For the podcast this year I’m committed to searching far and wide for the most interesting stories and ideas in recruiting and HR. Change is now a constant in our world and the people who are prepared to strike out from the norm and experiment are the ones driving innovation. My guest this week is a brilliant example of what is possible when you think about things differently.
Larry Hernandez is currently a Talent Scout for Thought Works having formerly worked for both Rackspace and Zappos. By working while driving round America in an “RV” he is bringing a whole new meaning to mobile recruiting.
In the interview we discuss:
• Why Larry choose his unique approach to work life balance
• What it is like to source and recruit on the road
• How his alternative lifestyle is helping build connections with candidates
• His experiences of working in the unique culture at Zappos where his team were the beta test for the much talked about move to holocracy.
Larry also talks about recruiting innovation and his predictions for where things are going (including him and his RV!) in 2016
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
Support for this podcast comes from Broadbean, a smart, innovative global recruitment technology business, which helps recruiters to reach candidates in a fast, effective and efficient way. I recently spoke with their client James Purvis, Head of Talent Acquisition at cern, to find out what he loves about Broadbean. What I love about Broadbean is the ability to take decisions based on data. So instead of having to believe what the vendors provide you in terms of their information of how many candidates they’re going to bring to you, you can really use the metrics of the tool to understand how many of the clicks turn into applications, how many of those applicants turn into interviews, and how many become higher. So it’s all about evaluating the quality and not just the quantity. To find out more, go to www.broadbean.com.
Matt Alder [00:01:06]:
This is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 39 of the Recruiting Future podcast. This is my third episode of 2016 and I wanted to thank everyone for the really kind feedback about the first two episodes and also thank John Blastilika and Brad Cook for being such great interviewees. This week I wanted to bring you a slightly different perspective on the world of recruiting. Larry Hernandez is currently sourcing tech talent for ThoughtWorks and literally recruiting on the road as he drives around America in an rv. Larry has had a really interesting career. As well as giving his insights into his rather unique work life balance, he shares some very, very interesting experience he’s had working in some very, very different company cultures. Enjoy the interview. Hi Larry and welcome to the podcast.
Larry Hernandez [00:02:02]:
Hey Matt, thanks for having me.
Matt Alder [00:02:03]:
My absolute pleasure. Could you just introduce yourself and tell everyone what you do?
Larry Hernandez [00:02:10]:
Sure, sure. So my name is Larry Hernandez. I’ve been been recruiting for about 15, 16 years now. Currently I’m at, I’m consulting for ThoughtWorks, helping them source tech candidates. And then I also have my own little consulting firm with my girlfriend Elsie, who is also a recruiter called Recruiter DNA.
Matt Alder [00:02:30]:
And there’s kind of quite a specific reason that we’re, that we’re talking because you, you have, what’s the best way to describe this? A kind of an alternative sort of work lifestyle in terms of location. Could you sort of tell everyone what you’ve, what you’ve been up to in the last three or four months?
Larry Hernandez [00:02:49]:
Yeah, so. So about three and a half months ago, maybe about four months ago, while I was at a rack space, my boss and others were Leaving for sabbatical. And I started talking. I come home and talk to Elsie. I’m like, wow, they’re going to Costa Rica and they’re going here and they’re going there. And it just kind of planted the seed. Kind of got me excited on one end and then also a little discouraged that every day I was kind of stuck in this cubicle type life. Nothing, nothing to. Nothing wrong with the company. Just that lifestyle, right? You’re in meetings, you’re in conference calls, and it’s just kind of very corporate. And we just started talking about we should travel. And she was already working remote. But so we just started thinking about it, and we have our two English Bulldogs, and we hate it when we fly and have to leave them somewhere. So somehow on YouTube, I came across this couple who travels in an RV, kind of a mobile home. And we just started watching them and it just started gathering momentum till we started going and visiting them and looking through them on the weekends. And it just kind of happened. We put a plan together and I took a consulting gig with ThoughtWorks. We bought an RV. I’d never even been in one, and I was scared to death to drive the thing because it’s huge. And now we spend about 85% of the time on the road from just kind of seeing America, right? We were just got back from the mountains in Utah. We’ll go down to the coast, just wherever and just kind of, you know, stop. We have our home with us, right? You got your bed, your shower, your groceries, your clothes, your. Your tv. So wherever we stop, we’ve got the house with us.
