ROTR - John Curran
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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, and welcome everyone to today's episode of Recruiters on the Rise. I'm so excited to have our guest with us today. He has been in the recruiting game since the mid-'90s, back when Java wasn't a thing and there were no online tools to even speak of. He spent years in tech and biotech before making a deliberate move to an in-home senior care company where he's now building out the recruiting function for the, a very fast-growing company that's here in the Bay Area.
He has seven years of sales experience, and he'll tell you why he thinks that made him a better recruiter. He's also in the middle of solving a problem most recruiters never have to think about, which is what happens after you hire them, [00:01:00] but you're still, you know, on the hook to make sure that you're maintaining that talent.
He currently serves as the director of talent acquisition at Hillendale Home Care. John Curran, welcome to the show.
John Curran: Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here
Colleen Gallagher: I'm so excited to dive in. So let's start. Um, you know, I love to start the show with just hearing from our guests about what do you think is the one thing or one action that sets the best recruiters apart from the rest?
John Curran: You know, it's really hard to pick one thing, but I th-- the one thing that has always struck me is someone who's really curious. Um, you know, I've bumped into recruiters. You-- I think we've all had this situation where me, the senior recruiter, and it's kind of formulaic, right?
they can work within a large company.
They have the pattern down, and it's a good pattern, right? know how to do an intake. I know how to source talent. I know how to like, um, you know, really think about submitting the right three or four But the ones who really set themselves apart from me are the ones who are really [00:02:00] curious and kind of lean into doing it a little bit different. Um, and that's not everyone's go-to place. I get that. I really feel like, hey, we could all make a nice living kind of following that pattern. But for me and for other people, I think being really successful, it's because they lean into something that's a little uncomfortable. Like, "Okay, I want to do this a little differently," or, "I'm seeing something I really don't really think is gonna help us find the right person," and kind of being able to speak out in a very professional, positive way.
Colleen Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
John Curran: That curiosity kind of helps them be a little less afraid, come across as a little bit more of the expert.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: so that is really critical. I, I will a-add one. I know I'm breaking the rules
Colleen Gallagher: That's,
John Curran: I've also seen some people who really wanna know how I'm doing, so they're more metrics-driven. So, um, they're okay with that. But I remember having meetings with some very senior recruiters on teams and talking about how we're gonna have KPIs and [00:03:00] metrics, and you can see their eyes get big, and there's fear in their eyes. Like, "Oh, well, I, I make a certain number of hires, and my managers are happy." like, "Okay, that's great." But if we're really thinking about the partnership with recruiters and a hiring leader, that partnership, you got to measure it in some ways that may feel uncomfortable, but
get to some root issues. again, being curious, being open to that is really key.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah. I mean, I think you're touching on this, but, um, it sounds like what you're saying is recruiters should be more metrics driven, and a lot of them push back on that. Like what, what metrics matter to you and why? You just mentioned a couple, but would love to dive in here a little bit more.
John Curran: know, it's the quality of hire metrics that are hard to get to.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: So for me, I'm trying to get some aspect of quality, and sometimes it's a survey. So I've had candidate surveys, I've had hiring manager surveys. I remember using this product, the, uh, Recruiter Effectiveness Dashboard. I don't know if you remember it.
It's way [00:04:00] back when, when I was at Symantec. And it was a very structured survey that went out and said, "How am I doing?" But again, it's not how am I doing, it's how is this partnership doing, right? So sometimes it's how is the business interacting with us. So I do like that, although it's subjective. It's like,
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: my managers feel about me?
You might get some meaningful feedback. And you're gonna get those outliers, which make a, a recruiter feel, like, kind of vulnerable or, you know, make me feel like I did the right thing, but it's useful information.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: One of the more, I think, relevant numbers, um, and a lot of us do this, is we take a look at how many people do I speak to as a recruiter? How many people do I submit? How many people does the manager wanna talk to? So those conversion metrics
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: speak a lot. So at Symantec, for example, we're looking at quality of talent. We're really getting pushed to find elite talent. Invitae, the same thing. It was a biotech company, and they look for bar-raising talent.
You'll love this bar-raising talent number--
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: uh, term. And so we did take a look at how [00:05:00] many people it took to submit to get to interview to offer. Offer, not hire, because people will turn down offers in some, some situations,
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: And we did find, like for our non-tech hiring, it was to three to one. I'd give you five candidates.
We'd interview, interview three, and you'd hire one. That's pretty good.
Colleen Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
John Curran: The ratio was more for the tech talent, this elite talent. So it was maybe five candidates being interviewed to get to one hire. Not a big difference, but it helped us kind of root out some issues. when they talked about elite talent, we're like, "Huh, that's different than the rest of the organization.
What's going on with that tech organization?" And what we realized is the people that were doing interviews were not the elite talent of those teams.
