Freddie Kim, Founder and CEO of MilSpec Talent, dives into building a successful team for your business. He and Claude explore the art of hiring right, how to figure out what someone might bring to your team, and why it’s beneficial to partner with a recruiter when looking for new employees.
Finding new employees can be a lot of work. Today Claude interviews Freddie Kim, Founder and CEO of MilSpec Talent, a recruiting firm that connects business owners to leaders with military training and industry expertise who have a proven track record of mission success.
Freddie describes how to hire the right people for your team. He’ll also uncover the strategies and principles needed to not only build a thriving team, but how to align individual strengths with organizational goals.
“Many of us believe in our guts, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of leaders, they trust their gut. And I think that's like the crux of screwing up hiring by just trusting your gut, right? Not having the left and right limits, not having a systematic or systematized structure and having a structured hiring process.”
“I want to build a team. I don't want to be doing everything. And I really try to spell out, what functions do I need? How do they fit with our existing people? How does that fit with culture? Thinking about our objectives and hire to make that happen.”
“Recruiters are expensive. Headhunters are expensive. I think we all know that. But you should be working with a recruiter that's familiar with your space. That way they have that market mastery and understanding of that space. We know how to interpret military experiences and how that's, and the transition of that into the corporate world. We understand the nuances to that and we understand what it takes to be, to lead at a certain level in your organization.”
“Every leader, they all have gifts. Like you have your zone of genius, if you will. You have that area you excel at and you're in a free flowing state when you're in that zone. But recruiting may not be one of them. Financials may not be one of them. So you have a tax on that gift. So when you have a gift tax, what do you have to do? You have to build a team around it and or outsource it accordingly so that you can get the best people to do those tasks for you.”
01:56 - Quick Hits
04:10 - The founding of MilSpec
07:19 - How to hire better
21:44 - Why work with a recruiter?
33:40 - Ensuring retention
37:21 - Where to find Freddie
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[00:00:25] Claude: Welcome to Office Libations Unwrapped. I'm your host, Claude Burns. I'm here with Freddie Kim, the founder and CEO of Millspec Talent. Really excited about this conversation today because Freddie is in the talent acquisition space and we all want to hire better people and make sure that they're really aligned to our organization's culture and values. Freddie, welcome.
[00:00:44] Freddie: Hey, Claude. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:46] Claude: Yeah. One, one thing I want to let listeners know is that, you're a four time All American boxing champ, that correct?
[00:00:54] Freddie: I am. I am. It's because I was a little, 100, 125 pounds. There wasn't too many opponents in my weight class, you know?
[00:01:02] Claude: Yeah, you're just being humble. Do you still, still keep up with collegiate boxing much?
[00:01:06] Freddie: I follow army boxing 'cause of my coaches are still, you know, getting after it. And they are just, they're crushing 'em right now. Army boxing. They, I think they, 11 times they won net, the national championship and the
[00:01:21] Claude: Do you remember who won this year?
[00:01:22] Freddie: shut up. No way. I, I didn't even check this year. No, no,
[00:01:29] Claude: man, Navy is the current, national boxing champions,
[00:01:32] Freddie: Oh. All right. I'll give you that.
[00:01:34] Claude: Yeah. So, figured I'd start you out on that.
[00:01:38] Freddie: It gets, I guess it gets tiring. You gotta, you know, switch it up once in a while. So, but it reminds me of the,
[00:01:44] Claude: Makes you feel better.
[00:01:45] You know, it, it, it happens. So to, to let the audience get to know you a little bit better, we can sort of do a quick hit segment. So we're going to go ahead and just jump right into that and, coffee or tea.
[00:01:55] Freddie: I'm a coffee guy.
[00:01:57] Claude: Okay. Do you have like a favorite brand of coffee?
[00:02:00] Freddie: Kind of whatever's in the keurig you know?
[00:02:02] Claude: Got it. Got it. What's your go to like work, drink, or snack?
[00:02:06] Freddie: I think hard boiled eggs.
[00:02:09] Claude: Okay.
[00:02:09] Freddie: there. Yep.
[00:02:10] Claude: you do them with like a salt and pepper, hot sauce?
