ROTR - Kathryn Knox
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[00:00:00] This is Recruiters on the Rise, and I'm Colleen Gallagher. Join me for candid conversations with talent leaders as we explore the work that drives them, the lessons they've learned, and how they're helping people find careers they love. This show is sponsored by Lavalier, an interview intelligence platform built by Textio.
Colleen Gallagher : Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Recruiters on the Rise. I'm so excited to have today's guest with us. Um, we're gonna hear some, some new interesting things that we haven't talked about on the show before. She is coming in here with over 30 years of recruiting experience, starting at Arthur Andersen and working her way through staffing, PE-backed companies, and high-growth tech before pivoting into entertainment marketing.
She's led teams as large as 23 recruiters and has seen the TA function expand and contract in ways that most people in the industry are still trying to make sense of. She recently went through, uh, some layoffs within her company, and instead of just, [00:01:00] um, you know, moving on, she's staying to help every person that she's hired find their next opportunity.
So really excited to hear more about that and, and share that information with folks. She currently serves as the director of global talent acquisition at the Trailer Park Group. Catherine Knox, welcome to the show.
Kathryn Knox: Hi Colleen, thanks for having me
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. I'm so excited to dig in. So I like to start by asking all of my guests what is the one thing or one, you know, one action that sets the best recruiters apart from the rest?
Kathryn Knox: For me, it's not about a tool or a daily, like, schedule. It's about resilience and getting up and dusting off, and every day is a new day. That's the cool thing about any sales-related job in TA is that you're as good as your last deal and you're as good as your next deal, as long as you continue the, momentum forward. So action creates positivity, it creates a new turn of a page, and just having that mindset of, "Today stunk, and tomorrow I'm back at [00:02:00] it." I think it's just to be resilient in this business, whether you're agency side, corporate, it really does enable you to have the mind space to do well
Colleen Gallagher : And how do you, um, you know, you've built TA teams before, like how do you evaluate for something like that?
Kathryn Knox: Um, well, it's behavioral a little bit and, um, know, even just listening in the interview or listening how people self-talk. I'm not a shrink, I'm not judging that, but the reality is that, there is a, there is a scrappiness in individuals when you're interviewing that you can sense, and I hate to sound har- airy fairy about that.
There is
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: Questioning you
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. Yeah
Kathryn Knox: But, um, you have to have a pretty strong sense of self or being, um, open and willing to building that sense of self so you can be there for your hiring managers, your candidates, and mostly for yourself, 'cause it can be a hard business. I mean,
Colleen Gallagher : Right.
Kathryn Knox: There's ups and downs.
Uh, clearly we're seeing a lot of that right now.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. Yeah
Kathryn Knox: So yeah, it's really behavioral a lot of the times and just learning more about [00:03:00] people and their thought process and examples of what they do
Colleen Gallagher : Yes. Yeah. Um, you know, we, you, you've shared that you've, you've been in recruiting for, for a long time now, and so you've seen a lot of different changes in there. Job boards showing up, ATS showing up, and now AI. And what stays the same about what makes somebody great at this job?
Kathryn Knox: Uh, bypassing the fear of the change and embracing it. Learn everything you can. It's exciting. It's super fun. Like, look at AI, look at everything it's doing right now and how people are talking about it and how people think it's gonna take our job. Like, just embrace it, learn it, enjoy it,
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: and continue to build your, build your skillset.
Um, because regardless, you're s- you're still gonna have to find whether whatever the tool is, you're gonna have to find the people without it eventually. Whether there's a... I
Right?
Be you don't have the funds, it could be that, you know... I mean, just working on the core principles of sourcing, finding the talent out there, building the [00:04:00] relationships, the human, human nuance will never be replaced, in my opinion.
Colleen Gallagher : Agree. Yeah
Kathryn Knox: yeah, just really learn, enjoy, be curious, and, um, and you'll be fine. That's my opinion.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah, I mean, I, I, you know, obviously we are building technology that helps support recruiters and use it, and uses AI, and I still firmly believe that, um, and, and I know this phrase is like completely overused, right? The human in the loop thing, so I'm not gonna say it again. But but the, it, you know, I think what it does is create space for the human to just really be more present.
