because I think it's important to bring up about how it solved some problems that I had. Yeah. And can help a lot of people, I think. I saw a post by you today, Matt, about Adam, and it's like right on the money. But let's start about why you even went this way.

[00:05:10] You were a sales guy. You were on sales and enablement side. You know, talk to us about why Perfect Hire made sense for you. Yeah. I mean, short answer, I kept getting laid off and I was tired of it, right? So I kept diving into all of these scenarios of like, am I really that bad at my job? Like, where is the problem here? What is really going on? And I was running all of these audits around programming. And every one of my programs I've always had, like, cross-tested by other people. And so they're like, no, your programs are fine.

[00:05:40] Like, this is great. Like, we don't have an issue with this. And so, like, then the next best thing I could do is blame the hiring manager. Well, then the hiring manager is like, well, I really didn't move the needle for this candidate at all entirely much. I said, but it was your signature on the dotted line that said yes, right? Like, you're that one. And so then you think about it, like, take it even a step further. Like, well, the next person to blame is the recruiter. And no offense, but the recruiter that some of recruiters that I've had in the past, like, should not be recruiters.

[00:06:09] And I can say the same thing about salespeople, right? Like, some people just are not meant for that profession, regardless of what profession they're in. And I was like, okay. So I did a little bit of training with them being like, you know, you guys are almost salespeople. And they're like, we're not salespeople. I'm like, but you are. Like, you have a quota. And in fact, you're on a pip right now because you didn't fill these racks. So you've missed quota. So now you're there. And they're like, no, but we're not salespeople though. And I go, no, you are. You're selling a culture. You're selling a salary.

[00:06:38] You're selling a vision. You're selling a career trajectory. You're selling a manager. You're selling their life. Like, that's what you're selling. And they're like, that's not really anything of the same. And I'm like, no, that's the problem is that you don't think it's the same. So anyways, we're long story short. Like, I was training these recruiters on how to actually like be a recruiter in a sense of almost being a salesperson. And so I was doing all this deep dive and everything else like this, right? Then it was more of like, okay, well, maybe these tools are actually preventing some people from moving the needle, right?

[00:07:08] Like, they're having to, they're only allowed to walk on this little skinny path. And if any deviant from that, the whole system crumbles and transparency falls. And so that's really where we started this whole process. And we interviewed over 300 recruiters and identified a very, very strong common themes. The systems haven't updated. AI is an afterthought or just a chat bot that only does Boolean searches. I have to work for my system and my system doesn't work for me.

[00:07:34] And I don't know how or where to show transparency other than another spreadsheet or multiple tools. And that's realistically why we created Perfect Hire. And so we started building out kind of a new ATS that was out there. So our ATS Plus is out there live and working and doing its magic and creating this fluidity for every single role. Because again, you don't hire a CFO the same way you hire a BDR. It's just not the same.

[00:07:59] And a technical exam for an engineer is a very big different project than what you would do for an account executive. So why are we running them through the same exact processes almost? And yeah. And so then as we're, you know, we've launched that out, it's been going. And we noticed that there is even a stronger gap in the agency world where it tied a lot closer to my thesis that recruiters are very much like sellers.

[00:08:22] And the instance that they are having to prospect, they're having to negotiate these deals and multi-thread with different individuals and continue to find these different avenues for them to go in. And that's why we created this agency side of the house as well, too. So lots of different fractions and factors that came into it. But that's the TLDR of why we created Perfect Hire. Yeah, I mean, that's great. And for me, the agency part, it's like a winner, right?

[00:08:49] Most of my career is spent in agency or embedded recruiting models where every AT is just not built for it, right? Like you can't run greenhouse at your age. It just doesn't work because the model doesn't work, right? And so when I saw, I went to the first webinar you guys had and I was like, this is really cool.

[00:09:08] This is even me as a solopreneur can run through this system for a decent cost and be able to manage multiple clients, multiple candidates, all of those things. So it was a winner for me. Now I'm going to get back to the sales thing. So I agree with you to some degree, right? Of course, yes. Piece of this that is very, you know, we are selling a lot of things.

