Thomas Green here with ethical marketing service on the episode today we have Rick Girard, Rick welcome. Hey, thanks for having me Thomas. I appreciate the opportunity. It is very much my pleasure.
Would you like to take a moment and tell the audience a bit about yourself and what you do. Sure. So my name is Rick Girard. I am a I’m an executive service professional, also a startup founder. Um I offered my first book called healing career wounds last year and I also host a radio show and podcast called Higher Power Radio and it’s it’s not a religious show. It’s actually H I R. E. So it’s everything. I’m all things hiring. That’s what, that’s my stick. Okay, well I’m definitely um I think that this will be of benefit to me at very least. So I’m happy to have you on the show of all the sort of advice that people ask you for regarding hiring, What do you lead with? You know I always lead with hiring for core values first. Um And a specific example of of success for that is going back to probably the largest most successful company in the world. Amazon Amazon makes about 75% of the hiring decision is based on whether or not you align with their core audience.
So if they’ve done it so right for so long why are we all doing it so wrong so often? Right. Um They don’t have the skills piece is they realized skills piece is important but it’s not as important as whether or not somebody online with who your organ like the D. N. A. Of your organization, like the way in which you run and operate the company is far more important than people align with that than whether or not they have five years of this or four years of that. So um how would you go about, let’s say determining whether someone aligns with your values or not. The best tool for that is behavioral interviewing questions. So if you’re not familiar with behavioral interview questions basically. Um They sometimes get confused with situational questions like you know if you had a situation like this how would you handle it? That’s a situation or question and you can kind of fudge through it. The real question gives evidence to support whether or not somebody acts in that manner.
So tell me about a time you experienced this or walk me through time, you did this and you kind of create these scenarios. Everybody in their professional experience, even though in life have, have had challenges. You know, walk me through a time somebody asked you to lie. We’ve all been asked to lie by somebody at some point in our lives, right? Um, these things give you a lot of really good evidence and insight as to how a person reacts to those and it actually acts to those scenarios. And um, and then you just measure those as to how well they align with the goals and the values of your company. Um, I always kind of joke around like, you know, I don’t know if your money with Enron, but you know, it was a big scandal here years ago and they’re number one core value is integrity, right? Which we all know that wasn’t really the case. Um, the and the reason why I bring that up is because you really need to spend a little bit of time and understand what your values are and they have to be true.
They can’t just be words on a wall like those companies have Yeah, I walked into offices all the time and they’ll say integrity and you know, confidence and teamwork and all these other things and those are really nice to have those words on the wall, but you know what your values are, how people act within the company and then, you know, taking it a step further, you know, building those values into your decision, your daily decision making, how you run the company based on those values I think um you know amazon does a really good job of this to like their number one principle is customer obsession. So as they’re making decisions is this are we are we showing that we’re obsessed with what our customer wants? I do want to ask you about the company values, but I do have sort of a question around whether or not so with this type of advice, it makes me think that, you know, you you’re much higher, higher probability to get someone better or better for your company at least.
But how much can you avoid a bad hire would you say? Well, um we’ve been running this like with a lot of our clients for the past eight years and you know, we do this at an executive search level and now we’re building out a software solution to be able to scale so that really any company can be able to do this. But we’ve got companies operating at 98% plus success, right? We’ve got one company that hasn’t made a bad hire 5.5 years and everybody that have been bringing on has been really, really strong. Eight players who are thriving in the environment, they’re very protective of that ecosystem now because the productivity and the company is through the roof and and it’s showing in their profitability So you can 100% avoid bad hires by by hiring this way, you know by by really not going to take. Yeah, 98. Yeah, sure, 98%. I think someone would take that if they were, if they were hiring, I think most people would take 70% like would be, you know, they’d be ecstatic about that because you know statistically you actually have a 51% chance if you don’t have a hiring process and you’re not really like you’re just like you have a 51% chance of the higher than you make is the wrong higher.
