We live in a world where recruiters can connect with thousands of people with a single click. LinkedIn, CRMs, and AI tools all promise to manage relationships at a scale unimaginable a generation ago.
The challenge is that genuine trust doesn’t scale automatically. When interactions become automated and transactional, the very thing that makes recruiting work starts to break down. People still hire people they trust, and the best referrals still come through relationships, not algorithms.
So how do you build and maintain trust at scale?
My guest this week is Denise Chaffin, Founder of Top Source Talent and host of the Talking TA podcast. In our conversation, she shares how nearly four decades in recruiting have shaped her thinking on building trust at scale and ensuring technology strengthens relationships rather than undermines them.
In the interview, we discuss:
• The risk of transactional relationships
• Building and maintaining trust over time
• The limits of managing large networks
• How AI tools can support relationships
• Finding talent through unexpected connections
• Network Mapping
• Key skills to build trust and connection
• What the future looks like
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00:00
Matt Alder
Recruiting has always been built on trust. In today’s AI driven world, that matters more than ever. So how do you make sure you’re using technology to help build trust rather than eroding it? Just keep listening to find out.
00:18
Matt Alder
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01:22
Matt Alder
Hi there.
01:23
Matt Alder
Welcome to episode 788 of Recruiting Future with me, Matt Alder. We live in a world where recruiters can connect with thousands of people at the click of a button. LinkedIn, CRMs, AI tools. They all promise to manage relationships at a scale unimaginable a generation ago. The challenge is that genuine trust doesn’t scale automatically. When interactions become automated and transactional, the very thing that makes recruiting work starts to break down. People still hire people they trust, and the best referrals still come through relationships rather than algorithms. So how do you build and maintain trust at scale? My guest this week is Denise Chaffin, founder of TopSource Talent and host of the Talking TA podcast. In our conversation, she shares how nearly four decades of recruiting have shaped her thinking on building trust at scale and ensuring that technology strengthens relationships rather than undermining them.
02:30
Matt Alder
Hi, Denise, and welcome to the podcast.
02:33
Denise Chaffin
Hi, Matt. Thank you for having me.
02:35
Matt Alder
Well, it’s an absolute pleasure to have you on this show. Could you quickly introduce yourself and tell everyone what you do?
02:43
Denise Chaffin
All right. I’m in Phoenix, Arizona, in the U.S. so a little bit far from you. I have a company called TopSource Talent, and we’ve had this company now, well, since 2013, so 13 years this year. And we do recruiting for all sorts of industries. We’re very agnostic. But about three years ago, I started my own podcast. And thank you for being a guest on my podcast as well.
03:07
Matt Alder
It was a pleasure.
03:08
Denise Chaffin
Yeah. Called Talking Ta. It’s talkingta.com for anybody who wants to see the library. And again, Topsource Talent is my company. I’ve been recruiting since 1988, which kind of brings up our discussion today about relationship development.
03:25
Matt Alder
I think this is just such a great topic because so much content on my podcast, it’s about AI and automation, all these kind of things. And we talk about, you know, human relationships and the human aspects of things.
03:37
Matt Alder
But I wanted to kind of just.
03:38
Matt Alder
Really dive into it in a little bit more depth. So, I mean, it’s a. It’s an obvious question, but it seems like a good one to start with. How important are human relationships and human networks when it comes to recruiting?
03:49
Denise Chaffin
Oh, my gosh. It’s the core of what we do. And I think that people are overlooking that because they’re getting caught up with. With technology, so they’re kind of forgetting the, you know, the basics of our entire industry. I mean, you know, when I started in 1988, I. I had a Rolodex, you know, and I did a presentation recently on it and talked about, you know, how we’ve advanced from the Rolodex from what, 35, 38 years ago to current day. And it’s amazing, the transition that we’ve had. But I think along the way, we’ve kind of stumbled a bit, and we’ve gotten so caught up with technology, our relationships have become transactional, you know, versus real relationships. I made friends with some of the people, you know, that I developed relationships with early on in my. In my career.
04:38
Denise Chaffin
And some of those people, you know, became clients, and some of them became, you know, because people’s careers advance over the years, Right? So people that we connect with when they’re still new to career or maybe a candidate that we just, you know, connected with somehow, those people advance. They become vice presidents, they become CEOs, they become board members, and they bring you with them, you know, so once you’ve developed a relationship, generally speaking, especially if you maintain that relationship, it’s going to carry you quite far.
