What if navigating the modern complexities of interviewing and hiring could be less daunting and more strategic? Picture a world where attracting the right talent for your business isn't a struggle, but an opportunity for growth. Join us as Jack, our entrepreneurial dad, candidly shares his experiences, challenges, and insights on assembling the perfect workforce! As he navigates the post-pandemic landscape and evolving employee expectations, Jack delivers invaluable advice on understanding your business's needs and adapting your hiring strategies accordingly.
Then, Jennifer takes us through everything from exploring innovative ways to attract younger talent to tackling the challenges posed by roles requiring certification.
The Dempseys provide a unique perspective on the struggles younger individuals face today, particularly with interpersonal relationships and engaging in direct conversations. It's a powerful discussion that will leave you with newfound knowledge and strategies for your hiring process. Whether your business requires entry-level workers, certified professionals, or a blend of both, this episode is an essential listen. Tune in to grasp the nuances of interviewing and hiring in the modern world!
Nuggets include: *First determine the type of workforce that will help your business succeed. *Learn how to attract the exact talent your business needs
Dempsey, Weiss & Associates Meeting the insurance and financial needs of business owners & individuals in NJ & PA since 1989.
J. Faith Hair Studio Located in south NJ, J Faith Hair Studio is the place to go to become the best version of yourself.
Jennifer Faith Dempsey has been in the beauty industry for over 10 years. For the last 5m years, she has owned J. Faith Hair Studio. She brings her experience on how she balances entrepreneurship and motherhood. Check out Jen’s blog.
Staci Joy Dempsey is an insurance agent, a mom, and a busy non-profit volunteer. She truly understands what it means to be an entrepreneur. Staci serves as the podcast's host.
Jack Dempsey is the dad who heads up this busy family. He is a founding partner in Dempsey, Weiss & Associates, an Elmer, NJ-based insurance and investment firm that began more than 30 years ago.
Speaker 1:
Hey there and welcome to the business of business podcast. Here we are, two daughters and their dad, seeking to inspire and educate you to follow your dreams of being in business by teaching you the business of being in business the good, the bad, the humor are all parts of our unique perspective as an entrepreneurial family. Hey everybody, and welcome back to the business of business podcast. Two daughters and their dad. I'm your host, stacy J Dempsey, and the J is very important because it brings a lot of joy. I have with me today, like always per usual, thankfully, I have them the dad, jack, and I have the other daughter, jennifer. Good morning to the both of you, great morning.
Speaker 2:
Good morning everybody.
Speaker 1:
Today we want to talk about how we can shift interviewing and hiring into our businesses. Interviewing and hiring is totally different than maybe what some of us did as we were coming up and coming into the workforce and even starting our businesses. But so many entrepreneurs that we're talking to now is they're just really having a hard time getting people to come to their interviews and kind of being able to do their due diligence and hiring into their business. So what do we do about that? Dad, today I'd like to start with you on maybe some ways that you can share with our listeners on things that they can just do, maybe a slightly different compared to maybe the way you've done them in just getting people to get to the interview and to the interview process.
Speaker 2:
Well, I mean this is a great topic because that's probably one of the biggest conversations that I have with other business owners, entrepreneurs across the board is finding people, finding the right people, being able to put together something that makes sense for your business, for them. I think we've got challenges with some of the younger people coming into the workforce and their expectations. We certainly have challenges post COVID where it seems like post pandemic, where again that has seemed to create a shift on what employee expectations are from working from home. There's just a whole host of challenges out there for the entrepreneur. So of course, in some businesses that working from home is out of question. I mean, obviously in Jen's business you're not going to work from home and do hair at JFaith Hair Studio, but there's other businesses that that is a challenge.
Speaker 2:
I think. First of all, just you know, clearly identifying, you know what is the, what is the type of workforce you need for your business, for it to thrive, you know. And then, once you determine that because we've talked about this some before I mean if you're in a business where you know you really need, you know you're not, you're not in a position to pay big wages because the work is more of that entry level type of work, and then you just know that most cases you're going to be dealing with a younger workforce. You're going to be dealing with, you know, juniors and seniors in high school. You're going to be dealing with college students. You're just going to be dealing with that, that younger workforce, and you have to learn how to, you know, attract the right talent, you know, and that workforce.
