Hire Differently, Hire Better, with Rick Girard

Announcer  (00:03):

Welcome to The Lawyerist Podcast, a series of discussions with entrepreneurs and innovators about building a successful law practice in today’s challenging and constantly changing legal market. Lawyerist supports attorneys, building client-centered, and future-oriented small law firms through community, content, and coaching both online and through the Lawyerist Lab. And now from the team that brought you The Small Firm Roadmap and your podcast hosts

Zack (00:35):

Hi, I’m Zach Glaser

Kyle (00:36):

And I’m Kyle Harrington. And this is episode 392 of the Lawyerist podcast. Part of the legal talk network today, Stephanie speaks to Rick Gerard on a new approach to hiring

Zack (00:48):

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Posh Virtual Receptionist, Law Pay and MyCase, we wouldn’t be able to do this show without their support. So stay tuned and we’ll tell you more about them later on. So Kyle, welcome to the Lawyerist, uh, welcome to the Lawyerist podcast.

Kyle (01:03):

Thanks. Thanks. I’m glad to be here.

Zack (01:06):

So Kyle you’ve been with us for, for a little bit. It, it, honestly, it feels like you’ve been here the whole time, but I don’t know exactly what your background is.

Kyle (01:14):

Uh, yeah, sure. So I’m wrapping up week five, uh, which I’m really, really excited about. And I’ve had a great experience here at Lawyerist so far. So I started my career in higher ed working at a small university in Illinois doing public relations and marketing. And then five years ago moved into a CLE organization, the Illinois Institute for continued legal education, which is a mouthful to say mm-hmm <affirmative>, but was there for five years, doing all of their CLE programming marketing, uh, which was a great experience, kind of got me into the, the realm of legal services. And once I was there, I realized I didn’t really wanna get out.

Zack (01:55):

<laugh> we trapped you

Kyle (01:58):

<laugh> yes, yes

Zack (01:59):

<laugh>. So then, uh, yeah, you didn’t really wanna get out what brought you here to Lawyerist?

Kyle (02:05):

Well, I noticed a position. I think it popped up on my LinkedIn a couple years ago for a marketing position at Lawyerist and I checked out the website. It just seemed like a really, really innovative and cool company doing some really interesting things. And at that time I didn’t move quickly enough. Um, and when I finally decided to get my, my resume covered the letter together, um, the posting’s already down. So for the last two years or so, I’ve been checking back every once in a while just to see what was going on at Vos. And if there was physician that might, uh, might work for me,

Zack (02:44):

Well, we, we are certainly glad that you did. Like I said, it, it feels like you’ve been here the whole time I’ve been here. How have we been treating you?

Kyle (02:53):

How

Zack (02:53):

Very well, how has it been? Okay.

Kyle (02:55):

Very well. It’s been a really great experience so far. Everyone is just, just wonderful, really helpful. I mean, luckily for me, I am not afraid to ask questions and, and, and just dive in. Yeah. <laugh> well, sometimes I might answer a little too quickly before I don’t really know what I’m talking about, but that’s, that’s one of my, um, one of the things I’m working on, but, uh, it’s, it’s just been wonderful, mean I’m getting, getting to do a lot of things that I love to do a lot of editing, um, writing now, things I had that had kind of been put on the back burner for me the last several years. So I’m excited to be here. I’m excited to come to work, you know, every day long commute from, you know, my kitchen to my home office, but it’s something that I can man. It’s manageable. Yes. And it’s been really wonderful so far.

Zack (03:42):

Well, great. Well, great. Well now we have Stephanie’s conversation with Rick.

Rick (03:47):

Hi, my name is Rick Gerard. I am the host of the higher proud radio show. I’m also an author of healing career wounds. And, uh, my background is primarily an executive search and, uh, helping hiring managers to do a much stronger job with interviewing.

Stephanie (04:04):

Yeah. Hey Rick, welcome to the show. I am a big fan of this book and your work. So I’m really excited to dig in with you cause I know our audience is gonna love this conversation.

Rick (04:14):

Yay. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Stephanie (04:17):

So I wonder if you could start and just tell us maybe a little bit more about your background and what led you to write this book and focus on helping people hire.

