This transcript summarizes a podcast episode interviewing Erin Stevens, a corporate recruiter for Masterbrand Cabinets. Erin discusses working remotely from her home in Louisville, Kentucky for a company based in Jasper, Indiana. She uses tools like Skype, Zoom, email and chat to stay connected with colleagues. Zoom has been particularly useful for video conferencing team meetings and candidate interviews to reduce travel costs and time.

1. TRANSCRIPT - RECTECH PODCAST EPISODE 49 WITH ERIN STEVENS FROM MASTER BRAND
CABINETS
SUBSCRIBE: ​https://www.rectechmedia.com/podcast/
SPONSORED BY: ​https://www.lever.co/rectech​ AND Hiretual
Erin Stevens: My name is Erin Stevens, corporate recruiter for Masterbrand Cabinets,
and I'm next on the Rec Tech podcast.
Announcer: Welcome to Rec Tech, the podcast where recruiting and technology
intersect. Each month you'll hear from vendors shaping the recruiting
world, along with recruiters who will tell you how they use technology
to hire talent. Now, here's your host, the mad scientist of online
recruiting, Chris Russell.
Chris Russell: Yes indeed, it's time once again for Rec Tech, the only podcast
[00:00:30] that helps employers and recruiters connect with more
candidates through technology inspired conversations. Today's show is
a recruiter edition. This episode of Rec Tech is sponsored the team at
Lever, providing a modern take on the applicant tracking system. Lever
combines ATS and CRM functionality in a single powerful platform, to
help you source, nurture, and manage your candidates all in one place.
They offer a brand new job site, custom sourcing tools, great metrics,
email and calendar integration, along with a host of other benefits that
your recruiting [00:01:00] team will love to use. And best of all, they're
just simply simple interface, means that hiring managers and applicants
will also love it.
To find out how Lever can you both accelerate and humanize hiring,
visit lever.co/rectech, that's L E V E R dot C O, not dot com, slash
rectech, R E C T E C H. Lever is where ATS meets CRM.
Alright, onto our guest. Erin Stevens from I think Jasper, Indiana if I got
it right. Welcome to Rec Tech.
Erin Stevens: Hello, yes, thank [00:01:30] you.
Chris Russell: Awesome, well it's good to have you here. We spoke to your cohort
Tiffany Kiel yesterday.
Erin Stevens: I see you learned how to pronounce her last name correctly.

2. Chris Russell: Now I do, yes, yes. I was calling her cool for some reason.
Erin Stevens: Well she is cool, so it works out.
Chris Russell: I know, that's what I said. I was just thinking you should make a bet
with her to see who gets the most downloads in the first week.
Erin Stevens: Oh yeah. It'll be me. It's always me.
Chris Russell: Okay, [00:02:00] the gauntlet has been thrown.
Erin Stevens: My gauntlet is thrown. I will make sure to text her later and be like,
"You better get your social media posse on that."
Chris Russell: She's already up to like 80 I think so.
Erin Stevens: Oh, well, hmm, we'll see.
Chris Russell: Alright, well thanks for coming again and let's talk about your
recruiting. So first of all, you recruit from home, you're remote right?
Erin Stevens: Yeah so [00:02:30] I actually mentioned Jasper, so our corporate offices
are in Jasper and that's where I'm technically based out of, as far as
what it says on paper, but I'm actually, I live in the Louisville, KY area.
So I live right across from Louisville in good old Jeffersonville, Indiana,
and I do, I work remotely, which is kind of cool. It kind of fell into my lap
sort of, so I guess a little more about my background.
I started [00:03:00] in non-profit actually, as my mom likes to say, I
wanted to make my way, sing my way, into the hearts and minds of
millions, so I started in college as a music major and was singing some,
not professionally but on my way to sing professionally, and it became,
it just wasn't fun anymore. So psychology and HR was my backup plan,
so I'm in the backup plan. And I got lucky enough to graduate at the
height of the recession, [00:03:30] in 2009-
Chris Russell: Lucky you.
Erin Stevens: ... And I remember just interviewing, oh I know. I remember my econ
class, my economics teacher was like, "Who's graduating this
semester?" And she's like, "Bless you child." Like great. So I got my first
job after lots of networking. I actually took the PHR certification class at
my college, and the consultant who was doing the class, teaching the
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3. [00:04:00] class, actually was a consultant for my first role. She
recommended me and said, "Hey there's this girl, I think she's got a big
mouth on her but, you know, she might be a good recruiter." So got
hired into non-profit and basically kind of learned recruiting from there
on up. Worked in non-profit for about five years, five or six years. Did
about a year third party recruiting, which that was exciting, and then
Masterbrand recruited [00:04:30] me off LinkedIn and I was like, "Sure I
would love," you know, the chance to get into a large company, 'cause
I'd only worked for very small roles, was exciting, and I said I'd be
willing to drive up 'cause Jasper's about an hour and twenty minutes
from where I live. I said I'd be willing to drive two or three days a week,
you know, maybe work remotely the rest.