[00:09:34] But I hesitate to call us completely salespeople, right? I think there's a weird misstep there. And I can't call what that is right now because I'm blank. But to me, there's like this one misstep of really translating recruiters into actual salespeople. Now, do I think they should be? Yeah. I think they should be selling the dream and they should be doing all these things. But I think our recruiters are trained. I don't think it's necessarily that way today. And I can tell you.

[00:10:04] Yeah, Matt. I was going to say, I think the key component of where we don't agree that they are true, a one to one correlated match is because on a seller's point of view, we can put a monetary ROI on that, right? We have not yet figured out how we are putting a monetary ROI on the talent that is hired by a recruiter. And I think that right there is the sole difference of why recruiting fails as another seller or as like a revenue generating person.

[00:10:33] Not saying that recruiting fails, but I think like that's where the one to one connection is not, does not line up. So I agree with you 100% Des. Like that is absolutely the fact that I agree on. We are not able to pull that ROI quite yet. Yeah, I think we think we're pulling it to be honest, but I don't think the numbers are really true and you can't pull them easily. Right. And what numbers are you actually doing? Are you doing productivity or are you doing retention? Right, right. So there's a few things that I think on this.

[00:11:02] These are like my four different thoughts. And let's talk about the one that I most recently wrote because it's the one that you are talking about the most recently. I think the reason why there are definitely algorithms to be able to show the ROI of talent. Like they're 100% whenever it comes to like the numerical numbers and how to evaluate it, whether it be productivity, performance, outcome or impact. Like any of those four quadrants, it can be done. I think what is hard is most people don't know how to do it.

[00:11:31] And then they don't know how to speak on it. And then most businesses don't know how to receive it because they don't see talent as an essential business function. And so more than anything, this is a leadership gap and not only knowledge, understanding, but again, outcome and impact of what we actually bring, what we do. Because not even enough talent leaders know the number one export of money from a business is salary. Who picks people's salary and who picks the people who get the salary is one group. And that's HR and TA.

[00:12:00] And whenever you have undereducated HR and TA individuals, you're getting undercutted talent to be supporting your business functions. And that's more costly than anything. I see exactly what I said. It's like we don't train. We say this on the show all the time. We do not train recruiters to be true business. No. All around. They don't want them to be though. Right. I know they don't. That's a talent leadership to change that to me.

[00:12:26] Like you have your people be business people and understand everything and every function of the business and how you are impacting the business. And I agree with you. We're just not training them to do that. I agree the numbers are there, but who can do it right now? Well, and sales just has a much more linear, clean cut line of like, this is how I provide value. And that's why they get to speak the loudest in the room and get the most.

[00:12:48] Like that is truly where talent went wrong is they're not educated enough to know this with this and that can equal this. And this is how you get that daily value. Like it's just it truly they don't know the algorithms behind how you do this genuine math and actually make it possible. And I know this firsthand. Like in the past 365 days, I can tell you, yes, that is 100% a big issue. The other thing that I would say is two things.

[00:13:17] One, and I'm about to make two sides of the same pancake. On one side, I think I believe that recruiting is sales plus ethics. I used to say that actually a lot because here's the difference. Whenever you're a recruiter, I am not using some company's monopoly money to try to get you to buy something with a bank account that's not yours. No, no. I'm asking for a whole different level of trust. I'm needing you to trust me with your family, your home, your dog, your insurance, everything else that comes with the change of a job.

[00:13:46] You're hoping that I'm an honest and decent person and telling you that this job will be better. I'm actually telling you the truth. And there's a lot weighing on that type of relationship, on the type of assessment is am I trying to get a butt in a seat? What is my intrinsic motivation? Or am I actually trying to make a genuine match where I would even say, hey, honey, you should stay exactly where you are because it sounds like you're having a good time. Plus the issues that you've pointed out are things that are already happening over here. So I don't know that this is going to solve what you need. It's a tough conversation.

[00:14:14] But if your true intrinsic motivation is the candidate, then that will be the thing. So that's why I've always said it's sales plus ethics because we're not playing with monopoly money. We're not paying with Elon's, you know, little billfold to say, well, you sign this, la-di-da-di. We're playing with actual like family, homes, things like that. Last thing I had and then we can move on to whatever else. And that is this, the other side of the pancake that I have. And this is the issue with the sales analogy that I've always had.

