Eero from Relancer (00:02)
Welcome to the Relancer podcast where we talk about talent acquisition topics. I'm Eero, the co-founder of Relancer, the platform where employers connect with freelance recruiters. Today we have Tome and we will be talking about how to use psychology in recruitment. Welcome Tome.

Tome Nedinkovski (00:20)
Nice to meet you, Eero, and thank you very much for the invitation. It's a real pleasure being with you today.

Eero from Relancer (00:26)
Yeah, So for the listeners, we met with Tom a long time ago, I would say. I remember that back then you were working for a recruitment agency that was hiring in mainly, I think, in the Netherlands.

Tome Nedinkovski (00:41)
Yeah, mainly yes.

Eero from Relancer (00:43)
Yeah, and then you were basically making a transition to do your own thing. And I think we were able to get you some clients in the beginning, at least, to get your new journey going.

Tome Nedinkovski (00:57)
Exactly. As far as I believe, the first time we spoke, you were at the start with Relancer. And then we had one introductory call just to... You were validating your idea, you were receiving ideas and expanding your network. So I remember being quite happy for you at that point. And then around, I don't know, four or five months later, when we started with Psyent, you were actually like...

Eero from Relancer (01:04)
Mm hmm.

Tome Nedinkovski (01:27)
Both you and Relancer are one of the first to support us and not just with advisors, but with bringing clients to our doors, good ones, nicely matched. So, yeah, now perhaps it's a good moment to share that officially. Thank you for all of your support.

Eero from Relancer (01:46)
That's always good to see. And I also looked into Psyent and I was like, oh, there's so many recreators already. So you're quite big at the moment. Or like you have progressed quite nicely. So that's really nice to see that you are making the dream reality, let's say it that way. But can you share a bit about your journey? So you have a background in psychology and then also I think in some kind of psychotherapy. So.

What's the journey behind there and how did you end up in recruiting?

Tome Nedinkovski (02:19)
You know the story how everyone ends up in recruiting, right? But yes, so no one, I believe, like that intentionally goes into a recruitment career, but in my case, I feel that there is more to it. So actually, my interest in psychology started around, let's say, 2009 or 2010. So before even university. The first

Eero from Relancer (02:22)
Thanks for watching!

Tome Nedinkovski (02:47)
book that I have ever met in terms of psychology was psychology of talent and giftedness. So fast forward, I end up learning from the people in the university who wrote that specific book. And within university, especially my interest was within organizational psychology, social personality psychology, and also psychometrics. So those were my areas of interest and I was really eager to

Eero from Relancer (02:53)
Hmm.

Tome Nedinkovski (03:16)
to work within organizations. So that's how I saw myself. And then within like the university I was like really active, had the chance to like work for various institutions and companies as part of internship. I also had the chance to be a co-founder of the first Macedonian Association of Psychology Students, which is by the way, still active today. Greetings to my fellows at Psihesko.

And they are doing really good, by the way. So that was like a great opportunity to like learn, try out like different industries and see whatever like works best for me. So I remember working in, let's say, educational institutions, NGOs, government institutions for on employability development skills for youth. And then. Once

graduating, I had even like before graduating, I got my first job. So I had the chance to choose between two options. One was within market research as a researcher. And then the other one was, was as a talent acquisition specialist at international recruitment company. So you can guess what was my choice at the end, but then luckily, why I'm happy for that decision is the following. So actually

recruitment, it's a really good gateway for organizational psychology. That's one. And then the second one, what I really, really liked is that there's a lot of unexplored opportunities, unexplored area on where you can apply psychology within like specifically within recruitment. I know that in selection, psychology is doing like excellent job in terms of psychometrics and 

the interviewing stages and so on, but in terms of recruitment, not so much. So that's where we see the opportunity to proceed innovating.

Eero from Relancer (05:21)
Yeah, it's definitely, I think there are possibilities, a lot of possibilities in there and in general, I think unconsciously we use a lot of psychology in many stages, but people maybe don't realize how they actually are using it. And what I also noticed actually, there is quite, it's quite common to, at least what I have noticed is...

Tome Nedinkovski (05:36)
Yeah.

Eero from Relancer (05:48)
quite common for recruiters to have some kind of psychology background. So it's in a way, it seems to be one of the ways like career choices after learning psychology because you can use it quite successfully in the recruitment field.

Tome Nedinkovski (06:04)
Well, yeah, definitely. , like The ones who are interested in organizational psychology, like one of the options is starting with recruitment. And it's something that I would like normally advise since you get to be like familiar with broader things like organizational structures, like how companies operate. And especially if you're within an agency setting, then you get to learn from like from many different companies. So that's a good start.

Eero from Relancer (06:30)
So I also saw that you're part of Relaxify app. What is it and what are you doing in Relaxify app?

Tome Nedinkovski (06:40)
Yeah, so Relaxify app started somewhere really close to the start of Psyent as well. It's an end-to-end well-being platform and mobile application that actually supports companies to enhance the well-being of their employees. And how it's done? So it's actually like their programs and gamified exercises that boost their well-being across four dimensions:

cognitive, social, emotional and physical well-being. And it's actually, let's say more focused on prevention, increasing of awareness, but also it is supporting employees to build better well-being habits, so better mental health hygiene. It is not a substitute to professional support, like psychotherapy and so on.

But it's very good for prevention and for building habits. The mission is something that really, really caught my attention at the start. And the two co-founders, Yoan and Alec, actually reached out to me. We knew each other from before and decided to support this idea since it's a really great one and there is a lot of need for that. And me, along with a team of psychologists,

we joined to make this a reality and personally, I joined as a co-founder. So we are still doing a lot of things with Relaxify. And there are actually at the moment, exciting times and a lot of new things will be happening there. So if anyone is looking for a well-being solution for their organization, feel free to explore Relaxify.

Eero from Relancer (08:35)
I think wellbeing is something that is super important but not so much covered by companies. For example, we at Relancer, we took a course on mental health and wellbeing. There is an organization in Estonia and then we went with our employees to take part of that course.

It was helpful but, for example, people working in talent acquisition it's known they have a high stress level and so on. So definitely having some initiatives or even teaching the people about mental health and how to maintain a good mental health is super important.

