Thad Price Podcast Transcript
Thad Price joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Thad Price. Thad Price is CEO of Austin based ReadySetHire and Talroo. ReadySetHire is the new product for small to medium sized businesses, franchisees, and recruiters seeking to hire frontline and essential workers. It’s powered by Talroo, the multi award winning talent matching platform for enterprises designed for sourcing essential and hourly workers.
Thad has more than 20 years of experience in the online recruitment and job search vertical. is a recognized thought leader in the HR TA space. And he generally believes that there is no industry that plays a more integral role in the economy that uses his cross functional experience to turn client feedback into innovative products that continue.
Talroo’s mission of improving lives, one job seeker and one employer at a time.
Well, good afternoon, Thad, welcome to the show.
Thad Price: Brian, great to be here. Thank you so much for the invite.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. And I appreciate it as well. One of my favorite things to do in the world every single day and you’re hailing in the same time zone as me. We don’t have to traverse the globe today, which is nice hailing out of Austin, great city.
But Thad, I’m going to jump right into your first question here. What are the six industries that are poised for huge hiring impacts in 2025 due to the incoming political power shift?
Thad Price: Wow. Well, I don’t have a crystal ball, but I’ll do my best. And I’ll share a few industries, which I think, you know, we’ll have to keep our eye on as the political landscape has changed, of course.
So the first is, I would say, really focus on manufacturing. When you look at some of the policies that, you know, we’re hearing about from the new administration, it’s pretty evident that there’s going to be a focus on domestic production. And there’s been some conversations around aggressive tax relief, 15 percent tax on domestic production.
So I think if to keep that Yeah. In mind, as you think about growth in manufacturing, second, I would say is probably energy, energy production and how we think about energy. It’s become really important given the shift in the political environment to really think about how we process and how we can provide value from an energy production standpoint here domestically, of course, in the U. S.
And third is I would really think about technology. And the future of technology, especially in this world of AI, where it’s so much easier to produce really interesting products today and accomplish a lot. And so it becomes really important for us to think about how that market in the future is influenced by different types of policies and where we’re investing heavily.
And I would say probably fourth would be more of a change in a shift, and that would be health care. And we’ve been talking about health care for many years. And really, that is more demographic based and the aging out of the workforce. And of course, as our population shifts and as baby boomers require more health care services, and of course, as baby boomers, you know, have been retiring over the last number of years.
So that’s your four. It’s going to be challenging to get six out of me. So we’ll stick with four.
Brian Thomas: Totally fine. Appreciate that. And thank you for highlighting some of that. We’ve seen already kind of a sprint out of the gate with the new administration. And again, highlight a lot on domestic, obviously, which you’d mentioned.
And then of course, technology and AI, which is huge. And something we talk about every day on the podcast. So I appreciate your insights on that, Thad. And Thad, budgets are shrinking this year, but the C suite wants more from HR departments. How can hiring teams do more with much less?
Thad Price: Well, I think first in any department, we have to be focused on metrics and KPIs.
But before any of that, you really have to focus on what are your KPIs, what are you looking for, and how can you be more efficient and how can you track what’s maybe not being tracked today. So we like to chat with our customers and our partners around focusing a lot of the energy around a cost per hire metric.
And a cost per hire metric is your willingness to invest in order to hire a new teammate. And throughout this process, it’s a funnel and when you invest in ways to attract talent, when you invest in job advertising or other products and services and applicant tracking system or even staffing and recruiting services, there is a cost to ensure that you are attracting talent and that you are driving the higher that you need to.
To grow your business. And so I think it all starts with tracking and understanding where you are today and where you want to go tomorrow. And by understanding each step of that process, you can be more effective at improving that process and ensuring efficiency through each stage of that funnel progression.
One of the things that’s easy to think about is think about. The idea or really the art and science of talent attraction, like customer attraction, customer acquisition. When you think about it from that standpoint, it can help provide you a lot more interesting ways to look at your business from a recruiting standpoint.
Thank you. I appreciate that. And we’ve had to innovate, and especially since COVID around trying to get everything done more efficiently. And sometimes as we start to cut back on budgets, we’re starting to see areas where we’re going to have to really not just tighten the belt. You can only cut to the bone so much, right?