05:10
Matt Alder
Yeah. And I suppose that, you know, thinking back to that time before the Internet and before email was so widely used in business, which I can remember as well, you had to lean into relationships because there wasn’t so technology that could do this for you. So there was, like, you know, much more kind of effort to sort of be put into it. I mean, how does that translate to the digital world that we now live in? What are the parallels? What is it that people could be doing to make sure that they’re doing everything they can around the relationships that they have.
05:40
Denise Chaffin
You know, research has consistently shown that 60 to 70% of all of our jobs are filled through networks, not through job postings. So if you think about the networking aspect of relationship building, I recall, in fact, I think we still do to some degree make connections with people through conferences, through meetings, happy hours, oftentimes. I mean, I’ve made connections at airports, in airplanes, sitting next to somebody. I mean, developing relationships is something that we do from the time we wake up in the morning till the time we go to bed at night, unless we’re stuck at home, you know, and even then, you know, I mean, how many relationships now with technology do we develop using LinkedIn, using video conferencing, other meetings that we’re on?
06:26
Denise Chaffin
I know with my podcast I have, I mean, the relationships that I’m developing now through the podcast, when I see an article like with yours, I saw one of your postings, I thought, gosh, I need to connect with him. And so here we are. You know, it’s quite amazing, really, when we look at what we did to develop relationships years ago, how we’ve kind of lost touch with that. But I think we need to lean back into that now and go kind of back to basics, right? With an AI can help us. You know, AI can help us with, you know, what we call career relationship management now. And ATS companies are including, like CRMs now with their. With their platforms.
07:11
Denise Chaffin
And so there’s a lot we can do with AI, you know, with respect to, I guess, keeping us up to date on people’s lives. Even LinkedIn will do it. You can tag people on LinkedIn and then when somebody moves to a new position or they have a change in their life, you know, oftentimes we’ll be tagged and reminded. So that kind of stuff is great. That way we are staying in contact with people on a regular basis and the technology is helping us to do it.
07:42
Matt Alder
Yeah. And, you know, I know that there’s kind of various tools out there like Dex and Clay. If people haven’t come across these Almost like personal CRMs, they go kind of much deeper than and LinkedIn ever can in terms of managing these things. But I think that the thing for me that’s really important is what you’re describing there is what builds trust. And I think that in an increasing world of just AI slop and bake things and automation, trust is really important in the hiring process, isn’t it?
08:13
Denise Chaffin
Oh, my gosh, it’s amazing. It really is. Because there’s a saying in this lifetime, if we do something good for someone, they’ll tell one person. If we do something to piss somebody off, they’ll tell nine. You know, so trust is big. And quite truthfully, we’re all interconnected. You know, again, you know, when you have people that you’ve worked with, I’ve always said, never burn a bridge in this business, because, let me tell you can’t go back across once you’ve burnt it. And there have been a couple people that I’ve run into with my own career that have kind of burnt bridges, but at the same time, you don’t. I don’t even hear about them anymore. So I don’t think I was the only bridge that they burned. I’ve tried really hard to maintain trust, you know, with my relationships, because those relationships, they’re lifelong.
09:01
Denise Chaffin
You know, they endure forever. Even people who’ve retired, I stay in contact with because those people are still connected to other opportunities, even if it’s volunteer or board opportunities or. There was a woman that contacted me just the other day. It was funny. And she asked me if I’d be a presenter on a panel. And quite truthfully, she was like the last person I would have expected to hear from on something like that. But she’s kind of gotten involved with this company. They’re a nonprofit organization. So these relationships, because she trusted me for so many years, we’ve known each other 20 years, and, you know, I mean, she contacts me, right? Yeah. So.
09:41
Denise Chaffin
And it’s interesting, as far as clients go, there was a guy, in fact, that I placed with one of my clients in 2010, and he is now the VP of a new startup company. And we have a meeting actually today to talk about, you know, doing some work for his new company. So, I mean, these relationships, obviously, they just. They continue, they persevere, right?
10:04
Matt Alder
Yeah, absolutely. And I suppose what’s changed is, again, if we think back to the years before the Internet and email, et cetera, there was a limitation to the amount of people you could build a relationship with because you had to meet them face to face or on the phone. And there was time involved in sort of, you know, unearthing people to talk to. And that’s kind of disappeared because of how connected everything is. But it, you know, as you say, it means that people are potentially dealing with kind of thousands of connections and building meaningful trust and networks within that is difficult. But as you say, technology can help. I think in the future, I will be able to help even more.
