Rolando Rosas 9:27
Do you think do you think this is also uniquely American is a few countries like this, that I’ve read about it? Because that culture supports this type of work ethic? Essentially, I don’t want to say glorifies but maybe the the incentives are aligned in order to do that, versus other countries where that’s probably not the case.
Sally Thornton 9:47
Exactly. So um, so Japan actually has a word for death by overwork. We don’t have that word. I mean, we probably say heart attack, but yeah, and so It, you know, definitely exists in other cultures. But you know, you’re famously it doesn’t, you know, that’s not how Swedes look at it. And so it’s interesting to look at cultures to understand that the water we swim in, right? So that’s where I really liked social science because even though I was really into, you know, math, I spent more time in the social science realm to try and Venn diagram like how do these things interact? And and how might we redesign work in ways that actually benefit everybody? Because I, you know, I’m a capitalist I love. I love that how the US economy works and benefits and creates innovation. And there’s so much goodness to it. But we always have to look at the flip side, right? Whenever we love something, we should always say, okay, but what’s not good about it? Because it keeps us fresh. It keeps us thinking and, critical thinking skills. So anyway, that’s what drove me to start a company around how might we redesign work with diverse teams, because there weren’t that many women having babies at the executive level at my company.
When I looked around. At this, it was called COVID. There were very few women. And it was and that was surprising to me, right? Because I grew up in Minnesota where I was equal and like it was a meritocracy. But when I started to look at the data, right, math, I was like, the data tells a different story than what I’ve been told in the ethos that like, it’s a meritocracy. And you know, so it was just a really interesting way to say like, how might we start to look at the data, start to design differently, and allow it to be a win, win win? So triple bottom line, right? It’s totally possible, we just have to be more thoughtful in the design. So that’s the company I started, it was basically around how, how do we build better teams with diversity? How do we think about overwork by supplying interim talent, so we’re a little weird at Forshay, we don’t just do executive search in the way that you might think about the big firms. We also do interim. So interim is wonderful, because if you have for I’ll give you a real story, VP of Marketing at Shutterfly, she was French. And she called me up and she said, I’m not taking your American maternity leave. I want a real maternity leave. And so but she didn’t want to leave her team a human down for six months. Right? So we talked about, okay, well, let’s let your number to step up and be get that exposure to the executive team and stretch a little bit, but not set him up for failure by having had two jobs. So we actually didn’t backfilling him with an interim marketing person who took some stuff off his plate, but allowed the team to succeed while she was gone, not be frustrated that she’s gone. Right. And so it’s just we just have to be more thoughtful to this, the fluidity that’s required in the future of work, which is a lot more about mixing skills, talent and and different paces, right, it isn’t always 80 hours a week. So how do we how do we think about that more critically, as was really what I’m all about. So it’s Interim Executive Search and diversity inclusion?
Rolando Rosas 12:56
Well, I want to ask you about that, because that’s exactly what what we want to jump into, which is, you know, how has the last 18 months impacted people’s thinking, both from a hiring perspective, as well as employees, because the shift that’s happened has to happen on both ends of the equation. Employees want need to demand that they want a better work life balance, which is what you’re talking about. Yep. And employers have to understand that employees aren’t robots, and they aren’t machines in that they can break down and we’ll break down unless you said there maybe we need to an American word for the for being death by work, right.
Sally Thornton 13:33
Yeah, yeah, hopefully not the death part. You know, what used to not be talked about is now front and center, which is mental health, well being right, however you whatever words you’re comfortable with. Because obviously, there’s a spectrum, right? of well being just being how do we have healthy practices and transparency at work, where people feel about inclusion and psychological safety, there’s all these really important words that allow people to do their best work and feel good in their bodies and in their work, that’s well being. But then you can go all the way to really difficult challenging mental health, right. So that also, especially with COVID, is a real topic that we need to be able to have a safe space. And we used to have this very divided brains, right? You just show up at work and you kind of perform, it was almost a different part of you and human would sort of put your human side away. But with the pandemic, we’ve all had to become integrated and just be ourselves, which is a wonderful challenge, right?
Rolando Rosas 14:37
Like I can see into your living room, you have a beautiful background there. You have trees, I know that you’re into, you know, maybe nature because you’re live in that environment you chose, especially if you’re telling me you didn’t in the last three months, you move there. It gives me more insight and can build. We had a guest on a couple of weeks ago, who was talking about the role of this whole the dynamics has changed. I can see a window into your who you are. And we can create a much stronger connection than if we were, you know, only meeting in the office, you know, periodically brushing against each other in the hallway or at the watercooler.