[00:02:14] Freddie: Yeah, I just, I, I dashed a little bit of salt on it and I just throw the whole thing in my mouth and crush it. So quick and easy, you know,
[00:02:23] Claude: That's great. You're retired. Money's no object. Where do you live?
[00:02:28] Freddie: I think like in a huge, mountain cabin, like overlooking that, you know, those, you know, those cabins you drive along and you're like, dang, that's like almost about to fall off, but it's overlooking everything. Something like that. That'd be where I live.
[00:02:45] Claude: That's awesome. What book are you reading right now?
[00:02:48] Freddie: I'm currently reading Choose Your Enemies Wisely by Patrick Bette David. Recently been harping on the book, Buy Back Your Time, to like everyone I know and saying, read it. If you're, if you're, interested in buying back your time.
[00:03:06] Claude: So buy back your time. High recommendation.
[00:03:09] Freddie: Yes.
[00:03:10] Claude: All
[00:03:10] Freddie: high.
[00:03:11] Claude: Who's your favorite historical figure, either dead or alive?
[00:03:14] Freddie: I'm a boxer. I hope, hopefully it could be a fictional character as well. So Rocky Balboa, he's my all time favorite and just what he's been able to push through and the lessons he teach, teaches. So yeah, Rocky.
[00:03:29] Claude: have, do you have a favorite Rocky?
[00:03:32] Freddie: I mean, you cannot go wrong with Rocky IV, against, the Russians, but, or so USSR at the time, the Rocky montage, every time I hear that, it just like gets me going, you
[00:03:45] Claude: As a boxer, it totally makes sense.
[00:03:47] Freddie: Yeah, it does. I'm a meathead, you know,
[00:03:50] Claude: I like it. All right, but before we sort of get into Millspec talent, you know, you mind sharing a little bit about sort of your background and what sort of led to the founding of, of Millspec?
[00:03:59] Freddie: Yeah. so I did 10 years active duty. And I got out of the military, of the army. And I felt like I had more potential outside. And it, when I jumped, You know, I, I don't know about you, Claude, cause you're, you're, you're a better person than me, but I kind of got out of the army and of service thinking I was like God's gift to corporate America. I was like, yeah, I can do anything. Just give me anything and I'll, I'll figure it out. I'm a Green Beret, rah, rah. But that obviously was not the case. I kind of learned a little bit of construction, a little bit of manufacturing, ran a, ran a business. And then I said, Hey, I really need to understand how to do this business thing.
[00:04:45] And I'm much better as a, as an officer, just to, instead of OJT, kind of learning, like structured learning. So I got my MBA and that's kind of where, you Probably like you, my whole world just like flipped and I, and I saw the possibilities and I saw two things, Claude. One, like throughout that, I guess, five year journey before the NBA, I saw one that their leadership, the lack of leadership, the leadership gap in corporate, it is real.
[00:05:14] Right? People want to, they, they say they're leaders, but they don't know how to lead it. They're more managers and they, and they want those KPIs and numbers and leadership is lacking. And then two, I realized that, you know, any leader who wants to build something needs to recruit well, needs to recruit a team because you may be gifted in an area, you know?
[00:05:41] But you can't do everything yourself, obviously. I was very bad, bad at recruiting. And I screwed up, had several mishires along the way. And I was like, you know what, I'm going to learn how to do this right. And while doing so, and while perfecting this, I'm going to connect this group of small, medium sized business space, this leadership gap, I'm going to connect them with some of these amazing people I've served with that I know can, can handle it. And that's kind of evolved through helping small, medium sized businesses find their executive talent and also helping private equity firms, funds with their portfolio companies and their, and the management there. That's been a five or six year journey now and it's been, it's been fun.
[00:06:30] Claude: That's awesome. I think your perspective is really unique because you sort of sit in kind of two sides. One, you're, running your own company, so you have all the same hiring and recruiting and sort of company challenges, but then you also get to see from the other side of people trying to source people into their organizations, people running lots of different industries.