[00:14:44] One, recruiters only need the certain amount of fills to where it's not like sales. Like sales, every single dollar spins. So you want many, many, many, many, many, many, many. And recruiting quality and quantity are two different things. I don't know that having 900 applicants that are trash actually helped me. So like if you're like, we can get you 900, like, sorry, but just to name a company, AppCast does it all the time. And they will, they'll bump up those numbers. But with trash, it's not great.

[00:15:09] And so it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, you can hit quotas and things like that. So that's the other side of the pancake is I feel like people who truly didn't know how to manage talent reverted to like a sales type of performance quota performing thing, where it's like you need to do these type of activities to produce this type of results. Again, trying to use their own algorithms without actually looking at what the finer details are within the talent sphere. As far as the fact, like you said, CFO is not the same as a BDR.

[00:15:40] People who came in and made that type of things. You know, I've never seen a single company besides my own that has created a type of matrix that is a degree difficulty that sways and changes with what the role is, where it is, and those different things. And it's an easy thing to do. And once it's done, it's done. And you just add to it. But people don't do that. They still don't because it's 1996 and recruiting. And I brought it back to the title. Look at my ass. Look at you. Woo! Everybody's locking your ears. The title is impressive. I know.

[00:16:09] And I didn't read the notes. Look at me go. This episode of the Talentless Podcast is brought to you by Do Better Consulting. Hiring is broken. Job searches are broken. And honestly, most career advice out there is just recycled nonsense. Do Better Consulting exists for people who are done guessing. They work with mid to senior leaders, founders, and talent teens to get clear on their signal, how they show up in the market, how they hire,

[00:16:37] and how decisions actually get made. No fluff, no templates just to say you have them. Just strategy, structure, and honest feedback that actually works. If you're tired of spinning, it might be time to do better. Head to dobetterconsulting.net. Well, I will tell you, actually, I don't disagree with anything that you said. I think that's the nice thing, right? There's a lot of correlations, but I think just like there is in the enablement field,

[00:17:05] where I came from, there are so many ideas and algorithms and thoughts and leaders that are saying it should be done this way or this way or this way, but there's no common ground that sets up this role for complete success yet. And I think like, you know, I've talked to recruiters that have been in here for 40 plus years doing recruiting and then some that have been in here for 40 plus days. And the same thing always comes up is how do I show my value? How do I show my worth? I'm just another line item on the payroll, right?

[00:17:34] And it's not like, I don't want recruiters to be a line item anymore. Like they need to be seen as, you know, your entry gate to every single opportunity or dollar that comes back into that business. I will say coming from sales into recruiting because I started in sales is different than starting in talent because I have a completely different view about the self-candidates. I, you know, all the things I put a lot of focus on employer brand, all of the pieces

[00:18:02] of the puzzle that sales to me should translate to recruiting. I still think we're not doing enough of, right? Like the employer brand stuff, the, you know, how to sell a candidate, how to build a relationship, how to network, like all of those pieces, which are essential to sales as a salesperson to translate to a recruiter, right? Right. Coming from sales, it's a natural fit, right?

[00:18:28] So I can't completely disagree with you because it's my whole career, right? So like I jumped from sales to talent because I knew it would be a natural progression. But I do think there's this moment where I'm like, you know, sales, also sales gets all the pretty tools to me. And I feel like recruiting, we kind of get like, you know, like we're not going to spend money on the talent team. Like, I mean, I've been in startups where we're fighting to get an ATS at all.

[00:18:56] Never mind, you know, getting the biggest and the greatest, but they still want proof points. So I think there's this like horrible thing that I think sales has a little better. I think even to Ashley's point that they do get to spend with the, you know, play money. They do get a lot of tools and effort put into them and we don't. And Matt, to your point, that's what needs to change from 1996. Absolutely. Right.

[00:19:22] And the only way you do that to me is from the internal group of people. Like we need to change our mindset and how we talk about talent and stop fighting with people about how horrible talent is. Fix it. Right. Like really learn how to do your metrics, really learn how to do teacher teams, how to do these things. It's just like, we're just not doing enough of that. We're so inundated with the day to day.

