The staffing industry is evolving fast, and today we are discussing what’s working and what’s not! We are joined by staffing industry experts, Sara Orr, Matt Dichter, Peter Sitov, Corey Grissom, and Jack Copeland to discuss how modern staffing firms are using technology to accelerate the growth of their agencies. They share insights on building a collaborative tech stack, share the biggest challenges in staffing, measuring ROI holistically, and managing multiple tech partners. We also dive into the build vs. buy debate, key client and candidate touchpoints, and the future of staffing agencies. Plus, each guest reveals their favorite way to leverage AI—and offers actionable tips for choosing the right tech partners while maintaining strong industry relationships. Thanks for listening!
[0:01:14.2] David Folwell: Hello, everyone, thank you for joining us for another episode of The Staffing Show. Today, I am super excited to be joined by a whole group of staffing industry experts and leaders, and we’re going to be digging into discussion around your tech stack, AI, and really discussing how modern staffing firms are approaching technology to accelerate the growth of their agency. To kick things off, since we’ve got a group here, we’re going to go around and do some intros, Sara, would you mind kicking it off?
[0:01:46.2] Sara Orr: Yeah.
[0:01:47.2] David Folwell: Also, something a little bit different for The Staffing Show today, we’re going to do intros, and also share our spirit animal.
[0:01:53.7] Sara Orr: Yeah. Prior to us hitting record, I’m already sweating about the spirit animal question, so I’ll just dive into it. I’m Sara Orr, I’m the chief marketing officer here at CrossMed Healthcare. I’ve been in the staffing industry for over 11 years, kind of just focusing on leading initiatives across brand, digital strategy, candidate engagement, and like demand generation. My spirit animal would be an octopus. I’m the ultimate multitasker, so I love kind of adapting to trends, figuring out solutions to problems, and just kind of always evolving.
[0:02:26.1] David Folwell: Fantastic. How about you, Matt?
[0:02:28.8] Matt Dichter: Matt Dichter, VP of sales at Staffing Engine. We are an AI solutions provider, focused solely on the third-party staffing and recruiting industry. A lot of us nerds might know me from my Bullhorn days because I was there for a very long time, and spirit animal is – might have changed over the last few years. I feel like back in the day when I was an individual contributor, I always would say like, a lone wolf kind of thing.
But now, I’m going to have to go like, Blue-Nosed Pitbull because they say that dogs look like their owners a lot of times, and I feel like my personality is a lot like my dog, Blue. So, I’m going to go, Blue-Nosed Pitty.
[0:03:06.2] David Folwell: Love it, love it, and Peter, you’re up next.
[0:03:09.5] Peter Sitov: Peter Sitov, RefAssured, been in the industry a long time as well. Excited to be on this panel with all you guys, and I forgot about the spirit animal thing. So, I just watched this video on a panda, and it’s pretty funny. I don’t know if you’ve seen those ones where they’re falling around, just eating and being clumsy, but just to like chill and have a good time. So, that’s because I just saw the video, and it kind of reminds me of myself a little bit. I like to eat, chill, and relax, and also can be a little bit clumsy. So, I guess I’ll go with the panda right now.
[0:03:37.0] David Folwell: I think that’s right on, and how about you, Corey?
[0:03:41.7] Corey Grissom: Corey Grissom here. VP of Sales and Marketing at Opus Match. I believe I’m the only non-staffing staffing expert here today. I have about 10 years of technology sales and leadership underneath my belt. Prior to getting into the staffing technology, I had a lot of experience leading sales at Git marketplaces, like Postmates and Window Low. In the world of spirit animals, I’m going to align with the thought-leader that I received a message from about six AM this morning, and I’m going to go with the noble squirrel. As you must be – as you must be agile, you must store and preserve wealth for winter, and you must follow your tail.
[0:04:23.3] David Folwell: All right, last but not least, Jack.
[0:04:26.1] Jack Copeland: Love it. Yeah, and Corey, you actually stole my spirit animal, so I’m scrambling now, but my name is Jack Copeland. I am CO and co-founder at Staffing Future, been in the industry 22 years, terrifyingly, pretty much just straight from school, straight into staffing technology, niche within a niche, and I was going to say that I would like to think of myself as some sort of gentrified badger, but instead, I probably might be a highly caffeinated squirrel. So, since Corey has stolen squirrel, I’ll go for like, a highly caffeinated raccoon.
[0:04:56.4] David Folwell: Oh, while we were having that, I didn’t know you were referring to the spirit animal or not, and I didn’t have one picked out, but I did. I asked ChatGPT to give me mine while that was going on, and it said, “A grey wolf, because it hunts in packs of four to six. Your referral loops mark new market territory without paycheck.”
[0:05:14.4] Jack Copeland: Oh God.
[0:05:17.1] Matt Dichter: You might do a little plug in there for me or no, that side of things?
[0:05:19.9] Peter Sitov: That’s better than a [crosstalk 0:05:21.5]
[0:05:22.9] David Folwell: I train my AI quite well, you know? All right, well, let’s get into the conversation. First thing that we want to talk about is some of the challenges in staffing right now, and just hear some different industry perspectives. So, we’re all talking to a lot of different agencies, on the vender side, and then Sara, obviously, you’re living a day-to-day in healthcare staffing, coming off of NATHO.
We can see, it is a – it’s a challenging market, and there’s a lot of interesting dynamics right now. So, maybe you could start off by telling us from your perspective, what are some of the key challenges you’re seeing in the staffing industry today?
[0:05:55.3] Sara Orr: Yeah, I feel like there’s quite a few that were kind of navigating through, but I mean, the travel nurse market is still kind of finding its roots. Demand and pay have come down quite a bit since those pandemic highs, but a lot of the travelers still have those expectations rooted in that era, which kind of creates a bit of a disconnect for us, and let’s be clear, like the workforce shortages haven’t gone anywhere.
So, especially in those like, really specialized roles, we’re still seeing the impact of retirement and burnout, and a lot of clinicians, especially that younger generation are stepping away from the traditional bedside roles or even leaving the field entirely, and then on the flip side, our hospitals are under pressure too. So, the budgets are tighter, they’re being more selective, there’s delays in starts, and we’re cutting down the number of travelers they’re bringing in.
And then, one thing that I’m really seeing too is just the retention is a huge challenge that’s kind of tougher than ever. Travelers are just not as loyal to one agency that they used to be, and they’re kind of brand agnostic now. So, kind of what matters most is the experience, the speed, and the pay, and loyalty is truly earned through like the strong recruiter relationships, and a seamless experience within your company, as opposed to just sticking with one agency for a long time, like we used to see.
[0:07:05.7] David Folwell: A lot of interesting dynamics and challenges from your perspective, and Matt, I know, you’ve got an interesting angle from kind of the – how AI is operating in this, so maybe even touch on that a little bit as well.
