Transcript
Tim Sackett: Hey, everybody, it's Tim Sackett back with another episode of The Frontline's, your podcast for frontline hiring, sponsored by The Great Day, The Great Day, The Great Folks at Workday. and Paradox.
Tim Sackett: And I'm happy to have a really good friend of mine on with me today, Jim D 'Amico, who's the head of TA for Caliber Collision. Jim, talked about like go ahead and tell everybody who you are, like what Caliber is. Let's get into that.
Tim Sackett: before we get started.
Jim Damico: Sure. So I'm 30 plus years in NTA. so
Tim Sackett: Come on. I mean, 30?
Jim Damico: ah see
Tim Sackett: You're not even 30. Let's go. like
Jim Damico: Seen it seen a thing or two uh caliber collision is the largest um collision repair provider in the United States. We have Almost, we're approaching 1900 shops.
Jim Damico: We are in 43 states. So our primary business is repairing collision damage for vehicles. but we also have a glass business.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: We have an ADAS business, which is the business that fixes all the sensors and adjusts everything on your cars, as well as a fleet business and a home repair ah a business that comes and will fix your cars in your driveways.
Jim Damico: So multiple businesses under the umbrella.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: 34 ,000 employees.
Tim Sackett: before you know Before you went to work at Caliber, like... I literally probably would never even have known and as a brand, even though it's a huge brand. Now, when somebody you know works there and you have a friend, every time I go by one, I'm like, oh. calli oh yeah You're just like, oh, hey, there's one. There's another one.
Tim Sackett: Like everywhere.
Jim Damico: there There are a lot of them, and our logo certainly stands out.
Tim Sackett: You got the you got the the rainbow kind of logo underneath the letters.
Jim Damico: Yes, yes, all the colors of paint that we offer.
Tim Sackett: all the color yeah well not even way more than that but i'm sure yeah at least that's what it is
Jim Damico: ah Yes.
Tim Sackett: So, Jim, I know, um you know, you guys in particular finding auto body techs is a huge challenge. um especially, you know, and like at scale. So like we like to start off, like tell people kind of. the stack that you use, and and we'll dig into that a little bit.
Jim Damico: Sure. So our Core ATS and HRIS system is Workday.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: uh so that's the the fundamental we have um a CRM. on top of that which is talentogy which is the crm that
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: Next thing built.
Tim Sackett: Yep.
Jim Damico: And then we've just. integrated. uh just started integrating in a tool called Fast Flow. um initially through our zip recruiter relationship to just speed up the communication process.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: candidates it still feeds into the same core systems and then we have um a generative ai uh Tool we use hone it is our tool
Tim Sackett: Oh yeah.
Jim Damico: Yeah.
Tim Sackett: yeah yeah Nice.
Jim Damico: Love it.
Tim Sackett: um Yeah, I'm familiar with with all of those. So let's start with the ah CRM. tell us like how do you guys use the crm what do you use the crm because i think it's still there's like There's low adoption for CRM. Madeline Marano, a friend of ours at Aptitude Research, does like an annual CRM report. and It's always shocking to me.
Tim Sackett: like the turnover of CRM, like that happens with, with TA teams. So how do you guys use it?
Jim Damico: Yes, so our CRM has a couple of aspects how we use it. So first off, it allows us to get candidate information and start moving on them right away. so You know, one of the.
Jim Damico: fundamental problems with an ATS is it requires like a full application. you know We don't need that.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: First of all, body techs don't have resumes.
Tim Sackett: No. No, yeah.
Jim Damico: Right. I just need to know. how I can get ahold of you as fast as possible. So the CRM allows for what we call a fast apply process. process.
Tim Sackett: Yep.
Jim Damico: it also becomes the holding source for all that data because Only our finalists are applying. Only our finalists are making it into the ATS. So our CRM is our tool to constantly be contacting people.
Jim Damico: Right.
Tim Sackett: Jim! OFCCP! Jim! OFCCP!
Jim Damico: ah
Tim Sackett: Come on! You figured it out. It's like, hey, we just need to show people interest first and then we'll go through and ask them all the rest of the stuff.
Jim Damico: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, look, we're not a federal contractor, so we do have that advantage. but still like yeah All that... No one's going to, body tech is not going to take that time to fill out a whole application if they're not coming to work for us.