Rick (04:26):

Yeah. You know, I wrote the book cuz I don’t scale. I mean, that’s really the re biggest reason why. So I’ve uh, like I said mentioned in the beginning, I’m, I’m uh, an expert in kind of executive search and one of the problems that I realized early on in my, well within the past 10 years of my career was that executives really don’t know how to conduct interviews and really how to, uh, extract evidence to support whether or not a decision should be made either way. And ultimately what a, what an interview comes down to is do I wanna have a beer with this person? Yes. And decisions are made based on that as opposed to whether or not somebody aligns with the values of company, whether or not somebody’s positioned properly for your particular organization or whether or not like they even, uh, have a growth path within your organization. And those are all really important key factors, especially for onboarding somebody, but also retention, which, you know, a lot of people are having challenges with right now.

Stephanie (05:25):

Yeah. I mean, I, I often say there wasn’t an HR class in law school, like where they actually taught us how to do this stuff, how to think about hiring and then actually conduct an interview. And yet there’s all this, you know, good research and learnings out there that there, there really is a right way to create a hiring process and do an interview. I think.

Rick (05:44):

Yeah, there is. But you know, it’s interesting. I, I think a lot of HR processes don’t really get it right. Either because they optimize for larger companies. And when, when you are a large organization, you’ve got a very fat wallet. You can afford to throw lots of money at people and get ’em to join. And so the challenge comes when you filter down to smaller organizations and you’re trying to hire somebody and the truth is you don’t have a fat wallet to be able to, you know, buy somebody. So you’ve gotta dig a little bit deeper into what’s important to that individual. So that that individual wants to join. So, you know, every small company can, 100% attract a players. It’s just how we bring them through the process.

Stephanie (06:30):

Yeah. All right. So confession time when I first read the title of your book, which is healing career wounds. Yeah. You know, it doesn’t sound like a book on, on hiring the right people. <laugh>

Rick (06:43):

No, it doesn’t, it’s kind of the punchline. Right. And the idea behind it is that in order to track the strongest people for your organization, you have to demonstrate how you can heal their career wounds. And so that’s why I put the subtitle is, you know, your startup secret weapon to hiring the strongest people. But again yeah, the, the title doesn’t really, yeah. I’ve gotten a lot of pushback from that. <laugh>

Stephanie (07:05):

No, I mean, yeah. But then once you get through it, you’re like, oh, I see what this is about. It’s not a therapy book. It really is about, you know, concrete steps of, of hiring. But I think you’re onto something there because when I read it, I was like, yeah, this is really in line with what we’ve been teaching and what I’ve always believed. But I think you hit on this nuanced piece of this idea of career wounds and that there’s a different also element just beyond looking at someone’s values and if they align with yours. So I wonder if you could speak to a little bit more to that, what you mean with, you know, when you think about someone having career wounds, like, what does that look like?

Rick (07:44):

Yeah. Well, you know what most people have ’em right. So if you look at some of the data out there, I think the most recent data I have is like from 2 20 19 with the gall poll they do in job satisfaction. And it was something like almost 70% of people are dissatisfied with their current roles. Well, that’s a big clue to you that if you take the time to understand who the individual is, there’s usually some sort of career wound in there that can probably be healed by your organization, but you have to dig deep and understand from that person, exactly what’s going on from them. You just have to ask them, right. So what’s happening in your current role that has you open to hearing about something potentially stronger? And a lot of people will share that information with you. The challenge is we always go into sales mode and start telling people what we want, what we need and how we’re so great, but we never really listen to what it is that person wants. So just taking that conversation and flipping it upside down, creates so much value in the mind of the person that you’re trying to engage with because you’re offering something that nobody else is, which is you’re not trying to sell. ’em you’re just listening.

Stephanie (08:53):

Yeah. I love that. So knowing that, how should an employer like just even approach their hiring process differently, like where, cuz I think you say that they should start a lot earlier in the process than the interview. So what does that look like?