[0:07:16.5] Matt Dichter: Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, staffing and recruiting for the most part is still a speed game, right? And so, AI has a potential to offer game-changing speed, and we’ve seen some really successful deployments with that, but there’s still a lot of staffing agencies that are trying to cross the chasm and figure out how to successfully implement an AI strategy, and I feel like that’s a really big challenge, because there’s already forward thinking agencies that have already hopped on the bandwagon.
And then, there’s a lot of window shoppers that are thinking about it, vetting it out, but like, maybe we’ll implement something in six to 12 months from now, and that’s just not going to be fast enough with how fast things are moving from a technology standpoint, and then just one more item to piggyback off of that, one of the things that we see is agencies that are implementing AI, but they’re forgetting about the human touch part, right?
Like, there’s a lot of – there needs to be a clear handoff between technology AI, and then a live recruiter. Implemented technology, it does a really good job qualifying a candidate, as an example, and then there’s no clear handoff to a recruiter. That candidate is just going to sit there for a while and wait for someone to reach back out to them. So, it’s really important that agencies understand what their processes are coming in, and really find a way to tie the technology and the recruiter and candidate experience together.
[0:08:44.2] David Folwell: Absolutely, absolutely, and Peter, what’s your perspective?
[0:08:47.9] Peter Sitov: Yeah, I mean, we’re seeing a lot of different ice pain points as we all are, I think we’re all going to talk about, but I think quality has dropped off a little bit lately and it’s because speed is important but it’s also having agencies cut corners at that point in time because Sara, as you know, in healthcare, right? Speed is really important to get that candidate to the MSP as fast as possible.
But that sometimes makes recruiters, like I said, cut that specific corner. So, maybe instead of actually doing a detailed reference check or finding out if that candidate’s a good fit based off the client that you’re going to be working with, they’re kind of just doing quick check-in calls, and be like, “Hey, Dave, is this person a good fit? Great, all right, see you later, bye.” Well, do they have good bedside manner?
Are they going to fill the role that you’re looking for? Just because they need to get that candidate in front, and that reflection comes back on the agency. Back in the day, if they don’t show up, or they don’t perform, not they’re looking for. So, people are not being able to speed that process up, but understand what they’re looking for as a big pain point and kind of an issue on the talent side, at least, getting those people to facilities as fast as possible.
[0:09:47.6] David Folwell: Yeah, it is crazy right now because it feels like more agencies are struggling to differentiate their services and try to figure out how do they actually stand out. Tools like Staffing Engine for the speed, it’s tools like RefAssured for the quality side of it. We’re going to talk more about the candidate experience and also the digital experience from one perspective as well.
But I really think if I were to jump in here, like, figuring out how to differentiate your agency, how you stand out, and what you’re doing differently than others seems like one of the core elements as well. Corey, what’s your take?
[0:10:17.7] Corey Grissom: No, I think the entire team’s really hit it today. We’re in a market that’s a lot different than it was in 2020, a lot different than it was in 2021, 2022, right? We’re in a very job-restricted market right now, where the jobs, the job volume coming in, the rates, they’re not the same as they used to be. So, you really have to maximize every touch, every piece of engagement with your healthcare professionals and your candidates across all of staffing right now.
We’re seeing it in B2B SaaS sales, we’re seeing it at the recruitment desk level, it takes a lot more touches, a lot more engagements to really create great outreach and great engagement with the potential candidate, and then to Matt’s point, it demands speed, it demands verification. From Peter’s point, you also have to differentiate yourself right now. You’ve been coming down to lead sources where you’re getting candidates.
To Sara’s point, without the loyalty of the agency now, those one-to-one relationships when you do make candidate engagement, are that much more important, and we’ll see that a lot of talent market places and lead sources out there are typically where some of these candidates are going back to and not the agency after an assignment because they focused on candidate experience, they focused on speed.
They focused on creating a profile very easy, with verification layers, and it’s really a challenge of our community as tech providers to help our own agencies like CrossMed, with the tools to compete with people, so that your travelers and the candidates that you paid to engage with don’t leave you, and go right back to the lead source in which they came from.
[0:11:54.5] Matt Dichter: Yeah, I’ve got a quick one, Dave. He mentioned, like, the job shortage, but also, like, in travel nursing, for example. There’s also a nursing shortage and candidate shortage in many cases, and when that candidate interacts with you, and if they don’t get proper follow-up or follow-up at all, they’re going to remember that, and then if they go to a competitive agency that whoever is a really good experience, they’re going to remember that too.
And so, it’s really critical that staffing agencies pay attention to the experience that they’re providing because you can’t really afford to miss out on candidates in this market.
[0:12:28.9] Corey Grissom: No, absolutely, and then as we even think about that jobs crisis, it’s becoming even more difficult now to go out and find clients, being a supplier at – on an MSP isn’t enough. You need direct business to differentiate yourself. It really leans into some of the things that Jack will be able to shed some light on today, when it comes to going out there and finding those right sort of clients, to really kind of interface with this type of ecosystem.
[0:12:54.2] Jack Copeland: And that’s kind of the big challenge that I would say that we’ve been seeing is it’s aligned with what you guys are talking about on the candidate experience side, candidate generation with AI and automation and trying to basically figure out how do we, you know, in a tough candidate market, how do we attract candidates, but how do we keep that engagement and that relationship, whilst also sort of doing it at scale.
And I guess, the thing that we’ve seen a bit of inside healthcare, but also outside healthcare staffing, where we do quite a bit, is just more of the same problem on the client side, right? Like, I’m finding it harder and harder to get clients, I’m getting – I’m finding it harder and harder to pick up additional jobs, how do I start to automate that process, how do I use AI in that process as well, because that’s what my competitors are doing.
But how do I then do it in a way that it’s still detailed and personalized, and engaged enough, and has, you know, kind of good quality message, so I’m not just spamming the whole world. And so, that’s something we’ve been trying to help with, but it feels like almost an identical challenge just on that ongoing balance between clients and candidates that everyone’s fighting all the time.
[0:13:55.3] David Folwell: We all kind of touched on this in different ways about this. The overall kind of consumerization of staffing, where everybody’s expecting the same brand experience they have with an Uber or an Airbnb, but through your staffing agency, and that’s why we’re all here today to talk about kind of like, how you can integrate tech in the correct way, to create those experiences.
And Sara, really excited to hear from you on just what your journey has been like, in terms of integrating some of us here, in terms of our platforms into your candidate journey.
[0:14:24.7] Sara Orr: Yeah. So, when I think about like, the perfect tech stack, or how to build in, and I keep in mind like technology that works together. Technology that’s creating solutions, technology that’s creating, it’s like seamless human-centered experience. I think that’s going to be a main theme that we talk about, as how do we get this, like, human-centric behavior here. But technology that should do more than just checkboxes.
Technology that should be creating momentum for your business. At CrossMed, we’ve been intentional about who we’ve partnered with and who we’ve integrated with in our tech ecosystem, so like, every decision we’re making is through the lens of the candidate journey because with their experience, if it’s more personalized, if it’s seamless, it leads to better results for everybody.