Sally Thornton 15:14
Right. And that’s exactly it. And so that human side, so how do we harness it for good? Right? That’s the question I think, is really interesting, because we can talk about all the changes and what’s hard. But I really think if we focus on like, what’s great about it, it’s more transparency to be ourselves, which therefore saves our energy, we’re not playing a role, which is exhausting, right? It’s also being able to ask for what you really need, which potentially allows you to do your job better, right? So so these things can be really, really good. Also, obviously, we’re not commuting, right? So you’d save all this time, you have more time with your whoever your loved ones are, right? So there’s a lot of that we can harness that we don’t want to lose into going forward. So back to your original question of like, what’s going to change? Most candidates right now ask for a lot more flexibility, which used to be like flex used to be a four letter F word. That was like, you’re asking for what, you know, you’re not dedicated all in worker, like, well, I’m asking for more autonomy, I’m asking for more control. And that’s actually what we want. We want adults, you know, who are responsible and know how to achieve their results by giving them more autonomy. So the new workplace is definitely going to have much more of a hybrid approach. And some some in the recruiting world, some of the clients were asking, you know, or asking for people to come in, like two or three days a week in the fall. And we have a lot of candidates are like, nope.
Rolando Rosas 16:42
We hear the same thing from other guests that have been on the show, and we have three or four in a row, Shane Howard, Steve Cadigan, Barbie Brewer, they’ve all basically been saying the same thing. A bunch of studies have all come out in the last couple of months saying the same thing. And I want to ask you, if you are seeing any shift on the employer side, about, you know, the attitude of work, and how some CEOs have been saying throughout the summer, you know, come into the office, this. I mean, as of the last couple of weeks, some of the big bank CEOs are saying you got to be in person by Labor Day, where, whereas some other companies say no, yeah, we’re going to embrace hybrid as the way to go. Because we have to be resilient.
Sally Thornton 17:30
Yeah, it really comes down to asking the question why. So if you are a janitor, you need to clean the floors of the biotech company that’s, you know, trying to figure out how to solve cancer, right? But if you’re a marketing professional at that biotech company, why do you need to be in the office? Maybe you’re going to have a brainstorming session where you want to, you know, be doing sticky notes on the wall, okay, then that would be a reason to go in. But what would it can’t be is I’m going to go into the office to do email. Right? So so it’s really about just asking questions that make sense, the what makes sense in terms of collaboration, what makes sense in terms of results? That’s the thing that we want to ask both clients and candidates. So as we think about how do you do your best work, because we also don’t want to set people up for failure where they say, I want to work from home, but actually 90% of that team is in the office three days a week. And there’s a lot of debate going on, but they’re missing out on, right. So to me, it’s never one or the other. The question is, what is the best of both? And how do we ask questions around designing for the work versus just assuming and kind of defaulting into, we just go in and somehow innovation is going to happen, and somehow team bonding is going to happen? No need to just be more intentional. I think that’s kind of the key word for me is like, if you’re intentional in your design of what’s the work you’re going to do and why then going into the office makes sense. Because you know, the outcome, you’re you’re actually designing for an outcome, versus just saying like, I don’t know, but you know, when we hit each other in the halls is great things are gonna happen, sparks are gonna fly, it’s like.
Dave Kelly 19:07
And, you know, we’ve had some folks on that have said that the technology doesn’t lend itself to that spontaneity that passing that passing in the hallway. And I tend to disagree. You know, we’re a virtual organization where, you know, we have we have our hubs. Yeah, a lot of us are communicating on the fly. Yeah, it’s creative ideas, just using the technology that we have, in doing it wherever we might be. It might not be a home office, it might be might be at Starbucks, or just in a car or wherever it might be. But we get together often, sometimes even just for short, little bursts. Yeah, that spot and then, you know, just to be spontaneous and come up with an idea and bounce it off a co worker, we do it often.
Sally Thornton 19:50
Yeah, so it shows it goes back to what you’re talking about. Dave is like, what’s required for your job, and how do you make it happen? So when Tim cook came out and talked about his new, the new products what during the pandemic, he said openly like, wow, we didn’t really think innovation could happen this way, but it has. And, and before, you know, because I’ve worked with that company, they really didn’t believe in remote work.
Rolando Rosas 20:19
I’m surprised. I’m surprised about that sound, because I’ve read as well, their, their, their hybrid work policies aren’t as flexible as a Twitter or LinkedIn or Facebook. And they’re still even more rigid than their tech peers. I’m surprised that that given that in a company where innovation is the culture, the the norm seems to be behind their norm seems to be behind the trend of the other tech companies? I don’t know. You tell me.