And when you think about what we hear from people around why they take a job, um, obviously money is sort of this baseline thing, right? But it's e- I mean, every interview that I've done, when I ask a candidate, "What is going to make or break the decision for you about where you go?" It's like the first answer is always the people that I meet [00:05:00] in the process
Kathryn Knox: the first person they meet is usually us
Colleen Gallagher : Right. Yes. And so it's
Kathryn Knox: mind, that like, uh, mind space to actually, like you, we talked about with your product, like listening actually physically really listening versus worrying about note taking 24/7 or what I miss or da, da, da.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: Really helps.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: Us do our job better
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. Um, now y- you're bringing a unique perspective. I shared in the intro your company recently went through a layoff, and you have been helping folks, um, look for their next role. And you said, you know, one of the things you shared with me, you, you called everyone that you had hired to ask who, you know, who had taken a job in the last few years and asked how you can help.
And, you know, why did y- why did, why was that an important thing for you?
Kathryn Knox: I feel a personal responsibility because, um, there are people that I've pulled. I mean, I'm a poacher. I love to poach. That's why we're recruiters, and I am a leader now, but I'm, I recruit daily. Um, and so I [00:06:00] feel as though I really did in this, in this situation, and I believe and believed that this company had multiple opportunities and growth and all these lovely things that we sell in what we do. And I felt like, you know, my name's attached to it, and these are human beings that are scared and shocked, and this was, this was something that happened within three weeks' time. It was a very fast,
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: Fall to grace or from grace, excuse me. so I felt, you know, they need some footing and I'm available.
I've got bandwidth right now. Why not use that time to feel good on my end, selfishly? Like it makes me feel good about what I do.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: And also, we have a lot of knowledges recruiters. They are now recruiters. They're hiring their hiring manager. That's basically... And so if I can give them just a wee bit of insight and some comfort into how not to personalize this when, you know, get beat up out there right now.
It's a hot mess. So
Colleen Gallagher : Mm-hmm.
Kathryn Knox: How do you, how do you do that? And again, that mindset, how do you handle your brain on a bad day? Just like a [00:07:00] recruiter does. Lift up, take the bad day, it's
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. Yeah
Kathryn Knox: And if I can give any of that to somebody, then I've done my job. That's the other side of our job.
Colleen Gallagher : Right. Yeah
Kathryn Knox: it's a small world.
You always wanna take care of people when you can
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah, I mean, at the c- at the core of that is, you know, what you're saying is it's a relationship, right? And we have to maintain the relationships. And I, you know, I bet the thing that person is gonna remember is the, the fact that you reached out to continue to help them regardless of, you know... You d- you didn't know, right?
You, you had good intention. And so I think just being, you know, transparent, owning what you know, owning how you can help, that, that is gonna be the thing that people remember, so I love that. And, you know, I think it's very unique that you're doing that, so I think, I think that's really great that, that you're, you're taking the time to do that and, and helping where you [00:08:00] can
Kathryn Knox: selfishly though, it brings me joy. Like, seeing the light come on of like how we do what we do, and even literally right now I'm showing them the back end of LinkedIn. This is how LinkedIn Recruiter works. This is why your headline matters, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's just fun. It's fun. It's joy. So I even did it while I was at Trailer Park.
If there was a campus kid came to me and said, "I can't find a job. Can you help me?" I'll do it. I just-- 'cause again, it's something that brings me joy and I think that it's value, so.
Colleen Gallagher : yeah. So what are some of the tips? You know, obviously this, this is a, a challenging time for candidates. There's a lot going on. Um, what's... You know, do you have a couple pieces of advice or, or what are the main things that you're focused on when you're helping folks here?
Kathryn Knox: I always start with more information on what's really happening, in my opinion, out there. Because there's so much, there's so many content creators, there's a lot of content creators are fantastic, but there's also a lot that have honestly not really recruited much in their life,
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: transparently. And so I feel that there's a lot of fear out [00:09:00] there, but the fear is often AI-based, and AI isn't being used in ways that some people are saying it's being used.
