Thanks for stopping by “the ring” to check out my Substack, The Recruiting Rodeo 🐎where we explore the wild and woolly world of talent acquisition, and I share actionable insights and advice from my work as a recruiter in executive search and corporate talent acquisition.

I’ve had a front-row seat for years to how companies hire. When a Company retains my search firm to find candidates for one senior-level, often-specialized position, my direct hiring “partner” is often the C-level hiring leader or a President, Founder, or head of Strategy with a Stanford MBA.

I have been interviewing senior-level talent daily —across industries and job functions for decades — from Chief People Officers, HR leaders, IT leaders, CFOs, product managers, ad tech leaders, Hollywood agents, editors, and software engineers, to tens of thousands of communications, marketing, and content executives.

I know who’s getting it right, who’s not, what search firms constantly underperform (@ $100,000 per search, that’s quite an investment down the toilet), and most importantly, why.

Like you, I often get frustrated, listening to top candidates complain about being ghosted and having to sit through 30-minute-long, first-round interviews with a recruiter or HR executive who clearly doesn’t understand the open position, yet whose assessment determines their destiny.

Luck 🍀 is not a viable long-term talent acquisition strategy.

I’m not here to point fingers or place blame. I write my Substack in an effort to enlighten both candidates and talent acquisition pros alike, on how it all works — from the inside out and the outside in. I break it down: the great, the bad, and the ugly.

Because knowledge is power. And the more you know about what the “other side” expects, the more empowered you will be in your job search OR when hiring talent for your company.

The first five issues of The Recruiting Rodeo 🐎 are free and cover the basics, like:

🤠 What does HR do vs. people with the title Talent Acquisition and Recruiters?

🤠 What happens to your resume and and online job application once you apply to a job online on a job board/search engine like Indeed or LinkedIn?

🤠 What’s the difference between the two types of search firms: retained and contingency?

(Spoiler: the difference is HUGE — and many HR and talent acquisition leaders in charge of hiring at their respective companies don’t know it)

For paying subscribers The Recruiting Rodeo 🐎 digs into more “ornery” talent acquisition topics such as:

■ How to tell your “story” effectively on your resume and social media profile and what sections to focus on for each to improve your chances of getting your resume noticed after it lands in the company’s applicant tracking system (aka, “ATS) or … to be “discovered”— by a retained executive recruiter on a professional social media platform.

■ How to tailor your message to the different “audiences” along your job search (💡that junior recruiter performing the “first” screen or “assessment” of your resume isn’t the GM of software, i.e., the “hiring manager,” you will hopefully be interviewing with @ round 3)

■ How company talent acquisition leaders and HR can streamline the hiring process, make it more efficient and enjoyable, for Summer interns and C-level executives alike.

Lastly, I’m going to include lots of 1:1 interviews with the supremely talented and plugged in executives I have been fortunate to recruit, find and hire into career-changing jobs and work alongside of throughout my two careers, to hear what they have to say about hiring and non-hiring topics like what they look for when hiring, how they came up in their careers, and what has changed since then (a lot).

More and more, companies are posting their open positions online to find candidates, including senior-level positions that used to go straight to experienced recruiters and search firms. Companies are using AI-fueled software more and more to parse resumes in their applicant tracking systems and determine who to interview. That first assessment is critical and determines forward mobility.

Why are they relying on AI to hire? Probably to save money on hiring in-house recruiters and appease shareholders, investors and the C-Suite — i.e., appear AI proficient. ATS and HRIS software is an easy way to satisfy those objectives because AI is not new. Machine learning is not new. That technology has always been part and parcel of how experienced recruiters “search” for top candidates.

One last thing I’d like you to know is that my primary KPI, the metric I have always used to measure myself against for every search, is “quality of hire.” Meaning, the executive I find, recruit and hire into a senior-level position, and what that person accomplishes at her new employer and afterwards.

So that’s me. You can find me on LinkedIn at Karen Shnek Lippman.

Thank you for being curious about how talent acquisition works and taking this first step to learn more. I hope you will ride 🐎 along!

(PS I offer free subs to The Recruiting Rodeo 🐎 to students and those new or starting out in their careers because my philosophy is, it’s never too early to start putting together a strong resume!)

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