So you’re better off sometimes just walking in the room flipping a coin heads, just you know, you’re hired entails. You’re not have you got thoughts on a number of interviews? Well yeah, I do because you know the interview process should be, should be lined up to where whoever is kind of doing the work in the front end and saving the time for the people on the back end, right? Because you wanna you wanna keep your people who are productive, You know in productive positions. Like you want to keep them working, you don’t want to be lining up 15 interviews for every position that you have to fill. It’s it’s ridiculous. Um You know we operated a 3-1 interview to placement, make sure which means most of our clients that we work with were like 2.5 to 3 people that were present in one higher which is highly efficient because you’re keeping all of your people productive and they’re not having to spend a whole bunch of time talking to people who wouldn’t have made anyone. Yeah they find out the tail end that oh shoot.
Well this guy is really not you know aligning with our values or this person is not really um you know wanting to go to a company that’s like our size company, they really want a large company where a startup you know but they’ve invested all this time now and they’re kind of stuck. So you want to know all that stuff up front and that can all be experienced in that first discovery call Which is usually a 10 minute call and that’s where you get all the rich data. If you spend the time asking the right questions and gathering like the evidence to support whether or not somebody is even aligned with the company or not. So you are generally opposed to should we say interviewing large quantities of people for a role. If you have one role, you only need to really theoretically interview one person. I mean that’s that’s that’s really the truth. So like why should you interview a whole bunch of people and I think the reason why we have been programmed to interview a bunch of people and we want more people in the funnel is because we want we want to take this position of compare and contrast people.
But again it’s because there’s no North star as to how you’re evaluating people, you’re just going off of gut and bias and whatever feelings you have for your personal motives as opposed to going after. Like what’s important does this person is this like am I evaluating this one person to the best of my ability to make sure that they did our organization interesting stuff. So coming back like we said about the company’s values, you reference words on the wall presumably because I mean I think in some instances a lot of companies don’t know or haven’t decided what their values are and if they have they’re not congruent with it. So what are your thoughts around this topic? Um I think it doesn’t take very much time to sit down in a room with your leadership team and really determine who we are. How do we make decisions what’s important to the organization as we grow and how do we hire people that align with those that that mission vision value and more importantly the D.
N. A. Of who we are as a company. And it all comes down from the Ceo really because if you look at most companies um man I’ve walked into companies walked into one company one time it was um I was invited in and behind the wall of the ceo behind his desk had like words like integrity and like you know all the buzzwords that everybody’s kind of using today. Teamwork. Teamwork was the one I keep done on. So we had a pretty decent conversation. He walked me around the operation and I noticed is what I was going through, that people were getting really loud on their keyboards is like he he was being heard walking through and there was no teamwork, no collaboration people were just all siloed. And so when we went back to his office, I said, well can I ask you a question about your core values? He said, yeah, so where did you get him? He goes, oh well we we we had a team meeting and I thought they sounded really well, like really good. So we decided to make those are values. So it’s important that you don’t like, you know, those are aspirational values, but there’s no action behind making those values, bringing those values to fruition.
Um it’s just words on a wall and and the people who work there understand that when there’s just words on a wall and the and and it’s not lived from the top down then essentially you’re you’re you’re killing your credibility as a leader and then you’re just creating probably the most dysfunctional environment you can because nobody believes you. So how much do you think it should be? Um our values are what we do or what we aspire to be because I think in some instances people, like for example, if if you had a company and they were, let’s say highly, highly money driven, um maybe you think they should have that on the wall? Maybe, I don’t know. But it is the case that they are that way. Should they own it or should they aspire to be something that they want to do? They should own it. That’s who they are. I think where companies get into trouble as they try to hire people for these aspirational values who who don’t allow like who who are are sold one kind of a utopian environment and they come in and then thrown to the wolves, I mean you should be up front about the fact that we’re a bunch of backstabbing whatever and and you know, it’s you’re not gonna get any attention until you prove yourself.
