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Charlie Quinn of HumCap joined the show and spoke with me about the challenges of the COVID environment and how recruiting companies can differentiate themselves. We took time talking about the challenges for both job seekers and companies looking for talent and the explosive growth of the metroplex.

Shout out to R.D. Adair PLLC (https://adair.law) for sponsoring this episode!

AUTO-TRANSCRIBED

Aaron Spatz  00:08

Good morning DFW and happy Friday, you are listening. You’re watching to the Dallas Fort Worth business podcast. This is DFW Business Podcast. I’m so excited that you’re here. I’m Aaron Spatz. If you have any specific feedback for the show any anything that you’re particularly enjoying, drop me a line podcast at Bold media.us. And don’t hog it all yourself, right? There’s other people out there who want to know about what’s going on here and DFW about business. So share it, talk with your friends about it, talk to colleagues about it. Either tag them on social media, dropping my email, let them know, hey, it’s on Apple. It’s on Spotify. It’s on anywhere. So audio, video, it doesn’t matter. So it’s been a tremendous, tremendous journey. It’s been a lot of fun. I cannot believe we’re at the end of three weeks. So you’ve made it I’ve made it. I’m so glad that you’re here. And so we’re gonna we’re gonna get right into it today. Excited to have Charlie Quinn joining us. Charlie Quinn comes to us from humcap He’s also a he’s a military veteran, but he has been a part of the Metroplex for quite some time and the business he’s doing so Charlie, I just want to welcome to the show, man. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks, sir. Thank you. Absolutely. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about your your your your story, your history, I always love to open up the show with like, Alright, are you a DFW native and if not, Where are you originally from?

Charlie Quinn  01:26

Okay, so before I start Aaron I have to show everybody the cup Aaron but some ex army i And Aaron’s an expert in as you guys probably know. And so I can’t remember the story behind it but Aaron kind of called me out with my Hello Kitty coffee cup of three or four years ago so it’s been my favorite cup for forever and I have to hide it because people my company want to steal it from me so

Aaron Spatz  01:48

anyway, pretty epic. It’s pretty cool. Yeah. So I believe that believe the story goes, I was we’re moving to the DFW Metroplex. And you and I got connected I you know, we we’d had we actually met in your office. And for those of you that aren’t connected to Charlie in the home capital that they’re doing, phenomenal guy as, as you’ll, as you’ll soon figure out, but we’re busting each other’s chops about military service, right? He’s an army guy, I’m a Marine. And he said something like, Hey, you know, I’ll take the meeting with you as long as you don’t, you know, bring any like Hello Kitty or Barbie stuff with you. And so just just just the jovial stuff, right? And so, after the meeting, like a week later, I purchased a Hello Kitty mug for him on Amazon and shipped it to his office. It’s been there ever since ever since. That’s awesome.

Charlie Quinn  02:36

Okay, so that’s the question. So I actually am not a DFW native. I grew up in El Paso, Texas, high school there, then went to college at West Point, you gotta, you know, then you got to pay back your free education with some military service. So I was in fg guy for for nine years met my wife in Monterey, California, kind of the army and my, my first real job was ti as an engineer here in Dallas. But I’ve been in Dallas, gosh, since 1996. Ish.

Aaron Spatz  03:05

Wow.

Charlie Quinn  03:07

left there. I was an engineer left there joined a small recruiting company that kind of grew bigger at SEC now called K Force. I was there a few years joined another recruiting company. About nine years ago, I joined a company called humcap. And that’s what that’s where I am now. We are a local tech recruiting company. Most of stuff we do is local high tech, DFW and around VC, or private equity fund companies. So kind of early stage geeky tech tech stuff, we do do some big, big company stuff that’s generally staffing and recruiting our staffing and contractors. But that’s kind of a world. So our our, our bread and butter is being networked in Dallas and understanding the Dallas market. Well,

Aaron Spatz  03:55

well and in in your specialized right. So like you’re not doing 100 other things. It’s specifically I’m asking like specific tech startups early, you know, early stage companies, right?

Charlie Quinn  04:08

Correct. So you know, we don’t do it. There’s a lot of it recruiters out there. And when I think of it, I think of infrastructures at a Citibank or Capital One or something like that. We just don’t do that. So the tech companies we recruit for the product is going to be tech so that it could be in our two. Our two major verticals would be companies that do software as a service as a product, it could be financial tech, or it could be health tag or some ERP tech or anything that that we’re the product is the software. And then we have another vertical pretty strong is engineering, anybody that makes the device. So that’s kind of a we got some bigger companies, but generally, our world that we play in is early stage companies or small companies. And we’re kind of proud to say a few of the companies that we’ve done work with have been acquired by strategic investors or by private equity. So we feel like we have some part in success of the company. It’s a huge

Aaron Spatz  05:08

win, man. Yeah, absolutely. You’re, you’re helping source the talent and get in help help get their get their team get their get their team off the ground. So super cool. But I mean, so you’ve you spent a career inside the recruiting? So like, what what do you love about what it is that you do?