[00:06:50] So you get to see how other people are really running their companies and really thinking about talent management and talent acquisition. And sometimes I'm sure you've had like best practices that, that you'll share with us later, but to start like, most people want to know like the simple question, like, how do I hire better? You said yourself, like I've struggled with it and I wanted to figure out how to do it. Well, how do you do it?
[00:07:13] Freddie: I feel like my hypothesis is that veterans are really bad at hiring because we were never taught it. If you think about it, every group and team you are on or led that was given to you from your command and said, go and execute. And we never were taught like how to scout and how to, how to pick and choose and convince folks to join the team until you get to the higher levels, which I was not. Many of us believe in our guts, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of leaders, they trust their gut.
[00:07:47] And I think that's like the crux of, screwing up hiring by just trusting your gut, right? Not having the left and right limits, not having a systematic or systematized structure and having a structured, you know, hiring process. So like I would recommend that to, you know, to most business owners or business leaders, it's just simple questions like, have you asked the same question to the same type of candidates consistently?
[00:08:18] And have you recorded those answers? And have you even taken time to look at them and even score them? Right? And try to remove bias. All of us have, have, have cognitive biases. Most of us have the confirmation bias, right? You see somebody and, in the first, you know, 30 seconds, you're like, I like this guy, or I don't like this guy. And everything else you talk about, you're just confirming that initial thought. So how do you remove that? And I think trying to come up with a unbiased, objective hiring, structured process, that, that is the key for most people. And oh, by the way, if you have a process, you can bring in people to, to play parts in that process, and you're not doing everything yourself.
[00:09:04] And you're having their feedback and you're actually building a team culture through that instead of you saying, Hey, I could do everything and I'm going to hire the best and, and, and hence you're, you're, you're screwing up at it because you're doing everything else.
[00:09:20] Claude: Yeah. And what's, what's sort of that process look like? You hear some companies, it's like you show up, you get a job, other companies have eight different interviews with 20 different people over the course of three months. Is there a right fit? Is there any sort of, research around what helps people hire more successfully, or is there like sort of a drop off?
[00:09:39] Freddie: Yeah, there, there's a lot of techniques. And I've seen people who, Who do it like you said, just really quick, have two, three, two interviews and you're hired and, and, and it works out well.
[00:09:52] And I've seen people that have super deliberate process that doesn't. I, there's a wide variety and it's one of those, You know, MBA answers that depends, how your team functions and what everyone's good at. And I, and can you, can you share the, the feedback with people?
[00:10:11] Do you have a actual culture that you can harp on and you can vet the candidate against? I think all of those things, it, it impacts kind of the, it impacts the quality of your, your candidate. One thing, Claude, is that even though like the best of the best in hiring, right? Best of the best in hiring, you would be right only 60, 70 percent of the time, because in the end, people are, fallible. They, they, they have their weaknesses. They may exaggerate some things. It may not be a good fit and you can never tell. It's a volatile thing you're dealing with, with people. So even though you're the best of the best, only two thirds of the time, you'll be right.
[00:10:58] Claude: I'm sure that it will make a lot of people feel a lot better. Hearing that sort of come, come from someone that's involved in a lot of different companies, hiring processes. I want to switch gears and talk a little bit about, about your company. Like, how do you think about sort of hiring people, training people, creating a experience for the people that work for you?
[00:11:16] Freddie: Yeah. So I, it's a good point, that you're harping on now because there are lots of recruiting organizations or recruiting, brands that tout their recruiting background and their success. And they're like one, two men, people, two men teams, maybe three men teams, and they're like small, nimble, and they can go and get, get stuff done for you.
[00:11:40] The top recruiter, he or she is doing all the work and putting everything together. I deliberately chose Claude to build a business. Like I want to build a team. I don't want to be doing everything. So we've taken things slower. And I really try to spell out, like, what functions do I need? How do they fit with our existing people? How does that fit with culture? and, and our objectives and, and hire kind of to make that happen. So kind of like an assembly line process in hiring. It's just hire slow and kind of fire semi fast, right? We've been more deliberate in hiring slower so that we can, we can like have each of our key members assess candidates and go and make sure that what candidates are telling us, even though they're repetitive questions, are they consistent? You know, that kind of thing. Do we understand what's, what everyone feels is important on the team? Does it go back to our values? So we've been a little bit more deliberate with that. Just collect clear values. This is what we're hiring against. This is the purpose and the function, a purpose of the function.