Tome Nedinkovski (09:07)
Yeah.

Yeah. So actually like things are changing in a positive way now. As of January this year, I think that companies like according to the use sustainability policies. Now companies who have more than 500 employees are obliged to report what kind of activities they do for in terms of wellbeing at workplace. So it's great to see that things are slowly beginning to go in a very good like direction.

And I believe it's just the start now. Of course, like, , a lot of things have been done in the past, but I think that the more the need is rising as we, as we speak.

Eero from Relancer (10:02)
Yeah, I had a friend also who wants to do something in that space. And then a few years ago, he had like a really hard time because people understand why it's needed. But there is like a really hard to get by and buy in front of companies. But if there is like these kinds of like requirements, that definitely helps a lot. So, yeah, let's move forward. Maybe to the...

Tome Nedinkovski (10:30)
Let's do it.

Eero from Relancer (10:31)
About recruiting. So having some psychology knowledge is definitely helpful if you're in talent acquisition. So maybe we can go step by step how we can improve each recruitment step by applying some principles in psychology. So maybe let's start even before the actual recruitment. How can psychology help us with identifying hiring needs?

Tome Nedinkovski (10:58)
Yeah. So in terms of, let's say, recruitment in the overall process, there is unlimited opportunities on what kind of theories you can apply. Of course, everything before that needs to be tested, validated, and see if it works for the specific needs of the company as well. I'm just thinking about how to go forward without becoming very much abstract.

I like the idea from starting from the needs, from the organizational needs step since there can be like a, we can apply there are several theories and concepts from organizational psychology, for the start I also like the personality one. There are several ways to do that. And I will stick more to some of the theories that I personally like to use since due to the simplicity and the effectiveness of those.

But a few things that we can do is first, psychology can help us to understand the team dynamics, the culture of the organization, and perhaps also to identify need for adding a new person with specific skill set in some areas. That can be done in several ways. Of course, the first one is performance metrics and seeing where we need improvement.

If your strategy is to solve that with hiring, then that's a starting point. Of course, this is like not only a psychological thing, but also like management aspect, but psychology can really, really help within the job. And then the second would be identifying the, so in these steps, a lot of companies, what they're doing, they are doing

they are performing psychometric assessments on their team in order to assess the culture. And then based on that, they connect that with their business goals and decide what kind of people they need in order to do that. So let's say, and in this step, so easiest to use is the disk methodology. I can share more about that as we go. But let's say if it's a startup company that...

that needs to grow fast, they need to be agile a lot, they need to fail, to try and fail really fast. We might be looking for more, let's say, innovative, free-stake taker people who are really into action and so on. So in terms of this, we would be looking probably for influential and more dominant people. And then if it's a company that's, let's say, already is going to a scale-up phase when they need, let's say, more...

more structure and more, how to say, more build processes, then we can go with some people who are more let's say conscious process driven detail oriented and so on. So that's in the beginning when we start identifying the needs in terms of what kind of people we need. And then what I like to use like at any stage of the recruitment process are the theories for...

for needs and motivations. The most basic one which I believe that everyone is familiar with, or most of them are familiar with, is the Maslow theory. So I can actually take a moment to explain this one, since if we want to mention the next steps, probably I will be referring to this theory a lot.

So based on Maslow theory of needs and like human needs are the ones, let's say, more most basic drivers that everyone, every person is striving for in order like to have like a regular optimal level of well-being. So there are like five levels of needs starting with the most basic ones, physiological needs.

So those are the needs for food, for sleep, you know, the physiological ones. And this can be translated within an organizational setting as the bare minimum that a company needs in order to function. So what physiological needs are for an individual human, for a company that would be, I don't know, like enough cash flow to be able to cover the expenses

to be able to cover the salaries and the other operational needs. And then if we are hiring and the company has this challenge, then we need to find people who will be suitable for solving such kind of challenges. That's one, but also to know how to later in the communication stage, in the outreach stage, how to communicate this with the candidates so they already know what they are signing in for.

That's the first level of needs, the other physiological needs. Then the second ones are the safety ones. The safety ones in terms of organization may be, I don't know, enough, let's say, legal protection, enough, let's say, safety processes and so on. And then if you're looking also to hire someone in this process, then...

we need what kind of people we need in order to adjust these needs. And it's the same when we are looking for a candidate's needs. So we'll go through an example after this, but let me just go through all of them. Safety needs in terms of people can be regarding resources, personal security, having employment, having like some kind of property. So anything that keeps you safe. If you remember,

before COVID, this was something that no one was looking on a job. Everyone was looking to more, let's say, advanced needs. But then after COVID and after the wars and the change in the market, the needs of the candidates are more whether the job security is enough there, whether they all have a constant job, whether they would be able to pay the bills and so on. So these are more basic needs.

Eero from Relancer (17:15)
Nobody cares.

Yeah.

Tome Nedinkovski (17:37)
Actually this is one of the applications. So now we need, when we are reaching out to candidates that we address this need if it's already like being covered by the company. And we had an example where we adjusted the pitch of the company based on this, since we had a client who no matter like the COVID or the wars and so on, they decided not to let anyone behind. So they had zero layoffs. And this was a really good selling point. And...

it was really important for the candidates hearing in this type of, let's say, unsecure times. So we covered the physiological needs and we covered the safety needs. The third layer is the need for love and belonging. So in terms of, let's say, individuals or candidates or people, those are the needs for friendship, intimacy, family, and some sense of connection. In terms of work that would...

that might be, let's say, feeling like a part of the community, feel identifying with your company on the job and then having meaningful relationship with your people. And then if that is something that the culture offers, and if that is something that is already part of the needs of the specific candidate, we can focus our conversation on this one and addressing their needs and how they are covered within the position that we are searching for.

In terms of organizational needs related to this level, there might be, let's say, good culture, good team atmosphere, good communication, channels and practices. 

Eero from Relancer (19:16)
Team events. Like team events, so you can get together and then some other things like that.

Tome Nedinkovski (19:21)
Yeah.