Matt Alder [00:04:32]:
And so, you know, just to clarify, you are. You are literally recruiting on the road, so.
Larry Hernandez [00:04:37]:
That’s correct.
Matt Alder [00:04:38]:
And as you go, you’re. You’re sourcing candidates. And what is it, Is it sourcing? Is it interviewing, you know, what, what exactly, what sort of activities you actually. You actually doing work on?
Larry Hernandez [00:04:47]:
It’s both. So, you know, when we first. When you look at pictures of these RVs, they’re these beautiful, you know, beautiful modern vehicles. And I just kind of assumed in my mind that I would be able to drive and talk and, you know, Elsie would be kind of in the back in the living room just kind of working and talking. What I didn’t realize is it moves a lot more than you think and it’s loud. So that kind of nicks that whole idea of working really on the road. So we just kind of, you know, we try to travel, do most of the driving on the weekends, and then, you know, be where we’re going to be at a week at a time. And then we, you know, I’ve hooked up, invested in some technology to get WI fi, a WI fi booster that’ll take a weak signal from 2 miles away and kind of combine signals and we got a hotspot and, and it’s kind of like going back to the late 80s or 90s. It’s kind of like we go where the WI fi is. The WI fi is what drives the agenda.
Matt Alder [00:05:51]:
Very cool. And how far have you traveled so far? Where have you been? What’s been your route?
Larry Hernandez [00:05:59]:
Right. Well, right away I wanted to go to a conference and ThoughtWorks has been really creative, I mean supportive with this whole thing. They’re even talking about buying a wrapper for it and making it like the ThoughtWorks Mobile Recruiting Mobile. And you know, so we needed to be in Chicago. So we bought it one weekend. And it’s tough because it’s like buying a car and a house. So the sales process is painful but we had to hurry up. So we went up to Chicago from the middle of Texas, you know, kind of a three and a half day, four day trip. And we were really pushing it because we had to be there by a certain time. So that’s probably. And we’ve put about 10,000 miles of travel on the, on the RV so far. So we’ve been to Utah, the mountains in Utah, we’ve been to Colorado, we spent Thanksgiving, we took my mom and we went down and went to the coast and just thought it’d be cool to do some fishing and be at the coast for Thanksgiving. So we just kind of Elsie looks at the Travel Channel and looks at all the high ranking RV parks and we just kind of go fantastic.
Matt Alder [00:07:03]:
And I think the, certainly for the British audience that are listening, I don’t think they’ll fully sort of appreciate just how big, just how big your RV is because we don’t have them that size in this country. I mean how big is it, how long is it? How much space is there inside?
Larry Hernandez [00:07:24]:
So ours is a 30 foot and it’s actually kind of the, the baby. The entry level because these things are very expensive. You know they could, they start off with the ones that you drive. It’s kind of like a van or like not like a big bus. So I mean they start off around 90 and they go up to you know, half a million. A million. Wow. So we kind of got the entry level one and but you know it’s got, it’s got a living room, it’s got A3 TVs, it’s got A king size bed, it’s got its own bathroom, its own shower, it’s got its own little kitchen. Everything turns into a bed. It’s got a little loft that comes down electronically and it’s nice. I mean, yeah, it’s tight, but I mean, we’ve got all of our amenities. We’ve got, you know, they do amazing things now with the amount of space that you’ve got. So it’s really, really cool.
Matt Alder [00:08:20]:
And do you, you know, when you’re talking to candidates, do you tell them where you are and what you’re doing?
