EP 34: John Shreve, Senior Manager of Talent Acquisition at Airspace
Podcast Transcript
James Mackey 0:11
Today we're joined by John Shreve. John, welcome to the show. How are you?
John Shreve 0:16
Great to be here. Thanks for having me.
James Mackey 0:19
Yes, for sure. And before we jump into the topics we want to discuss today, could you share a little bit about your background and perspective with everybody?
John Shreve 0:28
Sure, I've been recruiting for about 15 years in various capacities, kind of cutting my teeth, recruiting tellers at Wells Fargo, and turning that into a career. It's been really fun and I love finding people for jobs in a way that can help kind of improve their quality of life through a career opportunity.
James Mackey 0:52
For sure. And right now you're at Airspace, right?
John Shreve 0:56
Correct.
James Mackey 0:56
Cool. What does Airspace do?
John Shreve 1:02
So we're a tech-enabled third-party logistics company. So we can do high-speed routing and give full transparency for orders from their start point to their endpoint move. We move a lot of organs for transplant and airplane parts.
James Mackey 1:19
Okay, cool. And this is a SaaS product, right?
John Shreve 1:23
It's considered that but we're technically a third-party logistics company. So we offer a full-on service not just the software.
James Mackey 1:31
Okay, gotcha. And I noticed in May y'all raised $70 million, Series D?
John Shreve 1:38
Yeah, absolutely. That was exciting. I got here for Series B and helped to scale ups already. Gonna have my hands full here in the coming months.
James Mackey 1:47
How many employees did the company have when you started? And where are you now?
John Shreve 1:52
There were about 50 of us. And we had small offices in Carlsbad, California, and Dallas, Texas. Now there are over 300 of us. So we've got larger offices in those two cities. And then we're in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Germany, and Stockholm, Sweden, as well as continuing our global expansion.
James Mackey 2:13
Nice. Are you? Do you get to do any traveling? You gotta do it, man. That'd be great.
John Shreve 2:19
I know, I gotta get my passport. I'll never get to.
James Mackey 2:22
Yeah, definitely. Now that, COVID, I guess we're kind of getting through that. I'm really pumped about getting back to traveling. I got my whole fall and winter, I got something like every month going to visit clients going to different events. I'm really excited.
John Shreve 2:39
That's awesome. I successfully avoided flying with a mask, but I'm down to do it. If I can get out of San Diego for a couple of weeks.
James Mackey 2:48
Gotcha. Well, so one of the things that you mentioned is sort of a challenge right now that you're working through. Just from a candidate's standpoint, people change their minds toward the end of the interview process. And so I thought, maybe we could start out with a few examples of what you're seeing in terms of like challenges there, where you're seeing had some kind of inconsistencies of, you know, what you hear from candidates on the first conversation to when you get to the offer stage, then people are kind of singing a different tune.
So what do some of those challenges look like? And then I thought we could kind of just riff on just different solutions and ways to try to eliminate some of those problems. I'll kind of let you kind of start us off, like, what are you seeing out there? Like, what are the kind of biggest discrepancies you're saying from the screening call to the offer stage right now?
John Shreve 3:38
The biggest things I see are people kind of not being transparent about what they expect to make. They'll say one thing on the first call, and then all of a sudden, their tune changes at the end. Or they'll let me know, I really want to work for Airspace, because you guys have this beautiful office, I live 30 minutes up the road. It's an easy drive. I know it's a hybrid role. I'm like, great. They only want you on Tuesdays and Thursdays to come into the office anyways. And then I get up. Well, I don't want to be expected to come into the office. And it's like, why did you say that you want to come to the office? And if you don't want to be expected, you just want to come and go as you please. I see. So those are the kind of things people don't realize that's a red flag, like what is this person going to be doing when they're not in a meeting or on the scheduled time for something.