Yeah, so actual like something that the talent, the talent development team and the people department is actually like focused on. Then the next one, the fourth layer is the esteem and is related to respect, self-esteem, to status in most of the cases and so on. So in terms of job, you need like

here people are thinking about, let's say, things like, do they get promotions? Do they have like a value job? Do they have an impact in their role and so on? So that's on candidate side. In terms of companies, is there if they are recognized in the marketplace, if they are perceived as a big player or a key player. And if they are thinking about implementing such strategies, then we need like people who have the same drivers on the other side in order like to make that happen as well.

And then the final level of needs are the self-actualization ones. When for people that would be, that would be, I don't know, like growing and fulfilling their potentials. And then for candidates, for organizations, the parallel will be reaching their mission. You know, innovating a lot, like going above and beyond and perhaps working already on topics like sustainability and things like that.

So those are the five levels of needs. This is like based on the Maslow theories, there are like a few more that are useful in this stage but for the sake of simplicity, I will stick to this one. So when identifying hiring needs, I would personally look for the organizational needs that I just mentioned. And when speaking with hiring managers, I would like to hear what is their motivation, why they are hiring. something.

If they are hiring someone, let's say, senior director of business development, my question would be why you are hiring them. So if they are hiring them in order to save the company and let's say, avoid layouts on calls, then we are talking about safety nets and physiological needs in terms of company level. But then if they are looking to

expand and be able to invest and to beat their competition, because perhaps they are looking at the stand value. And this will vary our approach. This will change the approach, how we go, how we do things differently and how we communicate that with the clients. So for this stage, I covered having psychometric assessment in the beginning in order to see hiring needs.

Then learning about the organizational needs. And then the third one might be, and this is rarely practiced since it's expensive, but it's really good to develop internal criteria of success. So if you have, let's say a hundred employees and you're thinking, okay, what makes my sales department really successful?

You can like provide them with wider psychological assessment and then develop norms based on that. Of course, it will have to be like probe tested, changed over the time, and you'll need to think about the dynamics and inclusivity, but it's a very good start in order like to define the right competencies that you will be checking later. So I think that it's time to move to the next phase, right?

Eero from Relancer (23:08)
Yeah, it's super interesting. I was also thinking how the, of course, there are specifics for companies and people, but in general, how the market changed. So it used to be that everybody wanted to work in cool startups, take risks and then have like, do something meaningful. And then the overall world changed. And then the

like the organizational pyramid or the priority what people wanted or needed changed. So it changed a lot and then it's still like the safety I think is very important, still involved at the moment and of course it makes sense because crazy things are happening

out there. But also you mentioned a very cool aspect, like I know a very simplified version of it. Like if you're building, let's say you're building a company or startup or whatever, and in the beginning you have unique builders. So people like who in a simplified example build the roof, like the roof doesn't have to be perfect. It has to work like and then the at some

Tome Nedinkovski (24:11)
.

Eero from Relancer (24:17)
point of stage when the company grows and the product grows, you need people who will make sure that the roof doesn't fall in. They're very different from the builders, who build or we sometimes call them people who get things started or starters or pack makers or whatever. They're very different and then you need to understand what kind of people you need, at which stage and then it can be very different also.

Tome Nedinkovski (24:35)
Mm-hmm.

Eero from Relancer (24:47)
I also was thinking like if you said like, okay, the company needs safety that they don't I don't need to lay off people, but probably they need opposite person like to take risks. So it's possible maybe like, so it can be also very opposite what you need actually as a solution for that problem or whatever you need.

Tome Nedinkovski (25:07)
Exactly. So there's mainly like almost always like more solutions to one problem, of course. And that's why we are looking at team dynamics. So we do not want, usually do not recommend only having one type of people in organization. Um, In terms of what you shared, like, yeah, different theories can be applied in terms of,  personalities. Belbin test on team roles is also good for a startup since, yeah, identifies like.

the key, the key roles that you need for a start. That's, that's also useful theory.

Eero from Relancer (25:40)
Yeah. So we have a need. The company has a need. So basically, usually the next step is, like you said, to talk with the hiring manager to should understand what is the need behind it. And then you basically start creating like a job description, maybe doing a job ad. Like, What can you share about that step of the process?

Tome Nedinkovski (26:01)
Yeah, so in terms of the things that can be used in the job description. So first, like translating this and connecting it with the personality type and for all the, or types, if you have them identified already. So if we are talking about the disk theory in the specific case for, , where company's looking for the business development, , director in order like to

get the team on board to shake things a bit around and to help them be a bit better performers we might be looking for someone who is both dominant and influential type. And then in that case, we can use such wording and the words for combination of those two profiles can be related to actions, to people, to taking charge, to innovation, communication, and so on.

And then we can add that kind of word that really resonates to them and it's related to their needs as well. Then also we can, and that is in terms of let's say language side. Since there is theory that we tend like to recognize or spot more things that are more similar to us. And that's why we are using actual like this kind of theory. While we are at the language phase,

Now this is also like important to use, to use like inclusive language. So there are actual like several cool tools that you can use in order to equalize the number of feminine versus masculine words and also like to add some inclusive words as well. I'm not sure if I remember the name of that tool right away, but I can share it.

, perhaps after, after this one. So this is one, one cool point where you can start. Um, I will speak now regarding since in writing job descriptions, , next to, next to the needs, there are like few things that you need to be aware of and coming more from the perception and memory side and attention side. of, , that kind of theories. So in terms of me, memories, usually like people, , get.

the first, mostly memorize the first, the beginnings and the end of things. So make sure to use that appropriately and then perhaps use the first sentence to really summarize what the role is about, what the company is about and like having like, allowing someone to understand everything with just like one or two sentence. Then the second one is chunking and it's part of the learning theories and it's related to the...

cognitive overload theory as well. So we do not want to overwhelm people with information and to make it like really unbearable for them to read job description. One of the first decisions here are super important. So in this case, I would say, by the way, can you still hear me?

Hello.

Eero from Relancer (29:21)
Super bad. I don't know. I was typing notes, and then it went off. I was typing a question I wanted to ask. So it's recording again. I hope. I don't know what it's going to do. I hope it has never happened to me, because I was probably clicked something. So maybe we can let's try to do this part from somewhere.

Tome Nedinkovski (29:25)
What just happened?

Yeah.

Eero from Relancer (29:51)
some sentence you were saying, let's repeat, so we can cut it together like.