There's a lot of companies that aren't even using AI at all.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: And so just kind of giving them, here's what you're going to see and why, and don't buy into the fear piece, that it's information, what can we do with that information, and how can you pivot? And so for me, that's my always like my first thing I get on that soapbox of just like, "You're gonna do this.
It's gonna take a minute, but here's how I think you should do it. And you might find a job applying tomorrow and get lucky." But applies, they're not working like they did, they did in the past. It's just different.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: And no, I do try to talk to them a little bit about why, because what I, I love to do is I poke around on Reddit, and there's so many people crabby about recruiters and ghosting, and there's a lot to be crabby about
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: and that's okay. make sure it's, it's rooted in reality and understand we-- I think you and I talked about recruiting teams have just been gutted in the last three to five years. The bandwidth usually isn't there to go through [00:10:00] every resume. So how do you-- We get into how do you reach out really almost more directly to the hiring managers. The other reason I say that is hiring managers, they know who's performing on their team and who's not. They know if they're, you know, for rec-recruiting and marketing as an example, if an RFP or a pitch is about to happen and we could hire 50 people in the next six months,
Colleen Gallagher : Mm-hmm.
Kathryn Knox: They will have what's around the corner even more than I will as a recruiter
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. Yeah
Kathryn Knox: So there's no harm in connections and networking, and I do emphasize that more than applies. Don't stop the applies, but get a list of 10 or 20 companies you wanna work for and go at it. Build those relationships. Um, let them know who you are. There's zero harm in it.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. Yeah
Kathryn Knox: follow-up and how important that is, um, and why, and you're not bothering people.
You're providing them a service because they're gonna need you
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. I, I totally agree with you. There's so much misinformation about what's going on. Um, [00:11:00] you know, and, and I think it's unfortunate because every recruiter, you know, not to make general statements, right? But I think most recruiters get into recruiting because they wanna help people, and they are people-people.
And so there's no one sort of, you know, there's no wizard behind the mask sitting there thinking like, "Oh, how can I, you know, make a candidate's life miserable today?" Or, "How can I ignore people today?" I think, like, you know, the number of reqs that we're asking recruiters to manage has gone up, like, 2X over the last few years, and so the volume is just insane.
And, you know, I was, I was talking to a recruiter recently, and she said this thing, and it's, like, stuck in my head. She said, "I dread opening a new role right now," because she's like, "I get 1,700 applicants in the first few days." It's so clear a lot of the resumes are, you know, AI-generated just by using the job description.
She's like, "I had one [00:12:00] candidate who sent me," it's a technical role, "sent me a resume one way through the application, sent another resume through LinkedIn." Completely different resumes, the same person. So, you know, I guess I, I bring that up just to say, like, I love your point about be more strategic and focused on, like, what it is you're looking for and the types of companies, and start that way versus applying to 200 different organizations using AI because it's, it's not that you're getting, like, it's, it could be y- you're getting screened out because your resume isn't authentic, not because...
And there's just a sea of them. So, I, yeah, I love that advice. And, and, you know, at, at the risk of getting a bunch of emails from people, I, I don't have an open role right now. I recently hired somebody. I would say, like, I surprisingly got few, very few direct outreach [00:13:00] from candidates.
Kathryn Knox: And it-- there's, again, there's no downside to it. I think people are afraid. They don't wanna bother you. They don't... You know, they'll bother me 'cause I'm TA and it's my job, but it's also your job as a leader.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: is to find the best talent out there, and if you don't know about it, you can't find it.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: And I've got 30 of you I have to serve, and, you know, so it, it just... I have always partner- partnered well with my hiring managers. The other, you know, you talked about action. Another action is, is build the relationship with your internal clients, which is your hiring managers, and partner with them and, and ask them about, you know, who's reaching out to them or what companies that you should be poaching off of. Know everything you can because you'll have more grace, which is important when you have an opening and it's been open 90 days and you can't fill it and whatever. But you'll also be able to partner with them in market in ways that you're not on an island.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: They love it. They love it.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah[00:14:00]
Kathryn Knox: if candidates...
