Colleen Cunningham Perry, PMP

The End of Week Update 🔢 The Numbers 20 - Applications sent into the wild. 5 - Politely declined (they don't know what they're missing!)   2 - Roles vanished (filled or eliminated—poof!)   2 - Interviews down, and I’m just getting started. 1 - Interview on the horizon. 1 - “Interested” (I guess we'll see what that means soon 🤔) 🏠 On the Home Front: We're getting creative with budget cuts as we prep for what might be a longer intermission. But, silver linings abound! Had some fantastic chats with four different recruiters. One of them, an old friend, dropped some sage wisdom my way—much appreciated. Kids full week of school in the books. The amazing wife taking on some extra hours to help as much as possible. 🎙️ Creative Corner: Social media and podcasts are coming together nicely, and I’m gearing up to dive into video content soon. It has been fun, all the skills that I am picking up and really getting a good look at the AI landscape vs full on localized recording, editing and publishing. All of you marketing and creatives out there get a real level of respect from me going forward. Stay tuned for the fun and catch me at https://lnkd.in/eCGt7x87! #JobSearch #UnemployedLife #CareerJourney #Resilience #StayPositive #VideoContent #RecruiterAdvice #NewOpportunities #SocialMediaJourney

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80% of Paychex customers say finding qualified candidates is challenging (Paychex Customer Research Study, June 2024). Paychex Recruiting Copilot analyzes millions of potential employees through a natural-language search engine to quickly produce a short list of qualified candidates and then unlocks their contact information so you can swiftly engage with them about your open position.  The Key Benefits include: ⭐️Building a pool of potential candidates that includes a short list of the top talent matching your business needs ⭐️Skipping the job posting process and building a list of individuals matched to the key skills you need for hard-to-find and high-volume roles ⭐️Email top profiles that match your criteria instead of sifting through resumes ⭐️Move quickly as your business grows with add-ons such as one-click contact, automated campaigns that increase your response rate

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Paychex Recruiting Copilot analyzes millions of potential employees through a natural-language search engine to quickly produce a short list of qualified candidates and then unlocks their contact information so you can swiftly engage with them about your open position. This turns a typical "reactive" search into a "proactive and detailed" search. Check out this short video: https://lnkd.in/gB7W_Hga Thoughts?

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Employers: Are you posting pay ranges? New research from CareerBuilder + Monster shows that pay transparency isn’t just preferred — it’s expected. Transparent pay practices make your company more attractive to top talent and create trust from the start. See how your practices align with today’s job seeker expectations in this new infographic. #paytransparency #salarytransparency #hiring #talentacquisition #hiringtrends

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I applied to a 2 day old job yesterday at about 3pm. At 3am this morning I got the generic “even though we are impressed by your background….” rejection email. I know there is an insane competition for CSM roles right now due to layoffs, burnouts, transitions, and a spike in CS popularity. Even though technically I would be considered transitioning into CS, I firmly believe it’s more of a “transition”. Why? I have plenty of experience from my account management and analytics work to be working in healthtech that can be viewed on my resume. What you don’t see on the resume: Quick learning of the software at each company. Like.... lightning fast. Asking the whats, whys, and hows a zillion times to understand operations and seeing where improvements can be made. A nerdy desire to create and document processes to make operations better. Have you ever had to keep your cool when you deliver an incomplete meal to a hangry customer at 930pm on a Wednesday and you had no control of the prep of that food? Whole different level of customer service experience. There is adapting to tough points during a project but how about adapting to keeping a roof over your head? The initiation to better understand the CS field via webinars, books, coaching, and networking before you’re even in the field. Making customers feel at ease with you because you know they are people and want to be seen, heard, understood, and helped. I could list a hundred more items. Unfortunately I don't have numbers to show ARR, retention, etc. (The horror! 😱) My team was focused on improving clinic performance to increase patient access. We weren’t privy to financials. Call me naive, but I’d rather show what I’ve actually done instead of adding fake numbers just to add numbers on my resume. I like helping people and have a passion for wanting to improve healthcare in some way. Health systems have massive issues and change is glacial due to far too many levels. Healthtech allows me the chance to not only help improve healthcare with at least one area, but it also allows for an improved patient experience. In my book that is a win-win scenario to be a part of. #jobhunt #jobsearch #healthcare #healthtech #saas #unemployed #readytowork #opentowork #seekingwork #customersuccess #clientsuccess #csm #hireme