10:43
Denise Chaffin
Oh, my gosh, yes. In fact, there’s a fun fact. Most professionals only actively maintain 150 to 200 relationships. It’s called the Dunbar’s number. But honestly, in our industry, most recruiters, executives and business developers actually meet, like you said, thousands of people over the course of a career. And it’s interesting because now we have, you know, the opportunity to stay connected with more people, like you’re saying, than before, you know, but at the same time, I mean, which tools? And that’s the part that I think that people kind of get a little bit stuck with. How are we going to stay, you know, connected with these people? You know, there’s something called network mapping. I don’t know, you know, how familiar you are with it, but it’s the future of AI capability.
11:31
Denise Chaffin
And AI will actually help us, you know, to stay networked, you know, with people in our circle, in our big, growing, huge circle. It’s almost like watching a spiderweb being built, right? Molecules growing, you know, so network mapping has become really big now. In fact, even LinkedIn has something called talent insights that helps with network mapping, which is really an awesome way to use technology because then it does keep us connected to more and more people. Not only that, but it helps us to connect to new people through the people that we already know. And you go back on trust, building trust. So when you do build a trust connection, I guess if you would want to call it that, with another person, that person then is also your segue to meeting other people.
12:27
Denise Chaffin
So again, you know, going back to the whole idea of a web, you know, it is a big web that we’re building for ourselves. So I guess we’re all spiders in some respects, right?
12:41
Matt Alder
There was a really unique moment in time where LinkedIn and Facebook hit the mass market. Just everyone was kind of joining them and we just had this incredible moment where we could suddenly see who people knew in common and reconnect with people that we’d lost connections with over a really long period of time. And I think unless you kind of live through that, it was, it was very difficult to describe. It was quite unique. And as you say, I think since then we’ve just kind of got very complacent about being connected to thousands and thousands of people. I think there’s been a, you know, we’ve relied on algorithms to kind of do this for us. And even with the changes to the LinkedIn algorithm, it’s now more about interest than connections.
13:24
Matt Alder
You know, people really need to think about how they can build that trust at scale and the kind of things that they need to say and do to be able to do that, don’t they?
13:32
Denise Chaffin
Oh, definitely. You know, it’s interesting. I went to a conference about, I guess it was two years ago, maybe I was at one of the. It was either Transform or I think it was Unleashed, the Unleashed conference here in the States. And there was a woman I was speaking with and I was actually interviewing her for the podcast that were doing for the event. And she made a comment about. Because I asked her, I said, hey, so what’s bringing you to this conference? And she said, well, honestly, she goes, I see these conferences now as like the new water cooler. She said, you know, I can come to these conferences and I can meet people from my own company yet work in other regions. I can meet people that are vendors, I can meet customers, I can meet peers that I haven’t worked with.
14:15
Denise Chaffin
She goes, it is. And I said, oh, that’s a great way to put it though, the new water cooler. So, I mean, we have other ways of connecting with people and staying in contact. But to your point, we have evolved from a long time ago and there are thousands of people now and it’s hard to maintain a lot more relationships. Thousands of relationships where, you know, like I was saying, Most people have 150 to 200 relationships that they can maintain. So honestly, you know, if we’re expected to use technology to stay connected to thousands of people, how else are we going to do it?
14:53
Denise Chaffin
So we can use technology though, to obviously, if we’re going to a conference to reach out to other people, find out if they’re going to be there and make those, you know, in person and face to face connections while we are at conferences or events.
15:07
Matt Alder
I completely agree. And I think that’s why, you know, I always like to attend so many face to face conferences, because you kind of build trust there. You build, you know, you meet people, you have conversations that you wouldn’t have on zoom, if that makes sense. I think also since work has become a lot more remote, you know, meetings have become very functional, haven’t they? You know, you kind of have a zoom meeting with someone, you have a very sort of clear time span and an idea about what you’re going to talk about that is different from meeting someone face to face.
15:37
Denise Chaffin
Yeah, definitely. I think still there’s a lot of value added to, you know, getting on a plane when you can and meeting people face to face. But yes, I think video conferencing has been a lifesaver especially since COVID you know, Covid started it kind of pushed us in the direction of more video conferencing and digital connection, which is fine, right? But when you do have the opportunity, like you said, to meet people face to face, having, I think a combination, not leaning into one idea or the other, either face to face or digital, I think having a good mixture and a good combination of both is probably the winning solution. And you had mentioned some of the platforms that are available that I would call today’s current Rolodexes like Clay and Dex and HubSpot.