At the time of offer, my boss was Tom, was like, "Just come up once a
week for a little while, and work remotely the rest." And I've been
[00:05:00] doing that for, it'll be three years in April, and it's been a
blast so far.
Chris Russell: Nice, very good. Good story. Let's talk about the remote part aspect
first. So do, are other recruiters there working remotely as well, or are
you the only one, or?
Erin Stevens: Well I'm the only one that's like full time remote, I have, we have a
team of, I believe four of us. It's myself and I have three other corporate
recruiters I work with, each of us handling different customer groups. So
when I started, my customer [00:05:30] groups were all field based, so it
made sense for me to be remote, so I did like a retail and sales groups,
and I helped out with our, we have 20 plus manufacturing plants across
the US, Canada, and Mexico, and I help and assist our HR managers in
the field with any type of recruiting or sourcing, and so it made sense
being remote. You know I could go anywhere, and I'm pretty centrally
based here in the Midwest. Our other two recruiters, two of them are
based at our [00:06:00] corporate office in Jasper, and then the third
one is based at one of our satellite offices in Deerfield, Illinois, which is
north of Chicago.
But we all have kind of the option of working, we're very lucky in the
fact that Masterbrands is very flexible with us, you know if we have a
sick child, which I don't have children, but if I had a sick child I could stay
home. For me it's like a sick cat or dog I guess, but you know if they
have sick kids, our boss allows us to work remotely. We're [00:06:30]
able to kind of flex our schedule as needed, and it's been really nice.
And so you know, the other two at our corporate office, if they need to
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4. work from home, that's definitely doable and you know, it's definitely
welcome.
Chris Russell: Yeah well I think recruiting itself really is, is germaine to being remote
anyway. I think it's an easy job to do remotely, right so.
Erin Stevens: Right.
Chris Russell: Okay, tell me about some of the tools you use to stay in touch with your
other colleagues, I mean what do you use for chat for example, do you
have a chat program?
Erin Stevens: [00:07:00] Yeah absolutely, so I'm set up, I have my home office, and so
I have a, it's obviously a laptop and a nice big screen 'cause I like to
have multiple screens, if I could have a third screen, I would totally do it.
And then I have-
Chris Russell: Yeah, you have two now?
Erin Stevens: ... Yeah I only have two now, I have a smaller one and I have like my big
one.
Chris Russell: Gotcha.
Erin Stevens: But we use, obviously email of course, but then we also use Skype,
which used to be I think called Link, and then they changed [00:07:30] it,
and then we've also recently been really using Zoom. Have you ever
heard of Zoom video conferencing?
Chris Russell: Yeah it's a video conferencing tool, I think it's free too right?
Erin Stevens: Well yes, so you can do free, you can get a pro version, and you can do
other types as well. We have, I'm assuming we, I mean I'm assuming we
pay for it, since we're a large manufacturer, but yeah we use Zoom a lot
for our team meetings. That has really helped, especially with me bring
remote, [00:08:00] and Shawn, who's our other corporate recruiter in
Deerfield, so that we can all see each other and connect, which is really
nice. We've also worked-
Chris Russell: How often do you do that?
Erin Stevens: Oh gosh, we have our team meetings so we're probably seeing each
other, at least once a week or maybe every other week. I know that I've
been using it quite a bit, you know with, I've been starting to use it
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5. more, and really kind of culturally shifting my customer service group
[00:08:30] to use it, as opposed to bringing in a candidate on site,
because it's very, it's very tough, obviously. Jasper's an hour and twenty
minutes outside of Louisville, so we're either bringing an individual into
the Louisville airport or the Evansville, Indiana airport, and then they
have to drive another hour to get to Jasper, and so it, depending on
where they're coming from, there's no direct flights, you know, so it's
definitely bringing a candidate on site is not only costly, but it takes up
a lot of time, [00:09:00] so I've been really kind of pushing them to only
bring final candidates on site if need be. So actually we-
Chris Russell: Do you use it to actually interview the candidates as well?
Erin Stevens: Yes, so we actually, we have Zoom rooms, so not only do I have a Zoom
account for myself but I can log into, and it's literally just sending an
individual a link. I've also been telling my candidates to download the
app, because it's so easy to use on your phone or an iPad or an Android-
Chris Russell: To your phone to?