So there was a fear of them hiring somebody who was a little bit better than them. So it's interesting. Again right quality of hire. This is not about the recruiter doing a good or bad job. It's [00:06:00] about those teams and how they were set up to hire
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah. I mean, that's so interesting because I feel like right now, and again, to your point, I don't think this is a new phrase, but maybe it's just resurfaced a lot, is this idea of a bar raiser. And I think, my perspective on why this is sort of resurfacing is I think we're in a spot right now where, coming out of some of the hiring trends from, 2016, '17, '18 through 2022, which have sort of completely reversed course.
I think what people are realizing is when you're hiring, 100 100 people every quarter or every year, and now you're only hiring a quarter of that, it matters more that you hire the right person. And so people are real-- And, you know, sort of with this narrative going on that AI is gonna remove jobs, and a lot of companies are [00:07:00] talking about layoffs in relation to, you know, because of it does feel like there is more of this recognition around, oh, the people I hire have to be really, truly bar raisers, um, not to use, like, an overly used term, right?
But, is that something, like, would you agree, or, or how do you see what's happening right now?
John Curran: I would generally agree. I think the problem is sometimes people are looking for that elite talent and they want them to check all the boxes.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: Okay. Then I always talk about what's the pull into this job, right? So what is
something they can learn versus something that they have to show up with? And if you're gonna bring in elite talent, they're looking to get better in some way.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: You want them to have five or six of those key things, and they don't have all five or six. That's great. You must have a-- You better have a great employer brand. You better be, you know, the Googles or the Facebooks, which had lots of layoffs, right? So that's
not even at play anymore. But I think you have to have something that's gonna attract [00:08:00] them and they're gonna get better.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: like, for example, when I was in biotech, they had a passion for helping patients. Okay, I could offer that. there was a cool technology that we were using and they
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
John Curran: So I think it's individual, but I do think a good recruiter can tune into that and still bring that kind of elite talent,
Colleen Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
John Curran: \ Um, 'cause otherwise you get down the line and you realize you can't afford them.
Um, they've got competitive offers, and it also, you know, it-- throws off a lot of the internal equity if you're trying to pay for that elite talent sometimes
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah. I know you've done some creative things around employer branding. What some of the-- What are some of the more effective things you've done, um, that helps you show some of the authenticity and culture?
John Curran: Well, authenticity is the word. I love that because I do think the key to employer branding is being authentic. I've been lucky enough to be part of like a lot of these different, um, projects where you look at what is our brand, right? What's our EVP? Big, big fancy word. I worked [00:09:00] with a couple outside companies who are large global companies who would come in and do the analysis, and then I worked at a smaller company, Genomic Health, where I had to do that myself, which was interesting.
But I kind of follow the pattern. You kind of learn, right? Let's pull some people together and talk about what our brand really is. And I think authentic is the key. So I'll use Genomic Health as an example. Um, it was focused on cancer diagnostics. It was, um, a culture that was very connected and, um, focused on patients, but there was also a culture of nice. And I say that because that was part of the brand.
So we were trying to capture that and, um, I have a marketing degree, so I want to put that to work, right? Every once in a while, let's make the college degree meaningful. So it kind of started with one thing. Someone said, "Let's have a flash mob." I'm like, "Oh, that's cool."
And a flash mob. We had this community where we would all show up for lunch and come to the cafeteria, which was kind
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
John Curran: I said, "Let's do a flash mob. Let's just throw everyone off." So legal and HR got together, and we didn't tell anybody. [00:10:00] Um, and the plan was to record this because it does kind of highlight this culture of like, we can have fun.
and it was some Justin Bieber song. I don't even remember it anymore. And it had dance moves, and I'm not a dancer. My wife's a much better dancer. And, um, they were all eating lunch, and we just kind of all kind of came in, turned on some music and did this. This is about a two-minute routine, right? So we capture that, um, and that led to like other creative ideas.
So
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: for example, we decided to have an employee video contest where people would do videos. So we had all these teams doing things, we had a customer service team that was really creative, and they did this very long one, and I can't even describe it. It was so cool. We captured that as well. Now there's some issues with that.
You got to make sure the music is right. You can't broadcast certain things. So that's-- that was interesting. then we started to get, okay, well, we're gonna have to be more structured with this approach. So I knew a guy in LA, and the guy in LA, knew, [00:11:00] um, the producer for these, um, of these reality shows, uh, like Survivor.
So he-- with this big motion sensor camera that you move around. So cool, right? And I think we paid him 12 grand to record eight videos, eight or nine videos, which are each two minutes long. Pretty good,
right?
Colleen Gallagher: yeah, that's very, very good
John Curran: So this is authentic. You're trying to capture the authentic spirit of the company. And we found five or six people, sure, the CEO, you know, but certain personalities in the office that people kind of were drawn to. And we did these videos, and, um, they're all a little different. In the end, everyone was talking about their story, about how cancer impacted their lives. It was really interesting. And then we took those, and we put those on YouTube. We could do those 'cause that was a little more edited.