Tome Nedinkovski (29:56)
Let me just give me a second just to remember what I was saying. So I spoke regarding the memory and how important chunking is in writing job descriptions. Can I start with that? And then perhaps you can. So another thing that might be important when writing job description is to...

Eero from Relancer (30:12)
Yeah, yeah, let's do that.

Tome Nedinkovski (30:20)
be aware of the candidate experience and the attention that they have while reading it. So in terms of that, memory is usually has at the beginning and at the end of some process. So make sure to write the summary of the whole position and the company within short sentence at the beginning and then have a call for action at the end. Since those are, let's say, the most powerful moments of the experience there.

Then in terms of allowing the candidates to be able like to go through the job description in details, use chunking. Chunking means like information that can be processed in different paragraphs, everything to be like organized to make sense, but then not to have a huge paragraph of text. that people will probably like lose. And then related to this one is the cognitive overload bias. So do not

try to do like a lot of things in the job description. Share the most important things regarding the role. So they need to have like a good amount of alignment with what is expected. Then the second thing would be explain the culture. Here you can share like the things that are actually like covered from the Maslow theory of needs.

So you can share what kind of the benefits of the companies actually is addressing. which of these needs. Then in terms of people with specific title, let's say with specific type, for example, let's say this theory and let's take the dominant influential type of person. So here we can use like the need for freedom, the need.

we can address the autonomy that they're all will have, the impact that the role all will have, that how to say, the power like to implement things and things like that to drive things forward, this will help them. Also, there is by the way, really, really useful tool for this one. If you know already like the type of people that you want to attract, Crystal Knows is a good tool that can help you with that. So it's actually a tool that helps you to...

to write the text applicable for a specific type. And also it tells you what kind of sentences you need to write. For example, for one type you need like more details and focus more on the culture and like the harmony. For another type, it will be like straightforward information, keep it short, no bullshit. In terms of let's say more conscientious type, they know they want to have like all the details.

So knowing the organization, you can use this tool is the shortest way to, to start applying something and then adjust the, the job description from there. And I will, I will stick, I will, I will pause here, of course, like the next thing, the other things regarding writing job description, I think that, that we already know that.

Eero from Relancer (33:28)
Yeah, actually, I've never like written a job description from this angle. Like I have done it in reach out, like, and it's super easy to do if you know the person quite well, like, so you know where to push and then what to emphasize and then so on. Like, and then of course, like in general, like we usually use a template or the logic from this book, like Who: The A a method of hiring.

It's really good but not specific like this. So this probably can give you really good results on getting people who match the profile that you're actually looking for. Sounds like a super good way to do it. So what about sourcing? So

Tome Nedinkovski (34:16)
Interesting.

Eero from Relancer (34:23)
What are some psychology backed tips for sources? So we have a job description, we know who we're looking for now, now we need to start. Like, of course you can do job ads, whatever, you can ask for recommendations, but let's say you start to look for them.

Tome Nedinkovski (34:37)
Yes, so this one is actually like the hardest step to apply something since you have like really limited information for them. You just like here and we are talking just about sourcing, so not yet an outreach, right? So you have LinkedIn, you have some description that they have my written, might not, might be just like copy pasted from someone else, especially today with ChatGPT writing most of the descriptions, right?

Eero from Relancer (34:46)
.

Tome Nedinkovski (35:05)
So it becoming more and more tricky to use something here. However, I do have some guidance on this one and something that we also are practicing internally. And I would like to mention, so here in terms of this, I would not recommend selecting people based on the hypothesis that you will have.

You need to remember that at this stage we only have hypothesis of candidates and it will help us just, let's say, to prioritize who to reach out to first.

So that's the note that I would like to add on this tab.

Eero from Relancer (35:49)
But what do you mean by you wouldn't use the hypothesis that you have so you would expand the search or what does it mean?

Tome Nedinkovski (35:58)
Yeah, let's say that we are looking as the same example that we shared, like senior business development director, right? And from the intake, We already know that we are looking for someone who is ideally more dominant and influential. The reason why those two, because it's, let's say, smaller companies, so they are still not heavy on managing enormous teams and so on, so they do not meet some processes. Going back to the conversation.

Eero from Relancer (36:05)
Mm-hmm.

Tome Nedinkovski (36:27)
We have someone who we are looking for someone who is more dominant and influential based on the this theory. And then, um, it's more of a head hunting approach. There are 500 candidates out there within the market that we are looking for. Looking like they're, they fit the criteria, right?

And then we have only capacity for to reach out limited number of candidates. And it is in our interest to priorities who to reach out to first. So you can close the position faster without, with less efforts. Right. So while sourcing, while sourcing, what we can do is the ones who we feel that, , that match this personality type. And I will share how, how that can be done. , we put a tag on them when adding to our ATS or CRM.

So we actually put a tag, let's say dominant and A, and this is just a hypothesis from our end, but it will be tested when we see the reply rates after that, then we have the screening calls and then we can actually double check. So in this scenario, there are 500 candidates available while sourcing we'll keep the regular approach, but then...

before deciding who to be reached out first, I would look for the ones who have more signs of having dominant or influential personality. And how that can be done, like there are several ways. We can look at their interests. It's a usual good indication of what they're following, what kind of information they are interested in. The second one, it can be the wording. For example, more dominant people have

more straightforward language. Sometimes they do not even include really long description and they speak about achieving results, about power, status, leaderships, directing people, managing people and so on. If we are looking for influential, then we are looking for someone who speaks a lot about, let's say ideas, networking, communication and things like that. They are...

using words like inspire, motivate, dynamic, enthusiastic, and so on. So what we do in these steps is actually like making a hypothesis of which candidate can be better for us, and we prioritize the outreach for them. And that's everything that I will suggest doing, not going into like too much...

unneeded theories. So this is good for a start. And then in the outreach, we can use the knowing that the hypothesis of the person in order to adjust the message accordingly.

Eero from Relancer (39:24)
Okay, so.

Tome Nedinkovski (39:25)
And we We've tested this as well. We need to play along to go back and forward. There are some differences in terms, like if the company have one, if the job description requires one type and then you're attracting different types, that can be a bit tricky. But in general, if everything is aligned, it tends to improve both response rates and after that the conversion rates as well. Of course, it will need to be tested and there are plenty of factors that...

relate to response rates on this one. But if you have like an experimental group and just like one where you try this approach you can test the differences.

