Looks Good on Paper

The Job Ad Is Dead (And You Know It) - Christine Spagnuolo (Episode 4)

• Andrew Wood (aka Woody), Anita Chauhan • Season 1 • Episode 4

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In this provocative episode of 'Looks Good on Paper,' hosts Woody and Anita explore the demise of the traditional job advertisement with Christine Spagnuolo, founder of The Sorelle Group and a veteran headhunter with 18 years of experience. Christine boldly declares job ads a "waste of time" and "outdated, broken system," explaining why she hasn't posted one in over a decade.

Christine dismantles the "post and pray" approach, revealing how it creates fatigue for both employers and candidates, especially in today's world where AI generates both job descriptions and applications. She argues that truly exceptional talent isn't browsing job boards - they must be directly pursued. The conversation delves into why internal recruitment teams struggle compared to agency headhunters, and makes a compelling case for commission-based incentives in corporate recruiting.

The discussion exposes hidden biases in hiring processes, with Christine sharing memorable career stories - including placing identical twins without interviews and seeing her first-ever placement climb to department head at Ferrero Rocher. The episode concludes with Christine's forward-thinking perspective that relationships and personal endorsements are already replacing CVs in progressive industries, particularly in tech startups where her recommendations alone secure interviews without traditional resumes.

Resources Mentioned

  • Christine Spagnuolo: linkedin.com/in/christinespagnuolo - Senior recruitment consultant with 10+ years experience helping companies focus on skills and potential rather than traditional CVs.
  • The Sorelle Group: thesorellegroup.com - Boutique recruitment consultancy specializing in relationship-based talent sourcing across North America, the Caribbean, and Hong Kong.

Show Resources

Woody:

Welcome to Looks Good on Paper, the podcast that's flipping the script on traditional hiring. We're your hosts. I'm Woody.

Anita:

And I'm Anita.

Woody:

And in each episode we dive into why CVS and the so-called perfect candidate can be misleading. We'll be speaking with industry experts to uncover how skills, potential, and real world experience should be the focus when making hiring decisions. We are here to challenge the norm and rewrite the rules of hiring. So let's get started.

Anita:

We're so excited to be here again today. Thank you for all I've tuned in so far to all of our podcast episodes. Uh, today we have Christine Spagnuolo. I'm so excited to have her here. I think she's such an interesting person with a very diverse background. but also what I love is how she describes herself, and this is from her LinkedIn, but I love that. She says that her true passion and calling is connection. And so she's a recruitment consultant, a headhunter. She's a coach, she's a community builder. She said no matter what doesn't she do, uh, but I'm just so happy that she's here today. I'm gonna hand it over to Christine to maybe give a better intro about herself.

Christine:

no, thank you so much and. Thank you for that lovely intro and thank you so much for having me. I'm super, super excited to be a part of this episode. Um, yeah, so in terms of connection, connection has always been super important to me, whether it's like connection to self community or connecting others with each other. And I think that in itself just was a natural progression into to headhunting, um, and coaching.

Anita:

Awesome. Well, you know the name of the game, being in the hot seat here today. We have three questions for you and we're gonna chat about all things hiring, recruitment, and I'm interested in hearing your perspective since you've been in the game for so long as a headhunter and recruiters, and I know you have probably so many tales, so why don't we jump in? The first question we have for you is, what's the biggest hiring mistake companies keep making even though it's clearly not working?

Christine:

That I would have to say posting ads. It is something that companies continue to do. Um, I understand that they feel. It's a necessary, but really I think it's just, it's a very, very outdated and broken system. You know, posting and praying is not gonna get you what you want. It's actually just gonna create fatigue and frustration and really waste time.

Woody:

That's, uh. Super controversial view, I think. Um, where does, where does that, like, where does that come from? So tell us like what's, what's been your experience of people posting ads and, you know, not getting the people that they want?