Tim Sackett: No. Yeah, yeah No, 100%. All right, so tell... I'd say it. I always screw it up. Talent -gy? Talent -gy?
Jim Damico: Talenta G.
Tim Sackett: To Lent -a -gee. Come on, if they... Like, if your name is that hard, you need to change that. Let's go. Come on, next thing. Let's go. Talenta G.
Tim Sackett: It almost sounds like I'm stuttering. Dylan to DG. if you Now and then.
Jim Damico: It's really good.
Tim Sackett: The other thing that you use i'm ah that I'm a big fan of. um is FastFlow, which is a newer technology to the market. um I tease Francisco, their founder, because he's an Ohio kid.
Tim Sackett: that grew up in england so he's got an english accent but he's from ohio
Jim Damico: ah ah
Tim Sackett: Um... yeah And so, like, I always think that's hilarious. but talk like So what does actually fast flow do for you?
Jim Damico: so Completely incredible product, but very different from most things on the market. so What happens is as soon as somebody engages with us, right whether it's through a job advert or you know, a billboard where we have a QR code.
Jim Damico: I mean, whatever.
Tim Sackett: Mm hmm.
Jim Damico: They immediately... Pick up. Fastenal immediately picks up. what their primary messaging usage is, or what system they use. whether it's whatsapp instagram messenger facebook messenger apple message text whatever it is And that's how it begins the communication process. with the person.
Jim Damico: For my team, because we use Workday. it They don't know. It's the same text box.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: within Workday. um
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: or in our CRM. whichever it doesn't matter and then we're communicating with them where we we know that they're listening. What's really great is because so many of the people that we are hiring. are from immigrant communities.
Jim Damico: WhatsApp is big. And so to give us that access to WhatsApp.
Tim Sackett: Oh yeah.
Jim Damico: is tremendous. And then what's really cool is we can use this for the whole process. We can push new hire paperwork right to those. Those sources, we do a you know welcome video, all this stuff that we do during onboarding can be pushed right through that system.
Jim Damico: So it's a game changer.
Tim Sackett: Yeah, I think. I think they're crazy. like Most people, if you haven't traveled out of the US, you probably don't use WhatsApp. But if you ever travel out of the U .S., that's the primary kind of text messaging app, messaging app that people use is WhatsApp. and so like you said like If you have any immigrant community, they're probably on WhatsApp because that's how they communicate with people back from their home country, whatever that might be. The other thing that got me with FastFlow was...
Tim Sackett: They actually had native iMessage.
Jim Damico: Yes.
Tim Sackett: for Apple. And so think of the blue bubble stuff going back and forth again. So many people are using Apple phones. um And so like to be able to communicate with them in iMessage is big. And there's not another.
Tim Sackett: platform right now in the recruiting space that actually has a native born kind of iMessage. know, capability.
Jim Damico: Yeah, it's... Absolutely fantastic. And you know I give Francisco and team a lot of credit for seeing this gap. and
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: answering it.
Tim Sackett: And it's super lightweight. You don't have this giant kind of like integration thing. Like they can get it off the ground, like in a few days kind of thing. Like that's the crazy part is like, you don't have this big giant integration build. which So it was interesting. You were the one that actually, you know, kind of tipped me off to them um to begin with. and And the crazy part was, is because of, you know, like he kind of grew up in England.
Tim Sackett: they have like you know jaguar and like they have all these big european companies kind of using them that you're just kind of like oh i didn't know you guys were around um and more and more we're starting to see kind of us um based companies kind of starting to use them
Jim Damico: Yeah.
Tim Sackett: And then and another ah piece of the puzzle is the Honit, which is kind of the AI screening. kind of bot, explain to people what that is, how it... how it comes across to the candidate.
Jim Damico: Well, so we don't use it as ah as an AI screener. What we use it for is... it transcribes and records all of our uh our interview excuse me
Tim Sackett: Oh. ah Yeah. Okay. So interview, interview kind of transcription.
Jim Damico: Yeah. Yeah. So, and it's really critical because what we found in our industry is like, look, we recruit. experienced body techs.
Jim Damico: So if we're talking to you, you're qualified. to do the job.