Rick (09:07):

Well, for me, it’s always about starting with your core values and building those out. And then from your core values, you build your interview questions and then you build your job description around those, the language of your core values. That way you’re broadcasting out to the world, what’s important to your organization and the people who resonate with it will lean in and the people who don’t will shy away. And that’s really what you want because you don’t wanna spend a whole lot of time on people that maybe have the right skills, but they’re completely not positioned well for your organization. And then bringing it further into, you know, I think the biggest mishap that we have is that, that initial phone conversation that you have with somebody is usually like a five minute, maybe 10 minute conversation where it’s, Hey, do you have this? Do you have that? How much are you looking to make? And let me sell you a little bit of my company. Well, if you think about it, that’s like such a great opportunity for you to learn about whether that that person should even be brought in for an interview. And again, asking those questions, getting people talking is a lot easier than it sounds. And all you have to do is just open that door and let people tell you whether or not they, they align with what it is you’re looking for.

Stephanie (10:21):

Yeah. So our audience values won’t be new to them cuz we talk about it all the time. They’re probably like, oh great, Stephanie, you brought on another person to, to <laugh>

Rick (10:31):

Talk,

Stephanie (10:32):

Reiterate how important these core values are. But you even say in your book, like, and I love that. You’re like, Hey, own your true, authentic self. Like if you’re a workaholic law firm and you, you know, put it in there, like, Hey, we’re gonna build 2100 hours a year and we’re gonna work late nights, but we’re gonna go to court and pound our fist and win and have the be, you know, whatever that looks like, like just own that. If that’s what you’re trying to be. And if that’s not what you’re trying to be, then obviously you tell a different story, but you gotta kind of connect with who you really, what your company really is.

Rick (11:03):

Yeah. I think we’re where companies get into trouble is they don’t put that out there. Right. They put out a different message and then when people join, they’re like, what the hell did I get myself into this place? Isn’t at all, what you guys pitch to me. Right? So a family friendly environment where, you know, you can go out and, you know, work life balance and all these other things. If they’re not really part of your firm’s DNA, then don’t put it out there. You know, just if you’re, if you’re a group of backing, like <laugh>, you know, uh, you know, just hardcore pushing, like put that in your job description, get that out there because the right people are gonna be like, yes, that’s my, these are my people I’m gonna lean in. I’m gonna do well here.

Stephanie (11:44):

Yeah. I’m curious before we kind of dig into some of the tactics someone might take, you know, we’ve already talked about how like no one taught us how to do this. A lot of us get it wrong. I think there’s a temptation for a lot of small business owners to maybe just delegate it to someone else or to bring in a recruiter, which is, you know, to be fair, your line of work <laugh> but sometimes, I mean, I don’t know a lot of legal recruiters get a bad rap of, they just have a Rolodex of inde of resumes on their desks that they’re just gonna send over to you. So I’m kind of curious, like, do you a agree with that approach and, and what is the business owner’s real? Like where should they be plugged in as part of this process?

Rick (12:25):

Well, I think ultimately the business owner should own the process because it comes from the top down. And so if you are the, if you’re the person who’s driving recruiting, you should be the best recruiter at your company right now. If you’re gonna offload this to a recruiter, then make sure that they have a process that’s congruent with your organization. Because like I learned when I first got into recruiting, it’s basically a numbers game and all I do is I pull all my resources and I just send people over. Right. So it’s throwing a lot of at the wall and hoping something sticks. And that’s still the game for most recruiting firms because of the fact that that’s just the way the model is set up. Now, if you’re exclusive with the recruiter and you have kind of more of a, a retained, uh, relationship with them, then you’re gonna get a lot more attention and care than you will.

Rick (13:14):

If you’re just dealing with, you know, we’ll send you over some people and if you make a hire, you pay us. Because again, that model is, you’re just getting paid on what you, uh, what you provide, what hap, what ends up falling at the bottom, right? So if you are an owner of a firm, it’s really important, number one for you to get really good at recruiting, but then also convey that message down and, and train your people, uh, within your organization so that they understand how to interview people and how to, how to bring somebody from start to finish in such a way that’s gonna engage strong performers and dissuade, you know, kind of mediocre people from, from joining.

