EP131: Aligned Recruitment - How to Recruit Faster and Smarter

All-In Recruitment is a podcast by Manatal focusing on all things related to the recruitment industry’s missions and trends. Join us in our weekly conversations with leaders in the recruitment space and learn their best practices to transform the way you hire.

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

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Lydia: Welcome to the All In recruitment podcast by Manatal, where we explore best practices, learnings, and trends with leaders in the recruitment space. If you like our content, please subscribe to our channels on YouTube and Spotify to stay tuned for our weekly episodes.

I'm your host, Lydia, and with us this week is Julia Arpag, CEO and founder of Aligned Recruitment. It’s great to have you with us, Julia.

Julia: Thank you, Lydia. It's so good to be here.

Turning a Layoff into a Launchpad

Lydia: So what inspired you to start Aligned Recruitment, Julia? It's about just over a year. Congratulations!

Julia: Thank you so much. So, what inspired me to start it? I had actually been thinking about it for about a year. Honestly, I've been the best recruiter, just to be totally honest, on every team I've ever been on. So I was like, why not just go do this for myself? But it felt very scary to start my own business, so that held me back.

Then my former boss did me the massive favor of laying me off when I was five weeks postpartum with my fourth son. I actually do not hold any animosity toward him. I'm not saying that sarcastically. It really was a favor that he did that because it kind of pushed me out of the nest.

I did get several job offers after that, which I was very grateful for, but I ended up turning all of them down to start Aligned Recruitment. I've been very grateful for the opportunity ever since.

Lydia: Now, you have a team and you're building that team as I understand.

Julia: Yes, I have an amazing team. I could not do this without them. So I have an operations manager who's an absolute genius. She runs my whole back end. Then I have an incredible senior tech recruiter, and I'm actually hiring another senior tech recruiter right now. I'm also in the process of hiring a talent sourcer right now.

Lydia: So, what are some key areas that you're prioritizing for the company moving into the next year, or even at the moment?

Julia: Good question. So our top priority is always delivery. We are a recruitment company and if I'm not getting the best candidates in front of my clients, if I'm not perfectly understanding what they're looking for and then giving them those exact people, then we have failed.

So that is always my number one priority. That's why I hire recruiters who are top of the business because that is who I want to put in front of my clients. That's my number one priority. It Is keeping delivery at an absolute 100% perfection ratio, to be honest.

Then my revenue goal going into 2025. Our first 15 months in business so far, we're at over 750k, which I'm super grateful for. So, in 2025, my goal is to close a million total by the end of the year.

The Power of Asking the Right Questions

Lydia: So when you spun off and started your own firm, how did you get your first clients?

Julia: That's a great question. So because I've worked in recruitment for almost 10 years, I had a lot of companies who came to me who said, “Oh my gosh, you started your own firm. We know you're a great recruiter and we'd like to work with you.” So that was a huge gift.

My very first client DM'd me on LinkedIn, and he was like, “Hey, I'm looking to build out my engineering team, and I'd like to work with you.” Then a lot of it is past clients that I have approached and said, “Hey, I started my own firm and I'd love to talk to you.”

I've also learned a lot of go-to-market strategies. I hired an amazing executive coach, Diane Prince, and she scaled and sold her recruitment business for $28 million. So she has been super helpful to me in terms of figuring out how to go to market and close new business.

Lydia: So how do you align your recruitment strategies with a client's business objectives?

Julia: That's a great question.

We ask a crazy amount of questions. So, I listen way more than I talk because I want to understand before I start delivering. Because I can't deliver unless I perfectly understand. So both during the sales process and during the launch process of the roles, they talk minimum 60% of our calls, and I'm just furiously taking notes the whole time.

Lydia: So you have that set time where it's a discovery period, so to speak. What is the situation that you have, or rather, how many positions you'll have to fill, and where is the business going with that usually? What is the average time that you usually take for this process?

Julia: That's a great question. So the sales discovery process typically takes anywhere from three to four calls, and each call is anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. The goal for that part is to understand the kind of business reason these roles are open, the business reason they're going to be hiring.

Once they say, “Yes, we'd like to work with you.” Then the intake process is a 30 to 60 minute in depth call where we go over the exact details of the role itself, and the candidates they are looking to fill in those roles, what would make them a perfect candidate and a perfect fit for the opening to help them move towards whatever goals they have as a business.

Lydia: I understand you’ve also achieved a 30 day average time to fill. So what's the secret sauce here, and how does this compare to industry trends, especially now? In addition to this question, what sort of industry or what sort of roles do you typically fill?

Julia: Thank you for asking that. Yes, I'm very proud of our 30 day average time to fill, especially because we are in the tech industry, which is an extremely challenging space to recruit in. So the reason we're able to achieve that 30 day average time to fill is because we do that super in-depth intake process.

So we start with that 30 to 60 minute call where we ask a crazy amount of questions, then 48 hours later, we present 10 profiles to our client and say people align with what you're looking for. Typically, the answer is yes. Like, we go through all 10 candidates one by one, and they're like, “Yes, green light, go ahead.” Then we start head hunting, and typically we're able to get four candidate submissions to them within the first one to two weeks of us working together.