Tim Sackett: Yeah, yeah
Jim Damico: Just because you're qualified doesn't mean... You're the right. person to do the job. So. Yeah, we have almost 1 ,900 shops. We're less than I think less than 8 % of all the shops in the US right still the majority of shops are
Tim Sackett: It's insane.
Jim Damico: Mom and pop shops, right?
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: And so. Oftentimes, the way that you work in those shops is very different. than the way that you would work in our shop. and so
Tim Sackett: Because you guys have more more technology and process in place. you know Yeah.
Jim Damico: Correct. Yeah. A lot more process. Uh, So we... We use this then to not just find out, yeah, can you straighten a frame? Great. Yes. Excellent. you know but How do you do your work?
Jim Damico: Because that's what's really important. That's going to determine whether you're going to be happy, whether we're going to be happy. We don't want to put somebody into a position where they're not going to be happy with their job. So this allows us.
Jim Damico: to record it transcribe it we have a scoring matrix right in there that we put in and then we're able to share it with the hiring manager so they can actually listen to the candidate were able to use that scoring matrix against our hiring and our hiring success to say okay is this matrix which is all determined by the recruiter like Is this actually?
Jim Damico: equaling success. So we can come back to it.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: um But it's really great for. The hiring manager, they love it to pop in there and say. Oh. Wow, yeah, how do they... Reconcile.
Jim Damico: This in their process and or how have they figured this out and to just actually hear the tech talk about it
Tim Sackett: Yeah. So you got, so. Talk to us about the setup then for your team. So you have 1 ,900 shops. Do you have regional recruiters then that that... support every shop they do all the kind of like screening interviewing send those on to like general managers of each shop
Jim Damico: Yeah, so we have five divisions nationally and then within those we have multiple markets. So recruiters are assigned. by division into markets. So yes, they will work.
Jim Damico: Specifically for those in the division of of service sort of in our recruiting organization is my recruiters, the ones that are.
Tim Sackett: Yep.
Jim Damico: actual caliber employees, they recruit for our.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: revenue generating positions, body techs, essays, GMs. rules like that, painters. Then we use Nexing RPO to support us on our front of the house and back of the house transactional roles.
Jim Damico: So things like detailers, porters.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: Office managers, yes.
Tim Sackett: high volume, stuff like that as well. Cool. Awesome. So. Talk to us about what you... because you haven't always been like high volume. Um. But like ah this is a unique one because it's like definitely a pain point. It's revenue generating. What have you learned kind of going through this process of coming into Caliber and building this team up?
Jim Damico: Yeah, so you know, it's It's a fascinating business. Um, Speed really matters. because the moment that A body tech decides, all right, I'm ah rolling my toolbox out of this shop.
Jim Damico: I'm going somewhere else. They have.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: options There's a lot of competition. um So being quick. is important. We've also learned that really making sure we have the right message for those body tech. right so yeah we're caliber we're the biggest yay we've got a lot of advantages but When you think about a specific body tech in a specific market,
Jim Damico: You know, it may be about having the most work. They may be in a market where their shop right now, they're sitting on a bucket and they want to be working because that's how they get paid. It may be the fact that we have.
Jim Damico: training for them to learn Highline. you know to learn bmw or working with different metals, and maybe the fact that we have better equipment, but understanding really what matters to them because everybody's got a job.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: Everybody has a job.
Tim Sackett: if If they want one, they have it, yeah.
Jim Damico: So really connecting there. Exactly. So making that connection, I think, is really important.
Tim Sackett: I think it's interesting too, because, you know, most high volume. Um, recruiting
Tim Sackett: It doesn't necessarily like you're. It's almost like they're in transposable, right? Somebody that can work at McDonald's, can work at a warehouse, can work at a Holiday Inn. For you, it's a very specific skill set. So it's high volume. It's critical hiring. But also it's like you have to – it's a hard recruiting thing because you're actually having to – actual do actual head hunting from other competitors. mom and pop shop, stuff like that. to make that happen.
Tim Sackett: How do you measure recruiting success there? Because i'm ah I'm like huge into this. I know time is a big one for the organization side because it's directly tied to revenue. But how do you measure your own recruiters?