[00:12:55] And we had, we have had a lot of people interact in that process on, on my team, as opposed to just Freddie Kim, which a lot of people do. They go, I'm the owner, I can say no go, so hey, I'm going to hire how I feel. And then, oh, even though somebody else may interview on your team, they're like wondering whether, would, would Claude like this person?
[00:13:17] You know, would Freddie like them? Instead of objectively trying to view, like I am really trying to focus on their technical competence, right? Or culture fit according to standard. So.
[00:13:31] Claude: It definitely makes sense. I think that structured process and bringing more people in, helps get more opinion and, and reduce some of the biases that you see, see in hiring. Like I know my bias for military veterans is, is very strong. Other people on my team, less bias towards, or in favor of, of, of veterans.
[00:13:49] And so having a process allows them to objectively assess that candidate and, and also have the, space to say, you know, I actually don't think they're the right fit. We've definitely learned a lot through the years of how to try to find and recruit good people. Because very similar to you, I was not very good at it, for a very long time.
[00:14:11] And I don't still don't think I'm very good at it. I think if you want to grow an organization, you have to learn to get. Get good at hiring.
[00:14:19] Freddie: Yeah. True., you did also mention like some companies that do it really high, like fat, fast and effectively and. I would imagine that they have, refined their, their system, they have automated parts of it, right?
[00:14:34] So once you have a system, you can continually improve to make it more efficient where you're not. Or it's not manually, touched every time. And you can also have like behavioral assessments. I think we'll talk about that later. But behavioral assessments to do a lot of the vetting and filtering for you.
[00:14:50] So you're not, again, speaking to somebody 30, 45 minutes. And in the end, you know, it's just that you, you've missed something obvious, right? Because they're telling you all good things about them. So use of tools and understanding their value, I think is, is also a very key thing, ingredient to this.
[00:15:08] Claude: I'm a big fan of kind of the behavioral assessment piece. I think it provides another data point and, you know, I've seen it work in a lot of different settings, both, you know, in the military and sort of out. I'm a fan of, those types of tools. but ultimately they're, you know, I, I view them as a data point. How do you kind of look at those behavioral assessments?
[00:15:26] Freddie: It's just a data point, like you said. So what I, what I usually do is,
[00:15:32] I take that and I use like the interviewing process, behavioral questioning, situational questioning to understand and validate what the results are showing. That way you get, you have more concrete examples of, you know, how, autonomous somebody can be with decision making, right? You, you understand how they view that. And how they actually implemented that over their career.
[00:15:55] Claude: And so when, when we're thinking about like the, the general overall hiring market, right. A lot's changed in, you know, the past four or five years. What people expect out of work, what their relationship looks like for work. Can you sort of share some things, you've sort of seen in, in placing candidates?
[00:16:11] Cause correct me if I'm wrong, but typically you're placing more senior sort of executives, high level managers into organizations. Have you seen any sort of change in like what employees, sort of the, the people you're trying to recruit to join a company or looking for today?
[00:16:26] Unemployment rate is low, but it's creeping up. It is creeping up. And it is currently, I think three, 3. 8 or something along those lines. Which means obviously more candidates in the market, right? I think employers will have, it's as there's some volatility in the economy, there's going to be, more, you know, available supply. Which makes things more competitive for the candidates end and allows the, the employer to have better choice and better selection. So with that said, I've seen employees, employers want to pay for the value of candidates. And, and from the recent layoffs and tech, tech, and, and, you know, that's all going into why the unemployment rate is rising.
[00:17:15] Freddie: People's salaries have inflated, inflation has pushed that, but companies understand this and they want to hire the best people, right? So that's one. But after the, after the, pandemic, people have gone into businesses more. There've been more mandates on, you know, working in the business, working in a facility as opposed, even, even, Some biz dev folks, they want them to be involved and continue to learn as opposed to more of that remote and or hybrid roles.