Erin Stevens: Oh [00:09:30] yeah, you just download the app, and you type in like the
meeting ID number and then it just pops up. It's really nifty, so I been
doing that, I mean, and then we have rooms set up, so it you know
hiring managers are fun sometimes, they're like, "How do I set up this
video interview?" I'm like, "Literally all you do is walk in the room, and
hit start meeting." I'm like, "I've taken care of the rest, press the start
button, and the candidate, I promise I will pop up." And they're like,
"Okay." It's [00:10:00] still, they're still kind of missing a little bit of that
personal essence, and it also, like I try my best to prep the candidate,
too, on this is what it's gonna like, maybe, don't necessarily log in
before, but you know, look at yourself on your camera reverse wise, and
make sure you look presentable. Have a stand, you know. There is some
prepping that goes into that, but it's been really great.
We got all of our accounting interns interviewed and completed, and
offers out to them before December [00:10:30] of last year for the
summer. And we did nothing but video interviewing and it worked
great, because obviously those kids are in college, it's hard for them to
get away, they still have classed, they maybe don't have a car or have
money to drive you know to meet us in person, so it worked out super
well. And luckily my managers were very open to doing it that way.
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6. Chris Russell: Just give us a quick background on Masterbrand itself, in terms of your
hiring needs. What do you hire for, I think you have some
manufacturing in there right? [00:11:00] Tell us about that quickly.
Erin Stevens: Gosh, yes, so Masterbrand as a whole, so we are, we have about 20 plus
manufacturing sites, we manufacture kitchen cabinets. From stock
cabinets all the way up to custom cabinets so we have a need for
production associates, all the way up to, we have retail and sales, so
individuals out in the field. We sell through retail customers so like
Lowe's and Home Depot, so like our sales individuals are servicing those
facilities [00:11:30] and those retail outlets. We have individuals that
are working with builders, so we contract with national builders to sell
our products through there. We have individuals working with those
builders and contractors, we have dealers, so we have again our sales
people working with dealers. We also have obviously manufacturing
plants, so production associates, supervisors, front line supervisors are
definitely something we're always recruiting [00:12:00] for. Engineers,
operation leaders, continuous improvement leaders, and then all the
way, we have IT of course, IT's very important. So we actually, with
opening an office in Deerfield, Illinois, was kind of a tactic to get more.
We needed more of those tech people and I will say, one of the barriers
we work with is, location, [00:12:30] 'cause all of our locations are in
the not so exciting, you know not very large metropolitan areas.
So opening up Deerfield was very important and so with that,
technology had to improve. So IT, I personally recruit for finance and
accounting, and most of that is based at our corporate offices, and then
we also have positions in our plants across the country, so I could be
recruiting out of Riverside, California, [00:13:00] or Jasper, Indiana, or
Louisville, or Grant's Pass, Oregon, it just depends. We also have
product. Product is important 'cause we need individuals too, that are
creative and continuously upgrade our product, 'cause we're in the
fashion industry, so with fashion you know, the cabinets of the 1960s
are probably not in your kitchen today, right? So you know, you have to
change as fashion goes. And updates and marketing, customer service,
you know, getting stuff out there. And that's, [00:13:30] and then HR.
Chris Russell: Hey Erin, when it comes to those rural locations, are you guys, so it must
be pretty challenging in terms of you know, finding people right? I mean
what are you guys doing to attract those people? To get them to come
to those locations? Anything, have you, is it turning to something
different this year? I mean what are you guys trying to actually fill those
jobs, do you know?
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7. Erin Stevens: So one of the things that we've actually started really working on is
Facebook, 'cause we do not have, [00:14:00] we have not really had a
big social media presence. But if you think about it, like when you go
into Facebook, I don't know if you have, but there are a lot of, a lot of
communities, even smaller communities, they'll have some sort of, you
know yard sale group, or you know, any type of like just smaller groups,
like swapping groups, you know if they like products they want to swap
or whatever. So but everyone seems to have Facebook, or [00:14:30]
some type of social media. Facebook seems to be the number one. So
we have actually, and one of the things I have delved in, one of my
objectives is to really start to see what Facebook advertising looks like,
and this is really I've had to turn my marketing hat on, you know who
am I going to target to, and of course you know within applicable laws,
of course you know.