Charlie Quinn  05:26

Yeah, no. So recruiting is pretty, it’s it’s, it’s a hard the barrier to entry is low, anybody, you know, is is is is hard. And there’s about I think the stats are around 80% of recruiters fail, which is super, super high number, there’s tons of reasons for it. But you know, the thing I like it, my wife asked me this, gosh, about a year or two ago, Aaron, and I’ve never really thought about it. But I honestly, you know, it’s a great business. But this, we’re not in business because of this. But here’s why I love it is that I love the fact that we can change people’s lives. I mean, getting somebody a great job and a great company is is very stressful, but it’s a huge win. It changes, like I said, it changes lives, hopefully for the better. And then it helps companies grow. Like I said, I have a huge majority, not a majority, but a significant number of companies that we’ve done work for have have done some kind of transaction, a positive transaction. So it helps companies grow and change lives. And, you know, that’s kind of an artifact of recruiting in some ways.

Aaron Spatz  06:33

Yeah, well, I mean, because what what in what you’re expressing is like the, the work that you’re doing actually makes an impact. And so you’re, you feel connected to the end, like you feel connected to the outcome. And so it’s like, knowing that you’re like, playing some role in that process, whether it’s, you know, early on or at the end, or right in the middle of what’s going on, like, knowing that you have some hand in that has got to be rewarding, fulfilling. So I just, it’s fascinating because it you know, it’s not everyday meet someone who’s been in this industry specifically for for such a long time. So are the other companies that you work for that they did they focus on the same market? Are they are they completely different? Completely different focus?

Charlie Quinn  07:12

And what do you mean by other companies who were competing?

Aaron Spatz  07:16

No, no, sorry, companies that you worked for previously. So Kay force and corona.

Charlie Quinn  07:22

So obviously, my like I said, my first real job in the army was an engineer at TI, and in RF, microwave and packaging group, which actually helps me and my team, doing tech recruiting. But so my first recruiting company was tech, it was a company called Source engineering is primarily focused, generally on the same market, hire probably bigger companies, just because it was a bigger company, it was national. And then my next company, no tech, it was kind of admin. Healthcare, health, clinical stuff. mortgage banking, and nothing, probably almost no tech. So kind of fun, because I’m kind of nerd back in a tech recruiting company. And I’m aware all I you know, I can’t say we have a great company, my boss at West Point guy. I think Aaron met him. I think you did. Yeah. So it’s kind of fun being in a company that we do pretty good. But we think we have a pretty good culture. And I you know, leadership is amazing. So well, you know, like,

Aaron Spatz  08:24

you’ve got so a couple reasons for me asking, like, genuine curiosity but to I mean, you’ve got a front row seat to the to the employment to the job market of DFW. So like, for those that are just curious in terms like, there’s a lot of people moving here, I’m sure I’m sure you know more about that than anybody else does. But like, but what what are your thoughts on the stability and of the growth of the DFW job market?

Charlie Quinn  08:51

I mean, we’re lucky to be here. And I hope I’m answering the questions in the manner and key if I’m not, please keep going.

Aaron Spatz  08:59

I will jump in and redirect, I don’t worry about it. Um,

Charlie Quinn  09:03

so I was I’ve been I get asked this a lot. And I actually was on a talk with the Indian Institute of Technology, the local alumni group they have here, and that’s some of the questions they had. And it depends on how you look at it. But DFW is probably for tech, for sure. They’re saying it’s the third or fourth hottest market in the United States and still behind I think, DC, the DC hearing behind New York City, but it’s it we’ve launched over or leapfrogged over Los Angeles. And it sounds like we believe frogged over Austin and Silicon Valley’s for a while so DFW, the DFW market is hot and there’s tons of reasons for it. I mean, it’s very diverse, like I know Houston’s been hit pretty hard because it’s really energy centric. Yeah. And that that that segment of the of the industry has been is probably gonna take a while to recover. But may we’ve got obviously tech we’ve got got health care, we got retail and got distribution. We’ve got insurance, tons of trends. So thankfully that some sectors in the market have been hitting Dallas. But overall, it’s been great. And we’ve been lucky. The I just saw some stats because we do follow you. Right. And we follow as closely because our industry is very tied to the economy. Right. And I know that’s may sound like a no brainer, but we feel it. And there’s, you know, there’s parts of our business that are leading and lagging for the markets we have. But unemployment nationwide, I think still about 6.8%. This was as of December, okay, for people with bachelor’s degrees or higher, it’s only about 3.8%. Yeah, and so and so in Dallas tech, it’s in Dallas, it’s got to be less than that just based on what we see. And in Dallas tech, it’s got to be even tighter. I would anecdotally we think, DFW tech is darn near zero, we are having a hard time finding talent. I mean, hard time, networking never been harder. And so we’re hiring recruiters to help us find these guys. So

Aaron Spatz  11:11

man, it’s gonna be a tough job, man, like, like, congratulations, I need you to find all these people. And by the way, they’re going to be really, really, really hard to find.