[00:17:48] But that being said, we as a society, I think learned a lot. Working remotely and a lot of capabilities have developed and I think there's still a robust kind of demand for that . People have opened that up, but I'm seeing more of the coming to the work, but we will, we will pay you for what you're worth now.
[00:18:08] Claude: So would it be fair to say that a lot of the companies you're working with are, are willing to sort of pay top dollar for talent, but they kind of need that talent, in space and office and in warehouse and manufacturing plant.
[00:18:21] Freddie: There's people understand the whole quiet quitting phenomenon and, and I think people like culture is more and more of a bigger popular kind of thing. Right. So I think people understand that managers or hiring managers are being more deliberate about building that, although sometimes they can't, they don't get it right. There's people, how, how employees feel and feel appreciated. It is, it is important thing.
[00:18:49] Claude: Are you noticing any of your clients doing particular things to help build that culture? Either on the hiring side, make sure you get kind of the people that share values in or post hire to, to develop those, those shared values.
[00:19:04] Freddie: I'll give you an example. One of our clients right now, private equity backed company. I was having a conversation with one of their, hiring managers and employees, and they were, they said, Hey, our goal we need to achieve 6 million and, and, and, you know, produce it. It was very specific, right? For somebody to say that. And I would imagine I turn around and talk to the front desk and they'll say the same thing. 6 million is our goal. And, and. You know, it's, it's just putting out an incentive, a target and the incentive of a company wide, week long, party, or just outing in Cancun.
[00:19:43] That's what everyone was looking forward to, and they, they, it's very clear, right, this is the goal, this is what we can do, and it's not dollars, it's not like confusing profitability, it's just we need to make X, or we need to do X. And it was crystal clear for them. So I, having culture like that, that really rallies the troops.
[00:20:06] I think that's, a phenomenal thing. And I have another client that only does remote and has been doing remote from prior to pandemic. He likes to give autonomy to people. They do frequent check ins. He has a very systematic, like a structured, weekly schedule, but people love that. People love that because they can feel heard, they feel connected, and then they turn around and do their own thing.
[00:20:31] So, not too off the wall, crazy ideas, but just getting it, you know, implementing it. That's what matters.
[00:20:41] Claude: Communication, right? Those, those regularly scheduled check ins to make sure people have space to be heard and be valued and they know it and know it's coming. And then sort of transparency. It's like, this is the goal of the company. This is what we're trying to, trying to achieve. This is what we're trying to execute against. And this is how you fit into that plan. but communication and transparency is, is to what I'm hearing a lot of it's like, how do you people build culture? And those are the two main characteristics.
[00:21:09] Freddie: Yeah. Because through communication and transparency, it comes clarity, right? Like people, it makes things simple and people, and it just becomes clear.
[00:21:18] There's some really creative ways to do it and it's all about just clarity of mission, where are you going and what you need to do to win.
[00:21:27] Claude: That's great. So let's talk a little bit about recruiting in general. What's really the value of, you know, hiring a recruiting firm to run your hiring process for you?
[00:21:37] Freddie: Yeah. So why hire Mil Spec talent? That's a great question.
[00:21:42] Claude: That's, that's another way to put it. I was doing more general, but yeah, you know, answer the question how you'd like.
[00:21:49] Freddie: it's a great question because people don't understand the value of a service space sometimes like this. Recruiters are expensive. Headhunters are expensive. I think we all know that. you should be working with a recruiter that's familiar with your space.
[00:22:02] That way they have that market mastery and understanding of that space, whether it's industry or that type of people, right? For us, it's the, it's the candidate side. We, we know how to interpret military experiences and how that's, and the transition of that into the corporate world. We understand the nuances to that and we understand what it takes to be, to lead at a certain level in your organization.
[00:22:27] Believe Claude, like you, every leader, they all have gifts. Like you have your zone of genius, if you will. You have that area you excel at and you're, you're in a, kind of like free flowing state when you're in that zone. But recruiting may not be one of them. Financials may not be one of them. So you, you have a tax on that gift. So when you have a gift tax, right, what do you have to do? You have to build a team around it and or outsource it accordingly so that you can, you can get the best people to do those tasks for you. Like a executive assistant.