Am I targeting a certain area, you know, can I pin it down to those who
are already in production roles, am I able to steal from other companies
[00:15:00] by showing them targeted ads. You know diversity wise, are
we aiming towards Latinos, or Hispanics or whatever. You know can we
focus in on those areas of where we lack? You know so, really working
with our plants, a lot of them have open interview days, so making sure
we getting those out there and boosting those posts, and getting it to
show up in front of people to see if they may have an interest to come in
and learn more about Masterbrand. It's [00:15:30] really interesting, I
think personally at some point in the future, that's gonna go a little
more to the ways of marketing since that's what they do, on a day to
day basis and that's what they went to school for, so you know looking
at that and just getting more engagement and getting that feedback, is
really what we've been working on.
One other thing that we just implemented to get more traffic, and get
more engagement with our brand, 'cause we're really working on
building our brand of opportunity, [00:16:00] purpose, and reward, is
we are in the throes of college recruiting season, and so individuals who
are my age or in my generation, really look for companies that are
willing to give back to the company, or willing to give back to the
environment and what not, so we are actually starting a campaign that,
for every like on our Facebook page, we will plant a tree. We've
partnered with Arbor Day and we're gonna plant up to 2,000 [00:16:30]
trees through this activity, and so obviously-
Chris Russell: Pretty cool way to build your brand.
Ep44-YearEndRecap Page 7 of 18

8. Erin Stevens: ... Obviously right, 'cause I mean we're already, I mean we use wood.
Wood's like the number one ingredient in our products, so we need to
you know, give back to the environment, and make sure that we're
replanting what we're taking. So I'm really excited about that initiative
that's coming up and again, it's getting them to connect with us, and
keeping them engaged, and building that content, and you know
getting them to be able to talk, because a lot of people don't know.
[00:17:00] I mean, let me ask you a real question, have you ever heard
of Masterbrand before today?
Chris Russell: Yeah I have, yeah I did some-
Erin Stevens: Oh okay, great.
Chris Russell: ... Did some remodel a few years ago.
Erin Stevens: Oh, then that's it. Yeah if you've remodeled a kitchen, then you've
probably heard of Masterbrand before, but before I came to
Masterbrand I had no idea.
Chris Russell: But your typical college graduate probably hasn't right?
Erin Stevens: Absolutely you're right. No idea. 'Cause they've never redone a kitchen,
or even probably thought about that.
Chris Russell: Hey by the way, I'm an admin of some groups on Facebook so, one of
those is an Indiana group, so I'll invite you, [00:17:30] it's Indiana Jobs,
Employment, and Hiring, it's called, so you can post your jobs in there if
you prefer.
Erin Stevens: Oh yeah, I'd love to be part of that.
Chris Russell: Awesome. Let's move on a little bit, what's your ATS there?
Erin Stevens: We have ICIMS
Chris Russell: Ice something?
Erin Stevens: Yes ICIMS. I really like it, now we just did an integration with Work Day
for HRIS systems so I may not have ICIMS much longer, I don't know,
that's kind of in talks, but I've used ICIMS for the last three years and
I'm a kind of a techy person [00:18:00] and I really like it, like learning.
You know it's easy to progress candidates through, it's easy to reach
Ep44-YearEndRecap Page 8 of 18

9. out, you can really customize it, and I know and Tiffany, in her podcast
yesterday, she was talking about how you know with ATS systems, the
more customizable you get, the tougher it is when there's an upgrade, I
absolutely would, I'd have to agree with that. 'Cause if there's an
upgrade, little things happen that I have to call and get help, but their
help is really great. They're very attentive, [00:18:30] and they can
usually fix things in the first call. But other than that, I've really enjoyed
ICIMS, but it seems to integrate with quite a few different things as
well.
Chris Russell: Is there any particular feature on there that you guys use more than
others, or that you like that you want to call out?
Erin Stevens: That's a good question. You know I'm gonna say I think it depends on
the recruiter. Again, me I'm very type A so I like to keep everything very
organized, I like that my managers can go in, I think that might be my
favorite thing, [00:19:00] managers can go in and see where I'm at in
the process, and it eliminates them from asking me questions.
Chris Russell: Yeah.
Erin Stevens: "Erin, where are you, have you reached out to this person?" Well if you
log in, you can see you know, I've reviewed them, I've already requested
and interview with them, or if I have you know, scheduled an interview
with them, it shows you exactly what date and time I'll be talking with
that individual.
Chris Russell: Have you applied to your own jobs?
Erin Stevens: Have I applied? Yes, and I think there's definitely room to work
[00:19:30] and improve. There's definitely opportunity to improve. One
of the things that we've been talking about I think, our page actually
might be going through a redesign in the next year, I'm not sure, I'm not
up on that. I just know it's coming, is I think it takes too many clicks to
get to where our jobs are. I have to not only go to our careers page,
then I have to click opportunities, then I have to choose whether or not
I'm an external or internal candidate, and then I have to search.