Charlie Quinn  11:20

Yeah, and so we got to educate our clients. That I think the the prevailing thought out there as well, tons of people will let go laid off, now’s a great time to find people because they should be easy. And that’s in our market. That is not the case at all. I know, some, you know, like, a lot of some services industries or hospitality got nailed pretty hard. And those guys might be easier to find the, but in our world, it is not. And so it’s probably harder than it’s ever been finding talent. I think that bodes well for kind of the the future of the market just locally, nationally.

Aaron Spatz  11:56

Nice. I’m gonna ask you probably an obvious maybe even a softball question, but just just just I’m just curious. What what do you cuz you mentioned earlier, there’s a ton. There’s a high failure rate for staffing or recruiting companies. So like, what what do you think makes the difference? For those that figure it out and are able to make it and are able to stick around for a while?

Charlie Quinn  12:22

Yeah, I think that the stick around for a while is I think the that’s the the key thing, because, you know, our product, it’s we’re a service industry, but our product is also people in not to sound harsh, but you know, we’re trying to deliver people to our customers. Yeah. And so you know, if you’re selling and we’re, we’re all sales folks. And so the thing with salespeople is you got to build your pipeline, we do tons of training, we train, at least at least once a week, for an hour, we so we want to get folks trained up on sales techniques on observational stuff on how to talk to people how to plan your day, I mean, all the stuff wrapped around kind of probably what you do here. Yeah, but it can be frustrating initially, because it takes a while to learn the market. It takes a while to I mean, if you’re selling, if you’re IBM, and you’re selling some servers, the servers aren’t going to Ansel themselves, right, they’re not going to not go to not go to the client cuz they don’t want to or they change your mind or your spouse says, so there’s two very dynamic sides that we’re dealing with people that that are in constant motion and constant changing. We have clients chin, and this is common, particularly for early stage companies we have clients looking for, say they’re looking for an engineer, or software or XYZ skill set. So we send a guy with XYZ, and they go God, you know, what, we don’t need XYZ, we need xy, that A and D. So there’s a lot of calibration on resumes to which can be frustrating to new folks. So the the time it takes to build up market knowledge, both on the client side and the candidate side of the business, is what kind of filters people out because it’s hard to be successful in our world, and without understanding both sides. And so, but oftentimes, we’ll run through a candidate that, you know, we know one of our customers does like FinTech wrapped around identity theft, for example, we run an account, there may not be looking for a guy, but we run into a candidate that has that skill set, you know, software development with their their development environment, sort of in the industry, bits or culture, we’ll send that guy over. And I say, guy, I’m a Texan I mean guy and yeah, we’ll send it over. And they may hire the personal data in asking for us to find that kind of person. So but it’s frustrating. It’s it ramp up for recruiters, probably about six months. Yeah, you start being successful. Well, I don’t have the patience. Yeah, no, but

Aaron Spatz  14:53

yeah, I mean, it just it sounds it sounds like again, I’m making like all these obvious points here. But it’s like it’s it’s a One of the things where you’re, I mean, you’re dealing with people, people, people are people are people, right? So you’re, you’re dealing with the people from the company, you’re dealing with the people that you’re recruiting, and so like you’re trying to understand without that without getting in too much hot water here, but like, I’m curious again, like, you know, how much do people let’s say, elaborate creatively on their resumes? And then you know, how much recalibration do you have to do for for companies that, you know, like you said, like, hey, we want x, y, and z, but now we want x, y, A and B. And so like that whole journey, and it’s probably very, very relationship driven. Because like, once you once you get a couple quick wins with them, and you show like, Hey, I gave you Person X, and I gave you person y. And then like, that it’s got it’s got to be really unique, because you’re having to work both both sides of the fence at the same time, trying to trying to get people trying to get people through. But uh, yeah, I just, I can’t imagine what that’s like, especially for people. I mean, there’s a ton, like you said, low barrier to entry. And so I mean, there’s nothing to stop anybody from starting. And there’s different constructs, right? So like, there’s the retain model, there’s contingency, like what what do you find to be the most consistently used format?