Stephanie (13:54):

Yeah. And so I think, you know, we’ve sort of touched on this a little bit, but you talk in the book and you give some great examples of job postings gone wrong and maybe a job posting gone. Right. Yeah. And I wonder if we could chat about that a bit because, well, I think this is the fun part, I think most like, I’m just gonna tell you if we were to open up whatever job board right now, and look at job postings for lawyers or paralegals or legal staff, anyone in a legal office. I bet we would see, most of them are within a few words of each other. Right? Like they all look the same and they all suck. They’re just, they’re crap.

Rick (14:32):

<laugh> they are, they’re terrible. But then again, I, I bet you could probably take a, a job description from like a software company or like a manufacturer. Like they all have the same format and it’s terrible. And you know, I consider if you’re putting something out there, it’s a marketing document. So God, can you imagine if like, if the content you put out as a marketing, like marketing content looked like a job description, I mean, you would fire the marketer. Right. So why we kind of accept that as you know, we need five years of this and four years of that is kind, it’s silly. It’s quite silly. So I think of job descriptions as two things, or like one is as a marketing document, right. So I wanna make sure that I’m demonstrating first off, what’s in it for you, who we are and I’m using the language around my values.

Rick (15:22):

And then I’m plugging in the most important piece to me, which is performance metrics. Right? So what a, how am I evaluate this person in 90 days? You know, the requirements list is great, but, uh, it’s never accurate. And nine times outta 10, you’ll get people that just won’t apply because, oh, I only have four years of this and not five, right? So you’re, you’re missing out on good people. But now if you kind of build out like three or four key points of performance metrics over your first 90 days, you’re gonna complete this, this, this, and this. Now you’ve got a situation where somebody, the right person can lean in and it’s refreshing. It’s totally different than what everybody else is putting out there. And then finally, um, with a job description, and what I like to do is I like to kind of slim.

Rick (16:06):

I don’t like getting this idea that I need to see a lot of resumes in order for me to make a hire is archaic. You don’t need a lot of resumes. You probably need 10 resumes interview, you know, five people and, you know, make a hire. If you’re around that metric, that’s a much better metric than the average, which is, you know, you’re seeing a hundred resumes. You’re interviewing 15 people. You’re making three offers. Two of them turned down and you get one higher. And most likely the person you hired is not the strongest person for the role. It’s the one who is willing to accept the role. So let’s flip that and let’s create a situation where like my number one choice is gonna join and how do we do that? Well, we’ve created a different, uh, experience than what everybody else is providing. And that’s what makes you as a unique company stand out.

Stephanie (16:58):

Yeah. We love that. We do that. We’ve experimented with lots of different ways from having people send us videos of themselves. Cuz we say like, we’re a remote te like we were remote before the pandemic. And so we just say, Hey, like we’re on video all the time. So send us a quick video and introduce yourself and don’t worry, it’s not your survival reel. You know, we’re not looking for something crazy. We just, we just wanna see you and talk to you. And it was funny cuz one person actually responded and was like, but I love survivor. And I’ve always wanted to do a survivor. We <laugh>. So, but that gave us a glimpse into their personality and it was yeah. So much more interesting than a standard cover letter or I hate cover letters that just look like everybody else’s.

Rick (17:40):

Yeah. See, I don’t like, I don’t like one way videos. I, I think, um, you do well with, uh, people who are comfortable in front of ’em, but like, you know, anybody who’s uncomfortable in front of a camera it’s it’s okay. I’ve gotta talk to my lens for a minute or two minutes. And you know, I I’ve seen too many people cuz we we’ve done a lot in engineering realm and a lot of people will just duck out at that point. They’re not gonna do it.

Stephanie (18:05):

Yeah.

Rick (18:06):

To be introverted people won’t do it.

Stephanie (18:08):

Yeah. And fair point. And we’ve actually changed it. So the last, the past couple of ones we’ve done, we’ve taken that out. We have asked for some, something a written response, like answer this question and then we have videos later in the process so that it does make sense and that, you know, so you have to experiment and iterate. Totally. Well, let’s take a quick break. We gotta hear from our sponsors, when we come back, I have some questions about how we evaluate people in the process.