[00:23:07] Somebody who thrives in that, or a bookkeeper who thrives in that, that keeps you out of it. So that's where I think the value of recruiters are. you know the space really, really well. You understand the market. We can tell you what other, what we've seen and what other, what the trends are. In actuality, I think it allows the, The recruiting process to have like a bigger pipeline faster that, of course, we're vetting the recruiters are vetting, but we go through much more, many more people than you are able to do on your own, on your own time or on your resource, and we're able to filter that out so that it kind of, you only worry about the guys that kind of float the cream that floats to the top.
[00:23:52] You want to bring in people who are really good in that specific area. And if that's worth that reward for you, gives you an ROI.
[00:24:00] Claude: Yeah, it makes sense. I'm reading your, I'm reading your bio and you have something, with Mil Spec Talent called Veteran 2. 0. Can you share what Veteran 2. 0 is and what happened to Veteran 1. 0?
[00:24:13] Freddie: Yeah, so vets, anyone, a veteran is anyone who's served and they are beyond that, that period of service. We decided to focus on what we call veteran 2. 0, who are veterans, who are beyond that transition state. So after you serve, Right? For however many years, somebody transitions and in probably practicality, like all practicality, that transition and finding that next job that can be defined in that way.
[00:24:44] But I think mentally somebody needs to demilitarize, somebody needs to understand how they can fit into the corporate world, how, what kind of value they can bring. So the Veteran 2. 0 is that next level, that next version of them where You know, Claude, you understand from your time on the ship, you know, and the leadership you've learned there, how does that translate and how have you been effective as a leader there?
[00:25:12] So in terms of years, we, we classify that typically like three plus years. You better understand one, a candidate, a veteran, veteran 2. 0, better understands what they can contribute and how they can, you know, get, immediate, like immediate recognition for their competence in an area, right?
[00:25:35] They're not just learning it all and they're not figuring it all out. They're not saying they can do everything because those are the people you have to stay away from.
[00:25:42] Claude: So how do companies, when they're bringing on veteran talent, how do they onboard, onboard them and set them up to be successful? And, and is it any different than you know, non, non veterans?
[00:25:53] Freddie: If you look at kind of the headhunters in the space, the military veteran headhunters right now, most of them are in that transition space. And this has been ongoing, right? Like 15, 20 years now, the headhunters being prominent. Most companies didn't know how to really make that, make that company veteran friendly and onboard kind of effectively. And hence vets felt like they were expected to do something or expectations that didn't match. I mean, there's a stat, there's a stat here, 43 percent of vets quit their job in their first year of transitioning vets.
[00:26:30] Claude: first job post military.
[00:26:32] Freddie: Yeah. In the first year, right? And 60%, they, they, they quit, in the first two years.
[00:26:39] So it's just vets don't know how to serve at that point or who they are and what exactly is your purpose again, right? Many of us struggle with that. What's our purpose? What can really get me out on the, get me out of bed in the morning and keep me grinding.
[00:26:54] I think there's more education going on that that's helping that transition to be faster.
[00:26:59] Claude: I experienced a very kind of similar sort of thing post post military. And I think,most of us have always sort of worked with and led people who were, in some ways like shared a lot of the same values and sort of had like a lot of, structure around the military and how it functions and operates when you sort of go to, a company, everyone sort of has like different, you know, goals and, why are you here?
[00:27:22] It's like, maybe it's to get promoted to the next, next job. Maybe it's just to learn. Maybe it's just to pay the bills. Think Being a veteran, you're always around people that's like, it's, it's mission focused, it's, you know, values, you're sharing so many of these things. And then when you go to a more heterogeneous sort of mission and values organization, it's really hard to understand where do you fit in and you don't know kind of the, the same levers that you used to use as a leader to get results don't necessarily work anymore. And so you really have to kind of do it more on a, almost like a person by person basis to figure out what motivates this person, what makes them tick. And it does take, and it certainly for me, took time to sort of understand that.
[00:28:05] And also what is the gap and, my leadership capabilities and how do I fill those? I think it is nice to hear that, Other companies are starting to have better onboarding and sort of transitioning of veterans into their organizations.