So, to kind of like, kick it off, I’m talking about how I’ve been integrated with all of you guys as tech partners. I kind of want to look through it, like, to the life cycle of the candidate, and kind of like, the different touch points that they had. So, kind of kicking it off at like the top of the funnel, the entry point for it, candidates are finding us through like the programmatic advertising, job boards, organic search, social media, user-generated content, and also referrals.
So, I definitely say that this is the part of the journey that is heavily powered by Staffing Referrals. For many of our candidates, that’s exactly where that CrossMed journey begins. Referrals are kind of one of our top acquisition channels, and I know, David, you and I have talked even recently, even today, on some of our impressive numbers. I don’t know if we want to drop some of those numbers here now or if you want to wait for those to be a little bit of a –
[0:15:50.0] David Folwell: Absolutely. So, we – I was just looking at your account today, and there’s two things that stood out. One, their referrals per ambassador, so they’re kind of their referability, how many people are referring to them, was that – that 212% of the industry average. They had over 2.1 referrals per ambassador in the system, which is exceptional. That speaks to the brand to your reputation, to what you’ve – the foundation that you’ve laid at CrossMed, because people do not refer people to agencies that they do not have experiences with.
So, that’s like – it’s something to be really, really proud of, and it’s also the foundation for, you guys are 41% of your placements in 2025 have started with the referral.
[0:16:30.1] Sara Orr: That’s incredible.
[0:16:31.0] David Folwell: Which is a pretty fantastic stat. The industry average is usually somewhere between 15 and 20%. So, you guys are actually quite a bit, more than double what the industry average is in terms of driving placements from referrals, which is awesome.
[0:16:45.0] Sara Orr: That’s amazing. I used to have a leader in my life that would call me a Woo girl. So, like, right now would be my big Woo because that’s – that’s incredible. So that’s, that’s really awesome that we’re doing that. I think that we’ve just – that’s by design. I think we’ve been intentional with that too because we want to lean into that peer-to-peer recommendations that’s built on trust, and those warm leads convert faster.
It’s building a community of advocates, and that’s something that you guys have done very well for us and have been a huge input or a huge reason on why we’ve been successful in that area. So, that’s great. Kind of taking it down from that funnel, then, just moving into like, the website and the mobile experience. This is a subtle hint of something that we’re working on behind the scenes, but you know, with Staffing Future, once a candidate lands on the site, you know, they hit a clear, curated experience.
You don’t want candidates coming to your website and just already confused on what to do next and what you guys do. But your SEO-driven microsites, they help you discover relevant jobs and information quickly, and then from there, Opus Match powers that AI-driven candidate portal. So, Opus personalizes matches with their skills, their preferences, Corey, jump in if I’m missing something, but credentials, the user behavior, and that’s been making it faster and more accurate.
So, kind of, it’s not removing the recruiters role by any means but it’s allowing them to be more efficient with their time and do what they do best, and it’s allowing the candidates to get to that job faster without just the massive search of trying to find what they’re actually interested in, and then, lead distribution and responses. So, Staffing Engine takes a big part here, they’re ensuring that we’re responding instantly, integrating conversational chatbots to automate, like the basics.
But then, also implementing the lead distribution, so recruiters can spend time on the high-impact conversations, instead of just chasing the forms and the emails. We found that automating this process has been a huge game-changer for us. It’s fast, it’s responsive. I mean, contacting those candidates, I think – do you remember Matt, what that number was? Under 10 minutes?
[0:18:40.6] Matt Dichter: The goal is under 10 minutes during those hours and there’s a lot of data that we have that shows that if you’re able to follow up with applicants that quickly, the chance of them converting to a placement go up about three to four X, and honestly, like, that’s why we all, like working together on this call because Opus, the mobile app, when someone applies there, that becomes something that funnels through distribution.
Website, same thing, and then, even like referrals and references become funneled through. So, it’s consolidating down to one place to make sure that those applicants, to my point earlier, get timely follow-up, and get a live recruiter callling them because we still don’t think we’re not trying to replace recruiters with AI. We’re trying to supplement them, when we do have someone qualified, get their butts on the phone immediately with a live human.
[0:19:33.0] Sara Orr: And I think something to keep in mind with that, as the candidate experience, if you think you’re the only agency that that candidate is applying to at that moment, you are so wrong. You’ve got to beat the competition to contacting them and getting to them faster, and that’s the reason why those numbers are so significant there.
[0:19:50.7] Jack Copeland: It’s the instant gratification generation, right?
[0:19:53.3] Sara Orr: Yeah.
[0:19:52.4] Jack Copeland: That we kind of all set across Gen Z and Millennials, and I think that’s a lot of the target market for a lot of people these days. So, it makes complete sense.
[0:20:00.6] Matt Dichter: Well, we’ve seen it on the sales side, I mean, going back to my Bullhorn inside sales days, they told us that when we got an inbound lead, we should – if you then convert way better if you get them five minutes after they throw out a sales contact form. Sales and recruiting are not so different, you’re just selling people. Often, people find jobs, and so like, it would follow that recruiting and staffing should work in a very similar way that sales does, where if someone expresses interest, you got to go follow up with them, especially if your competitors are doing it in minutes and you’re taking hours to get back to them.
[0:20:34.6] Sara Orr: Absolutely. Once we have like the candidate in our system, moving forward, that’s when RefAssured comes in. So, we automate a traditionally slow manual process by using RefAssured, that helps us meet those candidates faster. It helps us make sure that they’re compliant and credible, and so for like, the candidates, it’s eliminating that unnecessary back and forth that a lot of people have done in the past, and then for clients, it just delivers trust.
And so, RefAssured has been a critical part of our own tech stack and that specific scenario, and then this is probably another plug for Staffing Referrals because it’s a full lifecycle for it, but once someone’s in our network, then the cycle doesn’t end, and it expands and Staffing Referrals has made it very easy for our current travelers to attract new travelers and share their experience and that keeps that funnel full and the community driven.
And then, just the whole backend infrastructure, like the talent lifecycle management, I would say. Like, that entire ecosystem is just anchored by Bullhorn. So, our core ATF is that it’s our central integration hub. It’s where all of our tech partners connect and make sure, like, the data is pulling cleanly across the platforms, and then we heavily lean on Bullhorn automation to streamline both the internal workflows.
And also those external communications from, like, triggering events, based on like the candidate actions, and then also powering operational efficiency. So, Bullhorn just kind of keeps everything aligned, responsive, and scalable for us.
[0:21:58.6] David Folwell: Yeah, and you guys have taken a really comprehensive approach to your tech stack, and thoughtful. I mean, I feel like over the years that we’ve worked together, you kind of pieced it all together, and I know a lot of the listeners for this podcast are trying to figure out what tech to buy, they’re inundated with just a number of options, and like, with now, all of the AI tools and AI startups.