Zack (18:33):

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Stephanie (21:00):

All right, Rick, we’re back. And we’re talking about how to hire the right people and how we can, what I really love about how you frame this in the book is that we don’t always have to compete on salary, right? Like the small guys can win. You don’t have to have Amazon dollars to attract people. Yeah. Which I love.

Rick (21:17):

It’s very true.

Stephanie (21:18):

Yeah. But I think we make some mistakes and you point this out in the book too, about when we get that resume in, when people start applying to us, because we have this idea in our head that there’s certain things we need to look for on a resume or certain red flags. And I’d love to dig into those because I, I think a lot of people make those assumptions. Maybe there’s a better way.

Rick (21:39):

Yeah. I mean, you know, I, I, I’m trying to figure out a way to kill the resume because quite frankly, like I, I’ve never found resumes to be accurate. You know, the, the most accurate data is usually the contact information. If there is any and then the white space, right. Because that’s where all the value is in the resume. I do look at kind of somebody’s track record or where they looked before, but people make decisions on whether or not they’re gonna screen somebody based on those things. But you have to keep in mind that every company has a and B players like so in every school, like I think, you know, judging people based on school is, is dangerous as well because, you know, just cuz somebody went to an Ivy league school doesn’t mean they’re gonna be successful. Not at all, especially within your firm.

Rick (22:27):

I’ve seen way too many companies make the mistake of getting enamored by somebody who comes out of a name brand company, thinking this person’s gonna crush it for us. And then what happens? They, they come in and four months later they’re they’re failing. And it has to do with the fact that that person wasn’t position, right. For that type of organization. I look at people in like three different ways. You know, you have builders, you have improves and you have maintainers, right. And you know, most of what you’re looking for, especially when you’re in a small company, you need builders, you need people who don’t need a whole lot of handheld. They can come on board and they can actually make an impact pretty quickly, but you gotta give them that room for growth. And none of that is ever on a resume. So how do we find that out?

Rick (23:11):

Well, that’s, that’s where that phone conversation comes into play, where you should be talking to most people on the phone that are at least relatively close and gathering the data to support whether or not the person’s position properly for the company first. Yeah. And then once that happens, then you can move ’em forward to the interview. But uh, you know, just to bring people in to interview, ’em based on kind of what you think you want. Cause the truth is what you want has nothing to do with it. The business needs a lot of times.

Stephanie (23:41):

Yeah. Are there go-to questions you like to help you figure out if someone’s a, a builder, improver or maintainer? I love that framework.

Rick (23:50):

Yeah. Yeah. There are. So, you know, I, I can find out pretty quickly on the discovery call, which is that first phone call. So, um, kind of what I’m trying to gauge, her three things, they’re paying their desire and their impact builders tend to like when you get into the desire of what they want to do, they tend to really focus in on, you know, what I really wanna get in. And they, they start using it as language. I wanna build something from scratch. I’d like to, um, you know, do something new. There’s, there’s a lot of clues. I mean, people will tell you exactly what they are and what they want to do. If we just ask them, we just don’t ask. ’em very often in, in an interview, uh, scenario, we basically sell them, uh, what we have and what we need. And that just doesn’t translate over very well most of the time.

Stephanie (24:38):

Yeah.

Rick (24:39):

So if, if people tell you what they want and where they’re gonna thrive first, now you’re putting yourself in a position to make a decision of whether or not to bring ’em in for an interview based on, can I help this person get to where they want to go? Cause that’s, that’s the thing that creates retention. That’s the thing that keeps people in your organization. And there’s a lot of people out there that are looking for jobs, that’ll take a job and you know, stay there until something else better comes along. And you really don’t wanna be that stopping point.