Christine:

Right. I think, uh, it just comes from my own experience throughout my career. So I've been doing this for 18 years now, and when I first, you know, started an agency, we would post ads. I. And you soon realize how much time is wasted on hoping that the right person comes in versus just going out directly and getting them. Um, so I started my career doing both and then soon realized that like posting ads is a big waste of time for me myself. So I haven't actually posted one in, in over 10 years. Um, but then one ends up, yeah, so I haven't posted an ad in 10 years. Then I have clients who will come to me. I'm like, how is the search going? And they'll tell, say, well, we've posted this ad, it's been running for like X amount of weeks or X amount of months, and we're just not getting what we want. And the thing is, is like when everyone's looking for a superstar, like superstars are typically not applying. descriptions job ads are usually very generic and there's so much behind the scenes as to what they're actually looking for. And I feel like a lot of companies. Are way too generic in how they position what they're looking for. and even when they do communicate that, you still have a lot of candidates who will apply regardless. So then you have this like. Tons of resumes are not even applicable because someone's not reading it or you're not catching the right audience.

Anita:

It's true. So I just think it goes like back to that whole idea where like also you have to know what you're hiring for. You have to know as an employer what you're looking for to build that good job description. One of the things that. We have done for the CV free movement campaign that we're running as well as like give like a goal setting framework to understand like we're we're encouraging a move to more like skills-based hiring. But I, through that process, I was just thinking, I'm like, even me when I was a hiring manager, could have used this type of thought process because it would help me know who I wanna hire, dig in deep to what I actually need, and not just do like a generic job posting or an ad. And then I think now I know people are using ai, Chad g Bt, just to make a job description now,

Christine:

Yeah, which is, it's really sad. And on the flip side, there's candidates who are experiencing such fatigue that they're using AI to apply. So now you have AI generated job descriptions, questions and filters that are now being responded to with ai. So it's like, what are we really getting here? Nothing like it's a I'm just like.

Woody:

to stop. Stop advertising your roles. And you wont have to use a CV ever again.

Christine:

True.

Anita:

I like this take. I like it.

Woody:

makes sense.

Anita:

It's solid. It's solid thinking. I really believe it. I was like, it's over. And undated. I feel like also, you know, you then you boost the post. You're paying money and you get too many people coming in and then you're already under-resourced Team has to sort through how many poor candidates. It's, it makes sense that I'm kind of on board.

Woody:

I think from, uh, like in my world, the, just to like be super, super clear

Christine:

yeah.

Woody:

I don't think, you could not post a job for a grad role,

Christine:

Right.

Woody:

Or for an intern, like nobody's

Anita:

Yeah.

Woody:

and headhunting out of a college,

Christine:

But

Woody:

or a

Christine:

you could because there are like campus recruiters,

Woody:

there are campus recruiters and there are campus, uh, like meeting greets and all of that kind of stuff. But it's still, there's still loads and loads and loads of, loads of candidates that come to those. So you still

Christine:

right?

Woody:

with this, this, you know, a

Christine:

Yeah.

Woody:

of people.

Christine:

Yeah.

Woody:

you know. What you are talking about is, is hunting in the passive market for people that are performing in their roles, not looking to move.

Christine:

Right,

Woody:

are, know, like the the top performing sales person, they're gonna leave their manager or they're not performing. You know,

Christine:

right.

Woody:

kind of like that, right? It's, so,

Christine:

For

Woody:

if you're looking For a for a super high performing sales person, you're probably gonna have to go out there and, and pick them outta the business.

Anita:

And show them why, why they should join your team. and question number two. So Christine, what's a hidden bias that companies unknowingly have even when they think they're progressive in their hiring?

Christine:

Good question. two things come up for me, uh, right away, and that is that, going back to the job ads is they think that if they have I. guess qualifying questions or asking you to kind of speak more about yourself or to your experience. You're really just asking someone to upload their resume and then speak to what is on their resume. Um, and going back to what we were just speaking about, a lot of candidates who are experiencing this fatigue are now using AI to answer those questions, which. Are generated based on what's on their resume. So it's kind of just like a duplicate thing and they think that they're like filtering when I think it's just causing like a lot of exhaustion and candidates are not like committed to really selling themselves anymore. Yeah.

Anita:

Yeah, I, I feel like also like, really to your point about the fatigue, like they're

Christine:

Yeah.

Anita:

how many are they applying to, do they have to show up differently in every single one of them? Let's just mass do this. If this is a stipulation of my application, I'm just going

Christine:

Yeah,

Anita:

spray and pray. Right?