If, if I can do it, a candidate can do it, and it's just another, you know, it's, it's marketing, it's another channel. It's really... I mean, unfortunately, you're a product when you're in market. You've got to tell the story very quickly. you've gotta have as many channels as possible to be found, and it's just another way to be found
Colleen Gallagher : you know, one of the things we had talked about too is that, several years ago we had a lot of extra ... There, there were just a lot more employees in the recruiting stack, and in some ways, um, when you have that many layers, it can lead to ... It, like in any organization, right?
And that, that's what we're seeing with a lot of companies now who are saying, "We over-hired. We have to clean out some of the levels." And I, I'd love to hear how you think about that in the recruiting, um, space and, you know, what were some of the downsides of that?
Kathryn Knox: Yeah. I mean, from a, a recruiting leader perspective sits on the ground and does the [00:15:00] recruiting as well, I do both functions.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: Um, I love an admin and another admin, and I love people sending out offer letters for me. And I love-- I mean, are you kidding me? That is a joy. A sourcer, like... And, and I mean, when I was coming up, sourcers weren't even necessarily a thing.
We all did it. Good
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: It, but there wasn't a title of sourcer. There was an, Now a good recruiter is-- kind of has to do it all.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: Um, you might have-- you might be lucky enough to have a coordinator, which would be awesome. But I mean, we were talking about one person to send the offer letter, one person to coordinate the interviews.
Like, it, it was eight layers. That's dramatic. But you know,
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: of heads in a function, I saw it at my last company. We just expanded, uh, titles and, and functions. It was more of a-- I, I did pro, but it was h- very heavy, high volume.
Colleen Gallagher : Mm-hmm.
Kathryn Knox: That can also be confusing for the candidate. There's multiple in the process. So, um, now because of, unfortunately, the [00:16:00] downturn either in the economy or just efficiencies within AI or whatever flavor you wanna call it,
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: recruiters, I mean, you have to be a generalist. You have to do it all. And if you're lucky, you have a very functional HR team that you can lean on.
Colleen Gallagher : Mm-hmm.
Kathryn Knox: A lot of them have to do onboarding.
A lot of them have to do everything. And
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: um, what hasn't changed though, is that people who, in my opinion, who are scrappy and willing to do everything
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: without risking the quality of their hire, um, and communicating when they can't do everything, which is equally important. But I just think, you know, y- people that can wear all hats win.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: We're in.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: but yeah, I wasn't used to that. And then it varied for about two years. It was just like layer after layer, and I'm like, "Wow, this is a lot of spend.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: should be looking at that." And so yeah, the market corrected, unfortunately.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. Yeah. Um, you talked about partnering with HR. Like what are, what are some of the [00:17:00] best ways you see TA and sort of the HRBP talent management, um, group working together?
Kathryn Knox: That's probably gonna be my biggest miss at Trailer Park Group. We had such a great HRBP team. the director who's still there, still there is fantastic. Um, I want to know what's around the corner. I am, I am a-- I like to train my team, and I like to think myself as a forward-thinking recruiter, meaning what are we looking for in six months? How is the team performing? What are the holes? What did we miss in a, potentially in a rec- in a recruiting, you know, capacity? Was there questions? You and I have talked about those questions and how important they are. Um, were there questions we could have done? So s- s- really sticking at the hip with HRBP ensuring that your new hire, because my interest is in my new hire and ensuring that they're onboarded properly, they have a soft place to fall if things get funky, 'cause it sometimes does.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: That partnership any company I've been working [00:18:00] through, HRBPs have just been... We've been at the hip, and I'm so grateful for that 'cause they are, you know, a lot of people are hard on HR. Um, they m- you know, most, for the most part, they want you to win. They want you to do a good job. They, they want you to use them when they need, you know, when you need help.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: so I've been really lucky. I've had some great people around me from that
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. And how, how do you think about, you know, I saw a post recently where somebody said that, um, TA should not own quality of hire, and I'm curious to get your take on that
Kathryn Knox: I don't think there's a downside to owning it. I do feel that there's only so much TA can control
Yeah
' cause, um, and it's almost similar to like when my-- I had my own agency for a while, long while. So the agency days you have a guarantee. And the reason you have a guarantee is because there's only so much you can control after 60, 90 days.