We could use the other ones in some ways, but we, we didn't know the barriers, right?
What I loved about this is we didn't ask a lot of permission. We just started walking the hallways,
those-- we would watch the views on those, and those views would easily get into the [00:12:00] thousands. And then people would come into the office and say, "Oh my God, you're the person on the culture video.
I saw you. Oh, it's so cool to meet you."
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: so you did capture the authenticity of, uh, mission-driven, patience, this culture that had fun, that cared about each other, low ego, and it was tangible. I think a lot of people talk about that, and they don't really do a good job talking about brand. It's a lot of the same words.
So I think the challenge is like, what's unique to you? You're not gonna be everything to everyone.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: wanna say, "We're this comp-company, not that company," right? We weren't
very title-driven. We didn't pay the most money. We didn't have the best cafeteria. Other companies could do those things. So that for me, brand is trying to capture that in a way that's meaningful and then tunes into the audience, right?
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah, I mean, that's so-- I, I love that, and that specific example is so fun. Um, you know, I was-- I worked at a company once where we, um, we just did a very simple internal thing [00:13:00] of asking everyone, how do you see yourself helping us as an over-overall organization?" And especially at the time when I was in the finance team, I think we often felt pretty disconnected from customers, right?
Um, and it was a really good way to make everyone sort of recognize, like, how they're serving a broader mission. And, you know, we, we helped, researchers and librarians, and so there was a lot that they were then helping. And so then we did, like, customer stories, but I think it's still, of, of my entire time there, one of the things that, like, sticks out to me the most.
And it's, it's very... It was very authentic and sort of gave to your, you know, to your point of, of that word, and gave everyone a moment to actually say like, "Oh, okay," like, "This is why when I'm doing, you know, X, Y, and Z on a day-to-day basis, this is actually helpful and meaningful," and help them understand,
John Curran: It's
Colleen Gallagher: what, what value they brought to the organization besides I don't know, feeling [00:14:00] like another cog in the wheel, I guess.
John Curran: right? You feel it. And there's still a Genomic Health like alumni group that gets together and has dinner and lunches, right? think when you have that, that's pretty special. Not all companies have that. I mean, here's an example where I felt like it was a big company, didn't have that, that same culture as Symantec. I was there at Symantec when we were moving into cloud, and this is just a small example, but we were moving into cloud, and we couldn't find any cloud engineers, and cloud engineers only existed at Google, by the way. So these
are site reliability engineers, very specific at the time. Um, and the only people who did that worked at that one company.
So you're trying to get a very limited audience. So you're first trying to hire Java people, and nobody
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
John Curran: Real Java experience.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: It was interesting because, um, we paid-- The same guy I worked with for the LA thing, I actually worked with back then. He did a survey of people who turned us down, and it was interesting.
Like, "Why, why don't you want to work with, uh, Symantec?" "Well, because it's a big, company. It's not cool. [00:15:00] I don't like the tools." Um, so we had to promote it as, "We're actually gonna create a little bubble around you,
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: be able to kind of do a bunch of stuff that the regular employees can't do.
You got some cool tools." And this leader we have, um, Steven from Google, was really highly thought of. You get to work with this amazing leader.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: we were able to hire like 100 cloud engineers in a very short period of time. So a lot of it is like, okay, how do I think-- wanna think about this and bring people who do fit and give them an environment where they can succeed?
It's interesting.
Colleen Gallagher: I mean, I guess tying it back to what we were talking about earlier as it relates to metrics, I think, um, you know, when, when you and I talked previously, you mentioned something around, like, a lot of recruiters don't feel like they need to own time to fill because that hiring decision is owned by the hiring manager.
but I think, you know... I, I'd love to hear more about, about your belief on this, and the reason I'm sort of tying, tying this in is like, um, I think it ties [00:16:00] in because, you know, hiring managers need coaching from, from recruiters. But, um, I'd love to hear more from you versus me on this.
John Curran: Well, so I had a one-year stint with Da- Danaher. Now, Danaher is this big company with like 10 different divisions. Um, and so Genomic Health got acquired by Exact Sciences. I was-- stayed on with Exact Sciences for a short period of time, then I'm like, "Ah, kind of want to do something else." So I went to Danaher, and I was the head of the Cepheid division.
Now, the reason this is relevant is because they are very, very, very metrics-driven. There's this thing called Danaher Business Systems, which is very much-- it's another word for Lean Six Sigma, right?
Colleen Gallagher: Uh-huh.
John Curran: Um, and they have these very strict processes like kaizens you get into for multiple days, and you do all the contingencies, and it's crazy.
But one of the things I didn't realize when I was hired is I got hired two months before COVID hit, and they did the COVID test. So we had to go from 2,500 [00:17:00] employees to 7,500 employees in one year And it was a huge moneymaker for Da- Danaher, and I was, I was privileged to be part of that.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: And in part of that, you learn all of these processes for metrics.