Beyond that, I've had people with crazy expectations about time off. We had to change. We used to say that we have unlimited time on PTO. We had to change that because people would literally make the argument. Hey, you said it's unlimited, right? I want to take a week off every month. That's not how it works. So just things like that, that are kind of logically based. Beyond that, I'm as transparent as I can possibly be in calls, regardless of what the person is asking me. It's a two-way street though. Like, if I'm telling you everything and you're withholding information from me, like, how that's one of our core values, how am I supposed to pass you through the process if you're not transparent,
James Mackey 5:10
Right. And just so everybody kind of gets a sense of your perspective, could you tell us like, are these primarily entry-level positions? I don't know how much you can share in terms of salary stuff, but, just try to give us a sense of what types of roles you're encountering these challenges. Because for instance, when we're working with a SaaS company, and we're helping them hire engineers or high-level salespeople, we don't really encounter these issues quite as much. So it'll just be helpful for people to understand, again, that specific point of impact. So we know, okay, for what types of searches, does this become more problematic? And where can we look out for this to avoid that type of stuff?
John Shreve 5:50
Yeah, absolutely. Our operations specialist roles are basically logistics coordinator roles. That one gets tricky because it's kind of shiftwork. Very entry-level, although some experience can help you go a long way, run into a lot of issues with that. And then with people in our like account management type roles, they have different expectations on what they'll be doing. And, what their commission plan is going to be.
I'll say, specifically sales reps, and software developers, those are pretty black and white, for lack of a better term. Like the software developers know exactly what they want, and they know where their flexibility is, and they'll give me a range, and they'll be straight up. Like, I'm going to be at the bottom end of the range, and I want a nice equity package. It's like, okay, we can do that for you. We're not publicly traded yet. And some people don't value equity at all, they just, you know, 2000 extra dollars a year, which is like, you know, I mean, you know, equity could turn out to be worthless, or it could pay off all our houses. The thing like you want to have to pay that capital gains tax if we go public. So.
James Mackey 6:59
For sure. I mean, that's kind of hitting. So that's helpful, right? It's to the extent we see those types of problems, it's more so with like SDR searches, sales development, junior level roles, I feel like most of the time, these type of issues are encountered with junior level talent that maybe just have less experience interviewing, less experienced kind of expectation setting, or they don't know exactly what they can get out there on the market.
So they initially will say some things, and then they'll interview more, and then they'll see, oh, there are other options. And they're kind of like adjusting as they're going through the process, which can make it sort of frustrating, right? Where you ultimately need a bigger funnel of candidates, you have more drop-offs at every stage of the interview process, you probably have more drop-offs between offer acceptance, and, and their start dates as well, for those types of positions.
So that said, I think that's a pretty common problem for people spanning across several industries when they're working with junior-level talent. So what, like getting into a kind of solution mode, what are some of the things that you implement or do in order to minimize that as much as possible? Knowing that it's never going to be perfect, how do you try to avoid some of those problems?
John Shreve 8:10
The thing that's worked the best for me is knowing the companies that these people have worked at when I'm doing searches on LinkedIn, or Indeed.
Like, if they're working for a company that has a career path and has a clear vision of what's going to go on for them in the first five years. That's a little different from if someone's coming from a call center, where they hit the ceiling, four months in. So really knowing where the talent lies locally. And regionally. That's been the most helpful thing for me. And just understanding to like, if someone says, I can make $1 an hour more working at the brand new Amazon hub that opened a mile away, like, that's great, what is your career path look like there? And have you seen what's going on? Or what has gone on in San Diego in those hubs and news? You know, a quick Google search will show you crazy lawsuits and really poor conditions.
So it's just a matter of what people see for their future and what they want out of the company. Does it make sense to go work for Amazon in those conditions? If they're going to pay for college for you? Yeah, of course, it does. But if that's not the path you're trying to take, there are a lot of differences. There are a lot of alternatives for that where you can go a long way without having to go through getting that degree. For instance, he's going to school to be a double major in music composition and tuba performance, I didn't finish but you can't tell me that I would be a better recruiter, had I had those two degrees, I would just be in a lot more debt.