[00:19:48] We never step out to the other piece, which is, which is horrible for the whole industry. And I think, and I think like really focusing on those old, old vanity metrics, right? Like I go back to my sales days, right? When I was managing BDRs, like I didn't measure how many calls and emails that they made in a day. Like that wasn't the, that was never the objective, right? The objective is to book the meetings. And as a recruiter, it doesn't matter how many stupid applications I get in a day, because here's the thing.

[00:20:16] Now I have AI throwing thousands of applications in and half of them are, you know, disqualified or garbage anyway. So why does that vanity metric even matter anymore? It's about who you're progressing. It's again, Desiree, to back to what you were saying, it's about the relationship that you're nurturing. It's about the conversations that you're having. It's about the quality, Ashley, to what you were saying and not the quantity of what I'm bringing in. And I think that is where we really need to start measuring this.

[00:20:42] Now I will go on because we have tools that are out there that are actually limiting the quality of some of these candidates that are out there that is also being detrimental to recruiters. We've seen it in the industry already. How many companies right now are being flagged and sued for candidate biases? And that is the other big thing is like AI is not new into recruiting. In fact, it's been around for years. It's been auditing your resumes every time you upload one.

[00:21:07] But the problem is, is the minute that it categorizes you as not a fit for one thing, it's that way for the next 90 to 180 days. And we need to remove a lot of that to where the recruiter can evaluate every single resume, but have a prompt or AI surface those high level qualities that we're looking for up to the top for you as well. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:21:34] Actually, I did see you make a face as soon as I said the day part. Well, yeah, because I didn't know. So tell me more about what that meant because I didn't really understand that. What do you mean? Yeah. So one of our bigger competitors, one of the big beasts in the industry, their ATS system is the minute that you apply for a like similar job with the same resume, you're automatically auto flagged as not a fit because you've already been in that ATS system

[00:22:00] and the database already flagged you as not qualified for this level of a position as of yet. Why does that not surprise me? Yes. You know what? It doesn't surprise me either. And you know why? Because to me, this is what happens whenever people start making products that didn't start in compliance or in some of the background. And I don't mean that in a bad way, but I mean it in the way of that. I think I know who you're talking about because I also saw that if you apply to a job that they

[00:22:29] have internally twice, it'll tell you you can't apply to another job a third time or something like that. So in the in the like 180 or whatever 90 day, I don't know how many days, to be honest, I didn't really look. But the point being was in my mind, I was like, you are not supposed to have any deterrence in the way of an individual applying in any way, shape or form. You're not supposed to be able to even tell people that you can't apply to another job, especially an external and internal. Right. Quite fair.

[00:22:58] And so I was like, and these people are selling an ATS software and they're prohibiting people from applying to their jobs. And it flagged it again because of AI. But I don't know. I don't know who you're talking about, but that's why I was like, I don't. I'm curious what you're talking about, because I will say it has shocked me how many large ATS and just honestly, HR tech, TA tech in general think things are done inefficiently because we're stupid.

[00:23:25] No, things are done inefficiently because the laws, compliance and bullshit that goes with it makes it that way. And these little mothers are like, oh, stop, I'm applying it too. So that way we don't have big, big funnels. And it's like, no, you're not supposed to do that. Like literally. So anyway, so I don't know. That's, I don't know. That's just a weird thing that I have about that. Here's the thing too. Like if they didn't get a job once and they're unemployed, right? Right. What if they were to go and go get a new certification for project management and they

[00:23:54] just completed that and they want to go ahead and reapply because they have a new certification. You still cannot do it. And so it's one of those things that is just so frustrating. And that was one of the things with us, right? Like how do we still become compliant within all of these HR laws that are yet strict, but yet ambiguous at the same time, which I absolutely like, God help me by the time I have to have legal counsel completely audit all of our stuff because I don't want anything on that. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I, you know, there's, there's that element of it too, but like at the same point, it's

[00:24:24] just like, why has HR not evolved again? Right. Like has any of these laws or rules changed since the nineties? No, they have not. And that's the problem. No, but no one was listening to them in the nineties. So why listen now? I don't know. It's like. That's also true. Yeah. And then. In the nineties, I've been still handing paper copies to everything. Right. I personally feel like a lot of things are reverting. No, they are reverting. Yeah.

