Shally, Partially Exposed (Part 2)

The Passionate Architect

Part 1 of this profile is here.

Shally has worked for a lot of big-name firms: Motorola, Coke, Disney, Walmart, Google and, perhaps, most notably, for Cisco when its sourcing team was world-renowned as one of the poster children of the internet recruiting movement circa 1999-2000.

He says that the typical corporate approach to recruiting used to be very passive. Internal recruiters relied heavily on unreliable data sources like Monster or the company website. They would wait for people to apply and finally go to a staffing firm for help.

But then, along came Shally (and others like him) and, like any good third-party recruiter, he spoke to the hiring managers to clarify their needs and went out and found the candidates himself.

At Coke, it was just him. At Google, he brought in experts and hired people until they had a team of 20.

And that's his passion: building aggressive recruiting teams and planning their sourcing strategy and "architecture". It might sound hokey to call this his "passion" but, I'm not kidding, that's what he likes to talk about and he gets very excited when he does.

Thinking Globally

Shally likes to ask questions like:
- What kind of people do you want to hire?
- Where do we go to find them?
- What web sites do you use?
- How much do you spend?
- Who reports to whom (on the recruiting team)?

That might sound pretty straightfoward when you're in a small recruiting office. But Shally thinks about building departments that can execute specific sourcing strategies on global terms.

For instance, if you are going to have a successful global recruiting function, a lot of work has to be done in the field but in order to capitalize on an economy of scale, research needs to be centralized with one office serving a number of widely dispersed locations. How is the work going to be done, exactly?

Shally says that there are not a lot of people around who are trying to solve these problems. Less than fifty have solved them in previous positions. And only ten can communicate the strategy and sell it to upper management. And he's one of them.

Leadership Goals

When Shally takes a job his goal is to inspire and direct the organization so it can grow and replace him. And he says he's had a lot of success in identifying good people and leading them to the next level of their professional development.

Maybe President Bush should call him because he went into Google with an exit strategy -- and, then, left. (Microsoft is the first steady job he's had in years. He usually works as a consultant).

Maintenance of the System

Some organizations can't sustain a strong recruiting department once its champion leaves.

They will pay big money to hire the best recruiters and then the market crashes and they lay off half their people.

It's true that they don't need a big recruiting department anymore but they'll throw the baby out with the bathwater and outsource recruting rather than merely reduce the department's size and keep the model of a top recruiting team intact.

So they lose the knowledge they've gained and have to start from scratch again when things pick up.

Also, some companies don't understand the implications of losing touch with a talent pool. If you're Coke, the best retail marketing organization around, you want to stay in touch with the best retail marketing people.

But companies don't always think forward and nurture their talent pool. If you find a strong candidate you can't place today, you should call him every few months until you can place him. The big companies forget to do that.

When they go into "hiring stasis" they stop maintaining their networks, then they go crazy when they have a big need.

But the talented people they want are thinking "You told me to take a hike and you treated me poorly. Now you are in trouble so you want to use me".

Advice For Recruiters

I asked Shally what advice he would give to recruiters. I was looking for some specifics like 'learn advanced Boolean syntax". But the message he was interested in was more high-level and strategic.

Never stop asking questions. Do what you're passionate about. If you like talking on the phone, then get really good at social engineering. (Whatever you do) it's got to be a personal choice that you're passionate about.

People lean one way or another and don't make a commitment. Instead, say, "You know what? I don't like Boolean seaches. I like talking to people and I'm going to be a phone recruiter".

People lack the ability to see where they are going because they just accept it (passively) and don't ask questions. They don't ask "Why it isn't working?" I like to say "What if?" There are people who like to say "Why?" or "How? Thats how you figure out where to improve.

When you get satisfied you become a zombie. And you lose business. I constantly question things. I'm curious about how things work even if they are working fine.

If the people you're working with don't like you asking questions, if you are working in an organization that doesn't allow you some latitude, that doesn't respect change, it's time to move on.

How are you going to challlenge your ability if you do the same thing over and over again. It's the definition of insanity!

It's Who Ya Know: The Smart Offensive

Shally also stands by the old maxim of: "Tell me who you're with and I'll tell you who you are." ("With" in the sense of who your friends are).

He says that he is a very passionate person (professionally) and he makes a point of surrounding himself with really smart types who feel the same way.

Long Term Goals

I guess I've never realized what a towering figure Gerry Crispin is because when I asked Shally if he had any long term goals, he said "Yeah, I want to replace Gerry Crispin. I want to fill his shoes".

And, not only that, he didn't think he could do everything Gerry does. His specialty would be the building and architecture of sourcing departments.

Fini

And that's it for now. Thanks to Shally for being The Recruiting Animal's first, initiatory, "super-fantastic" interview. Hopefully, the first of many more.

I am the Canadian Headhunter and I approve of this posting.

Comments

[Brian Toland]

Great interview, I like that you went more indepth than the usual web profile.

Shally was one of the people I spoke with before I decided to join Microsoft. He is sicnerely passionate about what he does and it comes through.

The thing I found hard to believe is that there are a lot of people like Shally at Microsoft - smart, passionate, constantly striving to be better - in recruiting.

That's why I'm jazzed to go to work everyday and deal with the people I do. When you enjoy what you do, it doesn't feel like a chore.

[Michael Hunt]

Agreed that sourcing is the hardest part-creating that talent pool to draw from is extremely important for any organization.But given that todays goat can be tommorrows hero-How do you keep the candidates fully engaged-linked to the company-no job today -but maybe in future-How do you create a candidate customer service dept.

[Glenn Gutmacher]

Michael poses an interesting question, and it is part of what Shally addresses when he sets up a company's sourcing function. One highlight: you need an ongoing email campaign geared to the relevant prospects using effective, automatically-personalizable templates. If you want to learn more, read his blog, email him, or go see him or his Microsoft boss, Rob McIntosh, talk at one of the industry conferences.