James Mackey 9:46
Right. Absolutely. So I think from a vetting perspective, trying to understand somebody's career path and what they want to accomplish, which again, can be difficult when somebody is a Junior in their career because maybe they don't know yet right? But yes, I think just trying to get a pulse on what they care about, what they value, is probably very helpful. Because then as you kind of approach the end of the process, even at the top of the funnel, you get a pulse on if what you have to offer is aligned with what they care about, right?
John Shreve 10:17
Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting to hire entry-level shift workers in an area like North County, San Diego, it is not cheap to live here. But that having been said, it doesn't mean that on the first day, you're going to make a mortgage. It's there if you want to earn it, the money is all out there to earn. But it's just a matter of getting to the point where you're qualified for it.
James Mackey 10:42
Yes, for sure. I would love to hear a little bit about just how the talent acquisition department has evolved, from going from 50 people to what did you say? I think 300 now, is that right?
John Shreve 10:55
Yeah, a little over 300.
James Mackey 10:57
So what's been the biggest shifts, from technology to process to the size of the team? Kind of walk us through that development, I'd be really helpful for people that work in hyper-growth environments.
John Shreve 11:07
Yeah. So when I started, and we were a series B company, I reported directly to the operations team defining the operation specialist shift workers. And I came in just knowing the benefits package and what the company was about and wanting to kind of seize the opportunity and make it my own.
There was no HR department, so I came in on my first day and said, What ATS are we using? And they laughed and said, Have you ever used a Trello board and tried to figure that out? So, you know, I was doing that for basically two and a quarter years, like just putting notes in different Trello boards, posting it through different means. And then finally, when we got over 150 people, it was time to get a real ATS. Still didn't really have an HR department landing on job lights. And then we hired a Head of People that was very adamant about getting Greenhouse, which changed my life entirely.
I don't know how I sustained doing manual processes, like, I had email templates in a Slack channel to myself, and it was like, do the email, do the Google Calendar meet, add someone zoom link, and now it's just like, boom, boom, boom, you're done. And it saved us an FTE because we needed to hire an assistant for me and Greenhouse is that assistant.
James Mackey 12:27
For sure. You said you used a Jobvite before you moved over to Greenhouse. I don't think I've ever really spent much time there. Is that more of an SMB solution? That's just kind of out of the box, but not highly customizable. I mean, is that assumption correct? What was your experience?
John Shreve 12:44
Very accurate. Basically, Jobvite can do pretty much everything Greenhouse does. But it looks like it's in the beta stage.
James Mackey 12:54
Yeah, I'm sure the reporting and data are not nearly as good.
John Shreve 12:57
Absolutely. The reporting and data were a little more tricky to pull. And then on top of that, the scorecards weren't as cut and dry, it was more about like, open text boxes, where you can just put a bunch of notes in versus just giving it a rating, which is, I mean, that's one of the best parts of Greenhouse is being able to objectively see a scorecard on someone and compare apples to apples versus reading the story of how and half an hour played out.
James Mackey 13:27
All right. Yeah, for sure. So how have you all implemented like Greenhouse? Do you have any different integrations or anything interesting about how you set up the interview flows, plans, or anything like that?
John Shreve 13:39
Yeah. We've adapted it quite a bit. I mean, it's fully customizable. So that's been cool. This year has been a really big time for me to shift what we've been doing in the interview processes, like eliminating take-home assignments, eliminating meet-and-greets, and eliminating the number of people we have to talk to. Like, if it's an entry-level role, Why would they have to go through three rounds of interviews and talk to five people? That's insane.
So now, for those rules, they talked to me, they talked to the department director, and they get a hiring decision within one business day. Like the software development roles, it was a matter of like, Hey, you guys are having people do a take-home assignment. I can objectively show you through statistics, that you have a 90% fallout rate on qualified candidates when you send them that take-home assignment. Why not just do a pairing exercise as part of your final round of panels? It solved everything, we're all of a sudden hiring quickly versus just people falling off.