But one of them was long does it take to get per hire? And you would actually have a weekly meeting with all the global manufacturing leaders. You have a scorecard. It's red or it's green. There's no difference. But a lot of it was looking at phases of hiring. So if we look at that like, okay, it's fine, well, a lot of people do that.
We would look at every single job of four hundred and thirty-five manufacturing positions, and we would look at stages of hiring. And what we found is you'd see bottlenecks in the
process. so what it does is it diagnose a root issue. This is not a recruiter problem. We were opening a huge manufacturing facility in Newark, California. We had to hire six hundred engineers in a very limited period of time. We had done a Kaizen, which is this very formal process, and then we got into it and realized there were certain issues. When you start with the leaders, [00:18:00] which you typically hire the leaders in those big
expansions, there are only so many people to interview, and they were so pulled into the day-to-day manufacturing, they would only want to do interviews after five. we had to create what's called standard work. it's a good thing because once you do it, everyone has to follow it. There's no debating it. It's very interesting. So we actually had to look at those metrics and say it wasn't about the, the volume of talent, it was getting them through the process.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: So it does help you show, for example, that there are a limited number of interviewers, and as we hired more leaders, we got more interviewers. But we also had to have rules, and the rules were, not gonna tell us if you like the candidates, 'cause that was a delay. That was a bottleneck. Like we're waiting for them to say, "Do you like this person?" No, we
don't do that anymore. We're gonna bring in six to eight people on a Wednesday. You're gonna interview on Wednesday.
You're gonna make a decision on Friday between two and three PM, you can't wait till the next week when they're gone to another competitor. So it was interesting because you could lean on it in this culture, which is [00:19:00] very intense manufacturing culture.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: Those times in between we would measure. And there was another situation where we couldn't hire a logistics people to manage all the stuff coming in and out of these big manufacturing sites. So we found that one person was looking for SAP experience in logistics in Sunnyvale. Now I had a tool which said how many people existed. It's an interesting thing. We kept looking at this, and it's kind of related, not, uh, I think you'll find it interesting. Turns out of the 13 people in the South Bay who have SAP experience in logistics, we were-- 11 of them were with Cepheid already.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
John Curran: Two of them were working at someplace and they're not coming. Sorry, we talked to them. So what we did though is we pivoted and we realized that there are other, um, similar applications that are completely learnable and teachable. Why don't we teach them SAP? Talking about elite talent and pulling them in, right?
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: We had some very difficult conversations with the leaders like, "No, no, no, I want to keep [00:20:00] looking." I'm like, "No one's gonna take this job who's gonna... like a million miles away. We're gonna teach them that skill. We're gonna bring them in." And that was the answer, right? So these, these, these timeframes between each of the steps can show you like where it's working well and where it's not working well
We can have a manager who's hiring the same people here and rejecting them over here. I do like the metrics in the sense that it does guide you to the right answers
Colleen Gallagher: wow, that's so interesting. Yeah, I mean, w- you know, one of the, one of the things we know from, um, we meaning Textio know from obviously working with recruiters for as long as we have is like those process bottlenecks end up being the biggest challenge of trying to solve, uh, in, in many cases.
And it sounds like at least with Danaher, because they were so process-oriented, you could set one up, but a lot of people aren't, um, as open to feeling that way or being told like, "You have to have a decision made between 2:00 and 3:00 on [00:21:00] Friday afternoon." So how have you solved for those types of challenges in other places?
John Curran: " Yeah, I think I've done something a little bit different those other locations. You're spot on, by the way." When I don't have the ability to enforce like this I have to convince them.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
John Curran: There are times where I've gotten one person who's really enthusiastic about doing it a little differently, and I try it with them. hey, you're, you're open to it. Let's try it over here." And then I would bring it up at the meeting like, "They tried it, it worked better over here. Hey, if you want in, raise your hand, otherwise you don't get it. You don't get this."
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: So this happened at Symantec. We're hiring these cloud engineers, right? So we did the same thing. We're like, "Hey, you know what? We're gonna, we're gonna just- we're gonna work a different process over here." this guy hired 10 engineers. Turns out these 10 engineers were rejected by the same manager doing the same skill set over here, right? he got called out in a staff meeting, which was not friendly for this person.
He's
Colleen Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
John Curran: I'll change my filter. I'll reduce [00:22:00] the bar. I'll kind of hire those people because apparently that's what you want," right? So sometimes it's getting them to see peers being more successful.
Colleen Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
John Curran: But I also think there are good recruiters gonna speak out and say, "You know what? I think you're hurting yourself here."
And I think younger recruiters don't do it, but I've had younger recruiters who had that kind of, um, influence and are persuasive and can like do that. And older recruiters are like senior recruiters, I say senior recruiters, who are fearful of that. They're still saying, "I'll do what the manager wants."