Sally Thornton 20:46
Yeah, no. So this is why social science to me is so illuminating. Because there’s a bias, like, I don’t know what exactly determines essentially success bias. Like when you when you reach success, whatever that is, you believe that the way in which you got there needs to be repeated. Right. And so when you have an executive like this is how we’ve been successful for however many years, it’s really hard to say that executive well, your lived experience, it’s, you know, it’s totally going to be different the future because that’s your lived experience, right? This is how we were successful. So it depth definitely makes a difference to who the leader is and what they believe, right? Because other companies who’ve been doing this a while are, flipping on a dime, that depends on what the leader believes will be successful for the team, right? So when he when Tim came out in the pandemic, and said, We have really good products and services, and then to your point Rolando, when when, you know, now the pandemic is having more openness because of the vaccine, he wants people back in the office, there’s a lot of chatter around what is best, because now we have experienced something else, and how might we take what was good about that? Also take what was good about being in the office, and then be thoughtful to the design? It’s really a hard question. And it does make a difference. What’s the culture of your company? What are you designing on your products or services? Are you you know, biotech, obviously, you know, people in the lab like, so there isn’t a like, this is the way to do it. It is really about saying at this point in our company culture at this point in our growth, how might we design with the voice of everyone included? I think that’s one of the big shifts that we’ve that we’ve seen is that now because of technology, the voice of the employees is heard so much louder, right?
Rolando Rosas 22:35
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. They’re in the driver’s seat more than ever before. That’s right. And I you know, what you said something about leadership. And I want to play for you something from one of those people that we just mentioned. And I want to get your thoughts on it, because it’s relevant to what you just talked about with leadership. And I’m gonna play for you. And then we’ll have some comments on the other side of the video before Cory.
Guest Speaker 23:00
There is a great talent reshuffle unfolding right now in the world. Every CEO, every executive team at every company right now is trying to figure out what their company looks like moving forward. Is it remote? Is it hybrid, and what they’re actually doing is rethinking their culture, and rethinking their values of how their company works. On the other hand, you have every employee in the world that’s been you know, working remotely over the past year, trying to figure out not only how or where they work moving forward, but why they want to work moving forward. They’re rethinking their values as well.
Rolando Rosas 23:34
There you go. That’s, so this is a leader. Yeah, just two weeks ago, they were still out two and a half weeks ago, they were still planning on a fall reentry of bringing everybody back in. And then he course corrected and said, no situation is dictated that we can just now allow everybody worked from home indefinitely until conditions change. Because the situation right now, today as of August 17, is not the same as it was on May 17.
Sally Thornton 24:06
Yep. Yep. That’s adaptive, adaptive leadership. Right is like, I got new data. I can update my browser.
Rolando Rosas 24:16
Um, yeah, human browser.
Sally Thornton 24:18
Yeah. And also, you know, this goes to humble leadership, which is maybe what I said before, was wrong. Or maybe what I said was before was right for that time, and now the data has changed, right? And so and so being able to be able to change your mind, right and not have it work against you, because you’re, whatever flip flopping or indecisive. It’s not that, right. It’s that I’m paying attention. I’m listening. I have new data. And so I’m going to I’m going to try this. And also, frankly, everything’s an experiment. Like, anytime we make a decision, we can change it. And so I think, you know, we love stone. We love experiments in it. Question when we’re building products, so why don’t we also love experiments when it comes to how we build the products? Right, knowing that if we try this and it’s not working, we’ll change. Right?
Dave Kelly 25:12
And that, you know, that must be such an interesting feeling for employees that are part of those organizations, because, like you said that the humble leadership that’s setting that pace for the culture, you know, and I can see where some organizations that have those sorts of leaders, their culture is slowly changing, like, Okay, we kind of, they understand they are looking at data, new data, not data that was given to us six months ago, or 18 months ago. So this little change here, it happened pretty quickly. And I can see how that can have a positive impact with within the culture of a company as well.
Sally Thornton 25:47
Yeah. And people also want to feel heard. So I think the other advantage to employees of LinkedIn that was to LinkedIn is, you know, if, if they are speaking up and saying, This is what we want, and then he says, okay, like, that’s just a huge, engaging, energizing culture to work in that I feel heard, that might, you know, my voice does make a difference. And, and again, if things shift, and they’re seeing numbers that are trending the right way, then he might change his mind to a different approach and say, Why write it, I heard you, and then we saw this data, and now we’re gonna go this direction. So I just think being data driven as a leader, being a really good listener, all of these things matter when people are thinking about which company to join. And, and they do have choice. Now, right there, this is a really strong economy. This is a candidates market. And we actually had one candidate turned down a client, because they didn’t have a very strong point of view, like during Black Lives Matter. They were, they were listening, but not acting. And we had, since we focus on diverse teams, we always have a diverse slate, and we hear from candidates from underrepresented groups tell us, you know, well, if you I’m going to get three companies to choose from, I’m going to look at all of the bundle of what they’re offering, obviously, money, title, responsibility, right? career progression, and learning. These are key things that they care about. And added to the list is, do they align with my values?