Jim Damico: Sure. So. We look at. a couple of early keystone metrics obviously the output right so When we look at our hiring velocity, we need to be filling.
Jim Damico: 40 percent of the number of openings every month. to to be on velocity track. So we look at that. Right. But then we also know that recruiter interviews, the weekly number of recruiter interviews.
Jim Damico: Predicts. Those hires two to three weeks out. So. That's our bellwether metric that we look at every week. Are our teams hitting their... recruiter interview numbers, and then we follow it through the funnel. So we know Every four candidates that my recruiters interview, one of them is going to get hired.
Jim Damico: because they're going to pass.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: Two of those to a hiring manager. One of those is going to get hired. So we see all the way through.
Tim Sackett: Yep.
Jim Damico: What that is so we look at? any places where there might be bottlenecks so that we can Expedite it because anytime a candidate's left in process. there's ah There's a chance somebody's going to come and pluck them out of there for us.
Tim Sackett: I think it's a hard thing for a lot of CHROs and TA leaders to understand. is like At the end of the day, It's a sales funnel. It's a repeatable buildable machine. It's a machine that you can build that's repeatable if you if you start to measure that out. Like you've said, like, hey. every four lead equals one, you know blah, blah, blah. And so you can kind of do the math and reverse engineer the math and say, hey, here's our capacity. So if the business comes and says, hey, by the way, we're going to do this massive acquisition. We're going to acquire another 200 stores.
Tim Sackett: You easily can go to the CFO and say, that's cool, but for us to staff those. We need X, Y, and Z, right? we Because we have the math, we know the data. And I think that becomes that repeatable kind of machine that you build. which I think is critical. of of how you measure, but So often, I think corporate TA leaders, i mean and you're kind of an outlier in this, that They're like, well, Tim, like to do that, it's micromanaging.
Tim Sackett: like yeah recruiters are like like and How do you get through that in terms of having really hard measures, knowing what you have to to get to, but making your recruiters not feel like they're being micromanaged?
Jim Damico: Yeah, you know, that's ah that's a great question because it was interesting. That certainly was. the feel here when we started bringing this in. right and
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: Over time. the managers started to realize like, oh, this helps me help my team. And then the team starts to see, oh, this helps me manage my day. This gives me the support I need. So they know.
Jim Damico: His demand goes up, right? so We're starting to see demand come back in our industry. His demand comes up. We're not going to ask them to keep doing more with less. We're going to say when we hit this threshold.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: that we hire. somebody else this is how we continue to support us and develop what we do
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: And so the team understands now. what these numbers mean, why they're important. They look at them. they Look, my team is really competitive as well. so They love having these benchmarks because they can see how they're competing against other teams, against other recruiters.
Tim Sackett: Oh yeah.
Jim Damico: So they they really like it.
Tim Sackett: No, and I think it's critical. I tell people all the time, like you build your capacity measure. like those those four screens equal to one to higher. And let's say you go, Hey, we need 20 screens a week to meet your kind of monthly goal, blah, blah, blah, whatever that is. Right.
Tim Sackett: And so that way. Again, when you start to see that number creep up where your recruiters are like being forced to do. 22, 23, 24, whatever. I mean, again, whatever those numbers are, when they're starting to go above their norm for the week.
Tim Sackett: And you start to feel that stress coming onto them. It's like, okay, hey, we're going to start to add another person, another headcount. um I had one of my recruiters two weeks ago did 42 screens.
Tim Sackett: And I said, that's amazing.
Jim Damico: Yep.
Tim Sackett: Also, are we sure he's okay? Like we can't. Like. I mean... Like yeah that's unsustainable.
Jim Damico: Yes.
Tim Sackett: right like you're like that person's gonna burn out doing that level you know hey thank you for doing that that's a cool one i never asked you to do that but it's amazing that you did because in our world you kind of eat what you kill so he was going after something right that he wanted At the end of the day, I can't have him do that every single week or he won't be an employee of ours because he'll...
Tim Sackett: you know basically go, I can't stand this anymore. right so Having, I think, that critical...
Jim Damico: Right.
Tim Sackett: measure built on a B -level player or... 85 % of your top player, whatever that might be. So it's a sustainable kind of measure, I think is the critical piece of trying to build that out.