It’s more about providing that efficiency and learning how to innovate. Sometimes it’s levering that technology.
Brian Thomas: So thank you for your share. Thad, this is a big one. Ghosting, right? I think that’s a new word over the last few years anyway, since COVID. It’s a huge problem when it comes to potential job candidates vanishing, and even some employers. What’s the fix?
Thad Price: So when we think about the idea of ghosting, I think we have to first realize that this has been happening to job seekers for years. And now this is happening to employers. And when we think about that relationship, I think it is important to really dive into the relationship between a job seeker and employer and employer and job seeker.
And that is this idea of high intent and communication. And when we lead an experience. With a candidate experience where there’s a lot of communication along each step of the process, then we can expect candidates to be more communicative with us through that process as well. So when we say there’s a fix, I think the one thing is, is to focus on a customer service.
Mindset to our candidates, you know, imagine walking into your favorite local coffee shop and saying hi to a barista and that barista not saying hi back, or at least giving some response. You know, you expect that level of customer service in your daily life and for years. As employers, we haven’t been providing that level of service, that level of candidate experience, so that from that standpoint, really job seekers or candidates don’t feel like they need to give employers that level of customer service.
And so I think there isn’t an actual fix specifically. It’s more of just a shift around treating our candidates. As our customers and ensuring that we’re providing them with that level of respect. Therefore, they will provide us with that level of service and respect through the process. That’s just one way to look at it.
There are a number of other things you can do through automation. How to ensure you’re engaging quickly scheduling, but I think it really all starts with a customer service mindset.
Brian Thomas: That’s great. I think it is so important. Like you said, you that analogy used about the barista. You know, that’s just one facet of it.
You know, there’s so many more things we can do. Just outward facing can be from your website, how responsive you are, all those things. I really do appreciate your insights. Thad last question of the day. How do you better use data driven job advertising to achieve smarter recruitment of hourly jobs?
Thad Price: So as I shared earlier, it really is about a process and understanding this idea of what your cost per hire goal is tracking what you can track, ensuring that each step of this process, you are data driven so that you can improve each step of the process and realizing that if you improve an earlier step.
In the all powerful funnel, and you know, as I said earlier, a funnel can be a sales funnel. A funnel can be a candidate funnel, a job application process. All these things are how we track and improve step functions. And so when you think about each step of that process, tracking each step of that process allows you clarity on where you can improve and where you need to focus and potentially where you need to invest in AI to improve that process.
So a really great example is if you are engaging in job advertising and investing in candidates to your career site to apply for a job. If you have a very high fall bounce rate, fall off rate between someone engaging with your job ad and then actually applying. And submitting their application, then there’s probably some investment needed in your career site or your applicant tracking system process to improve that conversion rate to improve that step process.
Because if you don’t have candidates in your funnel, it’s going to be hard to move that candidate into an interview stage into an offer stays. And ultimately what you want is a higher stage. And so it really is tracking each step of this process and understanding where you are and the partners that you’re working with, where you think you can improve and challenge those partners to help you improve, to hit, you know, your overall objectives and reach the KPIs that makes sense for your business.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. Really appreciate that. And now we have some of the technology and partners that we can actually track every step of the way and how do we better engage these folks that we really need and those the hourly jobs especially. Those are hard positions to keep filled these days and so I appreciate your insights.
Thad Price: We have a rule here at ReadySetHire in Taroo, and that is be the job seeker. And so if you’re ever wondering how to improve your process, be the job seeker. Look at your career site, fill out an application, benchmark the processes, pressure test your team on what it looks like, what the response rate is, and then you can set up, you know, your goals across each step of the process.
Being the job seeker is a very, very powerful way for you to directly experience what your candidates are experiencing and can be very illuminating in where you can improve your process. Really appreciate that. I think that’s one way to look at kind of self reflection, looking in at your organization and how you can improve.
Brian Thomas: So that’s awesome. And Thad, it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Thad Price: Thanks so much, Brian. Great to be here.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Thad Price Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s Podcast Page.
