Leveraging Psychology and Data to Drive Better Talent Attraction Outcomes

Dr. Jim: [: 00:00:00

He's a 20 year talent acquisition vet with numerous leadership roles in both agency and corporate settings. He's known for the differentiated recruiting model. He's won multiple awards across many different TA tech organizations, particularly iSIMS and Glassdoor have recognized them in the past.

He's the past president of the association of talent acquisition professionals, and is the current director of global talent acquisition for. Holland, America group, Jim D'Amico. Welcome to the show.

Hi,

Jim D'Amico: thank you. And I just want to clear up I lead shoreside talent acquisition for Holland, America group.

So please don't even call me up to find a job on a ship. I do all the land based hiring.

Dr. Jim: That's a good [: 00:01:00

There's probably stuff that I left out. Why don't you fill us in on some of the things that I didn't include that you feel is important for the listeners to be aware of that, get them tuned into kind of what you're about and your story.

Jim D'Amico: I think the niche that I've created within the talent space is that I really work to either build or improve existing TA functions.

And I like everyone that is in TA did not begin in TA. That was not my dream as a child to be part of that. So I actually have a background that is both military and at the exact opposite comedic. So I've done standup comedy in the past and I was a soldier and here I am in talent now.

im: I'd love to get into the [: 00:02:00

So I think that'll offer a nice flavor for those who are we're listening. So let's dive into the conversation. Our main focus of our show is helping people leaders and practitioners in general, build high performing teams. So when you think about your career and all the things that you've learned in your career, what was one of the biggest game changing realizations or discoveries that you had that really accelerated your ability to build high performing teams?

specialized knowledge could [: 00:03:00

But I realized pretty quickly that what we did was based on science. And that's data science, that's psychology. And we just weren't training and developing people that way. We weren't providing that data to our customers to be more actionable. So that was a big aha moment for me.

Dr. Jim: Walk us through how you actually got to that aha moment?

Jim D'Amico: So the realization for me started with in, in that. Initial agency role. This was a long time ago, this was straight commission. So if you didn't fill roles and open jobs, you didn't get paid. And so I tracked everything I did right now. My managers at the time was like, we're always like, say this, do this.

bs. And I had to interview Y [: 00:04:00

And then that's where I started to layer in more of the psychology, right? So how. Could I be more influential to make those calls more valuable? It was really about for me, maximizing effectiveness. And then when I moved that into a corporate setting the corporate setting was way far away from.

From that, they didn't even think it was art. They thought it was luck that they were able to fill positions. So again, starting to apply KPIs and metrics and being able to measure performance and at least start to establish baselines and build a path to how to improve really. Changed my world a great deal.

ween the agency side and the [: 00:05:00

So you out of necessity started measuring everything. One of my gripes being. Somebody from the agency world anyways, is that oftentimes there's this tendency nowadays for leaders of agency organizations. To confuse activity with achievement. So they're driving just constant metrics and measuring everything, but it feels like it's gone too far.

When we're talking about leveraging data, leveraging science to drive outcomes, what are some of the best practices that leaders in TA or HR need to pay attention to? So you're not just. Measuring activity for activity's sake, but you're measuring the right activity.

Jim D'Amico: Yeah, that's and that is such an issue.

that I look at because look [: 00:06:00

And so we look at people being busy versus being productive. So one of the key metrics that I've always looked at with my teams is Overall hiring velocity, right? And the way that we look at that is in a set period. So let's say a rolling 12 months, the number of positions that are open versus the number of positions that have been filled, because that is a metric that affects.

A client or a company's ability to be productive themselves and to do what they want to do. So we try to tie all of our work ultimately into share and stakeholder value. And I think that's, what's most important. Bad. Bad managers. There's a difference between managers and leaders. And we can have a whole nother conversation about that one day.

aders manage results. And we [: 00:07:00

We're here to help generate revenue. We're held here to help generate shareholder value.

Dr. Jim: So you mentioned the comment, managers manage activity, leaders manage results. So what's interesting about that statement, and I don't disagree with that at all. The problem that I've seen, and I've also heard it from a lot of people leaders, Across many different industries, the disconnect that they see in their organizations is that executive leadership will have great vision and mission and all that sort of stuff.

ll. Then when you get to the [: 00:08:00

But unfortunately, a lot of organizations aren't even equipping managers with the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary or required to be really effective. So my question to you is if we're looking at. Leveling up managers to be more of a leader type. What are the things that you've done throughout your career from a manager effectiveness perspective that other listeners need to pay attention to, to get those managers out of just task management and more into that people leadership?

Role that they should be in.

o I really believe in making [: 00:09:00

People knew we, we had doctors, we had surgeons, we, we had hospitals, but what they weren't connecting with was we existed to improve the health of the community that we serve. So that meant one, having my people go on rounds, understanding that impact, bringing in. People that had been positively impacted by our services that were alive today because of the people that my team helped to hire.

n a lifetime experiences for [: 00:10:00

I'm always surprised how many TA teams sit in a room or sit in their homes and never ever interact with the business. They don't sit in on meetings, we don't engage with different departments and we don't all tie it into that vision and purpose. It's a simple fix and one that every business I've ever been a part of has been like, yes, let's do that.