Charlie Quinn  16:19

In our in? Well, so the the fee structures vary based on the client, the skill set? Okay, we do all three, we do contingency we do retain and we didn’t induce contractors, okay. Hey, we tend to gravitate more toward the retained or not fully retained, but some kind of engagement fee down. Because for a if you’re doing 100%, contingency work, no, no fees and hope we’re not getting to nitty gritty, you’re down to two. But this is good. An issue with a contingency search or series of searches, is the customer really doesn’t have any skin in the game. And it’s sometimes hard Turman whether the customer being the client that would pay us hopefully, is just tire kicking or testing the market, etc. Or their budget. There’s lots. So we don’t always ask for, you know, the full, like a Korn Ferry contingency model. But we would ask, we generally ask for just something down kind of nominal engagement fee, just so we know that these guys are serious. Yeah. Make sense? Yeah. For you know, yes. The question about how many folks, there’s a lot of folks that elaborate or embellish on the resume, for sure. In our market, though. So we’re dealing with generally, you know, mid career, maybe maybe 10 years out of school engineer, software developers, engineers, even we do some marketing folks and for customers in generally, though, there’s not we don’t see tons of people embellishing on their resume, there may be a little bit but nothing we don’t see in other market. And that I think that’s a factor of the of the, of the world, right, and auto market segment that we serve it. And I know and others in my previous companies serving kind of different markets, you see tons more of that. And so and, and employers are sniffing it out the back years ago, this didn’t happen, but often now. I mean, everybody’s doing background checks, which doesn’t, but also people do employment verifications. So you can just kind of sniff that stuff out. For sure. So but it happens, and it’s, and I can tell it happens actually, as an ex army guy. There’s a lot of folks and a lot, there’s more than you would like to think there are folks that kind of embellish on the military portion of the resume. Okay, so as a guy that’s been, it’s hard for me to sniff out a marine or a Navy guy or Air Force guy, but if you’re an army guy, I’ve been in different parts of the army in my career, and I hadn’t changed that much tech, and I can be it’s pretty obvious when somebody’s doing that. And I’ll always as an ex army guy, if a guy always bust him out. So

Aaron Spatz  19:11

yeah, I was a I was a super secret squirrel, Delta Force, Army Ranger, Navy SEAL guy, it was all classified. I can’t tell you about any of it. But I’m going to put on my resume.

Charlie Quinn  19:21

Exactly. Exactly. Those guys can sniff out I mean, there’s some army schools a lot of army schools and call the school and they don’t care. And I am looking for Joe Blow. He said he graduated ranger school here and seems fishy. What do you think? Hang on. Nope, don’t have that name. Honestly, it’s fast plus did fusty because they don’t want people wearing tabs and wearing badges and yeah,

Aaron Spatz  19:43

absolutely. That’s man that’s that’s a riot that’s that’s a whole nother set we could go off on like busted busted stories with like, there’s a there’s a whole series of videos out there like Stolen Valor, and they’re, you know, they’re they’re somewhat hilarious and sad to watch. The same time. Yeah, so like, you know, with when it comes to recruiting business, and like, I’m not trying to introduce competition to you whatsoever. But, but if there are people that are curious about how they get started, like, one like, what are some of the most common pitfalls that you’ve seen? Like they get people tripped up? And then I guess we recovered success. So what we’ll start there like, what, what are some of the biggest challenges to running a successful recruiting company?

Charlie Quinn  20:28

Well, so you know, I think so any year right barrier to entry is super low. And that’s, that’s okay. You know, and in for us. You in some ways, that’s good. Sometimes that’s bad. So we’ve we’ve we’ve won a term is in recruiting worlds called Market mastery. Okay. And so what is the thought behind it? And we’re, we’re, we’ve been transitioning to more of that over the last few years. And so that means you’re an expert in your market, which sounds kind of no brainer, but somebody entering the DFW area, why be recruit wants to be a recruiter? Brand new, you’ve got to pick a market? Because I don’t know if you guys if you read or need to read, or listeners read the book called about Blue Ocean Strategy. Yes. Yeah. So the issue is a lot of the markets like it, kind of administrative stuff, a lot of those which are easier to get into, because for the lay people that easier understand, it’s a red ocean, there’s tons of competition, tons. Oh, yeah. So if anybody’s starting a new business, I would pick a very niche market. And as niche as I’m gonna only do cost accountants in DFW, or I’m only going to do cost accountants and manufacturing companies in Dallas. And so if you, if you kind of start in a super niche area, it’s easier to and extremely more competitive or competitive advantage, you have a higher competitive advantage by becoming an expert in that market. Because you know, the guys to call, you know, the candidates, there’s a finite number of folks on both sides. But it’s easy as a kind of a novice in the world in this world, you kind of want to do everything. Somebody calls you a business. Hey, we can do truck drivers for a logistic company in in Waco. Yeah, let’s do. And then you’re going to be doing accountants for a company in Denton, and all sudden, your spread so thin, you’re kind of a master of nothing. So it’s, and we’ve been in, we’re getting better. Turning away business doesn’t fit our niche. And it’s not just because of us, but it doesn’t serve the customer. We’ve got to serve the customer. God, yeah,

Aaron Spatz  22:37

it takes an enormous self awareness there because you are, it’s like, it’s got to be hard, right. And I like it. And I understand that from from, like, an entrepreneurial standpoint is like, man, everybody’s money’s green. So yay, let’s go, let’s do this. But the reality is like, the more specific, the more focused, you are one that ultimately better serves the client. And so you’re able to deliver higher quality of service. And unlike me, like you just said, I mean, I’m basically repeating what you said. But it’s like you’re you’re able, you’re able to focus in you’re able to really learn a certain market, and therefore, that that has value. And it’s so funny, because it’s like, there’s other people that may have the exact same skill set this exact same aptitude for what you do. But the dip, but the difference in your focus can be the huge differentiator.