I mean, these are things, there’s a lot of environments, Hunter environments are like that, right? Where you eat what you kill and and that should probably be their value. You know, don’t don’t say teamwork and collaboration or your values when they’re really not. Yeah. And coming back to interviewing for a moment because I think I bet based on your expertise in this particular area, you’ve come across some of the worst quote unquote mistakes, can you should we should we highlight what those are and perhaps why they’re why they’re mistakes? Well, okay, so first and foremost not having an interview structure is, is a death sentence for a company. Um, you know, you, you want to provide an experience for candidates were in the world right now where you as a company do not control the process you do and and I mean you do not make the decision, the the the the talent is choosing where to go because they have lots of options and so you have to and it’s not a we’re not an environment where you need to sell somebody.
We’re in an environment where you need to show that you provide value to them above and beyond just that we check because if you’re fighting this transactional paycheck game, you’re gonna lose every time. There’s always somebody with a much better wallet and You know, candidates are getting 456 offers, especially the ones who are even maybe 10 offers, especially the ones that are active. But you know, when you, when you have somebody in the process, you kind of have to treat them like it doesn’t matter where they came from or how you found them, you have to treat them like they’re your only candidate and give them an experience in which they’re going to be able to shine and you know, and it should be congruent with whatever your environment is. You have a high stress environment then provide that stress. Don’t try and hide anything. You know, give them a really accurate snapshot of the good, the bad and the ugly of the company because I found that, you know, when, when you sell just a, like this utopian environment and everybody knows there’s no such thing.
Like you might have a great looking company, but you’re probably like the prom queen, you’re probably like beautiful on the outside, but a hot mess internally. Right? So at best you’re that, so just, you know, be open and honest with it and, and high performers are drawn to that. They want to solve problems. They want to be part of the solution as opposed to kind of coming into something that they think, well I’m just gonna be filling a slot. And so um, that that’s the most important thing then, like as you’re, as you’re interviewing people, um, you gotta coordinate, you can’t just bring people in for an interview and, and just like ad hoc it, you can’t just like have conversations and have no direction because what you’re doing is you’re demonstrating to this person, this is how we run our company. We don’t really have any structure. We don’t really know what we’re doing. We’re just trying to figure it out. And if you want to get rid of a really high performer, somebody who’s really good or probably the best higher you can get then then show them or demonstrates them that you have no idea what you’re doing.
There’s an example of a structure in that instance. Well, okay, so a structure should be that you have an actual written down process. It should be time, and it should be laid out. Like we when we um put somebody through the interview process, we tell them what each step of the process is, how much time it’s gonna take. And, you know, you always start on time and end on time. Um and then when you take somebody through an interview, we we do something like the interviews are usually behavioral based and each interviewer is provided the questions because we don’t we want to control the process and make it as fair as possible. It repeatable for everybody, so that, you know, you’re eliminating bias as much as possible. And I know that’s a kind of a nice utopian buzzword today, but but it does come into play very heavily within every interview process. You know, people see people’s threats or they might have personal motives, and so they just cut people out of the loop where they make decisions really quickly and then they spend the rest of that time trying to justify a decision.
So we want to do is we wanna use behavioral questions to um to gather evidence that that supports underneath the hood. Whether or not somebody should make uh a positive or negative decision on whether or not to hire somebody. And again, you’re challenging people in such a way where people get impressed by this process because of the fact that it’s unlike what everybody else is doing. There’s nothing more unimpressive or de motivating for a candidate than talking to four different people at the same company and getting asked the same question three different times. So, um, as to summarize the answer, we’ve got process, I don’t mind, I’m just is for me more than anything, it’s um, tell them when it starts, how long it will be, tell them when it ends, you tell the truth and um Mitigate against biases and also a missing one. And yeah, and then and then, oh, the last thing that I didn’t really mention it, but prepare you if you let them know what to expect.
I mean, there’s no reason to hide what you do. Um I want somebody to come in and be able to fail on their own or shine on their own. And so I actually provide people the interview questions and I don’t I don’t give them the context of what I’m evaluating them against and I don’t give them the sub questions that I built out, you know, that that kind of I used during the conversation, but I do I allow them to prepare if they come prepared then then, you know that they’re taking it seriously and if they don’t then, you know pretty quickly that they’re not pick their company unless that’s not important to you. It should be though, because you want to succeed, right, definitely. I think it’s a big investment, which is why I think Companies can fall into that. Let’s try and interview as many people as we can and put them through as you said 15 interviews is because it is a big deal to companies, but as you say, there is a way to be more efficient with that.