Stephanie (25:07):

Yeah. Talk to me about experience. So many lawyers only wanna hire someone with experience because they, they tell me, oh, I don’t have time to train someone or I don’t wanna train someone. And so you see this lawyers especially will be like, I need someone three to five years outta law school. Like they’re very specific. They, you know, in their mind that number of years of having their law degree is gonna equate to something magical when they open and get it, you know, when they come into the door <laugh>

Rick (25:36):

Yeah. Yeah. Well, everybody else is chasing that three to five year person as well. Right? Because that is kind of the sweet spot for everyone. You know, I would challenge people to think about the opposite side of the spectrum. Why, why wouldn’t you look for people to have like 20, 30 years experience that are kind of at the tail end of their career or as, as my friend Kelly calls us, cause I’m in that range too, you know, modern elders, right? Because you know, you can get people who are, who are very seasoned, who are professional. They don’t really need the money and they’d be doing it for whatever other reason. I think those are like, it’s an untapped well of talent, you know, especially if you don’t want to train up somebody who’s junior, but the truth is even if you hire a three to five year person, you’re still gonna have to train it. Right. No matter what you do, you’re gonna have to train anybody who comes in. If you don’t wanna do it, then find somebody to do it, delegate it, but you better figure out a way to get somebody trained up. Otherwise again, the, your failure rate on the hire is gonna go through the roof.

Stephanie (26:38):

Yeah. And one of the things you talked about in the book that really struck me and, and I agreed with wholeheartedly is the length of time someone has had in a position. Doesn’t really tell you how well they’re performing it because we’ve all had those people. Who’ve joined our company and they just rock it from day one. Right? Like those people that come in, we have a value at lawyers, we call it, grab the marker. And it’s kind of this idea. Like you come in and you grab the marker and you go, and some people will do that. They, they don’t need a lot of time at a company or experience. So if you can find that person that might me be more valuable than someone who has just five years, who’s just hung out doing the bare minimum at their job.

Rick (27:18):

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s, that’s where impact comes into play. Right? So what’s, what’s really important. Again, I, I do this in the discovery call is now I wanna figure out after I understand what their pain is and what they desire, what impact have they made in their current organization that is above and beyond what their, what their job is. Right. So high performers tend to do work above and beyond. And I could bet that if you have somebody like that, you can go back and have this conversation with them and they’ll give you tons of evidence. And they know exactly how they did whatever it is they did. Right. They can walk you step by step by like how I won this cakes. You know, that sort of thing. You know, when you get to kind of people who are not high performers that are just kind of hanging out and getting a job, they tend to get really murky.

Rick (28:05):

Like those clues are right. I mean, you know, attorneys, you guys should be really good at digging for evidence, right? So things get really cloudy and murky. When you start getting into the details of how somebody did something, if they didn’t do it and they leave a lot of clues, like, well, we did this and we did that. And that’s great that we did that. I wanna know what you did specifically in that. Right. You know, there could be somebody who just worked on a huge case that won millions of dollars, but all they did was just get coffee for people. Right.

Stephanie (28:35):

Right.

Rick (28:35):

Yeah. You know, there there’s, there’s a lot of people that claim to do things more than they’ve done, but again, high performers, there’s tons of evidence that you can just extract from that. And that’s, that’s how you, that’s how you, um, understand the person who’s crossed the desk from you because you know, when somebody’s giving you all this good data and you’re like, oh my God, okay, we’ve got another, we’ve got a rockstar here that we, we definitely need to, to get on board.

Stephanie (29:02):

Yeah. And then I love that, you know, when you identify those people, like there’s a way to attract them. Like they wanna be in an organization, that’s gonna allow them to go be a rockstar. And that’s then now what you sell, you don’t have to just compete on price because you have a different story that you can give them and they wanna be in a place that’s gonna nurture and support them. And I guess, which is why you named your book that heal their, hear, heal their career at wounds.

Rick (29:29):

Totally. I had a guess on my show a few weeks ago. And, and it was interesting cuz he had this perspective of, I look at compensation as three components. One is the money. Two are the people and three is the work. And so what he does is he focuses on the work and the people making sure that that’s really important cuz he said at the end, that’s when the money becomes not that big of an issue, but what ends up happening most of the time is we focus on the money. How much do you wanna make? Oh shoot. Then you go into negotiation. Negotiating is never a good move. Whenever you’re talking about hiring somebody. Cause if people feel like they got a raw deal, then they’re not gonna join and they’re, you know, or they’re gonna continue looking while they take the job. And so what you wanna do is you just wanna create a process where essentially if I’m joining your company, I see the value above and beyond the paycheck.