It’s just more than I feel it, personally. I’m trying like 15 things at any given time. There’s a lot of options out there. When you’re looking at your tech stack, how are you kind of looking at it holistically and then measuring the ROI to make sure you’re getting out of it what you need?
[0:22:34.2] Sara Orr: Yeah, I mean, from a holistic approach, I probably look at it a little bit differently. The traditional way of measuring our IN staffing has always been, “Did this tool help me make a place for the candidate?” And that’s kind of an outdated mindset, and especially if you want to build a scalable staffing operation, in my opinion. So, for me, we take of the holistic approach, ROI has to kind of go beyond placements.
I look at how each tech partner contributes to the entire candidate lifecycle as well as the health of our business long-term. So, it’s not just about the cost per lead, the cost replacement, or even the cost per hire, which is all real data and it’s very important to track it, don’t stop tracking that, but it’s also about the time, the trust, the engagement and the data quality. Kind of some things that I keep top of mind if you’re talking about, like, the different approaches to measuring the ROI.
We’ve kind of broken it up as we’re talking about this and prepping for it, as like, the time savings and efficiency gains. So, is this tool removing manual work? Are recruiters spending more time actually recruiting, or are they just spending time navigating your technology? So, like Staffing Engine, you guys are a great example of, like, you’re streamlining conversations. You are leading, you’re helping with lead distribution.
That frees up recruiters’ time for building relationships and filling staffing needs. They improve candidate experience, you’re thinking as being, “Is the experience faster, is it clearer? Are we empowering the candidate more? Are we reducing BTQs? Are we improving retention?” And so, that’s kind of where Opus Match jumps in and helps that significantly there. They’re delivering better-fitting jobs instantly.
You’re helping dig for that right match, and have one place to manage, like credentials, time cards, and that’s real ROI right there because it shows up in loyalty and user experience and conversion rates, speed to placement retention. Plus, a lot of the things on that ROI is you’re giving back time to our business services team, so they can focus on like, higher impact processes and efficiencies. So, that’s really impactful there.
Other things I think about is like, does the tech contribute to like a seamless experience that makes us stand out? So, Dave, you talked about like the differentiators of a company. What are we doing to be different from other companies? Well, we have to work on your enhanced reputation and your brand value. What are you guys doing to stay innovative? Supply automation, segmentation, and those tailored experiences for your travelers.
And that’s like a staffing feature, so you guys kind of come into play there, right? You’re building websites that aren’t just transactional applications. You guys are building that first impression, you’re providing speed, clarity, and design, and all impact, all of that is perceived value, and then there’s the direct financial impact. So, did it drive more placements? Did it provide faster conversions? Did it increase revenue?
Can we quantify revenue linked to this tool? Because you should be able to with accurate reporting. Staffing Referrals, we’ve done that before. You know, we’ve talked about the measurable ROI about how the candidate referrals allows us to track source to placement, and obviously, you guys are our highest acquisition source. So, that’s very impactful, or someone thinks it’s active, activating passive candidates.
So, is the tech helping us to reengage leads that just sitting in our database? Kind of what we already talked about, like, the market is restricted, candidates are not in this industry as much as they used to be. So, you have an insane amount of candidates just sitting in your database. Are you surfacing those matches and touch points that you’ve missed or that are kind of sitting in the back end right now?
So, again, Opus Match is giving that intelligent recommendations, kind of doing like, nurturing campaigns for you without having to build those nurturing campaigns, and then you’re just looking at the, like, multi-touch attribution challenges. So, things that I’ve always looked at and I know, Corey and I have gone round and round on talking about this attribution channel for years now, so like, not everything is a first or a last touch.
Not everything is, “This is exactly, as soon as they came through this source, this is how they got placed.” So, what you need to think about is what influences this conversion journey along the way, and you can’t just credit it to the last email or the first ad that they clicked. That’s why attribution recording and like, our own internal alignment is so important with all of these tech stacks, kind of measuring together. That’s a lot, but it’s a whole, whole enchilada there.
[0:26:41.3] David Folwell: That was very thorough and a great deep dive into that, on the – just coming off of NATHO at the roundtable, the CMO roundtable, everybody was talking about attribution, first touch, last touch, how do you do it, and basically, it seems like it’s a mess. It seems nobody has a clear view on that. I would argue that your background in marketing give you a better angle and perspective on it than most because I think that the first touch is important, so is the last touch.
But so are all of them in between. It’s hard to know exactly what’s the most important, and there’s a lot of different models that you can look at, like the linear or different approach. How are you – are you guys doing any modeling internally? It sounded like you had some unique ways of digging into that.
[0:27:18.6] Sara Orr: We have several, we kind of have our own internal like candidate scoring algorithm systems that we use quite often, but a lot of the data is also pulled from the data that we got from you guys. So, we were just kind of been aggregating that data into putting it into action, all the results.
[0:27:33.2] David Folwell: That’s great.
[0:27:33.5] Matt Dichter: Yeah, the multi-touch is it tough one, considering that we’re working really hard on right now, but imagine like, someone goes and applies on travelling their source and get sent into your database, and since they’re for a few months because there’s no initial contact, and then Bullhorn automation sends them an email that drives them to their Staffing Future website, and while they’re on this epic future site, they see an Opus registration link.
And so, by that point, you know, they came in through TNS, they got warmed up by automation, they stopped by the Staffing Future site, and they downloaded a mobile app, and so like, all of those kind of influence on that placement. It’s really hard to weigh like, how much influence, and so like for us, if they apply in the mobile app, that’s the source that we attribute it to, but like, there’s obviously, there could be a history that came before that, that can be tough to see inside the database.
[0:28:31.9] David Folwell: The other piece that you touched on there just briefly, but would love to hear anybody’s thoughts around those, is the value of data, just beyond the placements, the first touch, last touch. I know you touched on the experience, the different touch points, but if anybody else had any thoughts or insights around that? I know it’s something that I think about a lot, and having run marketing for a lot of different brands over the years.
When I had my marketing consultancy, I felt like this was the most frustrating conversation to have as a marketer, and what the CFO or the owner was what’s worthwhile or what’s valuable, and how do you prove it. So, if anybody has any other insights there, I would love to hear it.
[0:29:05.3] Matt Dichter: I could cut it, bursting on like the post-hire information data, right? So, like, understanding how that clinicians doing at the facility at that point in time, and Sara, comes with evaluations, and you brought up redeployment, and also retention a little bit earlier on the call, Sara. I guess, how does CrossMed kind of differentiate your talent once you’ve placed them as those evaluation processes?
Is it check-ins that you’re doing with them to help redeploy them faster? I guess, how are you using that data on how that candidate’s doing once you’ve placed them to find them a new role?
[0:29:33.0] Sara Orr: Yeah, I think we’re really leaning into our technology and our automation systems, whether that is automating communication out to the travelers or automating tasks to our recruiters to make sure that they’re still connecting, they are still making those touchpoints, because it’s incredibly important to still have those human connections, and that human interaction, and making sure that people don’t feel like they’re just a transaction, and they’re just a quantity.