Jim Damico: Yeah, absolutely. and you know we can watch, right? So if somebody's doing 42 interviews but only getting three sendouts
Tim Sackett: Oh yeah.
Jim Damico: Like. Okay, let's... Talk about. how you're getting your interviews, right?
Tim Sackett: Yet. Yeah.
Jim Damico: like
Tim Sackett: yeah
Jim Damico: who you're going after because
Tim Sackett: or Or if they sit out 42 and they're only getting three interviews you know like from the manager or three – whatever. like Again, being able to like go back into that funnel and say, okay, critically, do we have hiring managers?
Tim Sackett: who are not who are looking too critical? are we having Are you not having high enough quality? like I love having those conversations.
Jim Damico: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it's... it's Again. Our job, my job, my leadership team, we're there to make the recruiter's lives.
Jim Damico: easier, right? Like not make it harder.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: So this helps us enable that.
Tim Sackett: Jim, we we ah before we got on, we were talking about some of the AI stuff that's out there. You and I are both. intellectually curious people. We love to see what's out there. When you when you look at... um out Out in front of you guys in the TA space or just kind of like overall for like efficiency and. And.
Tim Sackett: in ai stuff like what do you what are you looking at what are you guys like looking to test What do you think is out on the horizon there?
Jim Damico: Yeah, so there's... Two things where we're really loving some ah some of the AI use cases. So first off is market research. Claude isn't. excellent market researcher.
Jim Damico: Right.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: Like. I. at Albuquerque, right? so What is... Give me the groundwork in Albuquerque. What are the other shops? what are How many roles do they have open? What is their value proposition?
Jim Damico: right what am i up against we can pull all that up and then cater our marketing around that. so albuquerque like we found a lot of independents a lot of mom and pops We're the big bad corporate. So how do we?
Jim Damico: That's the message we've got to... get out there, like how we counter that.
Tim Sackett: Yeah. Yeah. yeah
Jim Damico: Love Claude for that because it can take so much information. uh You can write really Detailed prompts get really good answers back. The other thing is I'm not a huge fan. of AI screening interviews.
Jim Damico: Right. I think that they're still not ready for primetime. However, that same technology can be used for simulations. And I think that's really critical.
Tim Sackett: Oh yeah.
Jim Damico: So we've been exploring that with our. customer service group, right? Like they do the interview with the recruiter, recruiter sends them to simulation. They do a simulated call. It's recorded. It's transcribed.
Jim Damico: The hiring managers can listen to it because look. Everybody thinks that they can. Be a good. customer service person, right? But People that are calling our customer service were just in an accident.
Jim Damico: are out they They need their car.
Tim Sackett: Oh yeah.
Jim Damico: and you know so
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: It takes a... a different personality. So we can actually test that before we, hi again, we don't want candidates to come in here and fail.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: So they can also opt out, but everyone gets the chance to make sure this is right for them. So I think that's still the big underused area for that interview technology.
Tim Sackett: Well, Google – when Laszlo Block was at Google, that's what they found. They found the number one predictor of a great hire is a job simulation. It turns out if you can do the job – you might be good at the job, right?
Jim Damico: Yes.
Tim Sackett: But the... The problem is, is in most in most careers, a job simulation is really difficult to pull off, to build, to update. And now with some of these AI technologies, you literally. can you know throw in the job description, throw in some information on the company, throw in a Q and &A from the manager. And then in seconds, it will build you of a real -life job simulation. Like you said, customer service. sales. Like some of these job simulation things are amazing. Like I had a company.
Tim Sackett: that started using this, that was like, they struggled. Like they were literally. like 40 % success rate on sales hires. And it was all kind of over the phone sales kind of stuff. And then they turned this job simulation thing on and they went up to like 80 % because it was no longer kind of a flip of a the coin.
Jim Damico: Yeah.
Tim Sackett: like The manager could actually hear a real live sales simulation on their product yeah with the AI.
Jim Damico: Yes.
Tim Sackett: like it was It was crazy to me ah how good it was in terms of being able to develop that. Um, I actually like the AI screening. for right now for like low skill, no skill stuff, for sure.
Jim Damico: Yes.
Tim Sackett: if you have super high volume so like if you have 700 candidates applying for a job. You just don't have capacity to do that like in your recruiting team. but I want to get 100 % of them into the game.