Your example was the phone interview beforehand. Is there anything that you can highlight which would um, indicate that they’re going to be a good person to interview or perhaps um, someone you don’t want to interview. Yeah. So there’s kind of three pillars to it. Um you want somebody who like what I’m looking for in a phone conversation is, is what is two things, how is this person position meaning what is it that they want on their career? Because if I fit that they’re going to probably do well in my organization. If I don’t, then there’s no sense of me bringing them through an interview process and then I also want to know how good a person is. Um, you know, I spent most of my career screening candidates and sending them over candidate to companies and then kind of hoping the hiring manager would like them and I could never really like, it was difficult for me to provide value because I didn’t really know if something was good, I just knew that they had the buzzwords that the company was looking for.
And so um flipping that around and understanding, okay, so what is this person’s pain first and foremost? Why are they looking? Somebody has to have a legitimate reason for looking above and beyond? Well, you know what I hear, it’s a good job market and I can make a lot more money. That’s not really a pain. That’s a I’m gonna take your offer and shop it back to my company and get a higher offer. So I don’t have to leave. Right? Um and then what it is a desire is the second piece. So people will tell you in that first conversation what it is they want to do because it’s a very non threatening conversation. They’re not in an interview process and it should be done before you sell them your company or your job or any of those sort of things, they shouldn’t they should be able to impact what it is they want to do what their vision for success is, what the type environment that they’re going to do well in right. And so if they’re painting a picture that sounds like your company now, you you’re on the right track, if it’s completely honest, you know, I’ve had people who said, you know in an ideal scenario, I want a big comp package with, you know, lots of time off working in a large company where I just kind of do my work and go home and if you’re a startup again or a smaller company that ain’t gonna work.
So you just saved everybody down the path a lot of time by not bringing that person in for an interview and then finally, like I’m going to delve into what it is that they’ve done that’s impacted the organization. So we all know we’ve all heard of the terms like a B and C player, right? Um, a players or people who are really strong in what they do, they know exactly what they did and how they did it. So, um, we target something above and beyond their current job that they’ve accomplished within the organization. That might have saved time, increased revenue, gain recognition or solve a really difficult problem, something that put them at the forefront or you know, brought them to the top. Again, a players look for opportunities to make an impact within the organization. So me being able to extract that information in that first phone call allows me to take that person to my hiring manager and say, hey look at, I’m setting up an interview for this person because this person did this, this, this and this and they were able to build this for the company and this was the result and That just those three pieces eliminates a lot of people depending on kind of where your company is now at scale.
It totally, you know, again, it, it still works if you’ve got 50 positions that you need to know that you need to run. Um you just have this conversation, again, you’re gonna have a bigger funnel of people coming in, but it’s really easy to kind of just read through those people with a quick conversation. A lot of people fall out at the 1st, 2nd question and then you can just, You know, the ones that make it through, it’s as short as a five minute conversation and go 45 minutes to an hour. But you know, those 45 minutes to an hour conversations are all really, really good, valuable conversations that allow that person to really see the value in joining your organization. And guess what? There is a big problem with people not showing up for interviews. This is how you get people to show up for interviews, spending the time up front. You know, just calling them up and say, hey, we like your background, we’d like to invite you in for an interview. There’s no, there’s no emotional connection and there’s no reason for them to show up. And especially if you’re asking him about comp issues right up front and then you’re complaining about their confidence is high.
So essentially you’re, um influencing the turn up rate by just having a quick phone call and the, would you say that the biggest thing that you like to lead with is what it is that they want and therefore it disqualifies people who aren’t relevant for the position. Yeah, Yeah, absolutely, because again, if, if what you offer is not what they want, they’re just really taking the job for the paycheck, and when something else better comes along, they’re gonna leave. Mhm. Any thoughts on biggest mistakes with job descriptions? Oh, man, don’t get me started on job descriptions, You know, they should be written like a marketing document or not. Um I, you know, there, you know, it’s all about, most job descriptions are all about me, Right? And so your audience, you have to think about who you want to attract, you want everybody who’s looking for any job on the internet to apply, or do you want that person who might go home at, you know, at the end of the day is not really looking for a job, but they’re like, you know, I’ll check out what’s on the various job boards and go, hmm, this looks interesting, oh, that, that has some meat to it, Alright, I’ll apply to that.