Rolando Rosas 27:20
Right. And I would imagine that, as the as conditions have been changing over the last 18 months, I would imagine the pressure, and maybe you can give us a window into what’s happening with hiring managers, because like you said, employees are changing their attitudes about work, changing what they value, maybe before the salary was at the top of their list, in terms of this is the only thing I’m going to take. And this is the only thing I’ll accept, or maybe salary is still in the consideration, obviously it is, but maybe instead of being one, maybe it’s three, and it’s now alignment with value. So I was wondering if you could give us a window into what’s going on with hiring managers as as things are changing, and what’s what’s the mint, the thinking they’re in, you know, there’s the headspace, you know, what’s what’s happening in the psychology of those hiring managers that are now looking at a new landscape?
Sally Thornton 28:14
So, the hiring managers, I would say, they’re really just looking for someone who’s gonna get the job done. Yeah, it’s basically like, how’s the pulse? Um, and they’re looking for demonstrated performance. So one of the shifts, actually, that’s changed in the science that we’ve seen is we used to believe experience equal performance. Not true. You can have tons of experience in one culture, and it’s not going to translate to the other. Those actually performance that we want to look at demonstrated performance in the prior jobs. So hiring managers who pay attention to correlations, say, Okay, I don’t want to just see on a resume that you’ve done 15 years of marketing, you know, in digital blah, blah, blah, I want to see, I want to know, what was your performance in that role in these roles and your progression? So that’s what’s shifted on the hiring side. Interesting. Yeah. On the candidate side, the candidates, the first thing they ask for is how much remote?
Rolando Rosas 29:18
So number one, so So let me let me not let let’s not gloss over that, because that’s important. So before that probably was way down the list. And maybe if you were further up the food chain, maybe a VP level of director level, they probably had the, you know, the audacity really, to ask for, hey, I want to be at home with the kids twice a week. Can you give that to me? Now? Probably a junior mid level, even entry level people are asking for that.
Sally Thornton 29:45
Yeah, that’s exactly right. So that, that is the first question. And then it is, you know, the team isn’t always when you think about success in a role. It’s so much dependent on your manager. So they want to know what Let’s this person like, right what’s what will I succeed in the role because of the culture of this team and the leadership of whoever I’m is going to be my manager, that’s, that’s number two, then how am I going to grow and learn, so that whatever my compensation and title are, I feel a path forward. Right, people don’t really want to jump to a job and then have to go to a totally different company to get the next job, they want to be able to see if they can grow within a company. And growing doesn’t always mean up, you know, it’s much more of a jungle gym than a ladder, that’s been very well documented that that’s more inspiring, and actually gets you further in terms of your ability to have lots of different skills and experiences, and just a linear path. So learning and development remains critical. And then for sure, all of that underneath all of that is conversation around values and culture. So it’s almost like it’s not a separate conversation on culture and values. It’s, it’s embedded in every part of the conversation. Right? Does that make sense?
Rolando Rosas 31:06
Yeah, it does. It’s fascinating. And I’m wondering how organizations are, obviously, when the job market is hot, in your like, you’re saying take a pulse, you’re hired, at some point that’s going to shake out and employers that are still more rigid in their approach to maybe remote work, using the technology available to get that the job done? And what do you think their prospects are going to be when more and more workers are demanding this type of work? Shift? Sorry, say that again, as so how are how are companies that are left behind basically weren’t late? You know, you have companies that are still saying, like you said, made the leaders you know, I came into the office every single day hurricane high water, it didn’t matter. I want everybody else to come in what’s going to happen to those organizations as we move forward?
Sally Thornton 32:01
Well, I think the leaders, I will say, still are very picky. So even though I joke about the pulse, I should also always say like, it’s a bell curve. Right? So the leaders are still saying we want a player’s. And even when they say that I cringe a little bit, because in growth mindset, everyone can be an A player, it’s just a matter of put them in the right place. But nevertheless, I’m using the language that the hiring executives use, they want a players. And they want them to to the point I was making before to be demonstrated performance and adaptable, because we’ve seen that to be able to lead in a hybrid or virtual environments really hard. So they’re looking actually for those kinds of skills, which is different than before, right? Because management in a remote,
Rolando Rosas 32:50
You’ve hit a pro tip, I want you to rewind, you’ve stumbled on a pro tip, let’s throw up a pro tip. Say that, again, Sally. Pro Tip.
Sally Thornton 33:05
So hiring managers want to look for demonstrated performance, right? Not just experienced, but how did you perform? And they want to be able to know that you can manage in a remote environment, right? Can you how do you adapt? How do you perform in when there’s more ambiguity? Right? That’s a key.