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Confession Time: The Time I Almost Cost My Team a Great Hire We've all been there - juggling budgets, trying to stretch every dollar, and sometimes, that pressure can lead to less-than-ideal decisions. Here's a story from the trenches of HR about a time I almost made a big mistake with a candidate, and the valuable lesson I learned. The Perfect Candidate, (Almost) The Perfect Deal My team and I had this amazing applicant. He aced the interview, his skills were spot-on, and he seemed like a perfect fit for our team culture. We were excited to make an offer. But then came the salary discussion. The candidate's expectations were a bit lower than what we initially budgeted for the role. Thinking we could be clever, we decided to see if we could negotiate him down a bit. (Spoiler alert: not our brightest moment). To our surprise, the candidate seemed agreeable to a lower number. We secretly patted ourselves on the back for "saving the company money." My Initial "Win" Turned into a Big Loss The new hire started well, but over time, a cloud of disengagement seemed to form. His initial enthusiasm dipped, and his productivity wasn't quite what we expected. Then, something unexpected happened. We found out he learned about the actual budget allocated for the role. Let's just say, it wasn't what he was getting paid. This led to exactly what you'd expect: dissatisfaction, disloyalty, and ultimately, he resigned for a better offer three months later. The High Cost of Lowballing Here's the thing: that initial feeling of "winning" on salary negotiations was a huge illusion. We ended up right back where we started - needing to recruit again. On top of that, we faced: • Wasted Time and Money: Recruitment costs and the performance gap from the departing employee added up. • Damaged Reputation: Word gets around. Lowball tactics can make attracting top talent even harder in the future. The Takeaway • Value Your People • Pay Them Fairly This experience transformed my approach to compensation. The key to attracting and retaining top talent isn't about squeezing every penny out of negotiations. It's about valuing your employees and offering fair, competitive salaries. Do your research, understand market rates, and be transparent in your offers. Let's build a strong workforce together. Let's break the cycle of lowballing offers. By valuing our employees and offering competitive compensation, we can build a strong, engaged workforce that benefits everyone. After all, happy employees are productive employees, and that's a win-win for any company. Have you ever been lowballed on a job offer? How did you handle it? Share your thoughts in the comments! AND What are your tips for negotiating a fair salary? Let's help each other out and share our best practices. _________________________________________ If you find this helpful, feel free to repost, for a wider reach.

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Indeed Hiring Lab just unveiled The 2025 US Jobs & Hiring Trends Report! This comprehensive report reveals the key trends that shaped the labor market in 2024 and provides a forecast for 2025. Current economic indicators suggest continued labor market resilience in the New Year, with some careful navigation. As for November 2024, job postings were 10% above pre-pandemic levels, and wage growth leveled off at a healthy pace – indicating robust competition for workers next year. Moreover, widespread use of GenAI promises to boost productivity if becomes more widespread. Stay ahead of the curve with these insights and explore the full report. #Indeed #HiringTrends #LaborMarket #Economy2025 #FutureOfWork #HiringLab

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→ Your client facing employees need Calendly/TidyCal on their email signature line. ↳ Save hours in emails going back and forth for scheduling. ↳ Provides the link to the Zoom/Teams. ↳ Automagically done 😎 I say this after looking at 7 emails between two organizations trying to schedule with me, they dont have TidyCal, but I get all the back and forth 🥲 #SaveYourEmployees from these emails.