Eero from Relancer (40:07)
Okay, so we are basically at the reach out. So of course we do the sourcing, we do reach outs. But maybe we can cover also like the general ideas in communication in overall, because there's quite a lot of communication in the way.

Tome Nedinkovski (40:23)
Yeah, yeah. So in terms of outreach, I just like share that. So we actually here adjust the message in order to address the personality type that we assume that person is. We will actually check, we can actually like check it to some level during screen calls, but at this level, it is served just to increase our chances and that's it. You know? And there are some dynamics there. There are more complex that

we cannot go in those details, but this is something that we can use right away. This is in the outreach from this perspective. In terms of what else we can use, so there is something about, let's say, called as implicit egotism theory, which tells that people prefer to have...

things and to respond faster to things that really address to them, like their name, mentioning their name. We have done like that, like mentioning the name two times at the beginning and at the end, along with the call for action. Some mentioning of their experience that have been interesting for them if they've joined some event or something like that, and that increases the response rate. And here

actually comes to the part of actual personalization. So if you need like to outreach to a larger amount of people, I would say the ones that you have shortlisted to be aligned with your type, do a personalized outreach for them and the rest, okay, you can do a semi personalized with templates and so on if it's needed. And then also like some...

Something else that here can be used are behavioral economics principles that I would not recommend and would not share since it can be misused a lot.

Um, and Also keep it short. They have like few seconds attention span. We do not want to, , to overload them with information. So also using the chunks, also using the, , the end and the beginning as a, as most memorals memorizing parts. And, , as usually People like can remember six to seven things at a time. So keeping short and aligned.

Eero from Relancer (42:51)
But like you mentioned, I think if you have a theory, like you want, let's say, somebody who is more dominant, and then you do this personalized reach out. If they really are, then the response rate definitely is going to be higher. If they're not, then it's going to be probably maybe lower, because it's going to be something that...

they don't like, but in the end, if you want that dominant person, it doesn't matter, probably. And for the others, extent, you use more generalized, you don't go with this tone of voice, I would call it tone of voice, that you would use.

Tome Nedinkovski (43:28)
Yeah, for them more aligned to what the job description type is. And then you will, the hypothesis is that you will attract the people who resonate with those values as well. Yeah. But as I said, like more factors play a role here. So you'll need to test and play with things until you find your way.

Eero from Relancer (43:40)
Yeah.

So now we're getting to the point that you said that is very well covered in recruitment. So we are picking the candidates to move forward, pre-screening, interviewing, maybe testing what can be done here?

Tome Nedinkovski (44:11)
In terms of screening, you would like to share something regarding that or the selection, assessment part?

Eero from Relancer (44:18)
So yeah, I can give you an example. So how I do pre-screening, I don't do it in test or something. So my pre-screening usually is like I have candidates, I have like 30 minute calls. Sometimes it's longer, it depends. I try to understand how the person works, like what is like who they are, or what is their personality. Or.

So I understand how they work like and then I can understand what are the like strengths? What are the weaknesses like and they make decisions? Okay, are these weaknesses a problem for me? Of course, it's like in based on short, short call. So the hypothesis there can be wrong, like, but it gives me an overview. Like, and then when I go to the next step, usually it's more about testing. So testing, I can see what they actually do. So I already have a.

I already have what they have done before, like as a CV or whatever, and then I try to understand who is the person. Then I want to see what they can actually do, so I give them a home task. and then after that I will basically make... So then they will have an interview or a meeting with other people who they will work with, so to see if they also match.

Usually, if I don't do the pre-screening, there might be some cultural testing or I would take part of the interview. But my pre-screening, basically, to understand how that person works, but that's in a way maybe psychological behavior of the person, who the person is, and how the person thinks.

Tome Nedinkovski (45:58)
Yeah, and like a very good, very good approach. Like I believe a super effective, the one that you're already using. Of course, those are limited, usually around 20, 30 minutes calls, right? So of course, if you would be able like to check everything during that step, there wouldn't be a need for further four step process, right? So in terms of that, like few things doing on my side there. first is like,

Eero from Relancer (46:09)
Yeah, yeah.

Tome Nedinkovski (46:27)
And especially in agency, it's great that since you have the room to do that in agency side. Learning a bit more regarding the person. So my idea is not like to sell the role, but to meet that person, you know? And then the interest comes only as a result. So a few things. They're first understanding their needs and to see how they match with their organizational ones and the ones that are specific to

the role that is specifically open. The good thing about agencies, if we see that mural misalignment here, we can offer them something else and the trust with the candidate is on a higher level at the initial start as well. Then after we do that, we can also like briefly check some of the main competencies that are being asked for. And here I like use the

the reciprocity norm. So actually providing with a lot of information as much as possible so they can, after that share as well and be open. Well screening, it's always important. If we want to have, let's say more sensitive questions, if we have for the screening call, a salary is for some of people, one of those, how much they're earning right now. It might be the exact reason why they are looking for a change for some people that's more sensitive.

Eero from Relancer (47:46)
Bye.

Tome Nedinkovski (47:56)
And if we start the initial conversation with that, they tend to hide it or just like provide us with answer that can just like satisfy us. And that's where the bias is starting. But then from qualitative research practices, it is always good to start with wider questions, with more safe, I would say.

And then as you go deeper in the conversation, you slowly begin to build trust then to go to the ones that are more significant. And that will increase your success as well in terms of this. Of course, like here is that a lot of things can be used. Like any psychology theories can be used in this one from psychotherapy, transactional analysis gives you a lot of handy tools, how to see behavior, but...

for recruiters, I think that these ones that we mentioned would be enough.

Eero from Relancer (48:56)
And then usually, it depends on the company, but usually the process is quite long. And actually, my wife is at the moment in a new job search, and I can see how the actions of the company demotivate. If they do something in the process or something is unclear or whatever, how the motivation goes down. And then when they do something great

Tome Nedinkovski (49:10)
Hmm.

Eero from Relancer (49:24)
then how the motivation raises. So it's super interesting to see at the moment from the side, like how it is happening. But what companies can do to motivate candidates and keep them engaged in this, like, hopefully short hiring process, but usually it's long.