James Mackey 14:45
Yeah, I think these simple adjustments can make such high leverage. Outcomes or you know, differences in terms of speed or quality. So that's pretty simple stuff but you need an ATS to be able to prove the data story. A lot easier, right? Because otherwise, you can still collect data but you're just like throwing it up on a Google Doc. Right? And it's just not as easy to convince executives if you don't have it in a nice report.
John Shreve 15:15
Yeah, the one thing that nothing can collect is how many profiles did you look at? How many people did you reach out to on LinkedIn? And Indeed, in order to get the applicant flow that we have? So that's always a big piece for that. Like, where are you finding these people? It's like, I'm doing Boolean searches and finding them, I'm going into these different forums and reaching out to them. They're like, well, how many people? I can count them all and tell you but then it's like, well, I want a report on that. That's something that they can't do for you, unfortunately.
James Mackey 15:50
What about LinkedIn? Are you working with LinkedIn recruiter Pro? Because there are some reports there, right? Like, you can look at response rates and email acceptance rates, and that kind of stuff.
John Shreve 16:05
A big part of that, too, is just telling them like, look, I'm gonna reach out to 75 people a day until we fill these eight account executive roles. And then, low and behold, it works. It's just a matter of executing it. Because sourcing isn't fun, it's very tedious. You feel like your eyes are gonna fall out of your head halfway through the day, but that's how you find people that don't involve agencies.
James Mackey 16:30
Definitely got to put in that work. How much has the talent acquisition team grown? Is it still, like, pretty small? Or have you added recruiters, what's the structure? And how many people do you have now?
John Shreve 16:41
It's me, I'm really good at managing my time, I'm actually really good at looking at profiles and resumes while I'm doing a conversation. Because I've done so many interviews here in three and a half years, I think I've done like 5000 or so at this point. So I get on my talk track, and I can just kind of send that train down the tracks while I'm typing, looking at profiles, and reaching out to people.
So that was definitely a learned skill here. And when I've shown recruiting friends, like at happy hour, they're like, so how are you doing this? And I'm like, let me source 10 people while we have this conversation, and I just opened my computer, I'm looking at them talking and looking down doing this. And you know, however long later I'm done. And they're like, what was that? Like? What were you doing, it looks like you were just messing around your computer, like a kid playing on a typewriter kind of. And it's like, that's what I do. That's how I'm able to keep my days down to an eight-hour maximum and operate with efficiency without having to use too many agencies or hire someone to come in and source for me. Because there's a lot that gets lost in that. You get different philosophies on how to do it or what's effective. Sometimes, if you want things done right, you gotta do it yourself.
So we haven't added anyone yet. I can see someone being added here in the next year, especially if we are going to scale up even more. There's one person that handles it in Europe. When we started expanding, and I was getting on calls with people, and they were asking me questions that I had no answer to, like what's my gas allowance going to be if I live 17 kilometers from the office? Just how many miles is that? And then, you know, at that point, it's like I don't even know.
James Mackey 18:41
Yeah, there's actually a lot of nuance for recruiting in Europe. There are some agencies that I'm familiar with, recruiting agencies, that have tried to expand into Europe, and just failed. Ultimately, just closing down the office, I've seen the vice versa to where it's like, UK, Europe, based agencies that are trying to expand in the US market. Don't seem to do that well. I guess it is just nuance in terms of, I guess a lot of things right? To process, culture. I don't know what it is, but it does seem pretty difficult. It's a different skill set. You can't just copy-paste exactly what you're doing in one market and apply it to another.
John Shreve 19:25
Yeah. And it's weird too, because you think like, oh, it's all the European Union for the most part. So they should have the same laws. That is not the case. Like specifically in the Netherlands. I think last month, they passed a law that all workers have a right to work from home when they want to and it's like there's no nuance to that law. That is pretty much like letting people work from home, period.
I can't ever see a day where that gets passed in America. I can see California happening let's face it. It's just the weird thing to wrap my head around and that in the four-day workweek. I keep seeing a lot about California, and it's like, are they just gonna try to drive every business out of California? Cuz that's gonna be really hard to run a shop like that.