[00:24:51] Like I remember like back in the day, you know, I'm old where I used to recruit off for no cards. Right. Like we're back in the, we're still doing stuff. Like I did it way back when, like, it's insane to me that a whole, the whole talent, you know, function has not progressed past that really. Right. Now we've created ATSs, no events that are just databases, right? They're just holding in at it. So I'm doing, providing any value.

[00:25:18] That's what I like about perfect hire is the sales approach to it because it does show some of that data that isn't just from a regular ATS, right? You go into some of these big names and some are better than others and you just can't even get any real data out of it. Yeah. That's, you know, that means something. Right. I mean, I don't care about time to fill anymore, guys. Please stop. Another new, another old vanity metric, right? It's like so ridiculous.

[00:25:47] Steve Levy was on our show and said like, he like cursed about it. It's the most ridiculous thing. I love it. That we're still tracking. Right. And so if we're still building systems based on these vanity metrics, we're in trouble. Right. And anyone who's not in recruiting, I'm glad you talked to 300 recruiters, right? Before you built something. Because most time, and Ashley and I have talked about it numerous times, these HR tech people come in and they think they can solve all the problems.

[00:26:15] First of all, they're solving a problem that didn't exist. Second of all. Or they're solving their own personal vendetta of a problem. Right. That's literally how Handshake was made. That's how Handshake was made. That's how at least three of them were made. Yeah. Can confirm. Right? And so they're not even solving a problem for the recruiting industry. And I think it's just, you know, it's a misuse of time. And it actually starts like new leaders and talent off on the wrong foot to me.

[00:26:40] Like, here's what you're, you know, we're going to start you with this great ATS that does nothing really for you and doesn't help you guide your team, guide the organization, do anything. And because I'm a new leader, I've never really been trained how to do the things Ashley was talking about. So, you know, I'm just going to pull from my crappy ATS. And it's just like, this is the psyche. Or I'm going to put it into Claude and ask them and get some dumb nut response and do

[00:27:10] some silly math. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think the other problem is, is like all these other, you know, big names that are out there, all the other ATSs, they're just now the digital filing cabinet. Right? It's like, it's so funny. So yesterday or the other day, my husband was like, hey, you know, one of my doctor's office clients are closing. Do you want this filing cabinet? I'm like, for what? Why do I want an old school drawer of a filing cabinet? I said, everything is damn digital now. Like put it in there so I'll never look at it again.

[00:27:38] And that's exactly what happened in the nineties is you'd get a resume. It was garbage. You put it back in there or as good. So you put it in the front, but you, did you open the door again? You did only to put another resume back behind it. It was never to go back and say, oh, I'm short staffed. I'm going to go back and look at who I have or who really sucked. Or, hey, this person was way too advanced for where we were at today. All these other ATSs are doing that. And that is not, that was a completely different approach of what we had is we want to resurface

[00:28:06] all of the talent, all of the applicants and people that were interested in your company to help bring you forward. And that's, that's part of the game now is all of these people are just nilly willy applying for everything. Why don't you find the people that were genuinely excited and wanted to work at your company or that came in at second place and didn't get the offer? Right. So, I mean, that's, that's the big thing now. Like, like use your data. You have the data. And I don't think a lot of companies realize that they have all of this data that's just sitting there. I agree. I know they have no idea.

[00:28:36] I was on the job market and I'd get those rejection letters that we'll keep you on file if something comes. I'm like, no, you won't. I mean, you will, but you won't ever go back to it. Right. You'll never talk to me again. I'm on file for compliance, not for coming back. I just did it to make sure I was legal. But like, other than that, we're never going to touch you again, which I think I agree with you is one of the biggest mistakes we make. Yeah.

[00:29:05] Especially for all those people that made it to, you know, they were the second pick or, you know, anything like that. Then we're like, we can't find good talent. It lives there. It lives with you already. Every single move you make in your system, it is tracked and auditable, which means you can measure every single notch, every single day it takes to get from one to the next. Every single move they make, what messages they do.

[00:29:28] So long as said individual has been taught when to hit said button at the appropriate point in time, because data integrity and data hygiene both impact these data numbers that you get that you own. Yes. And that's the other thing. You can see people running real long way with data, but they're running the wrong way because they didn't pay attention to their data integrity or the hygiene of it at all.