Larry Hernandez [00:08:26]:
Yeah, I found that to be my opinion is that there’s this huge gap between recruiters and software developers. It’s almost to the point where they don’t really want to talk to us, they don’t really want to deal with us. So I find that using that as the icebreaker really opens it up. Because I didn’t know because this wasn’t a long term, this wasn’t something I wanted to do. It wasn’t necessarily my dream. But it’s a lot of other people in the US they always tell me that’s my dream. When I retire, I, I want to travel in an RV. And you would be surprised. You know, 50% of the people I talk to have some kind of dream or goal about doing this. So, yeah, no, it opens up the conversation. Definitely.
Matt Alder [00:09:06]:
Fantastic. And what’s the sort of the most unexpected thing you found from doing this?
Larry Hernandez [00:09:13]:
I guess all the other people that are doing it. So when I thought of RV parks, there’s this image that comes to my mind with they’re kind of like campgrounds and these community campgrounds. And typically people who do RVing, they call it, are typically retirees. So the demographics are people in their late 60s, 70s. So by far, Elsie and I are the youngest out there. In fact, when I do run into somebody, because sometimes you park kind of close. Everybody has their own little yard at these RV parks. The, the people will come out and say, oh, hey son, are you driving this somewhere else? Like, are you like the mechanic? Or they just kind of assume it’s not ours, you know, but I guess there’s this whole community of people that are on the road and, and they’re just happy, right? They, they, they sell their house. Usually, I guess their kids, you know, they’re empty nesters and they’re just on the road. It’s a lifestyle.
Matt Alder [00:10:11]:
Fantastic. Now you’ve, you’ve, you’ve worked in some Sort of pretty interesting places in the. In. In. In the last few years. Do you want sort of fill everyone in with, you know, the kind of brands that you’ve worked for and how you’ve, you know, how you found that?
Larry Hernandez [00:10:28]:
Sure, sure. Well, I mean, back in the. I guess, the mid-90s, I just started like most people, as in an agency, right? Just. And I just wanted to see how the other side lived, right? I wanted to break in to how the other side lived. And at that point in the mid-90s, the agencies had the upper hand, right? They had the magical sauce. They had the. We have the largest database of candidates than anyone else. And, you know, it was this mystical thing. And now I think it’s totally switched, but that’s another conversation. But so I started, you know, I needed some experience, so I started working for an rpo Accenture as an rpo, as a contract recruiter. Then I was at usaa. I think when you and I met, I was a recruiter, tech recruiter at usaa, which is a huge, huge, huge bank and insurance company that serves the military and their family. It’s very conservative. But I want you to imagine, I mean, it’s got its own city block here in San Antonio. I mean, it’s huge. It’s literally its own city. It’s got its own zip code. It’s got its own power plant. You literally have to drive around in the halls to get to places. But it’s very conservative. And so from there, I knew that that wasn’t probably aligned with my, you know, with who I am. I’m pretty creative. And. And so I. The people at Zappos reached out to me and said, hey, you want to start a sourcing program? We’ve never had one. Why don’t you come to Vegas and. And start one? And those people that know me also know that I love playing poker. I dreamed of being a professional poker player. And so the thought of Vegas, Zappos, and starting a. A sourcing team was like, you know, I actually took a pay cut. People laugh when my exit interview, they’re like, what can we do to keep you? Is it money? I’m like, no, I’m actually taking a pay cut because I know it’s just. It’s such a great opportunity, you know?
Matt Alder [00:12:18]:
Yeah, fantastic. What was it like working at Zappos? Because, you know, there are always stories coming out about, you know, the type of workplace it is and some of the. Some of the crazy things that go on and the creativity that goes on. What was it Actually like to work there and set up, set up a sourcing program.
