Hiring Manager Success Story (DIRECTV)

TL – Senior Director Product Management – DIRECTV

You wake up, look at your phone and are immediately bombarded with ads for products you don’t want from brands that you’ve never heard of.

You turn on your TV or radio and voices shout at you about what car or TV or cell phone you should buy.

Your email and voicemail are filled with endless spam and junk sales messages and someone probably even left a flier on your car’s windshield for a service that you would never use. 

Sometimes it feels like the entire world is telling you what you should buy, but no one is interested in learning what you actually need. 

At CRB Workforce we understand this, and that’s why one of the key skills that we offer as an agency is that we take the time to listen to our clients and understand their specific needs so that we can deliver the candidates they’re looking for. 

The badass, the rockstar, and the ultimate partner – TL has hired several candidates to her team from CRB, and she broke it down for us how she’s been able to build such a successful relationship with our recruiters.

Q: How did your working relationship with CRB begin?

TL: I was actually a candidate with them before I was a hiring manager and I remember that they always kept in contact with me even after I got the job. They would reach out and celebrate milestones or my birthday and they spent time building a relationship with me. Then, when I was in a position to build my own team, they were the first people that came to mind when I needed to find candidates. 

Q: Were they the only staffing firm you worked with to find new employees?

TL: No, they weren’t. We had sourced candidates from other recruiters before, and I wanted to give them a chance. I didn’t want to be biased just because I had a previous relationship with CRB but, unfortunately, it didn’t work out well with the other agencies.

Q: Why not? 

TL: Because they never took the time to understand what my priorities or work expectations were, so the candidates they sent me weren’t up to the standard that I needed.

Q: How were things different with CRB?

TL: I have a really good relationship with Maureen at CRB. She is the lead Account Director that I’ve worked with for over a year now. She and I have worked together successfully on four positions on my team so far. The biggest difference with Maureen is that she really listens and gives me so much of her attention and time so that she can understand exactly what I’m looking for in a role that I’m trying to fill. That’s something that I felt was missing from the other agencies that I had worked with. 

Q: What happens if you’re not happy with a CRB candidate?

TL: So, if CRB sent me two candidates for a position who I felt missed the mark, Maureen would immediately jump on the phone with me and we would refocus and get aligned on what exactly I needed. And every time we would have one of those calls, I would hire the next candidate they sent because they were exactly who I was looking for. That’s happened twice now.

Q: Once you’ve hired a candidate through CRB, how do they make sure that the relationship is successful? 

TL: The thing CRB does that I haven’t seen from any other staffing agency is that they send a template that is specific to DIRECTV that outlines all of the important onboarding details for the candidate. So it covers everything from how to order equipment, how to get their employee badge, and what they should expect on their first day. 

All of that helps make the candidate comfortable as they transition into a new company and sets them up for success. And they also do regular check-ins with the candidates for at least the first three months to make sure that everything is going well and to see if they have any issues or pain points that need to be addressed.  

Q: I know that at DIRECTV a lot of new hires begin as consultants. Have you had success converting people from consultants into full-time employees?

TL: Yes. On my team, from my Associate Vice President down, all of the consultants that we’ve converted into full time employees have come from CRB Workforce. So that just gives you an idea of the caliber of the talent that they’ve found for us.