[00:28:20] Freddie: Yeah, isn't that your leadership on the ship, you're saying it doesn't work for office limations? Yeah, yeah,
[00:28:32] Claude: different. I won't go into how or why currently, but yes, it's different.
[00:28:36] Freddie: super, right? Super different. And it is just your, I really like how you, how you phrased it instead of the, it's instead of the whole blanket kind of leadership approach and people respecting your rank and your position and Roger, sir, it is an individual trust building exercise in the corporate world, which takes a lot more touch. It takes a lot more empathy, something that I wasn't equipped with much transitioning and that's, that's what I mean, Claude, that transition for me took five, maybe eight years. That was a big point for me to learn. I go, what, how do I, empathy, empathy? What is that? How do you spell empathy? Like some of the best leaders in the military have that now. But young Freddie Kim did not, I was just a go getter, mission focused, like go, go, go, and I think a lot of us fell in that category. At that time.
[00:29:35] Claude: What advice would you have for, companies that are looking to hire, regular talent or veteran talent to lead their organizations and to actually set them up to be successful within their organization? You said 43 percent leave in the first year. But then you also gave 60 to 70 percent hires work out. So it seems like, well, veterans may be slightly worse than that first role. It's, it's not too far off from the overall. How do we do better than that?
[00:30:04] Freddie: I love that question because that almost kind of, you know, paid you to ask that question because that's where the whole veteran 2. 0 concept it's relevant, right? If I was a small business, I would think twice before hiring a transitioning veteran, I would, I would really think about like, is, is that skill very transferable?
[00:30:25] Would a recruiter of an army be able, or Navy in the military, will they be able to recruit effectively for me? Probably yes. Right. If I want to bring somebody as the COO, you know, and there's so many more aspects to it. I want a more mature under, somebody who's been through that. So that's the veteran 2. 0 veteran 3. 0. I mean, yes, it's just, if you think about it, veterans that have left the military for some time, if you think of it as a loose definition, but it's that during that time, what have. What has that veteran done? You know, where, what areas have they shown interest in?
[00:31:01] What areas have they been, successful? And, and you bring in that type of leader, cause you have that strong fundamental of leadership, now coupled with industry, experience, industry, nuanced knowledge, and able to make decisions. I think that's the best now for those, and I'm not saying not to hire transitioning veterans, there's a purpose for transitioning veterans, for sure.
[00:31:27] , for the companies that are willing to invest in, it is an investment into veterans like that. Thank you very much. We, we always need that. But those typically I would say are companies that have larger, you know, larger, bank accounts, right? Lots, lots of zeros where they can kind of afford to do that.
[00:31:47] we want to unite these remarkable to the most honorable form of, of, of management. I'm the most honorable career, which is managing people, right? And that's from Clayton Christensen. But we want to do that because I believe most vets want to serve. They want to make impact. They want to make things better for other people. And I think in turn, if you find that purpose again, you know, our 10 X kind of vision is to eliminate veteran suicide. I mean, once you, as a veteran, I, my, one of my hypothesis is that, you know, It's your career and how you define yourself, a lot of it is in your career.
[00:32:31] And if you have that career that's back in, that's able to like help others and grow others and, and, and really lead again. I think that may contribute to people being happier, you know, and their employees being happier and, and less stress.
[00:32:50] Claude: For sure. I mean, I, I think, I think you're spot on with veterans sort of being called to service and whether that's in the military or at a company level or serving their teams and their people. I think it's just something that people who are attracted to the military military service are also just attracted to general service in general.
[00:33:09] So running your own company, I know you hire a lot of vets. What things have you done to, to help them be successful in your company and, you know, make sure that they're, they're not leaving and, and turning, providing value to your company at the level that we both know that they're capable of.
[00:33:25] Freddie: Yes. So I'll, I'll answer that in two ways. One for candidates that we place right through our company. One thing I really wanted to do differently, Claude, as I built this recruitment business is to treat candidates, treat them like people, right? Treat them like they have options and that we are just enhancing those options.
[00:33:52] I personally went through a couple of these head on transitioning headhunters in the past, and I always felt at the end, just like, I feel like a commodity. They just want to sell me and land me. And then in the end, they're getting a fat check. I learned afterwards, you know?