Um I don’t think much thought goes into the job description from the perspective, it’s all about, like, we’re looking for this and you must have these requirements and to work here were awesome. You know, it’s just a, it’s a bunch of, let me just tell you more about me, you’re that person that you probably know in your life, you have a conversation with them, like, okay, that’s great, let me tell you more about me, that’s what the job description is most of the time. And, and so if you flip it around and make it around about that person and you want to attract, then uh then they’re gonna lean in, they’re gonna respond and you’re gonna you’re gonna have a much better result. So I look at job descriptions as you want the right people to be attractive and you want to repel everybody else. And so, you know, you should build your values language into that job description and you should start out with uncovering what might be a potential thing for that person because if I want somebody to read my big long list of crap, sorry, like that’s really what it is. Um Then uh then I’ve got to draw them in and you know, you’re in marketing right thomas.
If you put out content for one of your clients that look like the job description, what do you think would be the end result? A very low conversion rate. Yeah. And you probably get fired. So you know what I mean? I mean, because I don’t know about you, but I cringe every time I see a job descriptions I get clients that send me over a job description and then I totally got it and rebuild it up because I really like, you can’t put that stuff out there and and expect to attract the right people and then we put a call to action at the end of it. Um If somebody’s gonna, if somebody’s gonna apply then we give them an outlet. Like we will call you for sure. If you answer these three questions, if you don’t, then please don’t expect a reply from us. It’s just that simple. It’s interesting because initially I thought the pre qualifying began with the phone call, but actually it’s, it’s pre qualifying in the job description and then discounting people who don’t fit the criteria in the phone call and then that’s how you end up with your very small pool of should we say good candidates, candidates for interview, right?
Yeah, Yeah. And ultimately like if I’m a hiring manager, I just want, I just want the best people. I mean quite frankly is as long as you’re giving them an avenue to, hey look, I’ve got two really good people. Like there are both eight players, You know, so interview these two, Tell Me which one you want to hire. Um Yeah, that’s ultimately what what I want. That’s ultimately what most hiring managers want. They don’t want to like, You know, if you ask anybody if they like hiring and interviewing, I get 99 out of 10 times get people going off. I hate, I hate interviewing, I hate hiring because I’m not good at it. You know, I just don’t enjoy it. It takes up so much of my time. So make it fun. You mentioned a player’s I once had a conversation about, should we say, hi, what type of person you want to hire and meaning high performers versus people who are going to stick around for a long time, Like which one should you choose?
Have you got any thoughts there? Well, I mean you want a combination of both really. Um, you want somebody who is a high performer who wants to stick around and the way that you get them to stick around is to career path them, um, in our efforts as we’re creating people, the ones that are sticking at their current companies are the ones who have a plan with their company and their company like is really fostering their growth. That’s what we’re seeing right now. Um, you know, there, there’s um, there was an old kind of saying about training, like what if I train people and they leave? And the other one was, well, the opposite of that would be, what if you don’t train them and they say, um, you know, it’s kind of a, it is the chicken and the egg. I mean, you want a really good combination of both. Um, people, you know, it’s not necessarily good for growth to have somebody who’s just going to stick it out, it’s just going to be, um, you know, doing their job. It just really depends on the role and function and how critical those people are into the organization.
If it’s an admin or somebody like that, it’s not as critical to the growth, then, you know, that’s, that’s kind of a personal preference, but if it’s somebody who’s pretty critical to the growth of the company and then you really have to focus on providing both of them. Okay, So, so, so sorry, I can’t give, you can’t give you, I can’t choose sides. I’m in the middle of that way. I’ve given you a very complex question and I want a very simple answer. That’s the, that’s the summary there in your profile. You reference the great resignation. This is I feel a bit of a buzzword at the moment from my perspective, a bit skeptical, but I would like, you know, for for those that don’t know, would you like to go into what it is and what you think about it. Sure. So um you know, I think most of it kind of occurred in 2021, like last year. A lot of people, especially like 1st and 2nd quarter of last year jump ship, I mean the job numbers, I think everyone, a lot of people stuck it out during the whole first year of covid or the pandemic because they wanted that safety net.