Chris Russell: Yeah.
Erin Stevens: Yeah it's too many layers.
Chris Russell: [00:20:00] I always thought companies, first of all, put the careers link
on your corporate website home page, in both header and the footer,
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10. number one. And then when you do click that, you should be showing
them at least some of the latest jobs, there should be a search box that
you can just search for jobs right there, the more you bury that search
box, the less clicks you get. You know less conversions you're gonna get,
so you gotta bubble all that stuff up employers and make it easy for the
job seekers, because [00:20:30] they're not applying in droves today,
they're few and far between, right so?
Erin Stevens: Right, and it's all about how quick you can get it done, how quick, and if
you can do it on your mobile device, that's the other thing is, is it mobile
enabled?
Chris Russell: Exactly
Erin Stevens: Yep.
Chris Russell: Alright, anything else you use there? What do you use for onboarding,
and maybe do you do any texting with candidates? Sourcing tools?
Erin Stevens: So okay, so onboarding we just began, like I said we implemented Work
Day. So we're going through the whole, [00:21:00] we have Work Day,
we generate everything in Work Day, it passes to Ice Sem, and then
from Ice Sem we pass back to Work Day. Still working through some
kinks on that, it's definitely a learning curve, and again it's, do we want
to keep doing that? So there you know, are we going to continue to use
the Ice Sem or are we gonna go to Work Day because it's just more
streamlined. So doing that, and then other things, onboarding.
[00:21:30] All of our onboarding is done through that as well, so again,
still improving processes, but getting what we need for right now, and
then you know fine tuning it as we go along. What was the other
question?
Chris Russell: Ice Sem just bought Text Recruit, do you use that at all?
Erin Stevens: Oh yeah, interesting you mentioned that. We've as an organization
have looked into Text Recruit, and all of that AI based stuff in general I
find very interesting, but [00:22:00] again I go back, I'm a bit of a
control freak, so I'm not sure. I'd have to really play with it and get it to
where I wanted, you know like it would have to say exactly what I
would want to say, but I don't know. I'm a little nervous about it. I'm
not gonna lie, makes me a little nervous. I feel like it's taking a lot of the
personal out of recruiting.
Ep44-YearEndRecap Page 10 of 18

11. Chris Russell: Interesting that you say that. I think a lot of recruiters are in the same
boat in terms of their, you know they haven't used the technology yet so
they're kind of, you know they're afraid of it. They're not exactly sure
what it's gonna do [00:22:30] for them, so I think vendors like Text
Recruit need to do a good job of, you know the use case around it all,
and explaining to a recruiter and working with a recruiter itself actually
to implement it all. 'Cause they're, you guys are busy recruiting, you're
not busy learning technology every day, right so?
Erin Stevens: Right, and you know here's the thing. I think Text Recruit will be great
for sourcers, for those who are just pure sourcing, as far as like
qualifying and finding a candidate, and you know touching those
individuals, but I think once you get, like into the actually [00:23:00]
process of you know bringing them on, showing, them your value
proposition, like that needs to be a personal experience. You know
everyone remembers a good experience. They don't always talk about,
they talk about the bad experiences, but they don't necessarily talk
about the good experiences, but when they do, it's usually very
memorable. You've gotta, you've gotta create that personal experience
for someone.
Chris Russell: Definitely. When it comes to sourcing, do you have any tools you use
personally to source candidates proactively?
Erin Stevens: [00:23:30] I use Boolean a lot. That's you know, I just recently went
through this CRR class and I've always been, and when I joke with my
friends, I'm a great stalker. You know they're like, "You know that one
girl who can find anything on anyone? Yeah that's me." Yeah all my
friends who are like dating people, they'll be like, "Hey listen, I just
started talking to this guy, what can you find out?" I'll be like, "Well,
okay."
Chris Russell: Sounds like a side gig.
Erin Stevens: It [00:24:00] is, it is a side gig, it really is because I find out anything. So,
good thing my husband got married before that day, you know before I
was able to do that so, no but he's pretty cool. So no, I use Google, and
Exalead, and all that, you know I try to do multiples, string searches, if
I'm really looking for a tough to sell role. I've sourced a few candidates,
a few really good candidates from that. For me though, I get a little
ADD you know, [00:24:30] 'cause you're having to look through all these
links and it's, I wish you would just take me right to it. I've used Hiring
Vault before, 'cause that was something that we purchased, but I used
Ep44-YearEndRecap Page 11 of 18

12. it, I really liked it, 'cause it was organized. I have done Hire Tual before,
I have used that as well. One thing I actually recently discovered, it's not
necessarily sourcing but more networking, going back to the dating
thing because I think recruiting is dating, essentially it's kind of like
dating. [00:25:00] Bumble, have you heard of Bumble?