Tim Sackett: I think when you get into really specific, like you guys have like skill set. there It can be trained to be really good. There's still a little bit of latency that I don't love. Um,
Jim Damico: Yep.
Tim Sackett: What I do like about it is I think. AI screening. screens better than an above average recruiter right now in terms of not ah being able to confront like red flags.
Tim Sackett: Like right now, you know, like a lot of like. recruiters won't just like dig in and say, Oh, you have this three month gap. Talk to me. And they'll say, Oh yeah. Like I had, you know, I was just changing from a one company to another and took a little time and they would just go, okay, cool.
Tim Sackett: And hey I might be like, well, talk talk to me more about this. Like, why did you, like you know, like that's weird that you took 90 days off. Like, like talk talk to me about that. Right. But. um's i think I think it'll get better and better because the last one I tested, like the latency was almost non -existent.
Tim Sackett: It was crazy to me. yeah
Jim Damico: The improvement is happening. so fast.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: Right. Like things that I saw last year at HR Tech and then saw again this spring, it's like two separate products. Thanks.
Tim Sackett: For sure. Oh yeah. So when you, there's this balance of. Tactical work that AI can take over from a recruiter recruiting team. And then we always have this conversation around.
Tim Sackett: Oh, well now your team can do more strategic work.
Jim Damico: Yep.
Tim Sackett: When you take a look at that from a leader standpoint, like what are some of the strategic things? that you would have your recruiters look at i mean you talked about using AI to actually dig in. to like market level stuff to be able to go after like more of a rifle approach than a shotgun approach.
Tim Sackett: it Like, how do you look at that space of, hey. 50 % of my work could be done by AI. Now what do I do with all this extra capacity?
Jim Damico: So I think that's a big part of it, right? Really, truly understanding the markets, building the... recruitment plans for specific markets. like We know that a one size fits all is never going to to work. So being very deliberate, very specific.
Jim Damico: in the market and being reactive to changes, right? Because Another competitor could come in and buy up. 40 shops in a market and all of a sudden it changes the landscape so how does it change our messaging how does it change what we're doing so i think it's really being that expert of how you recruit somebody, which to me is.
Jim Damico: you know, attraction, persuasion, seduction, right? Like how you go through that process. But then what tools do you pull? to get in front of them. It's not, I'm sorry. It's not indeed.
Jim Damico: Right. Like it's not just poison it' posting your job on a feed.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: So.
Tim Sackett: Oh yeah.
Jim Damico: Like. You know, this winter. uh we ran up in uh Minnesota, we ran radio ads. Because everyone that shops, let's listen to the radios.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: and Look. Not me. Someone else came up with the idea, said we should hit the Christmas channels because that's what their significant others are listening to. And we're offering a sign on bonus.
Tim Sackett: Yeah. You know, the other, the other ones that people don't think about is like, even like, like the streaming, like Spotify, Apple music, like um pandora like some of those like they're pretty they're super inexpensive to run that stuff and also they have the data to know like who's running it where is it being ran and so you can get really specific on some of that stuff
Jim Damico: You know.
Jim Damico: Yes. Oh.
Jim Damico: And it comes out so fast because they're using AI voices. um we do We do a lot of Spotify right now.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: Because, again, particularly we just started running. uh in Northern California a lot of Spotify because The guys that are working at those shops? have generally an hour plus commute.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: So they're listening to Spotify. Then when they're working on like they've got their. earphones in.
Tim Sackett: Well... And here's what people don't understand. Like when you have ah like a radio station, it's a local radio station that can go out. 20 miles, 30 miles, whatever, right? You kind of know the the area.
Tim Sackett: Spotify specifically knows where that person is actually listening. like And so if you could say, hey, there's a competitor, a group of like mom and pop shops in this part of town, as people drive through that part of town or people are working in that part of town, you can specifically just like, they can like target like that.
Jim Damico: Yes.
Tim Sackett: And to me, the targeting piece has gotten so much better and will continue to get better from that perspective. It's crazy. jim the other thing that you said you talked about this kind of persuasion
Jim Damico: Yeah.