16:24
Denise Chaffin
And again, the ATS platforms that are being revised and updated to include all of these new AI supported features that are helping because I know the ATS that I’m using has a CRM attached to will tag people for me because there’s. What do you call them, the little extensions that you have to other technology. You have to be careful with it. But once you know what’s going to work for your tech stack, I mean, you can integrate, you know, other pieces, other tools, you know, to help you stay more on top of, you know, some of the relationships that, you know, are important that you know, that you want to, you know, stay connected with. Because again, you know, this is the heart of our business relationships, really is the core and the heart of what we do in this business.
17:14
Matt Alder
Right at the start of the conversation, you mentioned that way back in 1988, this was such a key part of what we do and that we lost some of the skills around this. We’ve talked a lot about, you know, staying connected and mapping networks and all those kind of things to help us deal with the volume of information and people. But what are those kind of core skills for building relationships that you think there’s less focus on that need to come back?
17:39
Denise Chaffin
Oh, my gosh. One of them. I remember when I first started recruiting, I had a couple of positions that I needed help with. The technology that I was looking for at the time was new. One in particular, I was looking for a CAD designer, computer aided design engineer. And this person needed to have experience with Pro E that was some sort of a CAD tool. And at the time there was something called Catia that was the one that was being used the most. And I thought, oh my gosh, how am I going to find somebody with Pro E? I have no idea. Well, what I did is I contacted a guy that works in sales for Pro E. They said, hey, I think his name is Mike.
18:17
Denise Chaffin
And I go, hey, Mike, I’m really looking for Somebody with this experience and Pro E is kind of a new tool. I need to find out where would I find someone? He’s, oh, I can help you out, no problem. He said, there’s a couple of companies that started using it, but it didn’t work out, he said, and they were acquired by other companies. And so there’s these people who are going to be looking for new positions now. He gave me some names and I thought, oh my gosh, this was super helpful. And I did that again. I kind of repeated that exercise of getting connected with salespeople because they are kind of the, I guess the traffic cops, if you will.
18:52
Denise Chaffin
You know, of any industry, they can kind of tell you who’s hiring, who’s contracting, who their competitors are companies, you know, they can direct you to talent that you need. So I made a point of getting connected with people in sales at the time because they really were. And not only that, but they were super willing and helpful to give, you know, leads and to give referrals. So they became my Rolodex. Those were some of the. Yeah. And I remember also the engineers that were working with because I was really entrenched in the tech and the semiconductor industries. They would take us with them to their product conferences, to the industry conferences and introduce us to people. And that was great. So I’ve always made a habit of collecting business cards.
19:42
Denise Chaffin
In fact, last year I went to the Semicon west conference here in Phoenix, came back with a huge stack of business cards. And I still use them. I am still somebody who’s a big supporter of business cards. Never gotten rid of them. And I think most people feel that way. Here we are with all this technology, all these years later, and people are still giving out business cards. So there are other ways of connecting and staying connected besides the technology.
20:09
Matt Alder
Absolutely. Finally, what do you think the future is going to look like? How is this all going to pan out? What role are recruiters going to be playing in a few years time?
20:18
Denise Chaffin
I think that we’re going to take a few steps back. I think that we’ll look at technology, see what’s going to work well for us. You know, we all live through. You and I both lived through the dot com era, right, where we saw this big, huge expansion, you know, once the Internet did make its way into our lives. And I think that we’ll see the same thing with AI except it might happen faster. The Internet, I think, maybe kind of slow rolled us a little bit, but not too much though, because I didn’t have my first email account till 1994, and it was in 2000 that the DoT com bust happened.
20:53
Denise Chaffin
But what happens there is, you know, you’ve got this expansion that happens quickly and rapidly and then all of a sudden there’s a contraction because people are saying, okay, this is what’s going to work for me. This is what’s going to work for my company. And they find a place where they’re comfortable, you know, a tech stack that they can work with. Something that is going to help them to bridge between the technology and the human aspect. Because we are putting so much focus right now on the human aspect of our positions, our industry, our connections.
21:27
Denise Chaffin
So I think that we will kind of be taking a step backwards and reconnecting the way we did 35 years ago with people, but using the technology to help us to be smarter, to help us to connect or stay connected in ways that we haven’t experienced before. So I think there’ll be a kind of a combination of older relationship building skills that we had a long time ago coupled with the AI technology that can help us to maintain them.
21:55
Matt Alder
Denise, thank you very much for talking to me.
21:57
Denise Chaffin
Thank you, Matt. Appreciate it.
22:00
Matt Alder
My thanks to Denise. You can follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can search all the past episodes at recruitingfuture.com on that site. You can subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Recruiting Future Feast, and get the inside track on everything that’s coming up on the show. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