James Mackey 20:13
Yeah, I mean, I think that's so situational and the type of business. There might be types of businesses where they can thrive. I think, in my business where basically companies borrow recruiters from us, I feel like that'd be pretty hard to pull off. For instance, a lot of offers are going out on Friday. So I mean, if you're going to tack on another day to the weekend, that's probably going to be pretty tough. Mondays are always super busy. Right? On Fridays, a lot of offer activity happens. And there's just so much activity like ongoing activity in recruiting, right?
You know, there are probably some tech companies. I will just be curious, are there any, really high-performing companies, right now operating on a four-hour workweek, like scaling rapidly? Good, you know, hopefully, good life, work-life balance. But I'm looking forward to seeing more data surrounding the performance and growth of the top four for four-day workweek companies versus five. Have you seen any data on that?
John Shreve 21:20
I haven't, I haven't. I thought it would be more efficient to keep it for five days and go to six hours a day. But, you know, that was just me.
James Mackey 21:29
Yeah. Probably, I think, again, for a lot of companies, that would be better. I mean, there are a million ways to kind of slice it up. And I think it's just gonna vary from company to company. So I find it kind of annoying when someone comes out with advice. Like, this is the best way to do it. It's like, how would you know, how would you know? A completely different industry and completely different company, what's best.
John Shreve 21:54
Yeah, absolutely. It reminds me of when I worked at Wells Fargo, the board in Minnesota decided that in San Diego, all these people that have never been tellers were like, the way we're going to increase customer service is we had the stamp of a smiley face on people's receipts before they leave. People hated it, especially if it was gonna be in their books for the year. It's like, I don't want that. Can you reprint this without the stamp? And but it's like, literally, if you handed someone a receipt without a stamp, you could get written up if someone came through. So it's like, how it's someone from Minneapolis telling us what's going to work out best for our customers in Southern California.
James Mackey 22:31
That's just such a weird thing to add as something to help with customer success. And add zero value to the customer.
John Shreve 22:39
Yeah. And all it does is get people. I mean, you wind up with ink on your nice clothes, because you have to wear a suit for a retail job. Yeah, it's wild. That was one of the big things here. Like it sounds kind of silly. But one of the biggest detractors to working in a tech company like Airspace was there's no dress code. It's like, wow, I can mothball all of my ties. Like, that's incredible.
James Mackey 23:02
Right. I kind of like how culture is going. And I mean, I guess in tech, it's been like this for a while. But there's a much bigger emphasis on hopefully, the outcomes you can produce and not, what you end up wearing for work. And I think the remote trends help with that, too. It's less of an emphasis on where you're doing the work and more of an emphasis on outcomes. And I just think that trend, in general, is good, it's healthy.
It's like, let's focus on what matters. And let's agree that what matters is the actual work that we're getting done. And, of course, like some roles are going to require an office or might require a certain dress code, I guess, trying to think there's like few and far between in which they would but, particularly in tech, like I just don't see much of a purpose in tech for a lot of positions, right? To get to have some of these kinds of requirements that have nothing to do with performance.
John Shreve 23:52
Yes. When I'm talking with software engineers, and they have questions for me about dress code or expectations on hybrid work, I'm like, Hey, if you're interviewing in places that want you to wear a tie, they're not a real tech company. And then they're like, oh, that's actually good insight. It's probably a good question to get out early. Because if they all of a sudden, they're like, well, we want you to wear pleated pants and you have to have a collar and all this, like, Who are you really working for?
James Mackey 24:20
So I'm in Northern Virginia, which is like all the Gov con stuff. Here it is really big so it's from a work culture perspective, conservative. Like people wearing suits, and ties.
At SecureVision, everybody's remote. I have a little office as you can see and it's kind of doubled as a studio. So I do all the recordings here. And like people will straight up wear suits to their Regis office. Whoa, what are you doing and why? Like it's not a customer-facing office it's like a small business, right? And you're wearing a suit and a tie to work like, why are you doing this to yourself? I mean, I don't have anything against it. Like, whatever, people like or feel confident and great, but it's just kind of interesting like would you prefer to go to dry cleaning every week, you prefer to take like an hour to get ready. Meanwhile, I'm just showing up in a T-shirt, and jeans. Like, I'm not going to spend time doing this other stuff. There are other things I'd rather be doing with my time. Right?