Tome Nedinkovski (49:45)
Yeah, yeah. So I would say like from the recruiter side, the companies can of course like optimize their hiring process based on feedback. And we do not need like to extend that topic a lot. But in terms of what the recruiter can do, build trust with the candidates and stick to that. The students trust has five phases. One of them is being transparent. The other one is actually like delivering what you

said that you will deliver. So provide feedback on time, coach them, help them, show them that you also care for them and then explain if there is a need for waiting. Don't just like keep them keep them how to say, hanging. A very good way to remove some of the negative experiences is by really

explaining that the process really well at the start. So that's why in screening calls, we need to share how the process will look like, how long it will be and so on. So those are some of the things. And then like provide them with constant feedback, keep them engaged and address any concerns that they have as they go.

So these here are actually the needs that we mentioned at the beginning, The Maslow theory, here are important and especially for acceptance rate. They would like to be sure that actually if they're looking for a change because of, I don't know, their need for status improvement that will actually help them. That they will have the need that let's say.

autonomy in their position, that they will have, let's say, the team that the company has promised to them to lead. So things like that. In terms of salary, in terms of offering, what a recruiter can do is ensuring that everything that has been communicated in the initial stages that are actually being included in the offer, if there's no possibility for that,

at least make plans how those can be addressed in the future. So here it goes in the, let's say, that risk avoidance, this part of the decision making, when we want to make sure that everything that scares them off from the offer that is actually being addressed, of course, in an ethical matter. That can help us a lot with the process.

Eero from Relancer (52:21)
So you mentioned building trust and you said maybe I remember the wrong like you said five steps or so one being transparent, what are the five phases, like all of them?

Tome Nedinkovski (52:29)
Yeah, five phases.

Yeah, so in terms of in terms of the and then just like let me can you give me one second?

I know them like from practice wise, but I don't want to misguide any of those. Okay.

Eero from Relancer (52:49)
Yeah, it's fine.

We can cut it out. Ha ha

Tome Nedinkovski (52:54)
Yeah, you can cut it out.

And we have it like, we just like edit it in our values, core values. So, , you'll just give me one sec.

LinkedIn is.

Eero from Relancer (53:19)
Yeah, I'm super afraid that the first part will not be saved. I hope it didn't happen. I can check it later. I will check it right now, just to be sure.

Tome Nedinkovski (53:30)
Hey, it's not a problem. We can like reshoot it on Monday again. So yeah, from my side, it's totally okay. And if you think that improved version can be done for me, it's interesting since I am also practicing how to communicate this, it's everything in the head.

Eero from Relancer (53:33)
Yeah. Yeah, I.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always make notes for me what to improve. And I will write to make, because I make sometimes questions on the way. Like, I have done it on the computer. I will do it on Twitter. So if I type something, I can misclick something. And that's what happened, basically. I probably clicked something that refreshed the page or whatever.

Tome Nedinkovski (54:06)
me show all posts. We had one specifically for trust that I translated into business language.

Eero from Relancer (54:26)
I googled, engage, listen, pray in mission commit. OK, this is not the one that we want to review.

Tome Nedinkovski (54:35)
So these are like five facets of them. Benevolence, reliability, competence, honesty, and openness are actually the ones that we have. And these are like, you can find it with five facets of.

Eero from Relancer (54:50)
Okay, so tell me when you're ready to record.

Tome Nedinkovski (54:53)
Give me one second. Yes. Give me one second.

We'll ask the question once again, then we can start from there. It's okay.

Eero from Relancer (55:05)
I think you can just start talking because I asked the question, like, I can do it. So, what are the five stages of building trust?

Tome Nedinkovski (55:16)
Yes. So they are not actually stages. There are more domains, I would say. So those are sub dimensions of what is actually trust being like consisted of. And that's one of our also like core values as well. So one would be benevolence. It's actually like showing that you're caring for the best interest of the candidate. And that is like usually like being sent during the conversation. Second one is

early ability. So if we say that we follow up with them in two days, let's let it be two days. If we say that we will do something for them, we really need to do that in order to build a trust. If not, we just put ourselves in a trap and we are losing the trust in the really early stages. The other one is competence or actually radiating that we can do what we are promised to do. We can...

of course, be willing to do it, but they cannot trust us if they know that we wouldn't be competent for that part. The third one, the fourth one would be more, let's say, summarized as honesty and having a full transparency with them. So if you see that some aspects of the job might be a potential deal breaker for them or might not be really aligned with their expectations, it's better that we communicate them than they're finding it out.

That way they will have the time to think about it. They will have perhaps ask your help for any guidance, how they can overcome that or negotiate that part as well. The last one is openness, which is related to the previous one. It's also being asked ready to build a good communication with them. Like being also...

being also as they are exposed. ourself, we need to do like the reprosity in terms of that and also show that we can do what we are asking them to do.

Eero from Relancer (57:24)
So when it comes to selecting the final candidates, there is a big part on the decision-maker psychology. How common is bias? You already mentioned it before. And how to overcome this unconscious bias that everybody productivity has?

Tome Nedinkovski (57:41)
Yeah, so I don't think that we can fully avoid it, to be honest. And that's why we have the... One is psychometric assessments, standardized ones. If they are standardized, that means that they have been proven to be reliable, which means that if repeated, similar results will be gathered. And then valid, which means that they're actually measuring what they say that they're measuring.

Having the exact same process for every candidate, help you remove some of those biases and then look at their competences on more objective level. And then use a further step, like final interview after that, to conduct behavioral or competency-based questions. And here you can actually train your

employers and hiring managers on how to, let's say, identify specific, be aware of specific biases and how to actually evaluate if some of the competences are met or not. There are like several biases that can occur at any given point to any of us. The thing is that how...

Whatever is your level of, I don't know, seniority or experience, this happens all the time and we just need to be humble enough to know that we are at the risk of making such errors. The first one is confirmation bias, which is actually if we believe that we want to see something on the candidate, then we actually are biased to see that if if it's not there.

Eero from Relancer (59:32)
Hmm.