Charlie Quinn  23:26

No, actually, it actually takes discipline and like you said, everybody’s money is green, and is a we’re not a big company. I think we got about 25 folks or so. So Nugen, you know, we’re trying to grow, of course, like everybody, and we’re getting a lot more disciplined at turning away business, or referring to somebody else. On occasion, it’s sort of in our wheelhouse, we have interns and to train them up and help them on something that’s a little bit easier. But, you know, if you’re an expert in embedded firmware, software engineers in Dallas, and that’s all you do. After about five years, you’re pregnant, no RV darn firmware engineer in Dallas, and every company that hires those guys, and so you can you can help both company, both sides of the business of knowing everything from Comp to availability to technology, and it actually makes it more fun. Yeah. You’re right, Aaron as a growing company, it’s it takes discipline and and you know, sometimes you got to grit your teeth and say, Man, love to happen, but just outside of our market.

Aaron Spatz  24:28

Yeah, for sure. But when we come back from the break, I’d love to jump into now like the candidate facing side of this. So if if you’re a job, you know, if you’re a professional listening Washington this, how does somebody successfully maybe make a an entry into a new market and in terms of their career, like what are some things that you’ve seen that set people apart? How can they how can they best help themselves when it comes to trying to to perform a career transition? So we’ll go over that here in just one second. So this show is made possible by our amazing sponsors and seminars. really grateful for our show sponsor today rd Adair, business attorney. So Ryan and his team are fantastic people. And so if you are, if you’re in business, you have a small business or medium business doesn’t matter. But they specialize in providing solid legal helps of various business matters if it’s disputes, litigation, all the way back down to business formations and transaction. So buy, sell. And everything in, in between Rhiness team are very, very well positioned to help you with that they handle those issues for you. So I encourage you to reach out to them, see how they can help you phenomenal, solid, solid people that you can actually trust to get the job done. And really, really, really awesome. I’m incredibly grateful for their sponsorship for the show. So Charlie, we were, you know, we’re just leading into this next next segment. I would like for those because there’s, there’s a lot, so there’s a lot of uncertainty for some folks out there. Right. So there’s some people that have absolutely been affected by COVID, I was gonna ask you how COVID has impacted your business, but we’ll get to that here in a second. But there’s been a lot of people that have been adversely affected by COVID, there’s been companies that have thrived out of COVID. Two, so it’s, it’s not all doomsday stuff, right? However, it is for some people. And so there’s some people that have that have maybe contemplated a career change of some flavor. And now they’ve they’re presented an opportunity where like, hey, it’s either now or never like, now I’ve got a good opportunity to go pursue something else. What what are some ways that people can help position themselves that they can help themselves when it comes to maybe making a transition in their, in their career?

Charlie Quinn  26:41

Yeah, and I’ve had been asked that question many times, and it’s, there’s no real easy, good answer.

Aaron Spatz  26:46

Yeah, probably not.

Charlie Quinn  26:49

Hate to say it, but sometimes it may not be possible. Okay. It depends, it depends on a lot of things. And I’ll just kind of stream of consciousness here, we have kind of the older you are, the harder it is, and unfortunately, you know, guys, you know, guys my age, I’m 55. Or there’s, there’s, you know, there’ll be some, it’d be hard for me to become go to coding camp and become a coder, get a job as a coder, just even high love it and do it at home on the side, it’s just super hard and competing against folks that have tons of experience doing it. degrees, specifically in that world. So I, you know, I would think the older you are, and I’m not trying to be helpful at all. And the older you are, the harder it is. And that’s just kind of a fact, unfortunately, of life in the United States or life life on Earth. And I think, you know, if it, I think you need to, if you’re instead switching from X to Y, say you’re you know, I’m going to use an example, say I think you focus on a resume, build your resume leaning towards something you want to do. So, you know, I’ve talked to like insurance guys, for example, sales, guys, for insurance companies, they want to they want to sell into tech now, or sell tech. And so I kind of coach them on making their LinkedIn profile resume and look, you know, obviously, you’re selling insurance, but figure out a way to have some tangential touches into the world you want to sell to. So if you’re selling business insurance, into technology companies, maybe list your companies that you’re selling to so there’s some parallel into the industry you’re trying to get into. I just don’t have any, it is super hard. You can I know the obvious ones, like can’t go back to school and get another degree that’s expensive and time consuming. Sure. You might get lucky and just start using your network. And somebody that knows you can vouch for you say, Hey, I know this guy’s only did XYZ, but I know this guy personally, professionally. I know in about six months, you can be a great project manager for us, or so certifications in the world, you want to be in help. But lots of times customers are customers. So this may be the customer base we’re in because, you know, the the big companies like the Raytheon’s and a Lockheed Martin’s gently have more patience and time to train somebody up, right for our world of companies that are just, you know, 50 6080 employees, maybe 200 employees generally don’t have time to get something trained up. So yeah, it’s true. It’s hard. Aaron and I, the sooner if the sooner you realize the world you’re in, or the sooner these guys, a candidate or person realized that the world is not for them, start thinking how to get out of it. Because the longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be. It’s not a great answer.