John Shreve 25:27
Yeah. With the dress code, I went full dad mode. I just went to Costco and bought cargo shorts and every different color for 13 bucks a piece, that's like, well, now part of my wardrobe is good for three years.
James Mackey 25:38
Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. It's really interesting being in tech in the DC market. Because it's just so old school, and there's still a culture of like, managers feel like you have to be right in front of them in order to get work done. And my response to it's like, why don't you just have the metrics and data and technology, right? If you're visibly looking at humans to know things are getting done, that's probably a bad sign. Right? You should have data in tech to be viewing this stuff. It's not so much about when somebody is coming into the office, or like how many hours they're logging, even. I honestly don't care how many hours people are working. I care more so about the work product that they're producing, right?
John Shreve 25:40
Yeah, absolutely. There's nothing like thinking back on my past and having a manager or a team lead, walk up to my desk, and say, Hey, what are you doing? And it's like, what response am I supposed to give you other than working? What are you doing? You know, because then it's like, what is going on right now? Like, what are you trying to uncover? If you're asking me what I'm doing at work? Like, holy moly.
James Mackey 27:04
You should just be looking at performance metrics at the end of the week, like, how is that an effective way to manage people?
John Shreve 27:13
Yeah, it's like, Wait, how many interviews do I do? How many offers went out? Like, that's what I'm doing?
James Mackey 27:17
Right? Like I used to work at a big publicly traded staffing company, at the beginning of my career. And it was like, you know, suit and tie the whole thing, I'd be like, middle of August, like 100 degrees humid. And I have to wear a big suit and tie and it is like one of those cultures like it didn't matter what you produced, like, no matter what outcome you produced, like you had to be sitting in front of your computer from before 9 am, to after 5 pm. Sometimes you know, you have a day where you get more done. And sometimes it's 3 pm, you're just done, you're just shot. And it's nice to have that flexibility. But it was like one of those environments where you just had to no matter what you accomplished or anything, you just had to sit there in front of the computer and just keep going, keep going and hitting like these activity metrics. And that's like, to me, that's death. I don't know how people do that, like, throughout their whole career in that type of environment.
John Shreve 28:15
Yeah, I like to just eat my lunch at my desk and work through it. So I can go home earlier every day, which is nice being exempt. But I remember days when it was like, hey, you need to make sure that you go to lunch for at least an hour and a half. Because you need to make sure that your face is seen at 5:30. It's like, oh, there goes dinner with the family. You know, it's a really interesting thing. And then, you know, meanwhile, the boss has gone in every Friday but you can't go because just in case.
James Mackey 28:45
It's appearances. Yeah, my brother actually, used to have a boss that was like, Dude insane, right? So first of all, everybody in the company had to wear a suit and tie to work, right? And then people were getting there at like 7:30 Taking like 30 minutes lunches and leaving at like 6 or 7 pm, was like a really abusive culture. And the CEO just randomly goes around to people and basically just verbally abuses them, right? It puts a tonne of pressure on people. And it was like one of those things where if you'd left the office at 5, you know, it created a culture where everyone was like a kind of crabs in a barrel. Like, everybody would just judge you if you left at 5.
John Shreve 29:37
Nothing like the crab bucket analogy. I've worked in places where we call the call center for like, the crab bucket. And, you know, the owners of the company didn't appreciate it, but it's like,
James Mackey 29:47
Oh, it's terrible. It's like the leadership that creates that type of culture. But I don't know, man, like, as a leader at a company, I don't know why you'd want to create a culture where people are like micromanaging and miserable. You would just think somewhere on people's value systems would be like, Hey, I kind of want people to be better off as a result of my time here on this planet.
John Shreve 30:09
I will say a culture like that is what helped me quit smoking cigarettes because I heard people complain at the smoking table that it was like, I can't be around these people if I want to have a good life, and I just quit cold turkey.