And this is where I think we as recruiters, we talk about being consultants. Those are the moments that really make a difference. You got to
speak up . And you can do that in a nice way
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah, and it kind of goes back to your, you know, the, your opening thing around what makes a good recruiter is curiosity is like, I think you can sort of use that as a way to build trust and influence with the hiring manager because, as a recruiter, you're the subject matter expert on hiring, right?
The hiring manager is a subject matter expert on their functional role and what they need,
John Curran: [00:23:00] That's
Colleen Gallagher: and, you know, I think when it works best, you sort of get the best elements of those two profiles, um, being brought together, and you, you can't do that when it's like an us versus them or a-- It has to be that partnership.
John Curran: You know, uh, I would go into organizations and I would look for-- This is one of the questions I ask as a talent leader. Any leaders out there can ask this question. Like, who is the most difficult customer you have and why? And, um, I've had situations where it's very clear it's this person over here.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: And when I meet with that person, I'm like: "Hey, I'm here to help you.
You tell me what you need. I'm gonna build a process that works for you." said, " You have that. You can come to me with any feedback. I'm gonna open, I'm gonna listen.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: what I'm asking. I'm asking that I can come back to you. If I can't solve an issue that's kind of across your team because I see it and I'm not getting, like, adoption, I'm gonna come to you and I'm gonna tell you, and you need to have my back because we're in this together."
And that's the other part of this recruiter's myth. We're in this together. We want to do
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
John Curran: Thing.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: I [00:24:00] want to get you to the right hire. And you-- the way you're gonna do that is it's not about me, it's not about you winning, it's about us winning, right? And I had a leader who said, "I'm gonna challenge that thought, not the person." So I do think a good recruiter knows how to challenge that thought without
making them feel like they got like, you know, you're, you're questioning themselves.
Colleen Gallagher: I love that phrase, "Challenge the thought, not the person." That's so true. You know, a lot of like, a lot of figuring out things as a manager and a leader is how you give people, feedback without putting people on the defensive, right?
John Curran: Yeah.
Colleen Gallagher: and so yeah, that nuanced way of saying it I think is, um, incredibly insightful.
all right. Well, I wanna pivot a little because you left tech and biotech for this, for your current role at, um, an in-home senior care, um, company. So why, why... What made you make that shift?
John Curran: Well, a couple things. Uh, one was, I felt like I wanted to do something a little bit more connected to [00:25:00] me personally. So I-- my mom is ninety years old. Um, she is getting older. She wants to stay in her home. And the other was commute. I, I feel a lot of us are making these terrible commutes in the Bay Area.
It was a four to five-hour commute to go to this company. I was at, uh, Garden. Great company, great team, great people, and head of global talent. And you know what? It was killing me to get there every
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: and because this back to the office kind of thing was rough. But then I, I got a chance to reevaluate and I said: You know what?
There's a lot of companies out there who are not tech companies out here in the East Bay,
Colleen Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
John Curran: San Francisco Bay Area, for anywhere out here.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
John Curran: Um, you kind of feel like you either have to commit to that and suffer, um, or you don't work, right? There are so-- This is my message to people who are laid off, a lot of people who are displaced. There are so many non-tech companies that can use your help right now.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: Because what I'm finding is that non-tech companies really need our expertise. So for me, I found a company that happened to be in-home senior care. [00:26:00] They are based fifteen minutes from my home. Um, I can bring my dog to work. They love my French bulldog running around the office, right?
So the situation was better for me in terms of getting here, but they also are expanding rapidly. And they're in a place where maybe a lot of the tech or biotech companies were five to ten years ago.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: So what we're doing at Hillandale Home Care is we're building a whole different model of recruiting, which is super fun for me.
So I feel really empowered. Um, I feel appreciated. That's another part. Going into non-tech companies, you feel appreciated because, oh my God, they-- your ideas are so welcome. So that's where I would say people look for that.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: you're gonna get less money. It's just the facts sometimes, but the satisfaction level and how you can have impact is much greater.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: Like, we're looking at a lot of cool stuff. Like, by the way, I've used Textio, your product. Awesome. I love it.
Colleen Gallagher: Thank you.
John Curran: Two companies.
I've always been a huge fan of it, and that was like my entry point into AI, right? But we use, uh, AI, for example, for something called [00:27:00] Care GPT. We took ChatGPT, and we created our own little mini version of it, and we interview people, and then we use it to create a caregiver profile, and that caregiver profile then sits, use that to promote those to our senior clients. So we're thinking about that. We're putting in new foundational systems that help with soft skills assessments. Have an ATS kind of going into action. I'm actually the project manager for that. So I'm super excited to be here because it-- as this company expands into other places around the Bay Area, it's like a mid-sized company.