[00:34:04] So I, I never want my candidates to kind of feel like that. I want to see, is this a fit for you? Are you interested? Is this going to help you in your journey? Right? I think that's a lot of, my recruiting.
[00:34:16] Claude: So you're actually helping the candidates. Do some of that self searching on like, Hey, you know, yeah, it's got a nice salary and it's at the beach, but is this really what's going to make you
[00:34:25] Freddie: yeah. And of course we have to like, you know, we have to tell them all of the, make, make sure they're aware of all the benefits of an opportunity and location. We are very transparent, so that's one thing we do very differently. Like we want to make sure this is a great fit for the long run, and not just for, that one placement, you know, or that one time placement. So for the candidate side, we're transparent. We, we want to, of course, have a placement. That's how we make money, but there's no like hard feelings. And we have relationships we're going to continue to build, over the years. And if, and we've, we've had several candidates that we haven't placed that were later like, Hey, recruit for me.
[00:35:07] The other thing, so internally when we hire, I think I've heard this from my buddy, Jason Holman, and he, he does it in his firm. He's learned of like expressing your values. Obviously like just, you know, what are the top three to five values for your company? But then defining that through behaviors. So we actually take each of our four values, we are relentless, we're bold, we're inquisitive, we are serving, and we break them down into five kind of behaviors that we are saying is what, So, in the end, I think it allows us to just be more clear about what is kind of right for the the organization, how do we make decisions that are right in the right way for the organization.
[00:35:57] And I think that just helps the team kind of really, Instill those, understand and instill kind of what does it mean to be inquisitive, right? And it's because it's through these x behaviors So I would recommend that exercise that was huge for Jason to have introduced that to me Because I struggled with that for a while.
[00:36:18] I remember a couple years ago asking myself What is an A player for Billspec, right? And I had no standard like going back to what we talked about I had no standard You Well, that was, it was somebody I liked that was, that was my answer. And that's obviously not transferable. You can't, you can't systematically hire from that.
[00:36:38] So kind of breaking that down, what those behaviors are, that's really helped us, just narrowing it down.
[00:36:45] Claude: Yeah. Thanks so much for sharing that Freddie. I love that behavior, with values. I think that's a brilliant exercise. Really want to thank you for being on the show today and, and chatting with us and sharing your experience with, recruiting and recruiting veterans and placing veterans. Great work that you do.
[00:37:01] If people want to find you online, what's the best way to connect with you?
[00:37:05] Freddie: I would say connect with me on LinkedIn, please. Freddie Kim. And then, Shoot me an email. I get a lot of like LinkedIn messages and they sometimes get piled and lost. So shooting me an email, Freddie, F R E E D D I E at millspectalent. com. I think that's the best way we can, we can connect.
[00:37:25] And I just want to say, Claude, what you're doing, like these podcasts matter, right? I know you're starting off, but they matter. They matter because it allows, it allows you to, you know, Us to share our story and hopefully kind of impact one or two people, in the, in their journeys. So thank you for, you know, spending your resources doing this.
[00:37:45] Claude: Yeah. Ultimately we want to make workplaces better. We want people to enjoy their jobs. Civilians, veterans, everyone before it's a lot of what we do as a company. So, sharing sort of the best lessons learned from, smart people that think about it day in and day out. We get a lot more questions about, or at least I get a lot more questions about how do we make our workplace better, much more so than like, what's the best drink or what's the best snack or who's your favorite coffee brand.
[00:38:12] I can answer those questions too, but it's really about how do you provide the right environment. The right culture to, to drive your company forward and it all comes back to, to people. So again, thanks so much, Freddie, and, looking forward to, to catching up with you and,some, sometime soon.
[00:38:28] Freddie: Yeah. Sounds good. Thanks, man.
[00:38:30] Claude: Cheers.
[00:38:31] Thanks for listening to this episode with Freddie Kim on Office Libations Unwrapped. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast for more inspiration, ideas, and strategies to optimize your workplace culture and remember happy employees make happy customers until next time. I'm your host, Claude Burns.