Speaker 2:
If it's a situation like Jennifer's and myself where in most cases you need, you know, people who are going to have some level background, training, licensing, all those things and so you know then that you know is another understanding that we need to have is that when we hire, we're hiring with the expectation, you know, that they're either coming into it with that level of certification or that we're going to have to train them, you know, in that role and get them certified. So that's going to be a different type of workforce and then you can have both. You can have a blend of those. Obviously you can have, you know, people who are going to need to be certified, license, have a background, have experience, and then you're going to have other roles in your business could be more entry level. So just really having you know that true understanding of what your business needs and what is required for your business to thrive.
Speaker 3:
Dempsey Weiss and Associates is a multi-line insurance agency successfully meeting the insurance and financial needs of the landscaping, business, contractor and agricultural community in southern New Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania since 1989. To learn more, visit us at wwwdempseyweisscom. Jayfaith Hair Studio. Centrally located in southern New Jersey, jayfaith Hair Studio is the place to go to become the best version of yourself. Confidence in your appearance is always important and a great hairstyle is an absolute necessity. Visit Jayfaithhairstudiocom to book your appointment today.
Speaker 2:
Jayfaith Hair Studio. Centrally located in southern New Jersey. Jayfaith Hair Studio is a great way of bringing talent in because, again, it saves a lot of time in the resume search. It saves a lot of time. We can just go to you know, a temp service and we can say here's who we're looking for, we're in their pipeline, and we can then select from that and then bring them in under the temp service and test the waters with them and see if this is somebody that makes sense for us to keep. And we, you know, and we can make that call because if it's, we decide it's not. It's a very easy call to make back to temp service saying we don't think this is a good fit. Please don't send them back tomorrow and then we try someone else Now. Again, that's not going to work for everybody, but it's worked very well for us and we usually like to hire into our receptionist role, our front desk role, because that usually is a pretty good indicator of someone that we can start to make an assessment. If they have what we're looking for to move up within the organization, we're always trying to hire people who we feel can go beyond that entry level and again, that's not gonna be the case for every business out there, but that's the approach that we take.
Speaker 2:
But, with all that said, it's frustrating. It's a frustrating process because, again, the expectations out there. I mean I said in on a meeting not long ago saying, well, if you're gonna be working with this generation I forget which one, it is one of the generation X, generation Z, one of those generations but basically said, most likely they're gonna be coming to the interview with their shirt, untucked and jeans on and sneakers and they're gonna be pretty casual. And I thought to myself, well, who's hiring who? I mean, if I back when I was coming out of college looking for a job, I mean that was like you went dressed, you went with depending on the role. I mean you went with a tie on and a jacket and you went dressed for success, as the saying goes. But that's not the case today. So where do we bend to say, okay, I can accept that, because, again, that's not that important for that role, but there's other things more important. But then there's this again. So you just have to try and determine what am I willing to bend on? That maybe wasn't the case when I came into the workforce and as I progressed through my career, but now that's the case today. But then you've got to also draw the line saying there's other things that are completely unacceptable, that that is just not gonna work for this role. As nice as that person may be, it's just not gonna work. And I know Jennifer can speak to this.
Speaker 2:
But one of the biggest challenges we're seeing, especially with the younger workforce, is there's a lot of anxiousness out there. There's a lot of. I don't know if it's just from technology or what it is, but there's a lot of people that really struggle with that. Interpersonal relationships, being able to look people in the eyes and have conversations with them and be able to engage people that seems to be getting to be a harder and harder thing to find in younger people. So I don't know if it's because we're all looking down at our phones or looking at our laptops more and more and we just don't have to engage that way. That's what I'm told is part of the issue. But again, if you're gonna be in the client service business, the hospitality business, anything like that, you better be able to look somebody in the eye and have a conversation with them, or you're probably not gonna do well. So challenging times, without a doubt, very challenging.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, absolutely. And so you know one of the other ways that you know we have found to have some success, because one of the challenges that you invite people for, say, an interview, you get people to connect with you, and so one of the things that we have started to do is that we just we schedule a quick, kind of 15 minute zoom call, and I think maybe most businesses could implement this. And it's not a full interview, it's just a put a face with a name type of call so that we can share a little bit about what our mission is, what are you know what we do inside of our business, and share a little bit about what the role would entail and give that person an opportunity to ask some questions. And we leave it at that. It's a strict, just 15 minute, quick, quick call, no pressure, and out of that many times we'll see number one can they log into Zoom correctly? Are they respectful of the time? We're kind of looking for some early red flag and if that first kind of pre-screening doesn't happen, well then we just move on to the next one.