Rick (30:21):

Right. So yes, I’m gonna make money no matter where I go, but here I’m, you know, with you, I’m gonna be able to do this. I’m gonna be able to do that. I’m gonna learn this. I’m gonna be able to grow here. And those things are all really important to me. Yeah. So people will tell you all this and then all you have to do is just make sure that you’re confirming it with them as you’re going through the hiring process. It becomes a very easy transition when you get to an offer stage. And that’s how you be beat the big firms that have huge paychecks because they’re not taking the time to do any of that. And they don’t really have any of that to offer most of the time all they have is just a big salary benefits package.

Stephanie (30:57):

Yeah. So then I’m curious, are you a big proponent of, of posting salary ranges on that initial posting? Or how do you handle that?

Rick (31:08):

I don’t, I don’t, I, again, I try to, I try to make it as, as non-transactional, as non transactional as possible because it’s really not a transaction also. You know, when you get somebody engaged, you can talk to them about what it is that you know, your salary range is. And I think it should be a conversation that is between the individuals. Well, think about it again. If you’re posting it out there, does it attract somebody? You know, you’re gonna have some people that are gonna say it’s too low and they’re gonna bow out. And again, I’d rather have that conversation and um, understand that they bow out, but there’s a lot of people out there that’ll take less in exchange for, you know, more other caveats, right? Other things that are more important to them. Yeah. I’ve had, uh, cases where I’ve placed somebody in a role where there was a huge growth potential. The people they were working for were amazing and they took a hundred case cut in salary to take that role. So people will do it for the situation that’s gonna heal their career once. Right?

Stephanie (32:08):

Yeah. No, it makes sense. Well, I love all the things that you’ve said and really wanna plug the book again because we didn’t get into near the detail. But what I really appreciated in the book is you gave templates, examples. I mean, you were like, Hey, here’s the email that you can use to go attract the right person and try to recruit someone, which I thought was just super helpful. So the book is healing career wounds, but you should probably, we should probably tell ’em the rest, your startup secret weapon to attract higher and retain ridiculously successful people. Which it all makes sense now. Yeah. <laugh> we’re there. We got there on the title, you know, I know, right. You just have to tell people,

Rick (32:52):

I was super stubborn with the title. Everybody was telling me it should have been something else like your startup secret weapon or something like that. But I’m like, it’s the punchline. And plus if you’re like walking through the airport and you see it on a thing, you’re gonna be like, what’s this. So yeah. It was kind of more of an attractor. More, more so than anything

Stephanie (33:07):

Else. No, I love it. So it’s not a therapy book about your office, but it is a great hands on tool that you can use to attract and hire the right people for your team, which really matters. Like it’s super important. And it’s something I hear so often that people continue to struggle with, but you don’t have to, you can find the right people and man, when you do it makes such the difference. Right? We all know that. Yeah.

Rick (33:31):

And right now the opportunity everybody’s complaining about not being able to find people, but people are moving and they’re moving for the right reasons. And you know, if you, if you are not on top of this, that’s why you’re having a hard time finding the right people.

Stephanie (33:47):

Yeah. Fair point. Well, Rick, yeah. Thanks for being on the show with me today.

Rick (33:51):

It was so great to, to be here. Thank you for having me.

Announcer  (33:56):

The Lawyerist Podcast is edited by Britany Felix. Are you ready to implement the ideas we discuss here into your practice? Wondering what to do next? Here are your first two steps. First. If you haven’t read The Small Firm Roadmap yet, grab the first chapter for free at lawyeristbackup.kinsta.cloud/book. Looking for help beyond the book? Let’s chat about whether our coaching communities, right for you. Head to lawyeristbackup.kinsta.cloud/community/lab to schedule a 10 minute call with our team to learn more. The views expressed by the participants are their own and are not endorsed by Legal Talk Network. Nothing said in this podcast is legal advice for you.