Colleen Gallagher : Right
Kathryn Knox: So if you have a team, uh, you know, one of my leaders unfortunately had 40-plus percent turnover at one point. So if you have a team turning over like that, [00:19:00] I don't think there's anything I could have done.
Colleen Gallagher : Mm-hmm
Kathryn Knox: Possibly, but after a while it clearly becomes an issue of like, what's happening in that leadership?
Why
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: happening? but I am also someone that's always open to looking, you know, backwards and like, how could we have done something better?
Colleen Gallagher : Mm-hmm.
Kathryn Knox: Quick SWOT analysis when things aren't going well. I think that's a service to our hiring managers we should provide, and we're s- we're a team.
Colleen Gallagher : Mm-hmm.
Kathryn Knox: So if there's something that is hitting in quality of hire, I wouldn't stub my nose at that conversation. I would
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: Into
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. What are some of the, um, what are some of the metrics that you think are important that, that TA groups and leaders should look at?
Kathryn Knox: Um, I'm a big fan of, uh, quality of submission to offer ratio. I want my recruiters to be subject matter experts on their opens
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: as possible. I don't, I don't love, you know, spray painting resumes to a hiring manager. I want you to know that hiring manager and that rec so [00:20:00] well that you're gonna submit maybe three to five people and you get to offer.
Colleen Gallagher : Mm-hmm.
Kathryn Knox: Prefer that. Does it always happen that way? No, it depends on the hiring manager. Some want more, some
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: take that. but I really do think that that for me is the quality of a recruiter. I also love, um, a sourcing, you know, ratio. I want it-- I want you out in market. I want you out finding people. A lot of corporate recruiting is post and pray, which is fine, especially depending on the type of role, but I'm on the pro side. we maybe almost 50% of our hires were made through sourcing.
Colleen Gallagher : Hmm
Kathryn Knox: And so we're out in market. I wanna know that you're telling the story, that you're helping us build the brand because it is employer branding
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: and it's inexpensive. It doesn't cost us anything other than the tool to source with.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: Um, so those are two pieces.
I mean, time to fill is really important, but there's so many variables. So the other thing I'm really-- I, I have historically been on my recruiters about is documentation, 'cause data don't lie.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: [00:21:00] Data don't lie. And hiring managers love to throw a poor recruiter under the bus, no offense to my hiring managers, but say like, "This has been 90 days or 120 days."
I'm like, "Yeah, but you went on vacation four times. You rescheduled 20,000 interviews and you weren't available. So where's your accountability in this? Let's fix it."
Colleen Gallagher : Right. Yeah
Kathryn Knox: so I'm a big advocate of us our song and creating raving fans, but telling the story when it's not working out and making sure that that story is documented so it protects you
Colleen Gallagher : I, one of the things you had said to me before was that, you know, a lot of corporate recruiters aren't bad, they're just not incentivized to build relationships. Like, h- what would change if they were? Um, and, and how would you think about doing that?
Kathryn Knox: I think it depends on the recruiter, but most recruiters are just curious people. They love people to begin with. I think understanding the business and how the business is growing, how the business operates, understanding what's under the hood of the hiring manager, I mean, that's exciting. And then [00:22:00] what it does is it enables you to tell the story better. You can say, "This is where we're at. This is why we're here. This is where we're going." That was one of my favorite things at Trailer Park Group because I'm s- I love their product. I mean, they're just, they're one of the best entertainment agency, in market and have been historically.
But I can tell the story of here's where things kind of went south, and here's what we're doing about it, and the story.
Colleen Gallagher : Mm-hmm.
Kathryn Knox: Um, a good recruiter who can do that can help only source better, can also set that candidate up for success in the conversation with the hiring manager so they can bring some of that to the conversation of, "I'm curious, where are things going?"
Like you and I talked about candidate questions.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: There are no better questions than to talk about your business.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: Um, and, and those relationships, again, will give you grace. Um, you know, if they feel as though you care and you wanna learn,
Colleen Gallagher : Hmm.
Kathryn Knox: Um, they tend to be a little bit more easy on you, in my experience
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. Yeah. [00:23:00] Um, you've talked a lot about how, like, like for example, with the, um, submission to offer ratio, you know, l- y- your preference is to, you know, submit three to five really qualified candidates. How do you build the relationship with the hiring manager in order to get a, a good understanding of like, of what is gonna resonate with them for the role, et cetera?