Um that time gave a lot of people the opportunity to think about like what is it that I really want because I’m I’m spending time with my family, some people that was good, some people that was bad, I don’t know, but I think people really took that time and they really evaluated what they wanted out of their careers. So a lot of people jump ship. Um, and as a result the companies that didn’t treat their people very well lost a lot of people and they’ve been scrambling to get more people on. And so it is a real thing from the perspective of, you know, I think back in january, I heard that there was, we operate in the US at between like five and six million job postings in a month And I think we’re at 11 million and change job posting. So like there’s just been this big flux of people that are hiring and it’s driving up everything and I think a lot of people are still sitting on the sidelines so they’re doing their own thing or they found other ways in which they can make income or they just retired and said, I don’t want, I don’t want to deal with this anymore.
Um, So for whatever reason, um I think it’s like more of the great reset. Somebody else coined that. I did not make it up, but I, I think it’s more of that then. I, and I’ve seen a lot of companies get gutted and I’ve seen a lot of them are quite a few companies that have just been people centric and they’ve done a great job of keeping their people engaged and and they’re not leaving. So, and the other ones who are, by the way stealing all the people from the other companies well you put a couple of qualifiers on there, which I think are it makes complete sense, which is if you have an employer who doesn’t treat you very well and you get some time to think about that then I mean it’s a completely logical decision to go to attempt to go somewhere else, right? Like you said, if you do have a good employer who perhaps cares about your, I know your well being or your happiness to some degree, then do you think that that employer would be somewhat immune to something like the great resignation?
Yeah, Yeah, I mean I don’t think they’re totally immune because I think, you know, some employers do better with some, you know, some employees, but also I think uh if you have people that really aren’t aligned with the values and company and you know, whether or not you write them down, your company has values, you know the way in which you operate are your values and they, you know, it kind of filters up to what the culture is, the people who don’t align with that culture, those values have gone and found other places too, but it’s probably been good for those companies that that have done a good job because they’ve been able to kind of keep the people that are critical to the organization and they would be able to supplement other people in that that align well with the organization as well, we have focused a lot from the business perspective, which is, I mean logical given the fact that most of the audience is his business owners, but if you’ve got any thoughts on the other end of the table so that the person applying or interviewing for that job, what do you have any advice for them?
You know what I do because I think people don’t understand how much, um how much value they have right now and if you’re having a difficult time finding a job right now, it’s because you’re, you’re taking the wrong approach and, and so you know I have come across quite a few people that have been looking for jobs and they’re just, I’ve sent out 100 resumes through the job boards and um you know, I haven’t been able to get interviews, well There’s two big problems with that. # one spray and pray doesn’t work right? And that’s really what you’re doing. If you don’t like getting calls from telemarketers, don’t send your resume out to every other company, right? Um target five companies that you really want to work for and then think about why you want to work for them and then become your own recruiter. Like if you have a recruiter who has a relationship with them, you can utilize them. But I found what works really well is to um you kind of have to do this, look I don’t want to call it a game, but you kind of have to play the mindset of kind of where things are, if you come across as being desperate, we’re looking for a job or or you ask somebody for a job, they always filter you down to the HR department.
Um If you really found a company that you want to work for linkedin is a great resource, find out who would be your hiring manager, who would be the person you’d be working for and then just reach out to them. Don’t tell them you’re looking for a job, but tell them that you found their company, you found it really interesting and the work challenging and you know, like that’s something that really resonated with you and say, I’m not really looking for a job right now, I’m kind of open, but I’d like to have coffee with you and get to know you for the future for when timing, when you might be able to use so many talented, like I’ve seen a lot of people that have have talked that through that have gotten great results and got hired pretty quickly by just doing what everybody else is not doing. My interpretation of that is like personalization. So you referred to the fact that everyone is just sending out hundreds cbs but really what you should do is pick very carefully and do a do a very good job of just dealing with a small number.