Speaker 1:
We have an investment, a lot of time, we haven't spent a lot of time and that seems to be something that has been working well across many different industries.
Speaker 1:
And then, in addition to that, inside of our business we have a lot of family members, not just for the DEMCs and the WISES but we ask for referrals from our current teammates. Do they have anyone that they know that they feel like would be a good fit for, you know, for upcoming opportunity inside of our businesses? And sometimes that you know most of the time that turns out to work to our benefit Because that family member or close friend they know that their family member or close friend already has some skin in the game. So we don't want to look and have anybody look bad and we kind of get to know someone before we actually put could actually interview them. And so, jennifer, I want to just throw this quickly over to you. I know that this is something that you're struggling with inside of your business, with getting people to connect and show up, but maybe you can share with our listeners quickly some of the advice that you've gotten for the hair industry on maybe doing things a little bit differently to attract some talent.
Speaker 4:
You know we've talked about it a lot on this podcast and I talk a lot about it with other entrepreneurs is that the hardest part of being in business is finding and hiring the right people, and I and in 2023, it just seems to be getting harder and harder Inside my business. What I have always done and what I prefer to do is hire you know straight from beauty school, whether we have someone getting close to being done beauty school or they've completed beauty school and then get them plugged into our business kind of entry level and then be able to train them and grow them through the systems we have in place. And this year especially has been really hard and really challenging in that aspect. So to shift, I need help. I need this position filled. I haven't been able to fill it the way I would like to or the way I've done in the past, and so I shifted and, for the first time in seven years, hired a front desk coordinator.
Speaker 4:
That's all new to me is that? Unfortunately, it's. You know I can't hire the way I want or someone that has gone to beauty school, so we have just changed it and and brought someone else on that can help with that, the day to day tasks that we need done. So it's only been about two weeks, so I have to let you guys know how it goes. But you know, as we talk about so many times before, as entrepreneurs, one thing doesn't work and you just got to keep trying something else, so that I think that that's, that's all we can continue to do, especially having a business in 2023.
Speaker 1:
Just to kind of recap, you know, taking whatever industry that you're currently in, if there's a traditional way that maybe that you have recruited people or attracted talent, we would just encourage you to kind of do the 180, look across what's been that, what would be the opposite of that. So if you've always kind of gone to beauty schools, well, you know what maybe now we're plugging into indeed, maybe that we're. You know, we're looking at LinkedIn. You know, if we've always kind of maybe used a temp service, maybe we need to go to the people that already know our business so well our teammates and ask them who do you know? This is the, this is the opening that we have. Here's the business opportunity that we have.
Speaker 1:
Do you know anyone that would be interested in hearing more about that? So we would just encourage you, as you shift, to kind of look to the other side of what might not be the norm and and maybe pursue that a little bit. But guess what? Once again, none of us have it figured out. We're all shifting at the same time and figuring things out. So we're just going to be eager to hear how you're shifting has produced some new talent and if that's not the solution, we know you'll find another one, just like the rest of us do.
Speaker 1:
So Thank you everyone. We'll look forward to you guys in our next episode. Bye, bye, if you're listening today. If you have questions you would like for us to answer on the podcast, please email us at two daughters, that's T w o, two daughters and their dad at gmailcom, and until we can be together again, please be kind to each other and, most importantly, be kind to yourself, and we want to thank you for listening today. Please subscribe so you never miss an episode, leave us a positive review, and we want to say thank you to our sponsors, dempsey Ways and Associates and J Faith Hair Studio.