Kathryn Knox: Yeah. You do it in the intake, which we've talked about the intake, um, quite a bit. I do feel as though that first meeting with the hiring manager, though, if you have not worked with a hiring manager before, your job is to set expectations with them. And so you're, you're gonna know very quickly, like I- if I have a new hiring manager, I'm like, "This is how I roll.
Are we good? This is-- I-- You know, you're gonna see three to five people. You're gonna love all of those people. You're gonna get to offer on one of them. Are you comfortable with that? And then if I fail, let's talk about it." Then I'll say, "I'll, I'll actually want you in it further if I'm failing
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: ' cause something's going wrong."
Um, most of them like that. And so I, I [00:24:00] do tend to ask a little bit further about those things that we talked about. What's around the corner? What will this person be doing? What does success look like in the first 90 days, six months? what are the intangibles on your team that you're seeing that's successful with people?
Colleen Gallagher : Mm-hmm.
Kathryn Knox: And, and I will though, creatives are different. So I've-- I come from a tech recruiting background. I've pivoted, as you talked about, to creative. I will never have the eye of my hiring manager when it comes to a portfolio of talent. I won't. I'm pretty good. I have
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: I like to think. Maybe I don't, you know, that could be debatable. But I don't, I will never. So I do sometimes, you know, I'll float portfolios of like, "This is what I'm thinking." I will test the waters, but you're just getting to know them.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: ask about, you know, if you can build a relationship about what do they do for fun, and these are human beings. Um, and just do what you can to find as much out and be okay to pivot. 'Cause jobs-- The other thing candidates also, [00:25:00] and I'm talking about candidates here, obviously I'm kind of pivoting on that, but candidates don't understand that job specs change constantly. And then they're like, "I was a fit. What happened?" They change constantly, unfortunately. One thought maybe when you open it and you go through the process and you realize you need something totally different.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: So keeping communication. We do weekly meetings with our hiring managers. We do people experience meetings. Um, where are we going wrong? If there's a problem, if they wanna use an agency, we don't use very many agencies. We have a few that we like, but, um, why? Like, are
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: Tell me what's happening, what's underneath it.
Happy for the spend, that's fine, and happy for the help always.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: But really just having honest conversations and, and, and trying to be the subject matter experts on what we do
Colleen Gallagher : there's a lot of, you know, new sourcing tools coming out to help automate it, and I'm curious given how important you think that is in developing the relationships, like where do [00:26:00] those fit in in your mind and, and how do you leverage them, um, to help?
Kathryn Knox: For me, it's more top of funnel, so building the pipeline. Um, used sourcing tools. There's some that I like, but, um, my favorite thing is like a web scrape. I hate to say it, that's very old school. But I wanna go on list of Clio Award winners, which is, uh, an award within our industry.
Mm-hmm.
I wanna know every single person that won in 2026. I wanna know who they are. I wanna build relationships, but I don't have relationships. So for me, it's more strategic than just like blasting out
Colleen Gallagher : Mm-hmm.
Kathryn Knox: Um, but I love a good sourcing tool. I'll, I'll try anything in market.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: but I still-- I'm, maybe I'm old school. I'm still out there. I'm hunting and pecking every day.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: what I teach my candidates. I'm like, you in marketing? Go to the Effie list. Who won? Reach out." Like,
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: really, like, even gone on RFPs of like when I was at my last company and they needed someone [00:27:00] that sold school cafeterias. Like, what is that? Throw me an RFP, who's the salesperson? Go from there.
Like,
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. Yeah
Kathryn Knox: There's not a sourcing tool that can necessarily do that, so that's why I think it's so important for us to really know how to source in our business.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. Um, y- you know, you said we talked about this, but you started Arthur Andersen, you ran the staffing, uh, an agency, you worked in private equity, you worked in tech, now you're in entertainment. Like, h- how did you end up in recruiting and what, what's kept you there for so long?
Kathryn Knox: So what's not on my resume is, and, and not everyone's gonna know what this is, but I'm, I'm up in, in my years a bit. But I started in marketing with infomercials.