But yeah, really leaning into all of our technology to try and use that for making sure that they are coming back in, they’re feeling like they are having that seamless experience, and they’re not being forgotten after they get placed.
[0:30:06.5] David Folwell: That’s excellent. It sounds like you’ve really taken a holistic approach, and very thoughtful with the strategy for it. One of the things that I would imagine a lot of people listening to this are thinking as well, you’ve got a lot of different tech partners, a lot of different point solutions that you’re working with. Could you just shed some light on what does the experience look like when it comes to managing and working with the different tech partners, and what are some of the benefits that you’ve seen from that as well?
[0:30:30.4] Sara Orr: Yeah, there’s obviously pros and cons with both, or there’s pros and cons with managing multiple tech vendors. The cons, I think that managing multiple tech partners in general it’s not always easy. Integration is probably the biggest challenge that I see every single time, between internal bandwidth, making sure you have the right departments included. I continuously see, even from my previous experience or other companies that I’ve helped integrate technology with, making sure you have the right people in those meetings to make sure you have the right data flowing cleanly into Bullhorn.
And then also ensuring that nothing breaks down the strings. So, in my opinion, this challenge is kind of unavoidable, but it does come with every technology platform, and it kind of with whoever you choose to partner and integrate with, but I will say the flipside and the silver lining of that con is it does give you an opportunity to really map out, and take the time to ensure, understand your workflow, clean up any automations, and then make sure everything is working behind the scenes.
You have cleaner data, but the huge pro to this is when it comes to tech, you don’t want to be all in one shop. That’s intentional, we’re intentional with that. We don’t want to be a one-stop shop with one partner. So, the people that we’ve choose, we’ve partnered with multiple specialized platforms, and that’s been paying off huge. So, each partner we work with, they all serve a purpose, and they’re all best in the class in that area, and that’s why we chose them.
And I personally would rather manage like the relationship with vendors to have the right tools than to force one system to do things that it was really never meant to do. In my opinion, the key is strategy, building a tech stack that it works like a team, not a bunch of solo players, and like this particular group with you guys, and these tech partners I have, you guys work incredibly well together.
[0:32:07.8] Jack Copeland: Awesome, yeah, and I was just going to second that, Sara. I went to Broading for about a decade, and what Broading was, was kind of the middleware of connecting up loads of different job boards and loads of different ATS systems, and people always kind of have this fear that it wouldn’t work because the minute you’re trying to integrate lots of things, it all falls down, and everyone kind of points the finger at each other, like that Spider Man meme, or whatever.
But I think these days, people are adapting, right? It’s not so much a tech stack, it’s more of like a tech ecosystem or a talent ecosystem, and especially if you’ve got companies that I used to work, and with lots of different point solutions, and companies like our group, where they’re use this of engaging with other players, and they are getting on great, and they understand not just how to integrate but like they understand who the contacts are, those relationships.
And there is a mutual association of trying to solve specific problems, and also history, and case studies, an example of sort of how we’ve become better together, and how we work with other clients, then you get a lot more benefit from that sort of ecosystem, right? Where it sort of becomes like a self-perpetuating flywheel of positivity and success, and so I think that’s why I love this group, and that’s why I love working with lots of different people in the industry.
And I asked ChatGPT how I could associate raccoons into everything else that we’re doing right here, and so apparently, raccoons are workforce bandits, also known as talent ninjas due to the mask that they have. So, as far as I’m concerned, we’re the workforce bandits.
[0:33:29.1] Sara Orr: I love that.
[0:33:30.4] Matt Dichter: I’ve got a quick comment on the platform all in one versus integrated partners. I’m going to try to watch what I say so I don’t get in trouble, but there are certain providers out there that historically have taken the marketplace approach that seems to be moving towards that we should do everything with us, and we’re a one-stop shop, and I’m going to give an example from outside the staffing industry to avoid getting us slapped on the wrist here.
We’re a ZoomInfo shop, and ZoomInfo is, you know, hands down a market leader for data for go-to-market teams and sales, and over the years, ZoomInfo has made a lot of acquisitions. They have developed a lot of functionality in a lot of different places, but at the end of the day, what they’re really, really good at is providing sales data. We love Quorus, they bought Quorus, and Seco recording and transcription service.
But man, they’re engagement tool sucks. It sucks so bad that like, they’ll introduce like sales lot to the other partners to do it. I think when you look at companies that try to position themselves as being all-in-one, usually they don’t do everything good. There’s a couple of things that they can hang their hat on that they’re like the best at, but that’s why you want to partner with them, but the best in breed approach allows for folks that do really, really one or two things very well to plug into that core platform.
And I don’t think – I think that’s really important for staffing agencies to understand as a build their strategy.
[0:34:58.6] David Folwell: I’ll just add to that, man. I’ve been a HubSpot general partner years ago, and then I lived in HubSpot, love HubSpot, but –
[0:35:05.7] Sara Orr: Love HubSpot.
[0:35:07.2] David Folwell: I still pay for a CMOZ, and I still pay for Unbound, I pay for a landing page, like if you want the – if it is an element of your business that’s core to your business, that is key to your success, I do find that personally when it’s come to, you know, my HubSpot approach, which they do everything. I still went out and bought all of the additional vendors that I needed to make sure that I had the specialization in the areas that matter most.
[0:35:30.0] Sara Orr: Yep.
[0:35:30.9] Corey Grissom: I think what we’ve all kind of just write here, and to piggyback off in that world class is shout out, no free shout out there. I think what Sara has really described and what Jack even leaned into is what CrossMed was looking for wasn’t point solutions. They weren’t looking for vendors, they were looking for strategic partners, someone they could share their business goals and objectives with.
Someone that they could align with to start to look at things in the data, in the workflow, and have an understanding of the outcome, and I think that’s really what differates a lot of us that are on the podcast today from some of the other solutions in the staffing world is you have those “let’s do it all” platforms out there that don’t really specialize or you have something that’s still plug and play that it doesn’t really truly build value for the brand overtime.
And I think that’s where the real challenge is for continuing to engage with candidates as an agency, as a technology provider, is you have to drive value that continues to keep someone to happily renew, happily extend, and that differentiates you from everything else, and I think that’s what CrossMed has done very intentionally. You can see it in their decision-making, you can see it in their roster on their team, and it’s the way that they’ve built their tech stack, and I think you can kind of feel that environment.
[0:36:50.9] David Folwell: Yeah.
[0:36:51.1] Matt Dichter: Very world-class, yeah, you have. At the end of the day, that’s why you bought a Bullhorn or a Salesforce or a platform that had open API connectivity.
[0:37:02.3] Sara Orr: Yeah.
[0:37:02.6] Matt Dichter: Nothing to do everything in one stop, it takes ten partners that do certain things really well. That’s why I love Salesforce, because I can plug any cool tool that I find into it, and it will integrate it and talk to it.
