Andy Hibel 0:00
Welcome to the HigherEdJobs podcast, the expert edition. I'm Andy Hibel, the chief operating Officer and one of the co-founders of HigherEdJobs.

Kelly Cherwin 0:08
And I'm Cherwin, the director of editorial strategy. Today, we're happy for the return of Kathleen Hermacinski. Kathleen is the head of human resources at Eureka College, and earlier this year, she shared helpful tips for new job seekers in higher ed. We also are super excited to have our returning expert, Matt Trainum. Matt is Vice President for Networks and Strategic Partnerships at the Council of Independent Colleges. Thank you both so much for joining us today.

Kathleen Hermacinski 0:32
Thanks, Kelly and Andy. I'm very excited to be here and with Matt.

Matt Trainum 0:35
It is always a pleasure to be with you all and be here. Nice to see you, Kathleen.

Kelly Cherwin 0:39
We've had several questions recently from listeners about recruiting and we want to have you guys weigh in on these questions. Let's start with what the difference is between an in-house recruiter on campus versus using an outside firm or a recruiter. Kathleen, do you want to kick us off?

Kathleen Hermacinski 0:55
I'd love to. The biggest difference in my experience between an in-house recruiter versus an outside firm is just a couple of things. The inside recruiter is going to be with the school and know the ins and outs of the culture can kind of answer some basic questions about the institution and their experience with them, especially those culture conversations. You want to make sure, like, is this the right fit? You can get a vibe off of that first call with somebody just Is this kind of the place I want to be? The problem with an internal recruiter is going to be they're doing multiple positions, maybe multiple departments. You don't know how many recruiters are with that institution. So it could be a slow process for that one position specific. So maybe it's with the committee, but the recruiters working on two other job searches and you've called in for an update and you don't really know what that update is because of the delay. If you use an outside firm, they're very specifically looking at that one position that they're searching for. From my perspective, searching on behalf of the institution, we typically only use those search firms for C-level president leadership kind of level positions, but they're not going to necessarily know the institutional culture like an in-house recruiter would. And there could also be additional site delays as if they get a question about the institution or the position or supervisor. There will be a slight delay as they go back to the school in order to answer that question before getting back to you. So slight delays on both. Culture is going to be a big difference for me. And then just just knowing that one outside firm is looking for one position where an inside recruiter is probably searching for multiple positions.

Kelly Cherwin 2:32
Thanks, Kathleen, for that summary. Matt do you have anything to add on to that?

Matt Trainum 2:35
No, I loved that summary. You know, when I think about this a little bit, it's the outside firm is the addition of an intermediary and you're now courting by association, right? It's like you have someone that you really want to go on a date with, but you have to convince a mutual friend to introduce you to that person. And so you're having to speak through this other intermediary group that has a different level of attachment to the role. Right. And so effectively, that means you have to have quick takeaways. You have to have concise pitches. You have to be able to say things that they can transfer over to the actual on campus people really effectively.

Kathleen Hermacinski 3:17
That's a good point. You have to interview almost two people to get in front of the decision maker. So you have to get through that search firm and then through potentially the committee or the hiring manager there. So you're going through the firm. You've got to impress at least two different levels instead of just the institutional entry part of the interview process.

Matt Trainum 3:35
Yeah. And I got a couple other things with that, too. I love Kathleen's point about they might know less, an outside firm might know less, and I think they filter differently. They're not has keen to tell you everything they might have perceived because they want you to be interested in the role. Right. And so the outside firm might not be as forthcoming with everything they know. They might be, by the way. It just depends on who you're dealing with. Hypothetically, with an outside firm, the level of process will be higher. Hypothetically, the details might be more managed because they're often, as was indicated, on higher level jobs. And so there might be a higher level of process and detail management. Hypothetically, that intermediate role is with you throughout the process. And so you're going to constantly have that. If we use that little metaphor I used earlier, that kind of mutual friend talking to you about how it's going and what the other person is thinking, which is often really helpful and often just another level of things you have to consider and understand. I think it does take longer to get to the campus, people in the voices and to understand them themselves. And sometimes people make misjudgments by judging the the search firm, the judge, the institution by the search firm or the other way around where it's like, oh, I really like the search people. And so this is going to be great, right? So you just have to remember that these are separate entities. And then I guess maybe one additional point before I touched on this moment is the search firms hypothetically will screen more carefully or thoughtfully. But here's where I also get a little bit I don't know if the word is judgmental or with bias. I will say maybe more narrowly. Search firms often have a specific range they're looking for, whereas at an institution, they are more prone to kind of take all comers and go, Oh, this looks interesting. A search for firm might. Well, this looks interesting, but it's not the right fit for us. So I find that search firms often set aside maybe candidates who are right there on the bump that might not make it in. They're more likely to set them aside, whereas I think in-house folks are often more likely to consider those.