Chris Russell: Bumble yes, the dating app.
Erin Stevens: The dating app.
Chris Russell: But they also have a business version now, right?
Erin Stevens: Yes, and I just learned about it the other night. I was taking my sister
out for her bachelorette party and her friend, my sister's about six years
younger than me and her friend's younger than that. And she was like,
"Oh you know you can do Bumble for networking?" And I was like, "You
can?" So I felt a little weird setting up my own Bumble account, but you
swipe left and right, and [00:25:30] like you can see people's job titles,
and I'm gonna us it. I'm traveling over the next couple of weeks so I'm
gonna use it and see if I can find anybody in those areas and connect
with them as far as networking opportunities. It's really cool.
Chris Russell: There's another app like that called Shapr, which is S H A P R, that I tried
earlier, I think last year. Very similar. You can see job titles, you could, it
also lets you kind of push out quotes, business quotes to your social
media and stuff, [00:26:00] so check that out, see if you might like that.
Well speaking of-
Erin Stevens: Well my thing, I was just gonna say though, that you need to use
something that people know. Like I've never heard of Shapr but I've sure
as heck heard of Bumble, so.
Chris Russell: Nice, well speaking of Hire Tual, they're our second sponsor on today's
show.
Erin Stevens: Oh what a great lead in.
Chris Russell: Yeah and their AI engine is your personal sourcing assistant, so if you
submit your sourcing task with them, it'll do the sourcing for you while
you're sleeping Erin, so enjoy your cup of coffee and let [00:26:30] Hire
Tual source for you. You can build Boolean strings on the fly, the space
contact info for the candidates you find on there. Let me just read one
of the reviews on Facebook that I just pulled up here.
Ep44-YearEndRecap Page 12 of 18

13. Erin Stevens: I saw that, I saw that you rated them yourself.
Chris Russell: Yes I did. So Ryan Bradley, who works at Chewy, says, "We use Hire Tual
to build our entire strategic sourcing program, for technology and
supply chain skill sets. The accuracy of contact information provided is
far beyond what other [00:27:00] tools, like Intello or Connective Hire
are capable of producing." And lastly he says, "I think we all do business
with people that we like, and the guys at Hire Tual are world class." And
it's one of the reasons why I have put them on as a sponsor with
because I think they're just doing a great job with the industry itself in
terms of promoting their tool. It's a great tool itself, I think I've tried it
before, and just definitely happy to have them on board as a sponsor
now, so. [00:27:30] Check out Hire Tual at hiretual.com, it's H I R E T U A
L dot com.
Alright Erin, talk about, let's get into sourcing a little bit more. What's
your favorite email subject line?
Erin Stevens: Oh I think, I can't just say I use one. I again, it goes back to that
personalization. I think it has to be-
Chris Russell: Yeah, what do you gravitate toward to?
Erin Stevens: Well I, so normally I, gosh I don't know, it depends on the candidate I'm
looking [00:28:00] at and the job. I will say for, like gosh, one of it is,
"Ever heard of Jasper, Indiana?" 'Cause most people would be like, "No,
where is that?" I've done that before. You know I've tried
complimenting them or something that's some sort of lead in that has
to do with their background or something that I know that would get
their attention, or "Hey I saw you went to U of L," question mark. Or
you know, something [00:28:30] that, it's almost like that, you know the
click bait. Is that the right word?
Chris Russell: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Erin Stevens: I want to be as click baity as possible but then genuine within my
subject matter or subject message. You know, "Hey listen I saw that,"
you used to do this, that, or the other, you know. I have this role, don't
know if you've ever heard of us, I'm guessing that you know. And I try to
be a little funny in there as well, you know because the same old same
email, no one reads them. "Hey I have this awesome opportunity for
you, [00:29:00] would love if we could connect." No, it doesn't work that
way. "Did you actually read my profile? I don't think so." And I want to
Ep44-YearEndRecap Page 13 of 18

14. show that I did read their profile, and that I genuinely have an interest
in them
Chris Russell: How are your InMail invites these days. Are they good, are they
decreasing? What are you seeing?