Aaron Spatz  29:44

No, no, it’s good. No, it’s It’s good. I mean, you did you did draw on a couple of points that I’d like to like circle back to So one, it’s there. There may be times in your career. So like if you’ve been in the workforce for 10 years, 20 years or more. They’re there. Chances are at some point your line of business has crossed or intersected with it with a different industry that maybe you’re interested in. And so maybe you focus, like you’d said, focus a lot more on what you did there and focus less on the stuff that you don’t want to be doing anymore. And so like that, and then, I mean, it’s, it’s the age old answer when it comes to networking. I mean, networking is a is a, is a phenomenal tool. And there’s, the more people you know, the more that you’re able to help them, the more that they’re able to help you. And so if you feel let people know what you’re, you know, what you’re up to, and what you’re wanting to do. And to and to your point, I think it also depends on it. Like, it’s a classic answer. It depends. So it’s like, if, depending on how large of a leap you’re trying to make in terms of career, to your point about it being maybe not even possible. I, I completely agree. And then there may be other instances where, Hey, yo, it’s semi related, it may be a bit of a stretch, but it is possible. And so maybe an employer is willing willing to give you a shot. So no, I think it’s just it’s, it’s just, it’s just the reality, man,

Charlie Quinn  31:06

you touched on something I tell everybody in his, you know, as as a as a local recruiting guy here, you know, our company, we actually have networking metrics, we track in and expect people and it’s harder now, obviously, but we expect X expect people to go to x networking events a week. You know, things like that. Because we know it’s extremely important. And but as if you’re working at a company, you just never get to it. And it’s painful and not fun. And if you’re an introvert, it’s horrible. Why am I doing it, but when you need it, it’s too late. And so, and if anybody wants, if any listeners want some recommendations on where to network, they can reach out to me and I can give some great ideas. It’s not as daunting as once you do it once or I’ll go to a lunch and learn and meet some folks go to tech, happy hour or whatever world you’re in Fei and you know, finance an event, because 90% of people don’t want to be there either. They’re just coding because they so it’s a lot easier, a lot less daunting once you’re there. To do it, and I recommend if you, you have to do it, and I man, you, My wife hates doing it, but she does it because I make her do it. And so, take a buddy, take a battle buddy, take a wingman or wingwoman. But you’ve got to do it. Because that’s in our world. I mean, we’ve probably placed more people without fees, you know, VR network than we do with fees. And so, I mean that if that’s the only thing people anybody looking for a job or look for talent, if that’s the only thing that anybody gets out of this is networking is you’ve got to do that. And if you want some ideas on how to do it an easy way to reach out to Aaron or myself because we can get I can get tons of ideas. Sure makes it less painful than you might think it is.

Aaron Spatz  32:55

Yeah. Well and like you kind of touched on how people if you’ve got introverts, right and so it’s and my heart goes out my my heart goes out to a personality type I’m, I’m I’m married to I’m married to one right so I understand I understand the the anxiety that may be associated with with some of those events. And so you know, as you’re saying, it’s it’s important, it’s important, get yourself out there and it’s not it’s not as scary as you might think. You don’t have to be the life of the party. Party animal being freaking crazy around people. In fact, you’re the the, the introvert might actually do better at those events. We got angry. There there’s this intrigue and mystery about this person like, man, they must they must have their crap together. This other idiot over here is dancing around drunk act like a moron like okay, I don’t want that person.

Charlie Quinn  33:49

Exactly right my wife for her for me as excellent I think like you, you know, we draw energy from me people my wife loves people, but any group more than five or six, it stresses her out. So she’s got to work at it. And so for her it’s hard for But you’re exactly right here and it’s got to be done. And so for the person that wants to transition careers from from X to Y he he or she needs to start finding why events to go to in the world they want to be into because you might meet somebody that you click on interpersonal bait Well, you probably will need somebody to click with a guy this person is great. I know they don’t have any x, you know, skills but boy, but we could train them up because they just see motivated, fit our culture, etc. So

Aaron Spatz  34:31

yeah, 100% of you stay connected and then you never know, three months, six months, 12 months from then then something happens or like this is for me this has happened more often than not is it’s not even like that initial connection. It’s like, Hey, I’ve got a guy or I’ve got I’ve got this this this lady I know works in this company. You need to meet her or you need to meet this guy. It always ends up coming like these second degree level connections and then and then I mean what it’s it’s true in any kind of business though. It’s like, the referral is always it’s like 100 times more powerful than just a cold cold entry into our into our relationship or it’s like, I’ve never mentioned before, bro, like, what are we doing here? But like, Hey, Charlie, I got your got your number from Amber she told me give me a call you’re great to work with and and then next thing you know it’s like things are rolling for