Dr. Jim: That's a really good point that you brought out. You can't silo yourself within your job function. What are some of the things that managers can do to build that habit within their organizations to get the line level people more engaged with what's going on in the business?

s that they are, over, we're [: 00:11:00

That's, and every employee feels that way as well. So there's two things that a manager can do. One, managers have to lead from the front, right? And that's a lesson that I Got from the army for military college. Our first message to our teams is pick up your rifle and follow me, right?

So they have to set an example. They have to be engaged with the business. They have to be lifelong learners about everything we're doing. But the other thing that managers do is managers really should be enabling efficiency, right? We should be making the lives of our students, right? Teams is easy as possible, and the greater understanding you have about the business, the teams, the actual environment that people are going to be going into, the easier your job becomes.

g to find people and finding [: 00:12:00

So much easier. That's where the hard work really comes in TA.

Dr. Jim: I'll need you to clarify something there. We spend too much time finding people instead of recruiting people. Tell us a little bit about... What you mean by that?

Jim D'Amico: Because we're not good at recruiting, we are constantly going through a churn of trying to fill the top of our funnel and hoping that somebody will be interested.

about sourcing. It's really, [: 00:13:00

We have to be better at. Identifying the right personas. And if we're in the business, if we know what's successful in the business, because we spend time there, we can hone in on those better personas, and then we can move from attraction to seduction, right? So it's not like it was before. You can't put up a help wanted sign, even a digital help wanted sign and expect to fill your really high value positions, you have to engage with candidates. That's where your time should be spent developing those relationships with your candidates and digitally, physically a person on the phone, whatever really building them up so that they're ready for your jobs when you open them. So that's a better, more efficient use of time.

But the closer you are to business, the better you are to have those seduction type conversations with a candidate.

bring it full circle to what [: 00:14:00

So when we're talking about, seduction versus sourcing, bring that all together and tie it to the top of the conversation. How can we leverage data science and psychology to get better at recruiting versus the alternative, which is just. Being in this constant sourcing hamster wheel .

Jim D'Amico: We live in a world where there's so much data that can help us, right? So when we start to understand the personas that we should be pursuing for our key roles, we have to ask ourselves a couple of questions and start getting some data points. So the first one, and we can look at. Everybody has these, it's not even a digital footprint anymore, right?

ve digitally, right? Because [: 00:15:00

Because ultimately we need to understand what our micro value propositions are for roles, right? So what are our really two to three key differentiators that are absolute differentiators, right? You can't say, Oh we're a people focused company. Everybody says that cancels out. So what is the right message?

his data to pull all of that [: 00:16:00

To that right person at the right place, and what's really great, we also see if we got it wrong really fast. So if we need to change or if we need to run a B testing, if we're not sure that allows us to do that, we have seen, and I'm going to brag on my team a little bit. We have seen this work amazingly well in a very short period of time with our hiring.

Dr. Jim: I can't disagree with anything that you said there. In fact, it actually took me back to how I built my recruiting organization when I was doing it staffing a couple of roles ago. And 1 of the things that I trained a lot of my recruiters to focus on is that don't go to the market focusing on the what.

hat I coached my recruitment [: 00:17:00

Their dream job, when you understand that and the why behind that's when you become a recruiter versus just what's typical in the industry, which is just somebody that's just slinging resumes all over the place and slinging jobs.

When we think about this conversation that we just had, and you take all of the stuff that we've talked about and you build a framework, what are the key elements of this framework that people should be putting into place that allows them to leverage science and psychology to be better at finding the best talent?

How would you put that framework together?

hat are focused on quantity. [: 00:18:00

So understanding what their cycles look like, what their times look like, from a management standpoint, that's important. The business doesn't care, right? So I guess what I'm saying is we build two frameworks, one for the business to explain how we're going to reverse engineer the process, using data to get to those results and continually update them on that.

if we see it getting out of [: 00:19:00

But we focus on hiring velocity and that end result. From a management perspective, we will focus a little bit more on some of the cycle stuff, because that's where we can look at recruiters to see early on if they're having issues, right? If they are looking at quantity and not targeting quantity, so their conversion rates, things like that are really key for us.

As leaders to understand, do we need to intervene and assist them? I provide a pretty lean dashboard to my leaders where we're really focusing on things that are actionable for them. So if I'm talking to organizational leadership at the C suite, we are talking about. That hiring velocity.

t together like I don't talk [: 00:20:00

For a given rec, because that's not useful.

Dr. Jim: Thanks for sharing that last before we wrap up, where can people find you?

Jim D'Amico: LinkedIn. Easiest place. Don't look for me on Twitter or X or whatever they call it. I'm on LinkedIn. Really easy to find there.

Dr. Jim: Awesome stuff. So we're really appreciate you hanging out with us.

And for those who have listened to the conversation Make sure you're leaving us a review and make sure you connect with Jim with any questions that that you might have. I think coming out of this conversation, the big things that stood out for me, if we're talking about a general framework for leaders and managers to be much more effective.

good looks like, you have to [: 00:21:00

Three, you have to model what continuous learning and continuous curiosity looks like for your team so that they're actually operationalizing that in their work. And then four. If you want to create space to build a high performance organization, you need to make sure that you as a leader or manager are enabling efficiencies across your entire work process.

So really solid stuff, Jim, that I I appreciate you sharing with us. Thanks for those of you who have listened to the conversation, if you liked it, leave us a review, make sure you tell a friend and then tune in next time where we will be bringing on another great practitioner. That will give you the keys to building a high performance organization.