It'd
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: like a n- large company like the Key or small mom and pop. It's perfectly placed for me and me
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: But I really appreciate the culture similar to Genomic Health. Nice, patient-driven, caring. The challenge I have with this one is, is interesting, because you mentioned it earlier, is once you hire these caregivers, you're kind of renting the talent.
You hire them, but they also work for other companies as caregivers. And they will, they'll be available as long as you give them something a little bit better than the other people that are contacting at the same time. [00:28:00] So you hire them, they come through the door. You don't know if they're really working for you or not, or open to talking to you. They're willing to say yes, but you
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: to give them ongoing work. Then you hire-- you, then you go get clients, seniors and their families who want in-home care.
Colleen Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
John Curran: Constantly changing. It's constantly shifting. By that I mean, you have a senior who just needs s-support for a month, and then they're healthy again.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: it's 24 by seven care, or it's kind of interm-intermittent.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: I find a caregiver who can work a certain shift at a certain time, and m- then it goes away. And then I have to do the client matching with again. So you're constantly having to rematch and realign a senior with a caregiver, and these caregivers have comp-competitors calling them at the same time. It's nuts. So I am playing with metrics, get to back-- getting back to that.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: I'm using Claude AI in combination with ChatGPT to do cool stuff. And just this morning, I built, uh, a active caregiver [00:29:00] analysis process where you do a funnel, you look at like who's been contacted, who's not been contacted, are they activated?
To what degree are they activated? What-- Which are less desirable and you're deactivating, and you can set targets. 80 to 90% of your caregivers should be active.
Colleen Gallagher: Hmm.
John Curran: I figured that out, right? So I feel like it's fun for me to play in this space because we can be disruptive. We can do
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
John Curran: Different.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: a culture where I do think we, we have more impact than the average company in this space
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah. And it's like, you know, it's fun to know that like what you're doing is helping people in need build a community or get, get the care that they need, right? Especially right now when like there is this trend especially, and I think we're, you know, we're a lit- in a little bit of a bubble out here on the West Coast, in, in the, you know, bastion of AI.
Um, it's nice to see a business where like the goal is to have [00:30:00] connection between people
John Curran: Oh yeah. I mean, so the caregivers are right outside my office here. We actually meet them and we hear their stories. They're the most kind people you'll ever meet.
Colleen Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
John Curran: You know, and a lot of people we hire are first-time caregivers who have done this for their parents.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: And they don't make a lot of money. You know, it's just one of those things in the industry where for not a lot of money, they are taking care of your, your mom or dad or your relative or someone in your family, and there 24/7 sometimes.
They're helping them eat, they're helping them clean the house, they're helping them bathe. It's really impactful. So we try to recognize those caregivers, like caregiver of the quarter or caregiver of the, uh, And we have this awesome reward system called Caribou, which we allow them to get
rewards. Someone says something nice, we give them Caribou points, which turns into dollars.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: Um, it is really interesting to be in this space and I appreciate the opportunity because I'm helping people like my mom
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah. [00:31:00] Yeah. I mean, it's interesting hearing you talk about this, like just I'm noticing how much like you've-- you're lighting up talking about it. And so I can see like the passion and, and, you know, it, it seems like, it's allowed you to sort of like tap into that curiosity and learning a lot more than what you've been doing.
Like you said, you'd been in tech and biotech for, for a number of years and, um, this feels like an exciting challenge, which is also great that it's a 15-minute commute and, you know, doing something different can be fun.
John Curran: Well, that's why I think people should be open to, you know, an industry maybe you weren't open to before, right? You
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
John Curran: Find that you can get what I have, which is a chance to really come in and, and play and be thoughtful and they, you know, and get creative. This is the curious part back to the beginning, right? new metrics, like new models. Like we're looking at like future of in-home senior care three to five years from now. And like, for example, like some of this is AI intelligence, but it's like a super [00:32:00] centralized, um, process where you have local recruiting pods who are highly empowered to kind of function independently.
Colleen Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
John Curran: That's kind of where we're headed. And if you go to other companies, they're not doing that stuff. So for me, it's fun because I get to really think about like way in the future and cool, and you get that flexibility.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: I think in some tech and biotech environments, you kind of feel locked in. There's a process, here's your box, stay in the box.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: Um, and I, I feel like there, there are more opportunities for other people like me out there
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah. One of the things you also mentioned to me previously was that you've done, um, you know, most of the hiring of the caregivers was primarily inbound from Indeed, and now you're building more of an outbound strategy. Like, what, what does that shift look like and, and h- and how are you approaching that in this environment?
John Curran: So yeah, when I first showed up, it was mostly people who apply to jobs. And we all know if you're just waiting for people to apply to jobs, you're probably not getting the better talent. So what we have focused [00:33:00] on is outbound sourcing. So for example, we have a CRM and our ATS, we're moving to Greenhouse, and that CRM is going to allow us to draw circles around certain pools of talent.
Colleen Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
John Curran: We've started to focus on less companion-level care and more skill-leveled caregivers.