Colleen Gallagher : Oh.
Kathryn Knox: I, I don't know if anyone's heard of Hooked on Phonics, but it was a reading thing. I worked for the owner of the company, very young. I was super lucky. I got an opportunity. I became a, like, director of marketing at, like, 22. What is that? I mean, now I'm like, "What was that?[00:28:00]
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: But anyway, um, so it was marketing and I learned so much about marketing, and company fell apart, unfortunately. And when I left, I was not gonna find a job at 22 or 23 years old at that level. And I ended up just temping for a while. I moved to Dallas with a boy, um, like we all, most of us do.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: and then went to, um, a temp agency, and just happened, it was, you know, God or the chair or whatever you believe, but I ran into these three amazing women that were-- It was with a agency, a tech recruiting agency, and they're like, "You'd be really good at this." And it just like, I'm like, "What is it? What do you do?
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: a recruiter?" And then I look back and I'm like, I was recruiting the whole time. I was interviewing teachers. I was, like, putting them on boards and,
Colleen Gallagher : Yes
Kathryn Knox: doing that the whole time. Um, and then I loved technology. I just was... I'm kinda nerdy. I just thought it was so cool.
So they took me to one of their companies, and then when I left Dallas, I-- I'm being transparent, I'm [00:29:00] not an accounting person. I did not know much about Arthur Andersen. I had no idea they
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: huge, like, then, one of the big eight,
Colleen Gallagher : Big eight. Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: They were
Colleen Gallagher : eight.
Kathryn Knox: So
Colleen Gallagher : Oh my gosh, yeah. What a throwback.
Kathryn Knox: Lord knows, I, I applied and they needed an ERP recruiter, and I'm like, " I'm getting in here. I'm gonna learn it very quickly. I know how to recruit. A good recruiter recruits." And, um, I got the job. a little sprinkling of luck and being in the right place at the right time. But do, I am grateful. I still think even with the market as it is, that recruiting's one of the best jobs you can have.
I'm a huge advocate of it.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: And you can start your own agency like I did, and you can make a huge living, or you can make a small living, or you can do it part-time.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: truly an agile, thing to do
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. What do you think you learned about, like, o- obviously if you have your own agency, you're an entrepreneur, right? So how, how do you think about that now when you are [00:30:00] working within a, within an organization and, and where are the parallels to like how that makes you a better recruiter?
Kathryn Knox: I, I think for me, um, you have to-- being in a situation of where you have to perform. corporate recruiters have to perform. I mean, please know I'm not, I'm not looking down on a corporate recruiter, but when you own your own agency, you don't eat if you don't perform. And if you lose a client like IBM, that's a big deal.
And
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: that customer-centric, um, I-- my team at Trailer Park Group has always been an internal agency. That's how I run my teams. I wanna see sourcing, I wanna see value, I want to see we go to a third party, and no offense to my third party friends, we w- go to a third party when we've exhausted everything from our perspective. I wanna control it 'cause my job is that spend,
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: and if I'm spending on a third party, I'm not spending on my recruiters.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. Yeah, totally
Kathryn Knox: you know, [00:31:00] um... But it is really customer-centric. Third party agency is you don't have the control. you have to learn h-how to-- I mean, my-- our company, my business partner, Debbie Ward, who's fantastic, she still runs it.
She's doing Oracle consulting. Um, the company is Alocon. She's been doing this for, you know, 25 years. Um, I didn't wanna continue having my own company because, you know, it is hard and you're running all hats, and
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: Um, but probably 85 to 87% of our clients were referrals,
Colleen Gallagher : Mm-hmm.
Kathryn Knox: A big number.
Colleen Gallagher : Mm-hmm.
Kathryn Knox: So, um, you know, I think that if you can have that kind of relationship and people singing your praises, again, that raving fans thing,
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: do that internally too,
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: it feels good.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. I love, I love thinking about it as running your own agency within an organization because, you know, that's how you stay alive, [00:32:00] um, when you're running your own company, right? Is like
provide value. Mm-hmm.