Charlie Quinn  35:25

you and I would say daresay hash at the numbers it’s it’s over half of the customers have been through referral network and the other half are folks that if you dig a couple layers through we’ve we’ve worked with people that are there. So you know the network is powerful. And on the candidate side, nobody refers a bad guy or a bad gal stripe never got a referral the candidate that’s been a bad fit, you’re not going to refer a knucklehead. Yeah. hugely powerful, like you said. So you know that, that that person looking to jump career jump industries, meet somebody at a networking event stays in touch, which is hard to do. And it takes work and it can be painful. But there could be one or two people online that gets referred through and through and, and they kind of launched a new career based on that. So yeah, for sure.

Aaron Spatz  36:16

For sure. Yeah. That’s awesome. So then shifting gears again going like I like to kind of look more than again at like the DFW job market and really just DFW in general. And so we’ve we’ve seen a lot of growth in DFW idling there’s a guy had on just either yesterday or the day before. Maybe it was Monday, I don’t know my days run together now. But we’re talking. We’re talking where the point is, we were talking about the rate of moving from, you know, any location United States to Texas. And the observation or the point was made that there is a ton of traffic coming from LA to Plano specifically, and then that was one and then I’ve talked to someone else who was saying that there’s a ton of traffic coming, obviously from New York, from California, there’s just there’s a lot of people coming here. And so what are what do you foresee being some of the challenges or even some of the opportunities for people in for companies as we’re continuing to grow? My my prayer, right is like, Man, I hope that our job market is growing at the same rate or or higher than the inbound people we have coming in.

Charlie Quinn  37:26

So this is an i gosh, I was were following some stats on that. I can’t remember. So I’m not going to quote any of them. Okay. No, I mean, correct. But, and this is kind of anecdotal stuff we see. And there’s might be nothing that I’m saying will be a huge revelation either. But so on a negative side. A bunch of money is moving in. And we’re certainly seeing that. And we have an HR consultant team that helps him move into Dallas, actually. The downside is there’s less talent to go around. Right. So it’s making the job market here for job searchers, better. So what are we seeing we’re not seeing?

Aaron Spatz  38:07

So So what you’re saying is, we’re there’s more people moving in right now than there are jobs available.

Charlie Quinn  38:14

Is that right? Available? Yeah, yep, yep. Yeah, exactly. Well, once again, I know everybody, not everybody has been lucky enough to, to not get laid off or whacked or, you know, do the COVID and downturns of business, etc. But, and I’m not trying to say that’s not an issue in some market segments or market sectors. But Jen, overall, there’s there are in our world, there are less people than there are jobs, the supply is lower than demand before. Well, so I’m not sure I gave you a good answer on that. Because I we I don’t know. But

Aaron Spatz  38:49

yeah, that’s all good. Like on the uncovered though. So that was a question I had for you. So like, what? What what impact if any, has COVID? Had on? on you and on on the business?

Charlie Quinn  39:03

Yeah. So. So we did take a revenue head dropped in the middle of the maybe a few months after the lockdown, June, July, August ish. Initially, it wasn’t because of layoffs. Everybody, everybody just hunker down. Right? So we had a few months of kind of hold. We still think we need these guys, but it kind of slowed down a little bit, etc, just based on the the uncertainty that our cloud companies we’re seeing, but And so but now, man, it is we have we you know, we do a job sheet every week or hot job sheets, and it’s probably longer than I’m looking at right now. It’s probably longer. We grade jobs based on certain criteria, you know, high to low priority in, you know, one to 10 and if you’re not a six or above, you probably don’t make the job sheet this week, just because for various reasons. And it’s been it’s We have more work now than we’ve ever had. And then we can handle so we go, and I was on a Dallas Business Journal call yesterday. Do you have to be 2021? What are you on that one yesterday by chance No. One economy in the area and over 60% of local leaders in this audience, all sectors, not just tech, a local business leaders feel it 2021 It’s going to be be a growth year for DFW. So I think everybody’s optimistic. You know, COVID, I think people have figured out how to deal with it in a lot of ways. Obviously, you can’t, you can’t change, you can’t change the fact that people start eating at restaurants or staying afloat. But I think a lot of our clients have have kind of figured out how to work around it and thrive. Yeah.