Rolando Rosas 33:27
Absolutely. And I would imagine that, especially that all of this for a lot of folks, there’s a lot of new muscle memory. Yeah, it’s a build, like Dave was saying, you know, we’ve been virtual before the pandemic, for us, it was really not a major shift was really minor shift is tweaking things because a bunch of new tools came on on the scene that actually made the job a lot easier. And these tools got better. From a from a, from an IT perspective, the tools have gotten way better in the last year than they were just right when the pandemic because a lot of people needed to be online, a lot of people needed to talk controls and security, all these things started just happening very fast. And they started coming together and organizations that were looking at being online, three or four years, all of a sudden are online. But I am fascinated also, as people are making this journey through the through the process of maybe looking at another job and they stumble across your organization, or whether they want to go let’s say work at Apple. What does that journey look like today? And given that technology plays a role? I think I heard you say something that hiring has become faster. And video is really one of those tools that’s allowing some of this this growth and acceleration in the recruitment process to take place.
Sally Thornton 34:56
Mm hmm. Yeah. And most of the recruiting that we do is at a professional The level so there are different ways that the recruiting process works based on industry and what kind of job, so I’m not going to be able to speak to all of it. But in the professional roles, video makes the difference in the sense of like, they’re not submitting video, you know, resumes, which I know just happens more at the entry level, which is, I think, really fascinating. But video is part of the interview process. So it can go faster, right, because pandemic, so whereas before, executives might want to fly people in and have them meet with a panel of hiring executives, which can take a long time to logistically figure out now it’s just boom, boom, boom. So the fact that there’s interviews makes the process faster, because logistics have just become much more fluid. So it allows people to make decisions faster. But as candidates are trying to line up offers, they often want to have more than one offer at the same time. So they have to sometimes say like, oh, I’m going on vacation, not available for this period of time trying to stretch it out. But yeah, on both sides of the equation, it can go faster. And frankly, that’s kind of a win back to efficiencies of like, what are the benefits of all of this, like, Let’s not waste time, let’s quickly get to know each other, and let’s make a decision and get to work.
Dave Kelly 36:18
So talking about efficiencies, and we’re talking about demonstrating, demonstrating success, you know, what unified communications, video and audio? That’s, you know, that’s just, that’s just the beginning. Are our clients, our sorry, our candidates and hiring managers taking advantage of, you know, like content sharing so that they can visually demonstrate, or is that kind of
Sally Thornton 36:44
Yeah, no, no, that’s a great point. Yes. So again, it depends on the job. So we, since we do marketing, and HR that a lot of the stuff in the marketing side, they do want like presentations, like show me your portfolio, if you’re depending on what what your creative role is, right? So yeah, it can be much more expansive, right to say like, how do you how do you communicate your ideas? How do you what show me what creative ideas you’ve had in the past, and it can be much more interactive than it would be maybe in a in an environment, we were sitting behind a desk, you know, interviewing some? So yeah, that’s a good point.
Rolando Rosas 37:20
Let me ask you that, that you’ve mentioned that. So let’s say you do have an interactive conversation, and like using video as part of the interview, you’re a human being your recruiter, you work with hiring managers that are also human being? Does the experience that we’ve had other folks come on, talk about the experience of the video, whether it’s audio or video, when you’re having that one on one conversation? What you see on the screen, and what you hear, for your for your ears, does it have any impact on that decision making process? Or what? In other words, what I’m trying to say? Are there things that are in control of the person being interviewed that they can do to increase their chances for success?
Sally Thornton 38:06
Oh, that’s a great question. So yes, again, think about every medium as like, what’s the benefit? And what’s the drawback? Right. So the way that we start is with audio interviews, because we want to not be biased by what our eyes see. Because our eyes cannot be turned off. And our brains are wired for bias. And this word bias feels like a four letter super scary word. It’s actually a shortcut that your brain takes is just neuroscience. It’s a shortcut to make decisions quickly, right? If my bias is I see a tall person in, you know, a dark alley behind the restaurant, my bias is don’t go down the alley, right? That’s, that’s how bias works for you. It makes a quick decision, it can also work against you, which is when you see someone who looks different than you speaks differently than you different age, different rates, whatever all there’s so many ways in which we’re different. It can actually interfere because our brains are thinking, Oh, I wonder what we have in common. What we don’t have in common is it and it’s your brain is thinking like that, or something like 40,000 You know, like bytes per second or something. Bytes because we’re on a computer, but it’s like pieces of I think that’s a big pieces of information per second, like our brains are incredible. So by doing an audio interview, first, we’ve just eliminated the noise that our eyes can give to our brain and we’re just just can focus on what is the person saying now we’re still going to detect a bunch of stuff in their voice right? From the south, you know, we might we might hear you know, different words that tell the age like it’s not like we’re we only hear words like rugged text. But it’s it just takes away one layer of bias that helps us to really listen to the content of the conversation. So we start with audio. And so for candidates, the more you can do that either If you are the majority, right, which is white men are still the majority in terms of leadership. So that’s just the data back to like, we can all have feelings about it. That’s the data. So even if you’re the majority, the audio can be great, because right now, since companies are looking at diverse teams, you might feel like that’s not great, right? Because companies are wanting more underrepresented groups. So whatever your situation is audio, this is why I always say like, it’s not a zero sum game, you want to get the right job for you. And you want to be able to be heard, whatever all of your attributes are. So when you start with audio, you’re just more you and less of the attributes, right? Then you move to video, because we are going to be talking and working in a human environment that’s 3d At some point. You want to be able to say like, how do we interact? Do I, you know, is it hard to communicate with this person, you know, whatever is required, again, for the job, because there’s some jobs where, you know, excellent communication isn’t important, right. And there are lots of people who are skilled in one way that maybe not aren’t as skilled in another. So being able to do that video interview next. And then honestly, the in person, it’s wonderful, because there is something energetic about being in the same room with someone that, especially for the executive level rules, we still say now that we’re vaccinating can be outside, it’d be great. If you can meet with the person at the end. Like it just get that energetic,
Rolando Rosas 41:32
you still want that you still want that in person as part of the component. And that’s what you’re advising your clients to do.