Because right now, for example, this may sound weird, but I can hire as many caregivers as I can hire in a month, in a month, and there's no limit, which is weird. So now we're shifting to trying to find people who fit that certain profile.
And
to do that, we have to do more outbound marketing. So it's, we are more community-driven, so we're establishing partnerships in the Bay Area with nursing schools, uh, community colleges, adult learning schools.
Colleen Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
John Curran: Show up, and we are be-- able to really market ourselves and be more selective. So part of it's employer branding, outbound with community. Um, we've always been really strong on referrals. We're trying to not be so dependent. So now it's recruiters using tools to now target that talent and then put them in our own kind of proprietary [00:34:00] database and kind of keep them active. that shift is interesting. It, it does take a knowledge of a county-- like for each county in the Bay Area, we have to know what's going on.
Oakland, very different than over here in Walnut Creek. I know this is a very Bay Area conversation for everyone. But Sonoma County and Marin County, very different. If you're not
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
John Curran: Community, you're an outsider.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: that capability to kind of have that really strong brand so the caregivers want to be with you more.
The other thing we're doing is we're offering training. So the great news is we do a, a caregiver survey every three months, and it tells you a lot. We have a caregiver net, net promoter score.
It's cool, And we measure them in five key areas. Um, and what we learned is they want more shift stability, which is super hard in this industry because the
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: changing.
But they also want to be-- to invest in them. So
Colleen Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
John Curran: We are investing in them in hospice care and memory care. Um, we're building a [00:35:00] process to do that in person as well as we have a vendor who can do it from a distance. That kind of stuff sets you apart and allows you to be more selective
Colleen Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
John Curran: And, um, then have people who stay with you longer.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: and eventually that's better for all the seniors we, we care for. So, um, yeah, it's-- we were trying to be more thoughtful about going, getting the talent versus letting it arrive.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah, it all ties into the, you know, employer brand strategy we were talking about earlier. It's, it's all different ways to do that. Um, yeah, I love that. I guess pivoting a little bit more to you and, and your personal story. you were in sales for a number of years and then, you know, tell us a little bit more like how did you get into recruiting?
John Curran: Okay, I worked
I worked 8 years
In the payroll industry. Payroll industry is referral-based selling, so you'd call on CPAs and bankers. It was paychecks primarily for seven years. to President's Club every year. It was great, but I was selling in Marin County, very niche, very, like, closed community. So they had-- they have to get to know you. Um, any, any [00:36:00] sales experience is really helpful because it teaches you to listen, it teaches you to be thoughtful. Um, you have to go back to these same sources, so I'd have to take care of these small businesses. So if you d- if I did a bad job, that follows you, and
so it does teach you to really care and try to be a problem solver. Um, I met a guy in 1995, very long time ago, tells you how old I am, uh, who was from the payroll industry, who opened up a small, um, software consulting firm in Los Altos called the Trattner Network, and anybody out there knows this. It was like 25 of us, no dress code, no territories. Um, the two guys who owned it were very progressive, and they had, like, tie-dye in the office, and they're wonderful people, by the way. But there was nothing to leverage. We had a telephone book, and we had, um, kind of our own little homemade software. We, we would, like, keep track of people. And Dice was the thing. So if anybody's a technical recruiter, the only way you had, like, [00:37:00] access to good technical people was they put their profile on Dice somewhere on the internet. Java was not a thing. It was, you know, all different platforms and data tools and whatever. And it was super cool because there were no rules. This is where you had to be curious. This is where you had to figure it out. Like, I could call on the same company that my peer is calling on, but at some point that became my account, right? So I think that was good because it taught you grit, it taught you how to
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: through it, taught you how to differentiate yourself. Um, in the end, we're all scattered across the Bay Area, and some of those people have done amazing work. Um, I'm privileged to be with them. I still connect with them on a regular basis.
We go to dinners and stuff. I think that was interesting entry point for me. I would encourage people to get agency experience because it does teach you how to be self-driven, how to, like, go out there and get the business. You have to maintain that l- business. It was
hard to get contracts, but we did some full-time too.
But
a great, great experience . And then from there, you know, [00:38:00] everyone started contract recruiting, and I just picked up a contract at, like, PayPal and kind of moved on with my career. So, and then leadership is one of those things where you kind of fall into it. I didn't really feel comfortable as a leader for a while.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: being a leader, I felt like, was realizing everyone else has the same fear as you do. I don't know if you feel this, and at some point you realize, "Actually, I'm not half bad at this." And just kind
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
John Curran: Who you are as a leader
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: true. Don't try to be someone else. Just try to be a good human being and try to help them, you
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
John Curran: So it's been an interesting journey.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah, yeah. I love that story about, like, just here's what you gotta do. Um, I, you know, I started my career in consulting, and I remember my boss, um, you know... Any consulting firm, at least in my experience, is like you have y- all these small little... They're a bunch of collections of, like, small businesses with that, within the consulting, uh, world because you have, you know, a book of business you have to maintain and revenue targets.