Kathleen Hermacinski 5:43
I think that was a really good point because a lot of the times the institution will tell the search firm, I'm looking for A, B, and C, so the search firm knows to look for A, B, and C if you're talking about D, E, and F for that. As an in-house recruiter, I'm like, Ooh, that's really interesting. Those are not the parameters that the search firm has put forth. So they're really only looking at what the parameters of the institution and whoever's putting that information out may not be thinking about the other opportunities that other experience can be. That was a really good point, Matt.

Andy Hibel 6:15
I wonder for a moment whether or not I've been thrown back into the time machine and were on an episode of Love Connection and not the Hire Jobs podcast. So Chuck, I guess that's you. Matt You're Chuck Woolery in this. I mean, if I'm listening to this episode right now, this is all fantastic. But let's cut to the chase. I want to get the date. How do I talk to my friend and get to the intermediary? So what are your thoughts on that? Can the average jobseeker engage a firm to help them land a job? And if so, how the heck does a person get to find the right firm?

Matt Trainum 6:50
Let's let's step back for just a minute, if I can, and say we we actually don't talk a lot about search processes, which is interesting. But we talk about that today. I would think we might. It's surprising to me that I don't think we've talked a ton about those. So just a few generalizations about search processes. Search processes are always focused on the institution and the job and not on you. Right? The process, the outcomes, the flow will almost always be about them, the institution and not about you. And that's okay. So I'm just highlighting that, that that's a frame to know institutions. And I think especially in house processes, will often overpromise on timeline and under-deliver, both overpromise and under-deliver because that research is seldom as significant to the institution as it is to the person for the person. This is a dramatic life change for the institution. It's it's replacing a position that's open. So there's just a different amount of attention that it gets. And so I'm kind of what I'm trying to do, Andy, is paint the picture a little bit and your job in any search process. And I'm getting a little more direct to your question, your job in a search is to get them to want to give you an offer, Right? Your internal job is to evaluate if you want that offer when it comes see is when candidates take that internal job about evaluate it and process it externally during the search process. So your whole thing in the job, your whole and courting is to try to get that date and to be full on about your commitment to that and your desire for it. You can decide at the end when you actually get the offer to go on a date if you want that or not. But I wanted to set that a little bit. When you ask about candidates using search terms to get jobs, I think there is an emerging market of recruiters and placement folks and brokers in a variety of sectors. I think that is still less common in higher education. In some ways, it's wonderful that this sector is emerging because what we're seeing is a balance of power. The institution has a whole apparatus and maybe even an external party helping it with its search. And now the individual gets the ability to have somebody come in and help them with their search. Right. So there's a balance of power and a preparation in the concept of this. But most of the direct to candidate support I see is consulting on interviews, consulting on a resume preparation. It's broad coaching. It's helping people get concise messaging, it's translating it up, talking your skills, it's helping you get out of your head so that you don't accidentally do that with the folks you're actually interviewing with. That's the main role I am seeing with third party folks that are helping individual searching.

Andy Hibel 9:36
Thanks, Matt.

Mike Walker 9:37
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Kelly Cherwin 10:13
And I'm glad we're talking about this the recruiting process as well because I do think you know a lot of people have questions and you know don't know exactly how all of this works. So Kathleen, I'm going to switch it over to you now. So from your vantage point, from being on campus, how often do recruiters pitch you on candidates for a specific role?