Sally Thornton 41:37
I do on the executive side. I mean, if you’re hiring, you know, 40 engineers in the month like it’s, it’s just logistically not going to be possible. So yeah, it always depends on the role, the team, the culture, to just make sure that you’re doing what’s best for both sides, it’s very much about both sides being as honest as possible, because that’s when it’s successful.
Dave Kelly 42:00
So I’m hearing that a lot of the process, the process has mostly stayed the same. It’s adapted a little bit with video, you know, and I can think of some organizations that have been using video as part of the process for a very long time, but it’s still a matter of resumes, narrowing, narrowing that down making some phone introductions, moving to video, and then moving to the the in person thing to hopefully nail it and wrap it up.
Sally Thornton 42:25
Yeah, I mean, that’s the beauty of of the recruiting process is it’s just humans figuring out should we work together, right, hasn’t changed. But I will say the video has really allowed a wider aperture for us to also look at talent outside of what we used to be more geographically kind of narrow back to companies wanting people to be more in person. So the aperture is actually wider for talent, to be able to think about different companies that might work for that they wouldn’t have thought of before the guy, the nephew in Fort Collins, Colorado, and he was like, only interviewing at local companies. I was like, Ben, why are you only interviewing Fort Collins companies? You could interview at Apple? And he’s like, Billy, and I’m like, yes. So there is a really big shift in that perspective, Dave, but like, to your point on the actual get to know you. There’s just some some improvements, but it’s not. It’s not rocket science.
Dave Kelly 43:22
Right. I actually had a friend that did a video interview about a week and a half ago. And she asked me, she said, Do you think they record these and then send them to you know, other other managers are kind of up the ladder? And I said, carry? That’s, that’s a really good question. I haven’t really asked Is that a possibility? Are they also recording video to save time to get from others?
Sally Thornton 43:47
My clients aren’t that I’m aware of. I think legally you have to disclose when you’re recording something, but I’m not aware. But no, my clients aren’t doing that. They still want it to feel they still want it to feel like we’re having a one to one improv. You know, again, like but if you’re in an animation company and you’re trying to film something that again for that job would make sense to record then you would just be transparent like okay, we’re going to video this and share it with the animation studio and right so it just always has to make sense and then be transparent.
Rolando Rosas 44:24
And what would you say about the so we’re talking about the process itself? Now, there are folks that are new to the video site? No, the phone call is easy in person I’m going to show up right with the video there’s still a lot of people that are afraid of being on camera and a lot of meetings are still conducted with you know you’re gonna have one or two that are have their cameras on and everybody else was listening on audio right or just watching the presenter. What would you say to folks are and I want to jump into some some nuggets now. That would help folks as they’re moving through That journey. Hey, I’m comfortable. I’ve talked on the phone all the time. Right? Now I gotta go on camera. Oh, I’m nervous. There may be two people behind the camera on the other end one person, there may be a panel, right? What are some of the mistakes you see people make when they go to that stage and they’re there. They’re past stage one, we got past the audio piece. They love me. Now the guy I got to talk and they got to look at me. What are some of the top mistakes that you see the folks make during that interview, that video interview that would be helpful to our audience?
Sally Thornton 45:31
A great question. I think the biggest one is not being prepared. I mean, it’s just kind of like 101 in terms of like, know what they’re listening for. So if you go into an interview, and you actually don’t know what matters to them, you’re walking into, you know, a lack of clarity, which is never great for a conversation. Boy, so let’s say, let’s say that happens, let’s say that you have no idea what they’re looking for, then I would start the conversation from a video perspective and say, I know we only have an hour together, or whatever the time is, maybe it’s 30 minutes. What matters most to you, what what are you, let’s, you know, listening for that I can give you specific stories, to help you understand my performance on these topics, because you want to get focused video, you know, potentially you can get back to the get distracted, you can get distracted by their background, or their dog ran through or whatever,
Rolando Rosas 46:25
and lost in the trees. I love looking past and looking at those wonderful truth.