Larry Hernandez [00:12:38]:
It was, it was a, a culture shock. I, I never really worked outside of Texas and especially without where I was coming from. You know this. Yes sir, no sir. The CEO at USA was a, was a general. I hope I’m getting that right. But you know, high rank, a lot of military. Right. And then to go to this place where literally there was fits of, of tequila and, and brandy and they’d bring in margarita machines for, for meetings. I mean, literally on our desks in the HR department there was bottles and you could, you know, there was this little drinking game going around and if they got you, you have to do a shot right there. And so I mean it was like, whoa. Right. And luckily I went there when I wasn’t so young, I probably wouldn’t have made it. You know, it’s so much freedom and it’s, it’s literally, I call it a West Coast. It’s got a very west coast US feel. It’s kind of like no dress code. Come as you are, we love you. You. How I describe it, it’s more of a. And I’m not trying to be in any way disrespectful, but it’s more of a nurturing kind of a feminine. You know, if most companies are male, ego driven, like sales, get it done, be a man. This was more of a let’s make everyone happy, let’s. It was a nurturing type of environment. Most of the issues were how not to tell someone something that was going to hurt their feelings or we can’t do that. You know, that wouldn’t be right. It might hurt their feelings. So it was definitely a culture shock. But the cool thing was at the time my timing was perfect because that’s when they started. We were the beta test for Holacracy, which was that self organizing, they call it an operating system and it was if you believe in destiny, all those things. I mean, I think that’s why I was there was to experience that whole implementation and I think it’s, I do think something like it or it is going to be the future. But so it was really, really cool to experience that and see it kind of from the beta test all the way to implementation.
Matt Alder [00:14:45]:
So to clarify that that’s where there are like no managers and everyone’s sort of self organizing themselves. There’s no hierarchy, no job titles. Is that what’s the actual kind of theory behind it?
Larry Hernandez [00:14:57]:
Yeah, and it’s one of these deals where it’s Funny, because we were. I was in a meeting, and I didn’t really know if Tony Hsieh. We lived in the same building, but he’s Tony Hsieh. And I’m a recruiter who just started, you know, at the company. And we were in a meeting, and someone asked Tony to, you know, this was my big chance. Someone asked Tony to explain Holacracy. And we had been to enough happy hours where we had a mutual friend, and someone said, hey, Larry really gets it. Like, he gets Holacracy. So he’s like, larry, why don’t you explain it? So Tony Hsieh throws it over to me, and I just kind of stumble and kind of ramble on. So it’s very hard to explain, but the best way I can do it. And I should have prepared for this because it’s very hard to explain, but it’s not necessary. It’s not chaos. It’s a structured. The team gets together. You find the recruiting team, right? We all do the same kind of work. So you say, okay, you guys are a team, and you separate the people from the work, right? So you say, okay, someone’s got a. You know, people are going to apply and they’re going to call the 800 number of the email. Someone has to answer those, right? So that’s something. So we all agree that that’s a piece of work that has to be done. Someone’s got a source, right? I mean, someone’s got to go out and find these people. So that work has to be done. And as a team, we all kind of list the things with a. With a person helping us. And we say, yes, we agree that we make our mission statement. We’re going to bring the best talent to Zappos. These are the things that have to be done. Then we say, who wants to do what? And so, you know, no longer, like, if you’re a manager, but you hate expense reports, or if you’re a sourcer but you hate doing one thing, it kind of changes the way you think about things. And like, Larry, if you’re passionate about marketing, why don’t you take on all the marketing things? And you say, yeah, that makes sense. And so everyone kind of just gravitates to what they want to do, yet all the work gets done. And then you agree, okay, so, Larry, if you’re going to do this, what can we expect out of you? But it’s not personal, right? We even give it a name. It would be called, like, the Sourcing Wizard. What can we expect out of the sourcing wizard. And it’s not like, Larry, you messed up. It’s more like, hey, the sourcing wizard. Here are the numbers. What can we do to better help that sourcing wizard position? The cool thing is nothing is written in stone. Every week or two, I could say, hey, you know what, I don’t want to do this anymore. And you can literally, just like that, you are no longer the expense report person. And then it sits there and then the old manager, who’s what they call the lead link, has to pick up the slack and then his job is to kind of find someone else who wants to take it anyway. It’s, it’s really, really cool because everyone kind of floats to their passion. And this is company wide. So if you want to be, if you’re, you know, you want to be, they have these huge events right, every quarter. If you want to be a part of that, you can kind of. Whereas before you couldn’t quit recruiting, I’d have to quit as a recruiter, burn my bridges and go somewhere else in the company and internally transfer. We could just say, hey, Larry’s got about 30% capacity. He’s passionate about that. Can he spend his 30% of the time over there? And they say, yeah, let’s try it. And you kind of just try it. Right? It just, it’s, it’s, I think it’s the future.