[0:37:15.5] Jack Copeland: It’s flexibility and innovation, right? And the broader you become, the bigger you become. You become this like, spoiled tank of the content round, and there’s these little speedboats that come in and they just do a couple of things really, really well, and they sort of innovate, right? And so, I think that’s why if you learn how to put that together, you get the benefit of that, and you get best of breed in every area.
[0:37:34.5] David Folwell: I think foundationally that is one of the reasons I – I mean, you can see the ATSs that are friendly with marketplace partners have accelerated largely because they allow you to pick the additional platforms that you want to plug and play into, which is, I mean, I always think about like a mobile phone. What makes an iPhone great? It’s the apps that you can get with it easily, and rather seamless that work with it as well. Pete, I think you have something, you’re going to jump in there with as well.
[0:37:57.9] Peter Sitov: Well, I think it is just interesting because everyone’s talked about different data points throughout the candidate experience, and you can take those different data points and start realizing how that candidate is going to be a good fit, but you need the technology that ties it all together, and how we partner together I think helps Sara’s team make those decisions a little bit quicker and differentiates their talent compared to everyone else.
Because if we have a bunch of different tech that doesn’t talk together, that data is not going to come together, and you are not going to be able to use it to enhance your experience. So, I think it’s been pretty cool how we all work together, and how companies like Sara are able to use that data to differentiate themselves, especially in this tough market.
[0:38:33.2] Sara Orr: Yeah, and I think that like, I mean, any other staffing agency listening right now, like I think we all can agree that from our end, we’ve seen how like you guys and some other tech partners are starting to really collaborate with each other and you are doing it on purpose, right? Like, you guys are – you know you’re part of a bigger ecosystem, you know that you are building platforms with integration in mind.
I think that you guys are really leaning into the partnerships that just make life easier for the agencies, and in turn, that’s making our internal team’s life easier.
[0:39:01.5] David Folwell: Absolutely, and Sara, one of the other areas that I wanted to jump into was the build versus buy conversation. I feel like this is maybe shifted in the market, especially with current budget constraints, but it is something that, over the years, I always think is interesting how people approach that, and I think you’ve got an interesting perspective on it.
[0:39:19.2] Sara Orr: Yeah, from my experience, I mean, I can make it really simple by just saying speed to market wins here. I think that we’ve taken at CrossMed, we’ve taken the buy approach. I’ve said this before, but we want to go with best-in-class solutions. So, partners that can be like critical parts on the candidate lifecycle that gives us the agility for innovation, that gives us control over customization to work with you guys.
Building for us doesn’t make sense; it’s resource heavy, it requires a lot of upfront investments for developers, for infrastructure, for ongoing maintenance, and when you’re trying to build it yourself, the likelihood of you trying to keep up with the development timelines, and with launches and feature releases is not really there for you.
[0:40:00.3] David Folwell: Yeah, it’s always crazy to think about the challenges that go along. We all know what building software takes; it takes less.
[0:40:06.5] Sara Orr: Yeah.
[0:40:06.7] David Folwell: A lot of filter, remember.
[0:40:08.9] Jack Copeland: It’s not one and done either, right? It’s got an ongoing plus, people make out if you build it yourself. You know it hasn’t got multiple pass, but service costs money, developers cost money, mates cost money. People push API updates without even telling you, and you find out when you’ve got 200 clients on that platform, right?
[0:40:25.0] Matt Dichter: Right, you know running a technology company is a full-time business, you don’t want to have running one of those inside of a staffing agency.
[0:40:33.4] David Folwell: Absolutely, and we’re going to kind of round it out here and talk about what the future of staffing, and I have one kind of closing question, but I want to do it each panelist, your kind of where you see things going in the future of staffing, and obviously we are going through some challenging times or some tech disruption, a lot of changes happening in this side of the industry right now, but maybe we can kick it off, and we’re going to take it back to you, Sara, to start it off again, so.
[0:40:55.7] Sara Orr: Yeah, and we’re kind of talking about like the future of like tech and staffing at least, it’s like in my mind, I think there are several things. I’m excited about like how much smarter and more human it’s becoming. I think we’re finally getting past the stage where automation was thought to be just about speed, and if it’s industry-wide, cutting out recruiters, and I think that’s gone.
I think that was part of the digital transformation mindset, and I think the best tech is all about personalization at scale. I’m excited about how we’re finally starting to tap into data in meaningful ways. I think that used to be paralysis by analysis, especially as a marketer, we collect tons and tons of data, and dashboards everywhere, but there was no real clarity on what to do with it, so now it’s shifting, where we’re actually using that data to drive action.
And then again, like selfishly as a marketer, I love that we’re getting closer to that real attribution clarity, where we can provide more insight onto have more connected systems, and how what we’re seeing what’s working, what’s not working.
[0:41:50.5] David Folwell: That’s fantastic, and I’ll also add to this question, is there anything specific that you think would be most likely to change in the next 12 months?
[0:41:58.8] Sara Orr: Oh gosh, yeah. I think that the biggest shift, I think it’s been talked about a lot, but I think the biggest shift is actually moving to tech as a tool to teammate, and like my hot take on this is people start trusting AI more than Google. We’re already seeing it, Gen Z has been using TikTok as a search engine for quite a while now, so I think AI tools are becoming the go-to answers for recommendations, advice.
I mean, it’s not about convenience anymore, it’s more about like contextual understanding, and like from a marketing lens, it has like major implications for like your Google ads or your programmatic advertising. So, as users learn more on AI to filtering, like interpret the content, we’re going to be thinking more on relying on like, not keyword-based targeting, and more emphasis on contextual targeting, behavioral, intent-driven advertising.
And I think that goes to show that we’re using that data based on behavioral signals to be like, using that as the next competitive edge, being more proactive of what they’re going to do as opposed to what they did do.
[0:42:57.1] Corey Grissom: I think I’ll pick it up and run from there because I think we talked about like the upcoming innovations, the excitement, things that are happening in the space. I think you just nailed it, and I think it’s the silver bullet that every seller or marketer or business owner is looking for, and that’s really to understand intent, right? So, I think at Opus Match when we first came into the space, not fully understanding staffing was we really knew data really well.
We could tell if behavior looked the way it was supposed to do or the way it was not supposed to look, and be able to trigger on sort of those sort of things, and I think that is the new model and full-stack marketer. They are no longer going in and trying to spray and pray, and throw out the biggest lead funnel they can. We want to do that, don’t get me wrong, but we now know with all the noise that’s out there, with all the AI that’s out there, you’ve got to be able to look at your leads.
You’ve got to be able to look at your activity, you’ve got to be able to rank it, you’ve got to be able to stack against it, and you’ve got to be able to dial in on what’s real and what’s fake out there. There’s a lot of noise, a lot of vaporware out there, and I think that the next, let’s call it, frontier in AI and technology is really starting to understand why people work, when do they want to work, and is this the right time to work.