James Mackey 30:23
Yeah, for sure. If you're gonna get a judgment for leaving for like, the first few minutes? Yeah, I definitely can see that. I've definitely worked in that type of environment where every minute is basically micromanaged. Right? Not not the way to live life.
Well, yeah. Cool, man. So I guess my last question for you. I wanted to talk a little bit about just what you're seeing in the market right now. Obviously, it is kind of a down market overall. How is that impacting talent acquisition for the open roles that you're working on? Is recruiting getting easier? Is it getting harder? Have you noticed any shifts? What do you see out there?
John Shreve 31:01
I see way more no shows to introduce. Now that I'm really thinking about it. Yeah, the fallout rate is over 25% for initial screenings where people go through getting reached out to, responding to me, and coordinating a time to get on the calendar. And then it's like they poof never existed, you call them and their numbers disconnected or they just don't call you back. And then they may email you.
James Mackey 31:26
Number disconnected. How is that? That's got to be nuanced for like, I guess some of the roles that you're working on, right?
John Shreve 31:35
Yeah. Or the wrong numbers on their resume, and they email me back 10 minutes after my voicemail like yeah, I'm sitting here expecting your call. It's like, I called you this number. Oh, that's not my number. It's this. And then it's like, oh, boy, like, I really do need to consider you for a finance job with your attention to detail.
James Mackey 31:53
Right? Wow, wow. So more falloffs. I think that might be caused, because there are a lot of people that feel like they need to be keeping their options open right now, just due to the market conditions. But maybe at the same time, they don't really want to leave or, like, they don't necessarily want to leave, but they want to continue to kind of put their resume out there. Yeah, just to ensure that they always have options. So maybe that's just like, it just turns into having a lot of less serious people, at the top of the funnel, right?
John Shreve 32:26
Yeah, it's either that or I have a feeling part of it is in California, if you're on unemployment, you only have to prove that you've applied for two jobs per week, which should be their biggest kept secret. But it's the first thing they'll tell you. So you get two confirmation emails a week for an interview and to say, hey, these places weren't the right fit for me. And you get to keep it that way.
James Mackey 32:46
Like, do you have to complete the interview?
John Shreve 32:50
You have to prove that you engaged with the company, and we're trying to pursue an interview. And it's like, hey, look, here's my confirmation email, I got the interview, they passed on me or I didn't like what they had to say, it didn't pay enough. And they just take your word for it.
James Mackey 33:06
Right. Right. So it's not like they're really gonna dig, or would have the time or the bandwidth.
John Shreve 33:11
Oh, no, no, I mean, there are too many people.
James Mackey 33:13
Yes, for sure. Wow. Yeah, I think that's probably a huge influencing factor for some of the roles you're working on.
John Shreve 33:22
Yeah. And some of it is like a bit of shift work. I mean, I get it. People don't want to work overnight, necessarily. They don't want to work on weekends. But then you have to look at the industry they're in and decide if it's a sacrifice they want to make. Very often, I'm very open with people when they ask me those questions. Like, it's like, we have a 24/7 operation in that department. What's your availability?
If they say, basically banking hours, I gotta tell him, this isn't going to be good. This isn't gonna meet your expectations, you're probably going to be working weekends when you start. Some of them are fine with it. Some of them are like, it's just a preference. I'll work my way up to it. Those are the ones that usually stick around a long time and move up.
James Mackey 34:00
For sure. Well, look, this has been a lot of fun. John, I appreciate you joining us today. We're coming up on time. So I just wanted to say thank you so much for joining us. And, you know, if people want to engage with you follow you online. Where can they find you?
John Shreve 34:14
I'm on LinkedIn. John Shrieve. I think my URL is John C. Shrieve. Beyond that, if anyone wants to reach out, it's just John@airspace.com. I'm more than happy to answer any questions.
James Mackey 34:27
Cool. Well, thank you, John. We appreciate it. And for everybody else tuning in, thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you next time.