Kathleen Hermacinski 10:31
Well, to follow up what Matt said in terms of like those outside firms, we don't see them a lot in higher education of pushing candidates to us. And most of the time, those are candidates outside of higher ed. So I don't believe, as I think back in my experience that I've ever been pitch a assistant professor of biology or a dean of nursing, it's always been like, I see you have this financial position in the business department open here. I have an accountant for you, not from higher education, but just from the accounting industry. So as Matt alluded to, we're not seeing those headhunters specific into higher education yet. But those consultants, as he referenced, of helping out with the resumé and the cover letters and the tweaking and stuff like that that we had previously talked about as working with your career services department, if you have that even as an employee. But in terms of pitching roles, to me, I would say couple of times a month I am in a small liberal arts college, so bigger institutions, probably with a larger budget, get more recruiters that reach out to them because in my experience, most of these recruiters are paid as a part of a percentage of the salary that's going to be offered. So you go to a larger institution that headhunters potentially going to get more money than they would at a school with a smaller budget. Matt I'd be curious if you have anything in your background or experience to add to that.

Matt Trainum 11:55
Yeah, I think that's spot on.

Andy Hibel 11:57
I think what's interesting to me throughout this conversation is the role that HigherEdJobs plays in this process and the seat that we sit in. And if I have to stick with the dating analogy, we're the go to friend. And as the go to friend, I think what we want to say about this process first and foremost is to remember the it's a process and you're the person in charge. Don't surrender your process to anyone else. Don't. It's you. You're the one who makes the decision. I think that's important to say. 2 the discussion we've just had over the past ten, 15 minutes has been focused around search firms for hire headhunters and then fee based headhunters. It can be a number of different folks. When you look at those folks. What I'd suggest you think of is there's an intermediary in every part of every application, and that's the applicant tracking system. I think what you need to remember and take all of these principles that Matt and Kathleen have put out to you is apply them to the applicant tracking system and know what you put into. It isn't necessarily what's going to come out on the other side. There are places that you can go and see how applicant tracking systems will read your application materials, take advantage of them. First and foremost, remember, you're the one in charge. And as your go to friend in this process, I think that's the part I want folks to understand that we really do our best to understand all there is out there and put ourselves in your shoes. Going through this, sticking to the process, understanding that. And last but not least, I think we don't say this often enough, Kelly, but we want to remind folks that all positions on campus aren't the same. There's a different process for just about every different department that you might work with, particularly at a larger campus. So the idea of recruiters and headhunters and all this stuff, I think the experience is you're going to see a search firm involved if it's a higher level position, particularly at a larger college. But this is not the same if you're in the for profit world and you're coming over to academia, you're not going to see it the same way in academia. You might see it if you were working for an accounting firm or if you're working in the technology field, etc., etc..

Kathleen Hermacinski 14:24
Andy If I can just follow up on that. I'd like to mention that we post all of our positions on HigherEdJobs because we see a lot of value in the applicants that we get back. We also recently used a search firm for one of our leadership positions, and that search firm we found on the HigherEdJobs website. So I really appreciate the toolkits that your site offers us when I think there was like what, two dozen search firms that have utilized HigherEdJobs in the past. So I just want to thank you for that opportunity to use your site for that.

Andy Hibel 14:52
Of course. Our pleasure.

Kelly Cherwin 14:54
Thank you, Kathleen. Well, thanks to you both. This was fun having two experts today. I hope you guys enjoyed the conversation. And actually, I was thinking, like maybe I don't even need to be here. You guys were so good at talking back and forth. So thank you so much.

Kathleen Hermacinski 15:07
Thanks, Kelly. Thanks, Andy.

Matt Trainum 15:09
I loved it. Thanks you all.

Andy Hibel 15:10
If you have a question for Matt or Kathleen or Matt and Kathleen, please feel free to email us at podcast@HigherEdJobs.com or send us a direct message on X @higheredcareers. Thank you for listening today and we look forward to talking soon.