So, it’s definitely a candidate-first market, so you can understand the candidate’s intent, almost like an old-school ecommerce marketer. I think that’s the way that we’re all going to be doing it moving forward, right? So.
[0:44:30.9] Peter Sitov: And I love that point, Corey. It’s almost like predictive insights, right? Being able to say, “Hey, I know based off people we’ve placed before, this candidate is going to be a good fit because right now, it’s hard for teams to understand that you have different interview process. You either cross all different recruiters, and the ones you’ve placed them, you don’t have that data.
But once you’re able to source all this data in the one spot, I know based off, you know, this interview that I’ve had with this candidate, they have the attributes that this client is looking for. They’re going to show up on time, they’re going to be there, and if you have the ability to do that, your speed to hire, your quality of hire, is just going to be that much better.
[0:45:04.3] Matt Dichter: Oh yeah, the downstream to that when it comes to a more cost-effective lead, getting more lifetime value out of the lead, not having to source as much because you focus on the right candidates first before going out, and buying more leads. You see agencies become a lot more effective when they can leverage this data, automated, actionize on it, and then makes Sara’s life a lot easier, so.
[0:45:28.8] Corey Grissom: Yeah, you don’t want your recruiters to be resume pushers, right? Like, “Hey, here’s Zach I just found,” but you want them to be almost like partners with your clients. So, it’s like, “Hey, I know that the four candidates that CrossMed sent to me every time, they’re going to be the top ones out there because they have the right data that send the right candidates.” So, instead of those resume pushers, their actual, you know, strategic partners with your client, which is really important. You can use that data to figure that out.
[0:45:52.8] David Folwell: On the intense, I always think about it like fishing, like with a bobber. It’s just like, like it’s like the most data, but it’s like the dumbed-down version. I’ve always like, we’re always standing there, pull the line up constantly, and it’s like, “Well, there’s no fish.” It’s like, “Well, the bobber wasn’t moving.” It’s like, you need to make sure you have a bobber to identify when somebody actually is interested and likelihood of having a fish in my tire, so.
[0:46:12.4] Sara Orr: That’s great.
[0:46:13.7] Jack Copeland: 40 years living in the US, and I’ve never heard the term bobber. New stuff comes up all the time. So, we call it float, which I guess makes just as much sense, but I’ll chime in here as well. I’ve got a couple of bold predictions, right? For the future. So, in the 22 years I’ve been in the industry, people have been saying, “It’s the death of the job board, it’s the death of the job board, it’s the death of the job board.” And it never quite happens.
But I do believe that AI, at some level, is the death of the resume, right? Because most people will use an AI to write resumes, then most people are using AI to read resumes. So, you just start to pare it down into the kind of core data that sits within that, and so if you then start to look at job boards, their primary source is resumes, right? They’ve got – they’ve got clicks and eyeballs, but so does Instagram, so that Facebook, so does Google ads.
The one thing that they’ve got is to give you a resume of a candidate, and so I think what we’re going to see in the next few years is some impact on the job boards as people diversify around more and more programmatic, more direct advertising, more of the sources, though it’s job boards naturally going to pivot up the funnel, and start doing more for the direct employers and competing with staffing companies.
So, I think you know, the LinkedIns, the NDs of the world, the way that they’re going to handle that is by leveraging their tech to start sort of, you know, hovering up some of that business, and so the people that are going to survive, and the people that are going to thrive are going to be people that embrace tech themselves in like an innovative way, and that intellectual property becomes their tech stack that they built, right?
So, the CrossMeds of the world are really thinking through the experience that’s relevant to them and their customers, “How do I put it together? How do I have the content and the service layer around it, so that I can add a tremendous amount of value to my customers?” As opposed to you know, whatever Indeed or Ziprecruiter roll out as some affordable or Vivian or whatever, some affordable immediate, to sort of source recruiting model.
That’s where, actually, a lot of what’s going on in our world becomes incredibly important because you can try and just buy an off-the-shelf solution, right? For the software that does absolutely everything, like we’re talking about before, but that’s not going to make sense for your audience, right? It might create sense, but it’s not going to make sense. So, it kind of puts you in a position where you really need to start thinking about your tech stack as being innovative.
And you need to start pairing off the threat from some of these really, really large billion-dollar tech companies that are at the moment, you’re signing massive checks to. So, that’s my bold prediction for the future, and we’ll check in in three years and you can tell me how we’ve done it.
[0:48:34.9] David Folwell: Any other exciting moments to it, Matt, you got anything?
[0:48:37.6] Matt Dicther: Yeah, I’ll throw one out there. I think us, tech boys and girls, get a little spoiled in sales because a lot of the really cutting edge tech out there is geared more towards the tech sales, the staffing and recruiting sales, and recruiting typically get that a couple of years down the line. One of the things that we’ve experimented with a couple of vendors that I think is the future, the direction that AI is going, is voice.
And right now, in the staffing and recruiting industry, I think you’re seeing a lot of voice AI for the candidate experience, like left and right. There’s a new one every week, it’s pretty wild, but as an internal sales rep, think about how much value voice can bring with rather than having to type in a lot of administrative stuff into your system. If you could just say it out loud, then I could say, “Hey, I’m reaching out to Sara Orr.”
“She is the CMO at CrossMed. Write me a short, concise email with a low-friction call to action, seeing if she wants to see and learn more about our solutions.” And then it just sends it. I don’t have to type anything out, that’s where I see it going, and a little bit of a spoiler alert, but I think staffing agencies want to be on the cutting edge there, and we have some pretty exciting announcements around that coming soon.
But I think that voice is going to play a big role, not only in the candidate-client experience but also, allowing end users to work way faster than they could before.
[0:49:58.6] Jack Copeland: Whose voice are you going to use, Matt?
[0:50:00.9] Sara Orr: I love that.
[0:50:00.7] Matt Dichter: Hopefully, not mine. I mean, maybe we’ll dub over Sara’s or something, she’s got –
[0:50:05.3] Jack Copeland: You don’t want a nice–nice gentrified British badger?
[0:50:09.3] Matt Dichter: A gentrified badger, I go back to. I got to chat with you about that offline.
[0:50:14.9] Sara Orr: I love that. Pro tip: if you’re using AI to send me a specific email, make sure you add some humor in there, or otherwise, I’m going to drown that out.
[0:50:25.0] David Folwell: Pete, anything on your end?
[0:50:26.5] Peter Sitov: I mean, I think Corey talked about it. I think the biggest thing is the data piece. I don’t think people are using it enough because there’s not enough data to understand why that person’s been a good fit or where they’re at. I think the predictive insights, like we were talking about earlier, at the end of the day, is going to help your company move those candidates through the process a little bit faster.