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Are you reaching out talent via email outreach? How to protect your email domain. Let me break down a critical strategy for talent acquisition professionals. The Email Sourcing Trap Most recruiters make a fatal mistake when emailing candidates. They don't understand the domain reputation risk. The Hard Truth About Email Tools Talent sourcing platforms promise golden candidate lists. But here's the reality: - Not all collected emails are accurate - Invalid emails can destroy your domain reputation - Bounced emails = Spam folder death Email Bounce Breakdown Two types of email bounces exist: 1. Hard Bounce: Email is completely invalid 2. Soft Bounce: Mailbox is full 🚨 Pro Tip: Hard bounces are reputation killers. My Proven Playbook Tactical Email Management - Keep bounce rate under 0.3% - Send max 50 emails daily (including follow-ups) - Use quality verification tools Recommended Tech Stack 1. Email Discovery: Clay 2. Email Validation: Debounce/Million Verifier 3. Email Sending: Instantly/Smartlead Domain Protection Strategies - Use multiple inbox domains - Implement text automation carefully - Monitor and clean spam flags aggressively Want Expert Guidance? Need a deep dive into email outreach strategies? I'm your guy. Let's optimize your talent acquisition approach. Interested in leveling up? Drop a comment. 👇 #recruitment #emailoutreach #talentacquisition

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Startup equity can be tough to understand. Want to hear about my latest headache? Airbase just announced it had been acquired by Paylocity. The details are being worked out and it should be official in Q1 or Q2 next year. Of course, as a former employee, I was pretty excited to hear the news. Who wouldn't, right? But my heart sank when I saw the price tag. $325M was.... *checks notes*... significantly less than the $600M valuation after their Series B in 2021. Here's the timeline of events: In March 2021, I interviewed and negotiated an offer with Airbase. For equity, I was looking at 10,000 shares at $.56/sh (vested over 4 years, 1-year cliff). Their most recent funding round was a Series A extension for $23.5M in August of 2020. April 2021 - I accept the offer to join as a CSM. My daughter was also born and I started at Airbase a couple of weeks after that. May 2021 - Airbase raises $60M at a $600M evaluation. At first, I'm thinking this is great news. But I didn't get my equity grant until after the next board meeting, which hadn't happened since I was hired. And just like that, my $0.56/sh options were $3.20/sh instead. I asked for more shares given the situation, but they wouldn’t entertain it. And it’s not like I’m going to quit a job I just started after I’d already left my old one. Anyways, fast-forward 18 months to October 2022 and I’ve left Airbase. That means the clock for when I can exercise my options officially starts. Unlike most equity grants, the amount of time I had to exercise was equal to how long I’d been there so I waited another 18 months to decide. Another odd part of this journey was that in February 2024, Airbase had an FMV (fair market value) of just ~$1.90/sh. So in order to exercise, I’d need to pay an 88% markup. The reason the value had dipped is because Airbase took a $150M Credit Facility from Goldman Sachs in July 2022. All that being said, I still chose to exercise. I figured they’d raise more cash later at a higher valuation and would have an exit in maybe 4-7 years. The B2B payments space was growing and I have to admit, I had some building FOMO. Well, here we are today. I departed with my cash months ago and while I know it's not worth 0 now, I have this feeling it's worth about half as much as I put in. I knew the risks and I'm not upset, just intrigued. It's an unfortunate string of events and part of the game we play. So what does that mean for me? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ All I could do was ask the folks at Airbase myself (see image). Stay tuned and I’ll share an update. To anyone with employee stock options reading this, I hope this helps you understand some of the unknowns about what could happen. And if you understand more about startup equity than I do. Or if you have an interesting startup equity story, I would love to hear about it. &E