Erin Stevens: I don't really send InMails. I try to find the direct email. I always go for a
straight email or a straight phone number, 'cause InMails, I'm not a
huge fan [00:29:30] or them personally.
Chris Russell: Okay.
Erin Stevens: It's not my cup of tea. If I can't, if I absolutely have to have them, and I
can't find anything on line or I can't find their email, or can't force it out,
I will do an InMail. But normally, I don't know. It's alright, it's not great.
But again, it depends on my lead in line.
Chris Russell: Okay. Do you, HR tech finders, do they ever try to pitch you on their
products?
Erin Stevens: Every single day of my life. No. I've had [00:30:00] two or three, what's
funny is, going back to Hiring Solved, I'll call out my buddy Matt. I'm
trying to think where I even met Matt, I usually meet them at
conferences, but I'm that person at a conference. Like you know when
you go to a conference and everyone's giving away something, and
basically they're like, "Let me have your business card, so you can win
this $25 gift card?" That's not me. I will refuse to put my business card
in anything, like because you're just gonna get spam calls, [00:30:30]
and no offense to those sales, I know that's how they make a living but
that's not how I want to create a relationship with you. I'm more of a,
"Hey let's talk some business, and okay now really tell me about your
product," and going back to Hiring Solved, I mean I connected with
Matt, and you know we chatted, and he let me try out, and we could
talk about things, and I give him feedback, and you know I'm more of a
relationship builder, so when they pitch me, and they just pitch me with
like, an email or just cold call me, I'm not really into that.
Chris Russell: [00:31:00] Okay so it sounds like the in person intro is a better way to
reach you right?
Erin Stevens: Right or connect with me on something stupid, you know, "Hey, what's
your favorite wine to drink?" Or, "Did you watch This is Us last night?"
You know, connect with me on something that I can related to instead
of, "Hey, let me just sell you my technology package, this is how it's
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15. gonna make your life easier." You know I'd rather have the, I'd rather
do business with someone I have a relationship with than not,
[00:31:30] I guess.
Chris Russell: Good advice. Alright, so as we wrap this up here, a few more questions
for you Erin, I certainly appreciate the time today. Is there any piece of
HR tech that you're excited about, but haven't tried yet, that you're
looking forward to maybe trying?
Erin Stevens: Instead of, we're implementing, is it Rootley? Rutley, Rutley, Rootley?
Chris Russell: Rutley? Rootley? Oh the R U U T L Y or something?
Erin Stevens: Yes, so we're getting ready to do that, and I'm excited to see how that's
[00:32:00] gonna change, like our position.
Chris Russell: What is it?
Erin Stevens: So it helps with writing position profiles essentially. For my
understanding-
Chris Russell: Job descriptions?
Erin Stevens: Yes I call them position profiles, it's job descriptions.
Chris Russell: That's a phrase I haven't heard before.
Erin Stevens: A position profile?
Chris Russell: Position profiles, yes.
Erin Stevens: It's fancy, right, sounds really important. But yeah, I think it most
definitely will help out with that. Our, so if you think about, our HR
managers in the field, they are [00:32:30] not only juggling recruiting,
which can be a heavy workload, but they're doing everything else as
well. So they don't get as, and there's only a few of us, here at the
corporate level, and we have our own workload, so I think the goal is to
help with really, you know making it an engaging profile or job
description. You know making people want to apply and read more. You
know we can get creative, but getting more creative and actually
creating something that's eye catching, it [00:33:00] also I think
interfaces, it creates like a web, like some sort of website. Again, I need
to look into it more, I'm kind of just hearing it from the sidelines, but it
Ep44-YearEndRecap Page 15 of 18

16. sounds exciting. It's just, it's more visually stimulating and gets to the
meat of what the position really is.
Chris Russell: Yeah well ping me when that's out, I'd like to take a look at it, and
maybe I'll share with some of the others.
Erin Stevens: Sure.
Chris Russell: What copses you going to this year?
Erin Stevens: Oh I have a list, I made my list.
Chris Russell: Yeah where you going to.
Erin Stevens: I'm super credit. I have my, well one, of course I'm very [00:33:30]
involved at my local SHRM chapter here in southern Indiana so we have
our full day conference in April. So I'll be attending that. Then national
SHRM in good old Chi town, with my buds, otherwise known as HR
Christmas, because everyone gets together and gets to see each other.
Chris Russell: HR Christmas?
Erin Stevens: HR Christmas, have you ever heard that term before?
Chris Russell: No that's a new one, other than SHRM, I don't ...