Like you said, it’s tough to figure out why that person’s going to be a good fit, or maybe in some IT positions right now, as you know, there’s too many people out there. So, how do you differentiate those talents to make sure they’re a good fit? Using the predictive insights from running references, doing post-hire information, at the end of the day, is going to be the most important thing for your company.
[0:51:07.3] David Folwell: Yeah, I think what I’ve kind of heard from all of you guys and just sucking in, double down on is like, candidate experience matters, quality matters. There’s going to be a shift towards figuring out how do you drive insights, and be a solution for the, your partners like, how are you actually driving value, making sure that you’re putting the right people on contract, getting higher quality candidates, and how are you keeping up from a candidate experience perspective.
We have two last questions. So, one to open up the floor, just talking if there’s any closing comments or actionable tips to share. And then we have one kind of fun question to round it out, and then we’ll call it a day.
[0:51:40.9] Sara Orr: Yeah, I have like, an actional tip for anyone out there that’s kind of looking at what – like, you kind of mentioned before, like, there’s so many tech partners out there, like, how do you identify who to go with first, especially if you have a restricted budget. I would just start asking yourself, “How does this tool help me be proactive and not just reactive?” And thinking about how it’s more scalable for your company.
And just look for features that like, solve real challenges in that scalable way and be strategic that align to like your long-term goals. I think that’s where the true ROI lives.
[0:52:09.6] Matt Dicther: I’ve got something on top of that. Even before you go look at vendors and start doing demos, understand where the pain points are in your business and what you’re trying to solve for. We get so many folks who raise their hand for a demo, and we’re not going to demo just to demo. Like, what is the pain point that we’re trying to solve for, because people that are going out to market and evaluating 12 different AI solutions and just taking demo after demo, without really understanding what their challenges are, never get it by.
They’re going to get stuck in this indecision mode. Like, you have to, you know, have conversations with your team internally, figure out what you’re going to solve for, how you think you should solve for it, and then go evaluate solutions that match up with those pain points. I get hit up so much by like, all these AI sales tools, and I won’t take a meeting unless it’s something that I know that we’re struggling with. Otherwise, I’m going to spend half my day taking demos at a price that I’m never going to buy. It’s not worth it.
[0:53:16.9] Jack Copeland: On the flip side of that, Matt, I would say you’re thinking about it in terms of understanding your pain points. I think if you’re trying to work on the candidate experience, you want to understand your candidates’ pain points. Not all candidates’ pain points, right? And so, we see that a lot in our world, it’s like think about your target demographic of who you’re trying to go after, right?
The generational, the location, what they’re into, and then go on and ask them the questions, right? Don’t make assumptions about something that’s going to be too automated or not automated enough, you know? You want to go out and maybe actually form like a candidate feedback committee around your technology, right? You don’t want to go out and build technology, but you want to think like a technologist, and that user acceptance testing is what every tech company on the planet does, right?
And so, within your tech ecosystem, you need to be talking to your candidates about what they want to see, getting them testing out that experience, and enhancing it and improving it over time. If you want to build that engagement and that efficiency in a really tough market.
[0:54:10.8] David Folwell: Absolutely.
[0:54:11.2] Peter Sitov: I think one thing people need to not forget about, though, this is a relationship business, right? So, don’t forget about those relationships that you’ve created. Once you’ve placed that candidate, make sure you’re checking in to see how things are going, when they’re contract’s up, right? Like Sara, you were talking about, “Hey, it’s hard to find talent right now.”
Well, there’s talent that you have right in front of you, that you have placed on your contracts coming up in four or five weeks. What are you doing to make sure you’re having those conversations to make sure that those relationships stay strong, so they’d come back to you and they’re not going to other agencies? So, don’t forget the relationship side of the business, that’s probably going to be the biggest differentiator that you do have.
[0:54:45.2] Sara Orr: Absolutely.
[0:54:46.3] David Folwell: All right, and then we’re going to close it out. I’m just curious about this one, from all of you, what is your most unique or impactful use of AI that you have on a regular basis, or something just for fun? This has been a good hot topic at all the conferences. So, I’m curious to know, how are you guys using it in a way that’s especially unique or fun?
[0:55:06.3] Sara Orr: Okay. So, I’ve been using it in a –
[0:55:07.9] Matt Dichter: Here we go.
[0:55:10.8] Sara Orr: This is non-business related. So, this is going to be a fun way that I’ve been using it. Did you know that you can roast your photos? And that has been a very popular thing that I’ve been doing with my family, my friends, and some of my coworkers here. And so, it’s really fun to humble yourself, humble your friends, and that has been a lot of fun for us.
[0:55:33.0] Corey Grissom: Yeah, pro tip on that, you can tell it to light roast them, or you could tell it to roast them so hard that they question their own existence.
[0:55:41.7] Sara Orr: Yes, so I think that has been a lot of fun.
[0:55:45.4] David Folwell: There’s out in for new, very recently told me that you can have it roast to you in the voice of Nicky Glazer, and I did that and it’s amazing.
[0:55:54.3] Sara Orr: That’s awesome.
[0:55:57.3] Jack Copeland: I’ve started negotiating with AI. So, I think people use AI for therapy. I just try and – I try and get it to prove a premise and then see if I can change its mind, just to play around with it and just to see if I can get it to go full circle on its own talking points. So, you can play games with it too.
[0:56:13.3] David Folwell: That’s one.
[0:56:15.5] Sara Orr: That’s awesome.
[0:56:16.3] Jack Copeland: I got close. I got close, I’ve definitely managed to persuade it that my ideas are better than its ideas, but then, I guess, it largely is there to please me, but it’s also a bit of a proof case that you know, it’s working off the data in the industry, including the data that you give it, so.
[0:56:30.1] David Folwell: Anyone else? All right. I’ll close it out with that. I thought there would be some unique ones with the tech group.
[0:56:35.1] Peter Sitov: I don’t do anything good, I just look in my fridge. I’m like, “Hey, this is what’s in my fridge right now, what can I make out of this that’s edible?” So, I think that’s one from this thing, that’s for me right now.
[0:56:46.1] Corey Grissom: Peter is about to tell you more about his upcoming AI food app, is it a hot dog or is it not a hot dog?
[0:56:52.7] Peter Sitov: It’s I’m getting some good results right now.
[0:56:56.3] Corey Grissom: Yeah, hot dog.
[0:56:57.5] Jack Copeland: Only works with foods that are the same shape.
[0:57:02.4] David Folwell: All right. well, I really appreciate all of you guys being on today. This was a great conversation. Sara, thank you so much for going deep into your tech stack, and helping to explain how to approach this, and giving some insights to the listeners on what they should be thinking about moving forward. So, thank you guys all for being here today.
[0:57:17.8] Matt Dichter: Thanks, Sara.
[0:57:18.9] Sara Orr: Thank you. Thanks, guys.
[0:57:19.7] David Folwell: Thanks, all.
[0:57:20.3] Corey Grissom: Thank you, everyone.
[0:57:20.6] Jack Copeland: Thanks, everyone.