Sally Thornton 46:30
Right? So if you don’t have the information coming in from a preparation perspective, then take charge of the conversation and ask, what are you listening for what matters most. And then you want to tell stories, because we learned through story. And that’s what behavioral interviewing is, because you can’t just say like, I’m a punctual person, and you can’t declare your attributes, you need to demonstrate them through a story that reveal your ability to perform. Right. So being able to focus your stories on what they’re listening for. So that whatever timeframe you have, you nail it, and then just, you know, make sure that that you give just as much time to them as you give to yourself because people want to have a back and forth. So that would be the last one is like make sure that it’s bi directional, right that it’s fluid, and everyone has a chance to speak. And being just thoughtful to airtime. I have to do that as an extrovert. I have to like, shut up, right.
Rolando Rosas 47:33
You aren’t thing and you don’t have any problems. speakers don’t do you
Sally Thornton 47:36
No, I have to I have to like ask questions, and they could be quiet.
Rolando Rosas 47:41
You know what we could put? Ori you know what, or you could fill us both in Greenshot. US just let Sally keep talking for another hour, we have another podcast going
Sally Thornton 47:52
I do love this topic. I want people to do work they love and I want you know people not be overworked. So like, I love this conversation.
Rolando Rosas 48:00
I know we that’s why we wanted to have you on it’s it’s a it’s something that it’s on people’s mind. I was looking at some speaking of research, I was researching work from home. And if you go back and look at that word from, from a Google perspective, searches on work from home really accelerated through the pandemic, and if still maintain a very high level of interest, even at this point, and even more so because now actually, prior to going into the return to work piece, which is what people were thinking, we’re all gonna go back at my Labor Day. Right, the brakes now, whoa, wait a minute, that may not happen nearly as fast now with what’s happening today. So it’s, it’s really important. We want to get that information to our audience to our potential customers and other folks that have this this topic as a top of mind, because I know it comes up all the time. So what what are people doing? What are organizations doing? What are people looking for, you know, as hiring process, what are mistakes? And having somebody like you, who is an expert and talks to people all day long about this stuff? It’s wonderful.
Sally Thornton 49:06
Thank you. Well, I will say it’s a journey, right? We’re learning together. And I love sharing part of a learning community is having this hive mind where when you learn a cool trick, tip and trick, you share it on your show, when I learned things, I put it on our blog, so it’s forshay.com and I just share what our clients are doing what we’re learning, because we do learn better when we can learn from each other’s mistakes, which we all have plenty of so I invite you know any of your listeners to follow you’re on LinkedIn or forshay.com whatever whatever medium you prefer. I want to learn with your listeners, right I want us to be able to share these ideas and and hopefully, you know have really meaningful work that people feel energized by not depleted. And so I call it work life blend because balance to me. He is really, really hard. It feels like you’re trying to achieve perfection every day, I feel like that term kind of sets us up for failure. I say work life blend, and I love to bring in the neuroscience and the social science to help us see our blind spots. So if that’s of interest, you know, I keep I will keep blogging on LinkedIn. And
Rolando Rosas 50:18
Please do, please do because I want to, I want to see more of what you’re talking about the neuroscience part. Because I know a lot of decision makers will say, Well, I’m not going by anecdotal stuff and surveys, what’s what’s the actual hard facts? Okay, and what did you find out and I know you had a nice lineup, put a plug in for you. You did a TED Talk. That was a couple of years ago, but still very, very relevant today. And so if you’re listening to this during the live or the playback, I encourage you and you know what we’re going to put in the links in our in the video down below in the description so that people could just go right to that TED talk, and they can hear you speak at length about that. Because the topic is just fascinating. And I’d love to come back podcast number two with you and just focus on the neurosciences that I love talking about brain what makes people tick.
Sally Thornton 51:09
Me too. I’m a super fun person that has neuroscience books by her bed.
Rolando Rosas 51:16
That sounds like fun reading. Really fun. Well, you know, you know what, Sally, we want to ask you some some other fun rapid fire questions that are that should spark some, some things inside your brain as well. All right, so these are very easy. Let’s jump right. You’re ready, Ori? All right. So what is your favorite musician or musical group? Prince? No doubt. Purple Rain, right in the backyard of Minnesota. Prince
Sally Thornton 51:51
was in two of his videos. So I’m a little bit like a child that never grew up.
Rolando Rosas 51:56
Yeah. Oh, his you know, his stuff is timeless, you know, unfortunate, into to a great and wonderful musician. But the music you put out touched millions, including myself. favorite app on your phone today?
Sally Thornton 52:12
Oh, have you think about favorite versus most used?
Rolando Rosas 52:15
Whatever it is? Yeah.
Sally Thornton 52:17
Um, I think probably my waking up app. So it’s a mindfulness app. It’s called waking up. And it teaches me meditation and philosophy and calms me down.