Christine:

And I think another thing is, sometimes companies will think, well, if I bring the recruitment internal and I create recruitment teams internally, that that will give them an advantage. And I don't want to discount or disqualify all internal recruiters, but I'd say that 90% of them. Are not actually doing what an agency headhunter would do. And they're usually the ones posting and then going through applicants versus going out and actually headhunting or recruiting top talent. And I've seen this like time and time again, and I know it doesn't work because it's these companies that have these internal recruiters who will then reach out to me and say like, my team can't handle this. Can you help me? When really if they have the internal, it's because they don't wanna pay me and then they end up paying two people.

Anita:

Oof.

Woody:

before we go into the next question, what's the answer to that other than, other

Anita:

oh.

Woody:

me, Christine, I can

Christine:

Yeah,

Woody:

uh, do the headhunting. Other than that, like what are the other, if you were an internal recruiter and you were like, right, I need to get through this so I can do that, what would you be suggesting they do?

Christine:

so if I were to build my own internal team, I would make it. that we don't post job ads. We only directly headhunt because it's posting job ads that it's, it's a broken, it's broken, it's a broken system. It's a big time waster, and I would only want people on my team that will actually headhunt, not wait. For them to come through. Like that's how, and I would, I would only hire people who had worked for an agency at some point in their career because then they actually understand what it is to go out and recruit, to like, have the urgency, um, and the sort of like the competitiveness and kind of like really want to service, you know, their stakeholders and hiring managers. As opposed to someone who just needs a nine to five job because talent acquisition, recruitment, headhunting, whatever you wanna call it, is, it's not a nine to five role, it's 24 7. And like when the right people need to talk, you need to be available. It's not a nine to five gig at all.

Woody:

Only thing I would like challenge on that is think you need agency experience. I. What you need is what you just described.

Christine:

Right,

Woody:

is willing to work 24 7 like it

Christine:

right,

Woody:

they could be like a sales person, right? That has been doing field marketing and driving up and down the whole of North America

Anita:

Yeah.

Christine:

right.

Woody:

and if they've got that, and then the people side of

Christine:

Yes. Well meaning. Yeah. So when I say agency, meaning like being on the other side where they're actually servicing a client. Uh, because when you're servicing a client, like you understand like what it? is to do a great job where they're gonna use someone else

Woody:

And you don't get paid, like you

Christine:

e

Woody:

fill the role, you don't get paid.

Christine:

Exactly.

Woody:

I've always wondered why internal recruiters don't get commission

Anita:

Yeah.

Woody:

it does, but it does baffle me a bit that.

Christine:

I, I think that's actually, I think that's a great, that would be a great internal strategy for sure. Um, yeah, I mean, I've, I've had so many clients throughout the years ask me like, Hey, would you wanna come work for us? And really it's just like, no, because I would get a fraction. Of what I make. Like if you're not gonna incentivize it, like there really is no point.

Anita:

So you take down the job posting, you don't put them out there, and then your CEO or your leader says, we're not getting the right candidates. Even the sourcing isn't bringing the right people. What happens then?

Christine:

I mean, I think as someone who's only ever had to source, like there is no, it's not working like. You gotta make it work. you gotta find the person. Um, I mean, obviously there can be things where positions and requirements can evolve, salaries can change, non-negotiables can change. So depending on how the search goes, there can be like changes. But I, it really is like having people on your team who are super tenacious, super hungry, and they just get it done.

Anita:

Yeah.

Christine:

Yeah.

Woody:

you don't fill it, someone else will. So,

Anita:

it. And if you're incentivizing it with a commission even more. Right.

Christine:

Yeah.

Anita:

right, cool. Okay, our third question, second

Christine:

Yeah.

Anita:

after this time.

Christine:

Okay.

Anita:

what's the most surprising hire you've ever made, Christine? And how did their, their success defy what looked good on paper or vice versa?

Christine:

Oh, I think the most surprising hire, this is kind of like two parts.'cause this is always just like a funny one to me. Um, earlier on in my career, I'd say about like, maybe like 12 years ago I was working with a construction company and I had a health and safety manager position. And, I had placed this one individual who is absolutely fantastic, and throughout the process I found out that he had a twin brother who had the same experience, um, as him and I had sent his resume over to. and My client was like, we'll take him. Like if he wants a job, we'll take him too. I'm like, wait, like you're not gonna interview him? He's like, if the brothers wanna work together, we'll hire both. And I was like, whoa. And I remember the twins just being like, this is wild. And I was like, yeah, your job, Your brother just got you a job.