Yeah, this is probably where I’m gonna get hate mail from HR people because it’s like circumventing the process right? But you know um that when you have a flow of when when you come from the top, I mean the bottom up, you know where it’s so hard to get up to the top, but when you start from the top and then the the hiring manager says, hey, I want to bring this person in for an interview, you just circumvented all that clutter all that, all those hurdles that have been put up to screen people out. So, you know, why would you want to play the same game that everybody else is playing? It just it results in frustration. Yeah. And no job. Well I think you’ve given some amazing answers, so I really appreciate the value. Um what does success mean to you? Um For me, success is elevating those around it. I mean I’m all about I’m a startup guy and I’m a builder and I love seeing companies that I work with, like be able to bring in somebody who really makes an impact and and and watching them grow and that that’s like, you know, my I’m rewarded in other ways.
Like I get so much satisfaction from seeing people that I work with. So using that criteria, are you successful? Of course, does anybody know straightforward answer Some people hesitate. I think that there’s a, you know, should I say I’m successful, you know, I think it’s a it’s a tricky thing to work around, but if you got my opinion is if you’ve got high self esteem and you’ve got your own definition of what success is then Yeah, the answer should be yes. Really? Yeah, it should be hell yes, right? Like, yeah, that’s what your goals. Well, my goal right now, I’m really focusing on building um a SAS platform that um we can get this are what we call a hiring operating system out to every small company out there. Like I’m a big proponent of like, again, like I said, I’m a startup person, I want to see small companies thrive and you know, often we don’t know about how to run an interview or we don’t know how to do really any of these things that attract the strongest people to us.
So I want to give uh the opportunity to all these small businesses to be able to plug into a hiring operating system that can just run their whole hiring process through and be able to, with a pretty high level of certainty attract the people that they need in their business for them to drive. So that’s my goal right now. Yeah. And this is higher. Yeah. So Heroes is the hiring operating system, the company that we just launched, I can’t tell you the name yet, but we’re operating under stealth mode, but it looks like we’ll we’ll we’ll probably have um We’ll probably have our MVP of our product running in Q three. So like if anybody’s interested and they want to get on our data um list, they can send me an email and which country is that for? Um, we’re launching in the US first, but we’re gonna go global baby. Like I want to be able to help. Yeah, I want to be able to help people in Antarctica. Cool. Well it’s a big goal and yeah, good luck with it.
Um, is there anything that I should have asked you about today? Uh how do I get my head so shiny if I would have asked you that? What would you have said? Coconut oil? I just put some on my head today just because like I’m peeling, it was in the sun a couple days ago. All right, well, um, people want to connect with you and maybe find out more about higher os where do they go? Yeah. So you can find my website at stride. S T R I D E search S C A R C H dot com. You can drop me a quick email at rick at stride search dot com. I’m kind of slow at getting back so please have some patience. I I get a lot of get a lot of email. Um, I have a book that’s on amazon. It’s called healing career wounds and it’s written for startup companies. And as a matter of fact, we were fortunate yet Gino Wickman from traction, his endorsement.
And then of course, um, you can check out my podcast at higher power radio and that’s H I R E power radio dot com. You’re a busy man. I’m just trying to keep up with you thomas. How’s the, how’s the writing process? You know, For me it was a bit uh tricky because I I’m not a person who can focus on one thing. I’m a total entrepreneur where I chased purple squirrels. So the way I tricked my brain is I got up every morning at 4:30, I kept all the lights off. I turned on my computer. I just, um, I read the last paragraph and then I just start writing and then I hired a really good developmental editor to fix my dribble. Well, you are, you’re a high achiever, right? You know what? It’s funny? I guess I am, but I’ve never felt like I’m a high achiever. I just feel like I have more than I have to do. Okay. More to do well for all for everyone listening. Please review the links in the description and rick, thank you very much. Thanks for having me Thomas. I really appreciate it.