Rolando Rosas 52:32
That’s the first haven’t heard of the app. So plug for them. So if you want mindfulness waking up, is that the name of the app? That’s right. Okay, waking up. Here’s a good one. Because you’re right in the backyard of a lot of this good stuff. What’s your favorite food?
Sally Thornton 52:50
Right now it’s woodfired. Pizza. We have a pizza oven outside. And it’s Yeah, that’s awesome. Back on carbs.
Rolando Rosas 53:01
I would imagine especially where you’re around there. There’s probably several places that do that kind of, you know, woodfired pizza, little artisanal type stuff,
Sally Thornton 53:10
like fresh basil from garden, you know? Oh,
Rolando Rosas 53:15
let’s see when teleportation you just send an invite. I’m there. Right on. And lastly, what is your preferred method of communication? This is a multiple choice, email, mobile SMS, phone call, video call or instant message.
Sally Thornton 53:34
I mean, text just is that gets my distracted brain very clear. Like your here’s the text respond immediately. Um, so I kind of love text.
Rolando Rosas 53:43
Text, text.. All right. Hey, Dave, we’ve gotten several guests that have said, text is the way you know, Steve was on and he said text text text text.
Sally Thornton 53:55
Yeah. I mean, I also like Slack, because I can get there when I need it. So slack is like a time delayed text.
Rolando Rosas 54:06
Well, you know, there’s speaking of communication and texting, I want to let you know, just like Sally said, if you want to get a hold of her, you want to follow her. You want to find out more about what she’s about what her company does. You’re interested in this kind of piqued your interest a little bit. You can follow Sally, let us know. I don’t want to say you say and you tell the people, where do you want people to look for you.
Sally Thornton 54:31
I mean, LinkedIn, I think has the most content. But also we’ve been blogging on the website. So it’s on both spaces depending on which format you like. So LinkedIn is Sally Thornton, THORNTON. And the website is forshay.com FORSHAY and my Twitter is crap. Don’t worry about it.
Rolando Rosas 54:50
Don’t worry, just don’t even like just hit her. Or okay. Wow Well, Sally, you’ve been a wonderful sport. Absolutely, we need to have you back on again, to talk about all those other things we didn’t get around to. But before we get to all these other little things, I want to remind you if you’ve been watching this on the live or the playback, let us know what you think. Let us know if we’re on track with the topics. Maybe you have a topic that you want us to explore. Hit that subscribe, get notified, send us those comments. I actually look at those Dave looks at it. We have a team of folks that also help us on this effort, so that we can bring you the best content possible. And folks like Sally, you like her, tell us bring her back on maybe we make it a series with with Sally and her crew. You know, maybe she’ll give us some pointers on what we can do better. So that we can talk to you, our audience on these wonderful topics. All right, Dave, gonna say something.
Dave Kelly 55:55
So we started this segment, we started this off with our trivia question. We’re gonna throw the trivia question back up here. And very, very, very interesting question. So Sally, what do you say to Thomas Edison, and invent the job interview as we know it? And 1921
Rolando Rosas 56:17
I should have Googled it. Two in a row. Two guests now saying the same thing. I want to go with false. Drumroll. True. Oh, wow. Look at.
Dave Kelly 56:32
So what are the facts in there? When he interviewed candidates, research assistant positions, he offered them a bowl of soup. Why? He wanted to see whether they would add salt or pepper to the soup before they tasted it. Oh. Those automatically ruled out. He should have he should that was the highest. Right? That was his buildin.
Rolando Rosas 56:56
Yeah. Like his bowl of soup must have been the bomb. And he didn’t want anybody to mess around with it. Right?
Sally Thornton 57:02
Well, it goes back to what is your assumption? Because maybe he puts so much salt and pepper in that, that you just added more salt and pepper and you made like really gross? Because he’s like, don’t make assumptions.
Rolando Rosas 57:15
There you go. Oh, I don’t know what else to add to that. But that’s that’s a fascinating one. You got me Ori. I had no idea on what was going on there. But that was great.
Dave Kelly 57:25
Can you imagine sitting down for a job interview and they don’t offer you coffee? They offer you a bowl of soup.
Rolando Rosas 57:33
Or artisanal woodfired. Pizza
Dave Kelly 57:36
and bone broth? There we go.
Sally Thornton 57:40
Basil, you’re fired.
Rolando Rosas 57:45
Well, Sally, thank you for coming on. We appreciate you. Being on air, sharing your thoughts sharing your experience enlightening us today. And I want to invite you if you liked what you heard from Sally, today, we have other videos, where am I pointing to Ori the other direction. Right over here in these videos. Dave and I will be waiting for you with some interesting nuggets on work, remote work, and what to do with technology like webcams that allow you to stand out when you do have that video interview. We’ll see you soon. And see you in this next video.
Outro 58:24
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