[00:29:54] Actually, like that, that was exactly what inspired us is the data trail, right? Right. Instead of doing the audit when it's too late or when you just have to do it for compliance reasons, right? Our machine learning system inside our ATSs is learning every single interaction, every single email, every single progression, every single, you know, scorecard that's in there. We're learning who is the best person and best profiles for these roles. So that way we help make those more informed.

[00:30:24] Decisions for your company, because we know what you're wanting. We know who you're trying to target. We know the type of culture and personality fits that you guys are trying to bring in. We want to understand your company because you have all this data, not because we want you guys just to be another tool or we just don't want to be another tool in your toolbox, right? It's how do we become that partner, that little talent partner instead of that talent vendor for you guys. And I think that's the big difference of why we ended up creating and really hyper focused

[00:30:52] on this, on the data that you guys all have and how do we manipulate that or a little, not manipulate, just use it in order to, for you guys to make more sane hiring decisions as recruiters. And I think you made a good point that I think needs to resurface from what you said is that, you know, I do a lot right now because I do a lot of consulting of vendor, you know, kind of who we're going to pick, right? Yeah. And so I always tell people and recruiters especially, look for the vendor that's going

[00:31:20] to be a partner to your business, not just a vendor, because this is where you get trapped in this, like, it never gets any better for you. It's just kind of out of the box what it is. But if you actually have a partner that's going to work with you on your tech, you really are going to get to a place where it understands what you're trying to achieve. But you have to come into it with understanding what you're trying to achieve, which is another thing, right? Like, and then take it from there and tell that vendor, this is what I'm trying to achieve. Are you the right fit for what I'm trying to achieve?

[00:31:50] And it's 90% of the time, it's going to be enough, right? And that 10% that you get the win, go for it, right? Because I'm telling you, there are so many tools out there that can do so many things. Are you the right tool for me at this time where the business is? And do you have the ability to scale with me if we continue to grow? And that is, you know, I think we miss those conversations so many times.

[00:32:18] We're like, this name, I've heard this name, so I'm going to go buy it. And it's like, dude, that might not even achieve what you're trying to achieve, right? I think that's important. Absolutely. I had somebody ran and raving about a sourcing tool the other day. And I'm like, I love that. Good. And I was like, but why do you need a sourcing tool? And they're like, well, when I get a rec, I'm like, but like, how many candidates are you getting for every role? He goes, oh, we have so many candidates that apply. And I go, but why do you need a sourcing tool then? He's like, easily every single rec I get, I get 300 applicants.

[00:32:47] And I'm like, but why are you wasting money on a sourcing tool? Like, I'm just trying to help you out. Do you know, see, you made me think of exactly what I was going to say. Good. So that's all I was trying to do. Thank God. I knew, I knew you were just here to jog my memory. No, I'm going to lose it again. I can feel it slipping. No, bring it back. Bring it back. Bring it back. Now I'm thinking of the 9th Kota song. No, I literally am the worst.

[00:33:18] Sourcing tools. Yes. Okay. Did you know that this is how dumb people are with their data? Because data can literally tell you if this is a first touch, retouch, high touch candidate. Like it can tell you all of those things. To where literally there was a company. I'm not going to say whom. Was basically after the time that we looked at their data, they had been paying extra for these candidates that they had already had. Like second, retouch, high touch.

[00:33:47] Like they were already in their ATS, in their systems. And they were paying vendors for these people at high amounts of money. And all anyone ever needed to do was one little search in the ATS to be like, do we already have contact with this individual? Have we already had a first touch? And literally, it was so much money. It was so much resources. All just to do what was already done. Duplicate efforts over and over again. Do the work that they already did. Yeah.

[00:34:15] And that itself is why recruiters are a line item and not revenue. Absolutely. Ashley, before you go, do you have a talent outside the box for us today? No. She's like, no, I thought I'd be gone. Yeah, for sure. I am getting outside the box. Listen, here's the lesson. If your tooth hurts, go to your dentist. Don't like eat any hard candies or anything like that. Yesterday was my birthday. And so I had candy things and turns out I broke a tooth. So now I'm headed to the dentist. Yeah, I know. It's awesome.