And as you get more senior, [00:39:00] your job becomes more and more about sales. Like, I always tell people on our sales team, like, I had to do sales for a lot of my career. Like, I had to manage clients and keep them happy and, you know, I was the one they were calling if we missed deadlines and the product wasn't working, and I was the one selling.
You know? So, like, I get it in, in a lot of ways. But I remember my boss was like, "Here's a list of people. Call them." I was like, "What?" You know, like,
John Curran: Yeah
Colleen Gallagher: you know, 24 years old or something and, like,
John Curran: We
Colleen Gallagher: cold calling people.
John Curran: is a good motivator
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah. And I was, like, never so happy as when, as when I got the person's voicemail and I didn't have to talk to them.
John Curran: And then when they did answer, you'd be like, "Oh, oh, I got a live person. What do I
do?"
Colleen Gallagher: Oh, oh, oh shit, what am I supposed to talk to this person about?
John Curran: Funny
Colleen Gallagher: but yeah, no, I think it's... But that's like s- you know, sometimes as I went, uh, through my career there and, you know, we would, I would be like, "Have you," uh, to some of the people on my team, like, "Have you gotten that information we needed yet?"
"No, I, but I sent them an [00:40:00] email." I'm like, "Have you picked up the phone and called them?" "No." I'm like, "Pick up the phone and call them." Like, we, this, you know? You gotta do it. Like, th- what, what are we scared of here, you
John Curran: We're helping people in their careers. You know,
yeah. Yeah
It's a hard thing, but that-- Once you get past that fear... That's one thing people ask me about a manager, like, "When did you make the shift?" I just stopped being afraid. there's a certain point where you're like, "Yeah, I don't care.
Let's just do it." And I think it's very empowering if you can get beyond that s- that point
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. one question I like to end with is if you, uh, you know, a day after graduation and you had a piece of advice to give yourself, what would it be?
John Curran: Oh, that is a great question. Uh, what would I tell myself? I think I'd tell myself trust myself. Like, I'm gonna be successful.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: I'm gonna fail, I'm gonna work hard, I'm gonna end up in a good place. I'll have a house someday, I'll have a family. It's all good.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: and it's funny, I, I have 23-year-old twins, 24-year-old twins, and they, they struggled for a year. [00:41:00] And I would tell myself, "You're all gonna struggle. This is part of what forms who you are." so kind of embrace it versus kind of, be
discouraged by it
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know I have a two-and-a-half-year-old, and, um, the hardest thing for me is, like, letting him struggle, and I'm like, "I have to do it," right? Like, when he's trying to figure something out and, you know, whining about it, I'm like, "You can do it, buddy. You know, you got it. Like, you can, you can figure this out."
And I, you know, but it is hard as a, as a parent to, to watch that, but I love that advice. That's so true. okay. W- la- actual last question: What do you like to do outside of work for fun? You, you said you have a, a French bulldog and, um, you have, you know, older twins, so how do you, how do you spend your time?
What do you do for fun?
John Curran: I'm an avid chef. I like to cook food. I like to
Colleen Gallagher: No
John Curran: look like a, the, a restaurant if I can.
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: I'm not super bougie, but I, I like that. And then,
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah
John Curran: I play golf, and [00:42:00] then my wife and I work out a lot. She keeps me fit, so I gotta chase her around because
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah.
John Curran: Me. So
Colleen Gallagher: Do you do like organized classes or you do, are you more motivated and do it on your own?
John Curran: We've made the transition from SoulCycle, which I know is mostly like, it's not a lot of men in there sometimes, but we, we do solid core is the big thing I know, yeah
degree Pilates and it is hard. Um, and that, and I just do other stuff to try to be active
Colleen Gallagher: Yeah. Yeah. What's your favorite dish to make?
John Curran: I'm really good with French and Italian,
Colleen Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
John Curran: but lately I've been making really good Filipino adobo. That's my, the, that's
Colleen Gallagher: Oh, wow
John Curran: a good adobo, but I make a really good steak, by the way.
Colleen Gallagher: Oh, I'm, I'm hungry. I'm realizing how hungry I am now talking about all this.
John Curran: We go
Colleen Gallagher: well, John, thank you so much for being on the show today. I really enjoyed, um, you know, just seeing your great examples around like employer brand and just like how, you know, excited you are about the, the, the shift into a whole new [00:43:00] industry and the advice you have for folks around all of that.
So I really appreciate you being here and, um, thank you again for joining
John Curran: Well, thank you. I really enjoyed the conversation. Appreciate it.
Colleen Gallagher: Awesome. Well, thank you everyone who is listening or watching, and if you learned something today or laughed, please tell somebody about this podcast. Thank you again to John for joining us, and that's our show
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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