Matt Alder [00:18:13]:
Fantastic. I mean, that sounds, it just sounds such a incredible environment to work in. And I can see how it kind of might have got your sort of brain working to, you know, in terms of, in terms of what you, in terms of, in terms of what you do now.
Larry Hernandez [00:18:29]:
Right.
Matt Alder [00:18:31]:
Just a couple of, sort of, a couple of sort of final questions. What, what do you think? You know, where do you think recruiting is going in 2016 from where you’re, you know, where, where you’re kind of sitting in the industry, you know, what, what, what do you think’s happening in terms of innovation? What, what, what can we expect to see this year?
Larry Hernandez [00:18:52]:
Right? And I, and I was thinking about this before, before talking to you and I know it’s hard to say what’s going to happen. I know what I’d like to, I’m trying to blog more, right? So I’m trying to think about these things and looking back at the experiences I’ve had, the big trend now, I know on the US side is to separate everything out. Kind of like industrialization, right? We’ve got, let’s say Amazon has 1100 sourcers and that’s what they do. They source, they don’t talk to the hiring managers. They may not even, you know, they do this one thing in the factory, right. They just pound the head of the pin and they move it on to the recruiters. And the recruiters are different than sourcing. It’s so specialized now. And when I’m with these companies and they say, hey, Larry, let’s hire a source or recruiter, you know, they’re so specialized that these people don’t see the big picture. So it’s hard to innovate. Right. Everyone’s just trying to hit their metrics as a group. So I think, I mean, I would love to see something like the recruiter move into the hiring team. You know, I think there’s this us versus them type thing. There’s the in house recruiter and then there’s the hiring teams and then there’s this riff. I think if it would be really cool if, if you could have the recruiter actually report to the hiring manager and be a part of the team. Right.
Matt Alder [00:20:11]:
Interesting.
Larry Hernandez [00:20:12]:
Yeah.
Matt Alder [00:20:12]:
So, yeah, no, that’s. That’s an interesting perspective, certainly. And what, you know, what, what about, what about you in 2016, literally? Where are you headed? Where are you heading next?
Larry Hernandez [00:20:23]:
Right. Well, I think we’re going. So I like to play poker and I’ve reignited my passion for fishing. So with those two things, Elsie has planned out a route to where we can stay warm. We kind of follow the fall as far as the seasons, and then we can do some fishing and there’s a casino there. And so we’ll probably go up to Arizona, maybe Oklahoma, kind of in that area, back and forth until it gets warm, and then we head up to Montana. That’s going to be our big trip. It’s supposed to be this beautiful mountainous area, but I just want to keep creating. Right. I’m trying to push myself. I’m not a great writer, but I’ve committed to. Oh, you can hear my bulldogs in the background. I apologize. So I’m not a great writer, but I’ve committed to blogging. Right. I want to create videos and I want to. I have all these interests, so I’m just experimenting with pixel tracking and smart email lists and inbound marketing. I’m just kind of playing with these things on my own and I just want to kind of see what I can do.
Matt Alder [00:21:27]:
Fantastic. And where can people find your vlog and connect with you?
Larry Hernandez [00:21:32]:
So, yeah, my blog is recruiter Larry.com and then recruiterDNA.com is our company website where we do training and we even do some consulting for some companies. Mostly people I used to work with or someone that has a problem. We’ll will help them.
Matt Alder [00:21:48]:
Cool. Fantastic. Larry, thank you very much for talking to me.
Larry Hernandez [00:21:51]:
Hey man, it’s been a pleasure.
Matt Alder [00:21:53]:
My thanks to Larry Hernandez and of course, his two English bulldogs. You can subscribe to this podcast in itunes and on Stitcher. If you go to the podcast website www.rfpodcast.com, you can listen to past episodes, subscribe to the mailing list, and also find out more about me. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next week and I hope you’ll join me.