Erin Stevens: Yeah I mean think about it, it's like all these HR people in one spot for
like three or four days, and you know it's learning, [00:34:00] and we
meet each other and we see each other, and we don't see each other
any other time of the year normally, unless we're just traveling all
around, so it's HR Christmas. The HR Indiana SHRM conference, August
20th through 22nd. Now I know Mr. Steve Brown will be speaking at
that as well. I am speaking with Tiffany at the Ohio State SHRM
conference, September 19 through the 21st, and then for the first time
this year, I'm a little excited, I've been asked to speak at ERE in October,
do like a ten [00:34:30] minute TED talk thing, so I'm kinda flushing out
what I want to do for that. 'Cause it's not supposed to be a rant, it's
supposed to be something, you know a good 10 minute takeaway, so,
interested to see what my brain comes up with.
Chris Russell: You ever go do a disrupt HR event? Those are five minutes, HR talks,
they're pretty good.
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17. Erin Stevens: I have not, I know, I know, I have heard of so many, I think we, every
time we have one, like the one we had here in Louisville while I was out
of town. I was unable to make the one in Cincinnati. I was unable to
make the one [00:35:00] in Indianapolis. All the ones that were near me,
I was either out of town, or gone, or doing something. It was very
disappointing. But I one day, I will make it to one of those.
Chris Russell: It's a good event, you'll like it. Alright, last question for you. What have
you learned about recruiting that you wish you knew when you first
started?
Erin Stevens: Oh gosh, that's a really, that's a good question. You know-
Chris Russell: In other words, if you were giving advice to somebody today, who was
just starting out, what would you talk to them about?
Erin Stevens: People [00:35:30] aren't as logical as you think they are. You know
'cause I'm a very logical person. Two plus two equals four normally, you
know if you give, Sally tells you she wants $80,000 a year and you gave
her $80,000 a year, she's gonna take it right? No. People aren't logical.
I've had many, many offers or many candidates that I thought were one
way, and then something crazy happened, and they either disappear off
the planet, or you know they [00:36:00] do something totally nuts that I
didn't see coming. I had one guy, I set up a great phone interview, you
know qualified, wants to move out to an area. I set up, I mean he was
very responsive on his emails back and forth, set up his travel to go
interview with the team, he did a phone interview, set up everything.
Flights, hotel.
The day of his interview, the HR manager emails me, "Hey Erin, Joe
didn't show up." "What do you mean Joe didn't show up?" " [00:36:30]
Joe just didn't show up." So I call our travel agency, I'm like, "Oh my
gosh, what happened, maybe he's lost." I called, left him a message. He
didn't answer. I called the travel agency, found out he never even got on
the plane. Never picked up the car. So I finally get a text message from
him, he was like, "Oh I was sick." That was it. I was like, "Okay, yeah
we're not gonna reschedule."
Chris Russell: Yeah, you'd be surprised how often that happens out there. I remember
that when I was recruiting.
Ep44-YearEndRecap Page 17 of 18

18. Erin Stevens: Right. Right, and as I've gotten, as I've done [00:37:00] this more, the
more and more I'm not, and this sounds awful, the more and more I'm
less surprised by people's actions.
Chris Russell: Yeah, interesting. Well Erin Stevens, thank you very much for joining me
today. I learned a lot, and I mean I have to come to HR Christmas I
guess, so.
Erin Stevens: Yes, yes, you should come to HR Christmas. It will be so much fun.
Chris Russell: Alright, everyone brings presents?
Erin Stevens: Oh yeah, make sure they're alcoholic in nature.
Chris Russell: Okay. I'll buy you a few drinks. Alright tell us how to connect with you
online, and [00:37:30] talk about what your career site is to, I have to go
apply for ...
Erin Stevens: Okay so you can find us at www.masterbrand.com/careers. You can
find me on LinkedIn, that's Erin Stevens, Erin N. Stevens, PHR, and that's
the same for my Twitter handle. @erinnstevens, no PHR, just the
@erinnstevens, and you can find me on LinkedIn or on Facebook. I may
not friend you on Facebook, I try to keep that one to myself, [00:38:00]
but any other social media platform's open. Instagram, Twitter,
LinkedIn, hit me up. I will answer and connect with you.
Chris Russell: Alright, linked you in the show notes as well. That's gonna do it for this
edition of the Rec Tech podcast. Thanks again to our sponsors,
remember to check out lever.coast/rectech for your ATS needs, and Hire
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RecTech. Follow me on Twitter @chrisrussell, or visit rectechmedia.com,
click on the audio and links for the show in our blog.
Just a reminder, I'm a consultant that helps both HR and tech firms and
employers get more clients or candidates. Thanks for listening, see you
next time.
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