Tome Nedinkovski (59:34)
And that comes like, this is really common in recruiters, as we really want that candidate to be like the unicorn, one that we are looking for. And we start like pro to assign something that is not there. The second one is halo effect. Halo effect, actually like, what it makes is if the candidate is really good at one part

Eero from Relancer (59:41)
.

Tome Nedinkovski (59:59)
we tend to evaluate the other aspects as also being above average. And this is also a bias. So what we can do here is just like having the competences well-defined for a specific role and rate them separately and then combine everything. The other one opposite to this one is the horn effect. Let's say that the person had like really good impression for a specific question. And then...

Eero from Relancer (1:00:06)
Hmm.

Tome Nedinkovski (1:00:28)
we tend to see at the other things that they share, like also evaluating more negative. And that's why we also need to have this, let's say, scoring system more objective as can with some, let's say, KPI, some objective norms of how to value them. Similarity attraction, it is more likely that I would like candidate similar to me.

Eero from Relancer (1:00:34)
Hmm.

Tome Nedinkovski (1:00:55)
And you perhaps will like candidates more similar to you. And this is a bass and that's why in selection process it's good to have more interviewers, so not just one. What we've tried like with a company that hasn't so much established the process right now, we tried to include two interviewers at a time who are also valid, like relatable for the role and bring more to the candidate experience. There were like few many.

Anchoring effect is the first impression. So the importance of the first impressions. I might have like excellent first impression and not be a great candidate. And because of that, I might have advantage to some candidate that had like really connectivity issues or had like really bad day at the start and it's already skewed. So those are the biases. And in order like to overcome that,

Eero from Relancer (1:01:29)
.

Tome Nedinkovski (1:01:54)
psychological assessments, adding them in the selection step One of the best things and competence based questions.

Eero from Relancer (1:02:03)
What we have also done is, I don't remember if it was in the book, but when we have different interviews or people who talk, we don't share the notes with each other. So there is no like, I don't know if it's anchoring that if I see somebody else's opinion on the person, it will affect me on that side. But what I have seen mainly is, I think two things.

In the simplified One happened that we hire somebody who is similar to us, which is super bad actually, because in the organizations it's good if you have different people complementing each other. Like, so somebody is better at something and then somebody else is better at something else. And then like in a team, they basically complete each other. And the other way is probably that you might...

that you hire somebody that is different to yourself like and that is actually good. I think in general, of course in Depends on the role. Maybe sometimes it's good to have somebody similar like depends what they do like so I think these are like two things that usually maybe happen like that you hire somebody and on the psychology part there is a another interesting part. Like if you hire somebody who similar to you,

you will be super annoyed about the flaws they have. They will have the same things that you are. It's a mirror to yourself, and then you're angry at them. But actually, you're angry at yourself. So that's what's going to happen if you hire somebody who is similar to yourself. So there's going to be honeymoon in the beginning. It's so good. It's so cool. I love you. You're like me. And then they're like, fuck, I hate you. You do these dumb things, but you're the same, basically. So probably these kinds of things can happen.

Tome Nedinkovski (1:03:54)
Yeah.

Yes, these things can happen. Like it's not necessarily the case, but can definitely happen. Like using the disk theory, one company wanted like to have more dominant people, so more action-oriented, or more ones who like credit to achieve results, and then hired too many of those. And then the culture went down and they will fight over dominance. So you need to like to have really good balance.

Eero from Relancer (1:04:17)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah...

Tome Nedinkovski (1:04:23)
At least like three supporters for one for one dominant person.

Eero from Relancer (1:04:28)
Yeah, I think that's super important thing to know also in the team environment that there isn't room, at least in one, the same team, like for a lot of similar people because they will start to compete. Like if they're dominant, for example, I have had that like in a very early, early days, maybe like it can happen with co-founders for example, if there's two people like...

Tome Nedinkovski (1:04:54)
Hmm.

Eero from Relancer (1:04:56)
two heads on the dragon, they're pushing in separate ways. These kinds of things can happen. That's definitely something that can be also considered when putting together teams. And of course hiring new people to teams, like how these people will work together.

Tome Nedinkovski (1:05:07)
Definitely.

Yeah, definitely. I do have one that I can share with you regarding team roles, actually. The one that we are using in terms of psychometric assessments. So there are like several that are really good. Perhaps, big five and these are the most widely used, but Hogan's personality

have really good reliability and validity. Predictive Index, they also have cool, really good assessments. And they actually introduce something called talent optimization, super useful tool. For anyone who is reading these topics, I would suggest they take a look at their talent optimization programs and how they solve that with software and knowledge support as well. And...

my personal favorite. It's the assessment of Psytech International. They are within assessments for more than 20 years. And we get in touch like thanks to our partners of Elite Academy in Balkans and Italy. And it's a very comprehensive assessment that has really good reputation and precision.

And I can share, they also cover like a lot of things, but I can share a topic regarding the, a slide regarding how the results in terms of what you just mentioned, the team roles.

Eero from Relancer (1:06:52)
Hmm.

Tome Nedinkovski (1:06:55)
Just need to figure out how to share it.

Eero from Relancer (1:06:59)
You wanna share the screen? There is a button next to leave. Don't click the leave. Share. Do you see?

Tome Nedinkovski (1:07:01)
.

Hmm?

Um, okay.

Are you able to see it?

Eero from Relancer (1:07:27)
Yeah.

Tome Nedinkovski (1:07:28)
Yeah, so this is one page of 20 page report. And this report actually is related to the Belbin team roles. And here you can see like more than like eight different team roles that there are identified according to this theory within a team.

And then what we are looking like to see when we build a team around scientists to have like compatible characteristics. For example, my dominant ones are coordinator, the first one, and then resource investigator, and then the third one is a team builder. And then my co-founder actually is more on the inspector completer while also having some resource investigator things like me.

At one point, we really needed someone to shake things up, you know, shaper driver. And we actually had a strategic hire since we became like more, let's say, avoiding risk and avoiding charge and things like that. This can be like super helpful when building your initial teams.

Eero from Relancer (1:08:40)
Yeah, we also, like I think I have taken the big five test and then also like I have used this 16 personalities. like have you done that one? It is, it's in a way, it's quite accurate. Of course, usually there is something off, but in general, like you get quite good idea of yourself and also like if you do it with some of the people, like you can get the understanding of who they are and it doesn't take too much time.