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How Daniel, an unemployed CSM for 1 year; got a remote CSM role in 8 weeks (without networking) Daniel was a: • Atlanta CSM • Father of 1 kid (1 on the way) • Failing to get job interviews • Unemployed for over 1 year and counting He was searching by himself before we worked together. • Was barely getting any traction. • Didn’t feel confident in his talk tracks. • Was pulling double duty job hunting and watching his child. He was clearly burnt out. So, after reaching a breaking point; he reached out to me. We grabbed our torches and blazed a trail with the FIRE framework 🔥 We: 1. Had a 10 year tech SaaS recruiter write his resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn     2. Worked together to fix his talk tracks and his achievement oriented stories     3. Used our two jobs boards to free up his time and our auto-apply tool     4. Collaborated on his task and QBR assignments using our templates     5. Spoke on slack every week to ensure we were moving forward Things started to move real quick, 0-100 quick. In this first month, he secured 20 different interviews. In the second month, he got to 4 final rounds. We worked intensely to ensure his talk tracks were sound, and confident. Then we got it, The goal we were searching for. • Remote Role • $85,000 USD • Benefits day 1 too And just in time before the new baby was born. Grateful I was able to help change the life of Daniel, and that of his family. So if you are a CSM who has lost their confidence and: • Looking to work with a real CSM and SaaS recruiter • Think that networking is as outdated as Joe Biden • Want to use my auto-apply tool and 2 job boards • Be part of a slack community with other seekers • Prefer to work with a proven coach, not a guru. • Open to receiving direct feedback I’m at full capacity for September, but you can get an early to start in October. DM me “October” and I’ll send you the details.

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Corporate alignment boosts engagement - and it can even drive revenue (McKinsey). And most of the time, it's HR's job to get everyone on the same page. Check out this resource from Paycor for practical tips to bring your team together.

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Had an awesome conversation with Carmen Hudson, CSM yesterday about being a recruiting generalist vs. a recruiting specialist. Being a generalist is not about being average at everything; it's about being open to everything. It's about having the curiosity to learn, the boldness to lead, and the vision to innovate. So, as we march forward, let us not just celebrate depth but also the breadth of knowledge and the many lessons it brings with it. After all, sometimes, to go deep, you first need to go wide.

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What's better than nailing a sales demo? Closing the deal! 🙌 My teammates at Calendly compiled their top tips on how to keep momentum high after an amazing demo. I personally loved their advice on how keep prospects engaged and beat the clock with timely & personalized responses! 👇

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What's better than nailing a sales demo? Closing the deal! 🙌 My teammates at Calendly compiled their top tips on how to keep momentum high after an amazing demo. I personally loved their advice on how keep prospects engaged and beat the clock with timely & personalized responses! 👇

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There are changes coming into effect for Maryland and Washington DC in the coming months for pay transparency. It's important to ensure your HR system can accommodate these requirements including the historical recording. Reach out to me, Connor Gillespie or Leigh Goggins if you would like to discuss how People First can help you. "Importantly, employers must also keep a record showing compliance with the law. These records must be kept for at least three years after the job is filled. If the position is not filled, the records must be kept for at least three years after the job was posted." #hr #payroll #paytransparency #employmentlaw #hris https://lnkd.in/dB4Tgt6B

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Cut through the noise of AI in HR! 🎙️ On the latest episode of PeopleTech, Opal Wagnac, SVP of Market & Product Strategy at isolved, shares expert insights on navigating the AI landscape in HR. From separating real solutions from sales pitches to tackling implementation roadblocks, this conversation is a must-listen!

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How well someone can talk about their experience in an interview versus how well they can execute on a specific skill are two very different things. Allowing candidates to demonstrate their skills in an assessment rather than just talking about their experience will result in a stronger hire. When providing a written assessment, ensure that it is concise and clearly outlines the assessment criteria. Each member of the hiring panel should complete the assessment themselves before asking candidates to do so. This step allows them to understand the time, difficulty, and skills required to execute the assessment. If they struggle to complete it successfully, they may not be suitable for the hiring panel or should consider the assessment's difficulty when evaluating candidates. If you're in the process of hiring and need assistance with developing assessments, evaluation criteria, calibrating, and aligning results, let me know!

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