Why Emotional Intelligence is a Recruiter’s Superpower

Lydia: What are some common mistakes do you think that recruiters make and how can they avoid them, especially when they have that particular goal, or KPI to fill it within a specific time? And you're looking at so many different kinds of skills out there, and you need to find that candidate.

Julia: Yes, you need to have super high emotional intelligence to be a good recruiter. You need to be able to conduct the intake really thoughtfully. You need to hear what the hiring manager isn't saying. You can't just stick to a script. You can't just be like, okay, here are the 10 questions I'm going to ask you. Answer them. Okay, great. Moving on.

You need to listen for the nuances in the hiring manager's answers and then dig deeper. If they say, “Yes, this would be a nice to-have, not necessarily, like a must.” You're like, “Well, is this actually a must have?” Because I know what happens to a lot of recruiters is they send over candidates, and then the hiring manager realizes, “Oh, I actually needed these other requirements I didn't mention.”

So if you can hear those nuances, and if you can conduct that initial call and all the ensuing calls from a consultative perspective, then you're going to be able to get that quick time to fill.

Lydia: Now, moving on to candidates, what sourcing channel works best for you in the tech industry?

Julia: Oh, LinkedIn recruiter. I know it gets bashed. I know everyone's mad at LinkedIn because it's so expensive. I know a lot of other founders don't pay for a LinkedIn recruiter seat. I think that's a big mistake. I think the ROI on LinkedIn recruiter is absolutely worth it.

Lydia: Now, in terms of technology and data analytics, in your recruitment process, how do you use that to improve or how do you use that to bring that value to your clients?

Julia: Good question. So like I mentioned, our goal is to get four candidates submitted within one to two weeks. So that's one of the KPIs for my team in general, my goal is for my team to get two offers per month, and in order to achieve that, we talk about daily metrics of 25 pieces of outreach per day and five candidate screens per day.

So by tracking every single level, every single part of the funnel of the recruitment process, we're able to ensure success for our clients. The way we track it is LinkedIn recruiter. I can see how many messages my teams are sending, and then we also use an ATS and CRM combination recruiter flow. I absolutely love it. I cannot recommend it highly enough to other recruitment founders. Very affordable, very robust. The fact that I can store my candidates and my prospective clients, all In the same space, is a game changer. So we put candidates in there to track their process throughout the recruitment funnel.

The Secret to Lightning-Fast Hiring

Lydia: And now moving on to the softer part of recruitment. You would have seen so many stories, success stories, but what is your standout or most memorable recruitment story, Julia?

Julia: Oh my gosh, that's such a good question. So, the proudest moment of my recruitment career so far, two things come to mind.

One, I filled a senior-level software engineering role in six days, literally from the initial screen to offer, six days.

The other one that I'm very proud of is that we work in the tech recruitment industry. What that means is we actually recruit for a variety of roles for tech companies. So yes, we fill software engineering roles, but we also fill sales roles, marketing roles, C-suite positions, and operations roles.

One of the roles we filled was a COO, and those searches historically take four to six months. We found and hired a COO in just three weeks, from the first day we screened her to the day she was offered the job.

I'm very proud that my team is able to move so quickly, get candidates interested so fast, and deliver exactly what the hiring manager wants. I think that's what really sets us apart.

Lydia: Tell me about the six days.

Julia: Isn't that crazy? So again, it's because we do this super in-depth intake. I knew exactly who they wanted that day. The day of the intake, I went out and sourced 25 profiles. A lot of them said yes, but this one in particular said yes.

We got on a phone screen either that day or the next day. I submitted him the same day we had the screen, and the client was so excited by his profile that they moved him through their interview process. He literally had three interviews back to back, and they offered him the job.

I will say that's part of our secret sauce too—we only partner with clients who are totally bought into the recruitment process. If they drag their feet and don’t move fast, I’m not going to subject my team to that. That’s not a good relationship for either of us.

To their credit, our clients move quickly. They understand that top talent always has an advantage and could easily go work somewhere else. If they don’t move fast, they’re going to lose them—and that’s really what makes it a successful partnership.

Lydia: And finally, Julia, what advice would you give someone who is starting out in the recruitment space today?

Julia: Great question. You have got to listen more than you talk. That is absolutely my number one piece of advice. So ask really thoughtful questions both of your clients and of your candidates. So when you're screening them, you need to really dive deep into their background, and every time you meet with your client, you need to ask really thoughtful follow up questions so that you understand the role, and then you understand what changes you need to make, if any, throughout the recruitment process.

Lydia: Thank you so much, Julia, for your time and your insights. These have been great, generous sharings that you've given to us. So if whoever's listening in, who wants to pick up a conversation, what's the best place to connect with you?

Julia: Yes, so the best way is through LinkedIn. So I'm the only Julia Arpag on LinkedIn. So just search my name and I'll come up. Also check out our website, alignedrecruitment.com.

Lydia: Thank you again, Julia. We have been in conversation with Julia Arpag, CEO and founder of Aligned Recruitment. Thank you for joining us, and remember to subscribe to stay tuned for more weekly episodes from All In Recruitment.