Kathryn Knox: have a third-party agency and I'm in entertainment marketing and they submit me, you know, I need a producer and they're submitting someone that's never touched entertainment and they don't have that bandwidth, or excuse me, not bandwidth, that pool, I'm not gonna use them.
Colleen Gallagher : Right
Kathryn Knox: want to trust people that they're the subject matter experts, and our hiring managers are the same thing.
They, they're afraid
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: Be able to take care of them because
Colleen Gallagher : Mm-hmm.
Kathryn Knox: May have had a bad experience or maybe they just, you know, their own biases. But it feels so good to have a team that is complemented and doesn't always happen that way. Of course not. Like, some people are hard and roll with it.
But, know, why not do it well?
Colleen Gallagher : all right. I love to ask people this question. If you could meet yourself a few days after gra- graduation, what advice would you give yourself?
Kathryn Knox: Other than save money I think that it would be, I, I... This is so core to what we do, but [00:33:00] it's core especially to but females especially, is that don't take on other people's stuff. people's opinion is not yours. Um, you can take that information and pivot it, but just to feel, a lot of women, and I think I did, like, feel like we're pieces of junk because something wrong or da, da, da.
This is life. Mistakes make you.
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: It's okay. Move on. Like, shake it off. Let's
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. Yeah
Kathryn Knox: think that young people especially, the earlier they learn that, the happier you, you're, you are
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. Yeah. It's that resilience you were talking about at the beginning around... Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: sometimes things get to me. I mean, please know I'm no
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: With this
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: But
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: The best you can do, what you can do to keep your head around it of like, "Okay, that's
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. Yeah. Um, what do you like to do for fun outside of work?
Kathryn Knox: I live in the mountains, so I'm above Southern California. I have trees, [00:34:00] and I had a bear last night, which is super
Colleen Gallagher : Oh.
Kathryn Knox: Yeah, we have them a lot right now. Um, so I hang out with my family. We do a lot of live music. I'm a big music fan. Um, one of the biggest things I'll miss about Trailer Park Group that I'm hoping to have in my next role is, um, you know, I go to Hollywood once a month, which I love.
I love LA. I have a really great time there. So we'll see shows. I have two children. I have a, a stepdaughter who is at, uh, UC Santa Cruz right now. I have a almost 15-year-old boy. He's in high school this year for the first time, my partner Adam. So we just kind of hang out in the trees and a lot and just
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah.
Kathryn Knox: Enjoy being here.
Colleen Gallagher : Sounds lovely.
Kathryn Knox: It is lovely. Yeah. I love it. We'll see what the future holds, but for now
Colleen Gallagher : well this has been so great. I, you know, I, I especially just love and appreciate your perspective around the parallels between like being a recruiter and being a candidate, because I do think there are a lot, you know, there's a lot there, um, that [00:35:00] probably helps candidates more, um, more so than anything.
But trying to have, um, you know, just having the empathy and understanding I think goes a long way to make any candidate's process better, a recruiter's process better as well, and, um, that was just, that was... I, I appreciate you being, um, open to chatting about that.
Kathryn Knox: Yeah, of course. And hopefully, um, again, it's what we do is not brain surgery. It's one foot in front of the other and just be open to
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah
Kathryn Knox: your ego aside and not, you know, the fear and the ego aside and just making those connections. It's no different
Colleen Gallagher : Yeah. Speaking of connections, where can people find you?
Kathryn Knox: Um, LinkedIn is easiest. Kathryn, K-A-T-H-R-Y-N, Knox, K-N-O-X. Um, LinkedIn's the easiest way to find me, and, um, I'll be poking around in market maybe in the next quarter or so. So we'll see how that goes, but I'm always here if I can help in any way
Colleen Gallagher : Amazing. Well, thank, thank you everyone who is listening. If you learned something today or laughed, please tell [00:36:00] someone about this podcast. Thank you again to Catherine for joining us. uh, this has been another episode of Recruiters on the Rise. We will see you all next time
And that wraps up another episode. Thank you for joining. For show notes and other episodes, visit us at recruitersontherise.com. Recruiters on The Rise is sponsored by Lavaliere, an interview intelligence platform. Lavaliere goes beyond basic note-takers to improve your ability to assess candidates with AI-powered interview questions, summaries, and transcription.
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