Aaron Spatz  40:50

Well, I mean, that that’s just the reality of business. It’s like, there’s, there’s the initial shock of COVID. And what that what that’s done to business, it’s, it’s interesting, what you’ve experienced, and how and how it’s affected your clients. So it wasn’t that people were, it wasn’t that maybe business was shriveling up, it was just like, hey, we’re gonna hold like, we’re holding our position, we’re not going to move right now, we’re not gonna do anything until we’re gonna wait it out. We’re gonna kind of see what happens. It’s so there’s, there’s been a ton. That’s happened, though. So companies have now through that, what I suspect is during that time, where they’re kind of holding their cards hold holding their position. Now they’re having to figure out, okay, the reality is, this is not going away, doesn’t look like it’s going to be going away anytime soon. How do we adapt? How do we overcome? And how do we use us? And so I guess the point I’m making here is, there’s an opportunity to be had throughout all this stuff. And so there’s, there’s companies that are capitalizing on this, there’s, there’s companies that are now offering and doing things now that they’ve never done before, because they realize that it’s an opportunity. And so I think it’s important for people to note that, yes, things that have happened, could potentially have adversely affected you in a big way. And I don’t and I do not want to sound insensitive to that. I get that I really, I really, really do. That being said, though, there’s a there’s a tremendous opportunity there in terms of like, how do I grow personally? How do I grow professionally? And then how does my business grow? Because now maybe it’s forced us to go into new markets? So like, have you seen any of your, your clients kind of have to make maybe a little bit of a parallel leap into a different? It’s a different market? Or it’s a different specialty? Um,

Charlie Quinn  42:29

I haven’t I’m trying to remember. Hashtag we think. And back, you know, back to the earlier point that we actually hired, we fit percent growth, we hired 2% Extra folks in our recruiting team. Wow, banking on this being sort of a in our market, I agree with you, I don’t want to, and this will be sort of a short lived, hiccup or blip. And so we were smart and price to heart more folks. Because, you know, we have to struggle to to support customers. We’ve seen a couple of them, and I’m trying to air air and trying to remember trying to figure out who they were. And it was interesting, since it would be an error, you would think, Gosh, dang, I I’m stumped. But we’ve had a couple clients, one that just got acquired by a by a strategic by big, it was a local financial technology company, about 8090. Folks, we probably placed a third of the people there who just got acquired by a multibillion dollar international company. And they pivot a little bit not necessarily the product, but who they’re selling into. Okay, is just just killed it. I can’t remember exactly what, what it was, I apologize. Yeah, no brand. But

Aaron Spatz  43:50

no, it’s all good. That’s been something I’ve seen that I’ve seen. I’ve seen companies not really change what it is they’re doing but they’re changing maybe who they’re targeting. And they’re, they’re realizing like, hey, wait a second, I’ve got a little bit larger market or a very small incremental shift in my business here, would then open up an opportunity in this other market that I’ve never even considered. So it’s, it’s a fascinating study, I think COVID has really, like in the next few years, there’s gonna be like, those stories are being written. Some of them are already written, but they’re being written right now. It’s gonna be fascinating to look back on this time in business history. To understand Man, these are the these are the initial like, the, like the hand sanitizer, the PVC shields and all the stuff like they’re the obvious, but then there’s all these other businesses that have that have. Yeah.

Charlie Quinn  44:41

And our HR team launched a, a, we launched a outplacement service right for folks to that are having layoffs. Help Help the candidates, find other jobs, make sure the resume squared away. Make sure they can put all sorts of things for people that have never really had to hunt for jobs. So Our HR team launched that that service and pretty successful. Yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s not trying not trying to take advantage of any bad situation, but there’s a lot of people and as a guy, it’s been recruiting for a long time. I forget how daunting complicated nerve wracking scary is looking for a job. Yeah, you know, so it’s I just don’t, you know, don’t don’t see that side of the world. So, but you’re right, yeah. Smart companies have pivoted if you if they can, there’s been some great companies that were in a world that just couldn’t they were in a world that, you know, they’re stuck where they are and what can they do? So

Aaron Spatz  45:36

I’ve definitely feel blessed to be in the DFW metroplex, there’s just there’s a ton of opportunity here. And there’s, there’s a lot going on. And as businesses expand and grow, I just I think it just bodes well for for for everybody. So it’s been been been been really cool to see. Yeah, as you know, as we’re winding down here, but would love to? Well, one, how can people get how can people get in touch with you like, what’s the best way to to reach out to you and get

Charlie Quinn  46:04

Sure. I’m on LinkedIn, it’s an old picture. So I need to update it. I’m getting trapped for that. But we did. I’m with humcap H MC AP. You call me at 469484603948469484639 or email me at sequin at humcap inc.com. But yeah, if anybody needs any help, or has further questions, be happy to happy to share what little I know. You know,

Aaron Spatz  46:35

awesome. What? What little, you know, come on, Charlie, but you’ve been around for a few minutes.

Charlie Quinn  46:40

Yeah, gray hair Definitely. Definitely. Definitely shows that. So

Aaron Spatz  46:44

the great the gray hair doesn’t doesn’t lie. So I mean, unless of course you’re getting a diet, you know, but that’s awesome. Well, hey, Charlie, I just want to thank you again. Thanks. Thanks so much for spending time with me this morning. This has been spent a lot of fun.

Charlie Quinn  46:58

Thanks, sir. Have a great rest today.