Tim Sackett: In high volume hiring like you do, recruiters don't have the capacity to really focus, say, I know Tony over here. We found Tony. reached out to Tony. He said, no, I'm not interested.
Tim Sackett: And that's it. They just go away. tony is never They don't even ever come back to Tony again. In fact, if he comes up in your ATS or CRM, it's like, nope, Tony said no. Versus going. If I actually keep going back to Tony over six, 12 months.
Tim Sackett: I can talk Tony into coming to work for us.
Jim Damico: Yes.
Tim Sackett: The first time we talked to him, he's like, oh, I would never go to work for a big shop, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And then little by little, you're like going to start sending them stuff like, oh. This year, our body techs got you know a corporate bonus of this, and we would love to have you. you know and then oh this you know We just had this new benefit come out, right? Blah, blah, blah. And little by little, that persuasion wears them down. It's like, holy crap, this company wants me so bad.
Tim Sackett: I probably need to go and talk to them. And then they get in the shop and they're like, oh, it's clean. It's professional. They have all the equipment. They have all the training. Like all the stuff that says this is better for my career.
Tim Sackett: To me, I think that's the big win with AI is that we can actually have recruiters. go recruit again. And it might take. six months 12 months to actually get a really good person but like like you think like and i like um yeah I worked with a group of salons as well, that like so like ah like ah a right?
Tim Sackett: like Like a body tech, like every single hour they work, it's revenue for the company. There's a direct revenue generation. So you might not talk them in into the first time you talk to them. But if you could talk him into it over six months. You might bring a book of business over that's 150 grand kind of thing, or you might bring somebody in that's going to generate so much more money.
Tim Sackett: And to be able to have that ability to persuade somebody, I think is just huge. And right now we just don't have capacity for that.
Jim Damico: You know, absolutely. and so that's you know to me the first win for ai is giving recruiters more time to be in front of candidates right like potential candidates that's really important and we do a lot of work with peripheral engagement building that
Tim Sackett: Yes.
Jim Damico: equity up over time, putting information in front of people that like, look, don't click on the job. I just want to hear you hear we're one of Forbes best places to work or, you know, we have the best equipment or my gosh, we have we have the work.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: and really starting to do that because yeah, people have those opinions at first. And. Look, it'll change. over time, right? Understand what their pain point is. If you have an answer for that, that's the lever that you you can really pull on.
Tim Sackett: Yeah, and like you were talking with your your fast flow technology, like the ability. for a recruiter to go into an individual shop that's struggling and maybe there's a great body tech there. that you could actually do a quick video, throw that in, right? Then send that out to a candidate to say, oh, you're going to work with Mark.
Tim Sackett: here's here's what mark thinks about this shop whatever and they're just like super positive and they's like oh i would like to work with that guy he seems great you know There's stuff, there's the ability like that.
Jim Damico: Yes.
Tim Sackett: But again, When all you're doing is like. make making the donuts every single day and you can't get out of it.
Jim Damico: That's right.
Tim Sackett: Like it's become so difficult to go and say, Hey, I'm going to do some cool. I want to act like a marketer, not like a recruiter kind of thing. And I think that's, that's awesome.
Jim Damico: Absolutely. you know That's where we focus so much of our training on now with our team. is on those marketing and psychology fundamentals.
Tim Sackett: Yeah. It's basic psychology. We all want to be wanted by somebody. you know.
Jim Damico: Exactly.
Tim Sackett: Jim, um where can people find you next out on the road? I know you and I are going to be together.
Jim Damico: Yeah, we'll be at RecFest in Nashville.
Tim Sackett: Yeah.
Jim Damico: um which will be exciting at such a big event to to get everybody together. A lot of smart people. So looking forward to that.
Tim Sackett: It is fine. Awesome. And how can people find you online?
Jim Damico: LinkedIn.
Tim Sackett: We did.
Jim Damico: I'm on LinkedIn, yeah.
Tim Sackett: Facebook at work.
Jim Damico: But. That's right. ah
Tim Sackett: Jim D 'Amico, thank you so much. Everybody check them out. Again, I want to thank Workday for allowing us to have these amazing conversations with great leaders sharing their secret sauce and how they do things. We'll catch you again next time on the Frontlines Podcast. Jim, thanks a lot.
Jim Damico: Thank you my friend.