Tome Nedinkovski (1:08:52)
Thank you.

Yeah. Actually, 16 personalities, it's not recommended to be used for recruiting, but more for team building activities, to get to know each other. Yeah, and in terms of hiring, it doesn't have really good predictability scores.

Eero from Relancer (1:09:20)
Yeah.

Yeah, I haven't used it for recruiting, but in general to understand like how to maybe work with somebody, collaborate. So we did it with the founders when we started Relancer. I haven't used it for building the team, but that was super crucial. And we tried to do as much as we can to understand like, will it work in the long term? So

Tome Nedinkovski (1:09:37)
No.

Yep.

Eero from Relancer (1:09:57)
So I think you already live it covered, but maybe we can go over again. So how can recruiters achieve a higher offer acceptance rate? You mentioned some of the things earlier. Can we maybe go over them? And then if you want to add anything else on top of that.

Tome Nedinkovski (1:10:14)
So in terms of accepting offers, I think that I covered that previously. So actually like making sure that everything that has been like communicated previously as concerns or as needs of the candidate that you make sure that these are addressed. Also coaching the hiring managers to craft a special one and bringing them the position of the candidate, being transparent both with them on what are the pros and cons of having such employees so they can draft a good

onboarding plan for them or let's say after that, like a management plan for them. Um, so I will stick to these ones. Not to, of course, like Plenty of things can be used. , we do not definitely want to use dark psychology here for, um, influencing decisions. that are just like, you see like candidate except no, because like.

Eero from Relancer (1:11:07)
Why not?

Tome Nedinkovski (1:11:10)
Candidate accepting a job is much more important for them than it's for us as recruiters or as for the company. For them, it's like a big chunk of their life and it's like super unethical to do this. That's why I'm not sharing those ones like during our call since it can be misused. So we do not want, yeah. In sales, I see like even in like behavioral economics and in marketing, they...

Eero from Relancer (1:11:17)
Yeah.

. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Tome Nedinkovski (1:11:40)
have been used and some of them are already starting to be like regulated or forbidden. In recruitment, it's good that not much of that is being used. like.

Eero from Relancer (1:11:49)
Because I know there are books about social engineering, so basically influencing people. Of course, it can be probably like a sword, like a knife with double edge. Because of course, maybe you can influence somebody to accept. But if they quit in the next three months or whatever, then it's not good for you. So in that way, it can be maybe risky.

Tome Nedinkovski (1:12:14)
Neither.

It's a lose-lose-lose situation on the long term. So the company loses, you lose in terms of your credibility and the candidates, I think, lose the most. It's something that's really, really not ethical and especially psychologist we are trained in terms of ethics in what we do. Yeah.

Eero from Relancer (1:12:24)
Yeah.

Yeah. yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I understand. Like, if you would be only thinking of acceptance rate as one metric and you want to improve it, then you're like, okay, let's do this. This is going to improve it, but it's going to affect some other metrics and then that's going to be bad. So you have to see the bigger picture. That's good. So don't use social engineering. Okay.

Tome Nedinkovski (1:12:55)
Yeah, don't do it.

I love you, don't do that please.

Eero from Relancer (1:13:03)
So let's move to maybe the last stage. Of course, recruitment is done. The candidate accepted the offer. So the onboarding starts. What on the psychological aspect employers need to achieve so all the candidates would succeed? What do you have to make them feel? Or what's important? in there?

Tome Nedinkovski (1:13:27)
Yeah. So here, like plenty of things can be done, of course, depending on which approach do you have on what is like most important for them. I would say start with creating a positive first impression with primary effect. So making sure to like that's in terms of so have the first day organized and have them organized to address all of the needs that we discussed first.

So getting them with the basics of where across the office or the organization of if it's like virtual, give them a guide there. Then in terms of the second, it's like, get them to know where, who they can reach out for their specific, let's say inquiries that they might have, then connect them with the most of the people, share them.

meet them, especially with the people who are a good example of behavior within your company as well. And then share them a lot, share with them a lot regarding your culture and the long-term vision of the company, since those are like initial experiences of the candidate and they're usually stronger to what's to come.

Allow them to have some flexibility, autonomy in terms of how they would like to approach the onboarding. So not super, super structured. It will help them with their autonomy needs. And then in terms of cognitive overload, don't try to share everything within two days, since they'll most likely forget some crucial aspects and then will be asking you to do it again. So...

Try to organize it in a more, let's say, in a more digestible chunks. The third one that can be done, it is by theory of expectations. It's like clear, define the clear things they need to do, especially in the beginning. So provide clarity on the job expectations.

If there are any KPIs, share them. This is the right thing to do. This is the right time to do that. Like remove as much as possible files within the process as you can.

Eero from Relancer (1:15:55)
Yeah.

Tome Nedinkovski (1:15:55)
These are some of the, and then It is also good to make this for them quite achievable. So if you can organize the onboarding in order so they can have some quick wins, this will help them to feel confident that they will actually be successful in this step and actually onboard a bit faster.

Eero from Relancer (1:16:18)
Yeah, when I asked the question, I was like, I have seen some companies who have quite low, like they say, I don't know, 30% of our employees go through our probation period because our expectations are so high. But I was thinking, maybe your onboarding is so bad because people are good, but you just can't get them going.

It can be either way, the expectation may be so high, but if you have a bad onboarding, then people either quit or they might not be successful and they might be demotivated or don't have the confidence and so on. So it's definitely crucial. So it doesn't stop from the hiring. You have to get them going.

Tome Nedinkovski (1:17:09)
Yeah. You know, like even if you get like a name A player, the best one, and then you put them really unoptimized for success, so they are not set for success right from the beginning, then it will cost you a lot as a company, and then certainly it will cost the candidate as well. Yeah.

Eero from Relancer (1:17:27)
Yeah. So I think it's time to wrap up from here. So that's it for episode 5 of Relancer Podcast. If you liked this episode, feel free to subscribe and share it. Thank you for tuning in and I hope to see you in the next one.

Tome Nedinkovski (1:17:45)
Thank you for the invitation, Eero. Cheers.

Eero from Relancer (1:17:49)
and stop.