[00:34:45] Happy belated birthday. All right. Y'all have a great rest of this epi. I got to get this. All right. Bye. See you later. Later, later. She's so crazy. I love it. So, yeah. I mean, I think you made such strong points. And I actually corrected my thinking about some things. So that's really valuable. I want you to be able to plug what's going on at Perfect Hire in these last minutes. Tell me what's going on. How's it going?

[00:35:15] You know, talk to me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Des, you know, right? Like we're, you know. What's going on at you? No. So, nice. Like it's super exciting. Perfect Hire, right? Like we've been around for about a year. And, you know, it took a little bit getting our footing all down. And now we're here. Like we've landed. We've got it. Everything is perfect. And it's safe to say, obviously, like I've got a friend in Des who's obviously like jumped on the platform day, what? Day one? Day two almost? Like it was great.

[00:35:46] Des, right? People are jumping on. Mike Pedito is now jumping on our platform as well, too. Like we're getting people. So what is this platform that these individuals are even talking about or getting hyped about? It's our agency plus. Now, I talked a lot about building out our ATS plus and we did. Yeah, it's great. It's running. However, it wasn't the product that we knew as a company that we needed to make a shift for and provide an impact. And our big focus was making recruiters a revenue generating machine.

[00:36:13] And that is exactly where we ended up taking this is giving agency recruiters the tool with our agency plus platform to not only prospect the roles that you guys are hiring for sourcing your own database. So again, you're not paying for the data that you already have communicating and building out slates to prospect out to different candidates or clients and then helping the candidates that you're already working with all into one CRM ATS and business development platform. So it's an all in one, right?

[00:36:41] You don't need a CRM anymore. You don't need an ATS anymore. You can still we're working to hook up your own Claude or chat GPT instance as well, too. So all the memory data that you've done within your MCP, you're able to bring that into it as well, too. And then we are really just here to help you guys make money. And honestly, it's one of the best cost effective tools that I've seen on the market right now. Of course, being a little biased, it's $150 per person per seat per month.

[00:37:07] And we have zero charge implementation and we upload your first twenty five hundred resumes for free at the very beginning. So super easy. I can say I can't say enough that, first of all, because I've demoed so many products over my lifetime right now that I usually am pretty good at making really quick decisions. And so but I saw the webinar and I was like, my gosh, I've been waiting for someone to do this thing. Right. Yeah. And I think they have like bullhorn for agency.

[00:37:37] And I was like, that doesn't really, you know, I'm like, please do this anymore. And all the things. But I was like, you know, I'm waiting for someone to bring recruiting back to the year we're in and and do it for the agency person who isn't operating like an in-house recruiter. It's very difficult, as I said in the beginning of the show. And I think you guys have nailed it. I can't wait to see it progress and add more features. I'm in it. You guys want to check it out?

[00:38:07] Please contact Matt or his team. They're just amazing and they're so pleasant to work with and just lovely. I enjoyed having you on the show. Is there anything else I missed out on or where they can contact you or the team? Yeah, I mean, two things that I'll tell you, like one, go to getperfecthire.com slash agency if you want to check out the agency plus and connect with us on LinkedIn. And just because we love the gals here over here at Talentless, I mean, I'm repping it, right?

[00:38:34] Like when you go and if you want to get our agency plus because you're part of the Talentless community, we do give you one free month with code Talentless in the market. So ask Desiree or Ashley for the code and get one free month on us. Actually, sorry. One free month on them. It's not on them. Get it on them because they're the ones that are helping source this out for the community. We appreciate it. We appreciate it. Yeah, please. Anybody DM me. You know I answer all my DMs anyway like a crazy person so I don't sleep.

[00:39:03] But please go ahead and do that. I'm glad to give you everybody who wants to try it out the code. I really think you'll be impressed by the product. I want to thank everybody who listens to us all the time. And for those new listeners, thank you. We're so glad you're here. Please check us out, TalentlessPodcast.com and everywhere you get your podcasts. And then, you know, God, Blue Sky Threads, Instagram. I mean, we're everywhere. You can't get rid of us.

[00:39:28] And we're just so excited for what this year of the Talentless Podcast is going to bring. We're going to have great guests like Matt. We'll see you next time. Thank you so much. Bye, everyone.