Woody:

Yeah, just by being good

Christine:

by being like your identical twin. so they were both hired, which was kind of crazy. Um, I think like. Also, like aside from that. is when you're in the industry long enough, um, you kind of see like your candidates kind of grow and move up, you know, throughout companies. And I think one of the coolest things is my first placement ever, uh, was in a very like entry level supply chain role with Ferrero Rocher That was 18 years ago, and she's still there to this day. Yeah. So my first placement ever. Yeah, she is still there to this day, which I think is really cool. She's the department head now. we still keep in touch and think her story's pretty awesome and I'm always just like super proud that that was my first placement ever.

Anita:

That was great. Thank you for sharing. I mean, I love the twin one. I also love how it's

Christine:

yeah.

Anita:

medically they'll just be the same either way. So better get them

Christine:

Yeah.

Anita:

They're gonna be the

Christine:

I was like, this is crazy. And I was like, okay. I mean, I'm not gonna say no. Yeah, yeah,

Anita:

I love it. Alright, and for final question, thank you so much for being here, but we're gonna throw this last one at you.

Christine:

All right.

Anita:

about the cv? And do you wish that we could get rid of it?

Christine:

I don't think, I mean, I really think Stevie's are dying. They're not necessary. I. I understand its purpose, but I really don't think at this, in this day and age that that's what gets someone a job. I think relationships are what people, or is what gets people jobs and that relationship I. It can be so many different things. It could be a relationship with someone within the organization. It could be a relationship with a headhunter. Um, but usually like that referral or someone vouching for someone is gonna be a lot or, or hold a lot more value than like a piece of paper with information on it, especially with AI generated anything cvs. I see as like, okay, if we need to file something away, but using the CV to get a job I don't think is super necessary. Um, even I'd say in the last five to 10 years, especially working in the startup space, a lot of the founders and CEOs that I work with, we'll hire people without a cv. So I could just send a LinkedIn and say, Hey, yo, I'm talking to this person. This person's incredible. And they're meeting them. I don't have to submit a cv, have them go through it. It's just they're meeting these people based on me, you know, creating that introduction and saying like, this is why I love this person. They're not reading a cv.

Anita:

Yeah. Yeah.

Christine:

I don't think that a CV is necessary. I think It's definitely like dying, but I could see how it's like, okay, utilized for like, we need to create a file. Um, but In

Woody:

your world, In your world, Christine, I'm interested. Do you think that the CV plays less of a part because the people that you are sending those profiles to trust your judgment?

Christine:

Absolutely. Because even if a CV is in fire, I'll say like, trust me, you need to meet this person. And

Woody:

and they

Christine:

my clients will. and my clients are not hiring anyone based on a cv. They're hiring based on the fact that like I. A, like, I love them and I think they're an excellent cultural fit, and like B you know, I've vetted their experience and I think they have what they're looking for, but they're not opening up a resume and then saying, okay, we'll meet this person. They're just trusting that like, I've already gone through, the initial screen and they'll meet them.

Woody:

Yeah,

Christine:

Yeah.

Woody:

that is, I get like another thing an internal recruiter needs to learn from is how do you get to a point your hiring managers so that they're like, yeah, no, I've

Christine:

Yeah,

Woody:

your judgment. Like I'll see these three people. That

Christine:

totally. Totally. personal brands are huge and I think that's the best way to have visibility

Anita:

Alright. Thank you so much for being here with us. Say,

Christine:

Thank you.

Anita:

really insightful thoughts. I think, um, we'll dub this our hot take episode. Um, I'm sure so many people are gonna find your wisdom and your experience so helpful and uh, yeah, thank you again for being an awesome guest.

Christine:

Thank you. I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much.

Woody:

Thanks, Christine.

Anita:

So thanks for tuning in to Looks Good on Paper. We hope today's conversation helps you rethink what really matters when it comes to hiring. Don't forget to subscribe, share with your network, and stay tuned for more insightful discussions that are shaking up the entire hiring process. Catch us next time as we continue to challenge the status quo. Until then, remember, it's not what looks good on paper, it's what they can do.

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