The Recruitment-Marketing Connection with Cole Evans, Workzinga

In this episode, we hear from Cole Evans, Marketing Officer at Workzinga, a job search and hiring platform emphasizing company culture fit.

Prior to his role at Workzinga, Cole raised money for non-profits, managed multiple teams, made many payrolls, secured investments, started multiple businesses - growing to $1.5m in 3 years. Cole has also started a New & Noteworthy podcast on iTunes, producing over 100 episodes so far.

Questions Include: 

• You lead efforts to share the mission and values of an exciting start-up within Recruitment tech. What opportunities and challenges does that present? 
• Can you share your unique take on the connections between successful recruiters and effective marketers?
• Workzinga is focused on helping companies and candidates match, based on culture fit. What does culture fit mean to you? 
• Workzinga Founder, Dan Hunter, presented at the April 2022 SHRM Talent Conference and Expo. Can you tell me about the session and what attendees learned?

We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast, and Iceni Media Inc.  

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the HR chat podcast, bringing the best of the HR talent and leadership communities to you. For more episodes and the latest articles covering what's new in the world of work. Visit HR gazette.com. Subscribe and follow us on social media.

Speaker 2: 0:22

Welcome to another episode of the HR chat show. I'm your host today. Bill Banham and my guest joining me is Cole Evans marketing officer at work zinger, a job search and hiring platform emphasizing company culture fit prior to his role at work zinger Cole had raised money for nonprofits managed. Multiple teams made many payrolls secured investments. Started multiple businesses growing to 1.5 million in three years, uh, started a new and noteworthy podcast on iTunes and has promoted over 100 episodes. I always get a bit nervous when I'm chatting to another podcaster business. Hey Cole, it's my pleasure to have you on the show today.

Speaker 3: 1:03

Thank you so much, bill. I, uh, there's no reason for you to, uh, have any feelings, if anything, it should be the other way around. Uh, I think I'm at probably like 130, 140 right now, but I know that you just surpassed 400, uh, episodes. So congratulations. That is, uh, absolutely awesome.

Speaker 2: 1:23

Thank you. It's been a labor of love Cole. Okay. So I've had the pleasure to get to know you a bit over the last few months. Uh, we've been working together and, uh, listeners, there are gonna be lots of episodes with the work zinger team and their partners and their customers and whatnot over the, the next sort of 12 months and, and beyond. Um, so you may be familiar with a recent interview with Cole's colleague margarita, and also with the founder of works Inga Dan hunter. And Cole's gonna come in and give us his, take his unique take as a marketing person. Who's recently entered the wonderful world of HR recruitment, uh, today. So Cole beyond my, we introduction there, why don't you start by taking a minute or two and telling our listeners a bit more about yourself,

Speaker 3: 2:06

Thank you for the opportunity to be on HR chat, what a great community and, uh, great topics that you're, you know, covering on a consistent basis. We, we listen to it on a regular basis here at orga and are just really be, uh, really proud to be, um, in a partnership with you. Uh, and so as you said, my name is Cole Evans. I am the marketing officer here at works Inga. Um, I oversee, uh, the entire marketing operation for the company. Um, what does that include? Um, we have long form and short form content writers, uh, team of videographers, social media, uh, team PR search engine optimization. Um, I don't think I'm forgetting any oh, and of course web development and, uh, our wonderful project manager. So I, I lead those efforts here along with our, uh, engineering team, uh, obviously margarita, uh, leading our, uh, sciences and, uh, Dan, our founder.

Speaker 2: 3:05

Wonderful. Thank you. So why move into the world of recruitment tech and, and HR? What was, what's the story there, perhaps? It was because you like the culture of the company, perhaps you knew Dan from before, he's got a fantastic profile. What, what's the backstory there? How, how did you, uh, get to, to be working with we Inga?

Speaker 3: 3:27

You know, that is a great question for me. It is aligned with a lot of the opportunities that that I've had throughout my career. Uh, I, uh, had an agency here in Nashville years ago and I had the opportunity to meet an individual to work with my agency and we didn't end up working together, but we stay connected. We were connected on LinkedIn. We've stayed connected for many years. Well, now many years later, I think it was eight years. If I'm not mistaken, we had reconnected and one thing led to another and, and he said, Hey, I, I really think you should connect, uh, with my friend Dan he's, he's got a, um, you know, kind of a new endeavor here and I think it'd be worth a conversation. And so I, uh, at the time was knee deep in the world of ophthalmology and working with, uh, vision care practices, um, across the country. And, um, it was, it was a, a, a, a good time for a different conversation, we'll say. And I will tell you from the, and any of your listeners that have heard Dan speak, uh, I know you've had multiple conversations with Dan it's, uh, very authentic and very easy to quickly hear what he is saying. It, it was very easy for me on that first call and, and really we hit it off, um, to, to move on to the second and third call, if you will. Um, when he really talked about the problem and, you know, just the old way of hiring and the old way of recruiting and, and how there's only really, you know, it's a assessments and finding out and learning more are really a one sided deal. Even today. It's really company driven and, and candidates, you know, give a lot of information and, and don't walk away with that much information at the end of it, uh, much less if they, you know, didn't get a job. So how did I end up here? Uh, connections. I am, uh, as I mentioned in Nashville, Tennessee in the us, I'm, um, have made my entire career off of, um, the people I'm connected with and relationships and, um, you know, a connection today.<laugh>, I will tell you, um, uh, could pay you dividends tomorrow. So, um, to answer your question in short it's it's connections and people, and, uh, staying connected with people and consistently telling your story, you know, he, he made a, a reference, uh, to Dan on my behalf, based on years of knowing about me because of my professional brand. And, and, and that feels really great,

Speaker 2: 6:08

You know, else is great that, uh, you are based in Nashville because Nashville is great. Um, and, uh, I got into a bit of a tangent when I was chatting to Dan, uh, when he was on the show about Martin's barbecue in downtown Nashville and how it's just amazing.

Speaker 3: 6:24

We love Martin's barbecue. I'll tell you, our, our team is growing, uh, by the month around here as I'm, I'm taking our conference room right now, looking out the window, what used to be a wide open space that if you kind of nerd out on some of our videos, you'll see this wide open space when we were doing some television interviews and things. Well, now there are desks everywhere, and there are people everywhere. And it's really cool to see the growth in just the few short months that, um, uh, that we've been here in the building, but yes, uh, that being said, bill, we, um, we order food on a regular basis and, uh, we bounce around depending on what the team is, is hungry for on that time. And, uh, Martin's barbecue is definitely a favorite. There is, there's no, uh, short of shortage of good food here in middle Tennessee, for sure.

Speaker 2: 7:12

So you lead efforts to share the mission and values of an exciting startup within recruitment technology. What, what opportunities and challenges does that present Cole?

Speaker 3: 7:21

I believe HR segments experiencing, you know, what we're all experiencing. You know, it seems in, in one way or another, uh, this awakening, this realization, if you will, that today, we all have more options. Um, we know it's a job seeker's market. We know some companies haven't had to adapt or adjust their thinking. Um, they haven't had to a, a adjust their approach, their, their willingness, if you will, to compromise on the old ways of recruiting the old, the old ways of hiring. When I attended, uh, you know, Sherm annual last year, 2021 in Las Vegas, I heard it didn't matter the session over a few days over and over HR leaders across the globe, talk about the leaders of the company saying we need more people. We need to hire more people, but they haven't changed their compensation structure in years. If ever some companies still think that they can take their time in the interview process, you know, expecting candidates to jump through hoops, um, you know, meet eight people in the organization before you, you know, go, go through the process. Um, that's not the market we're in currently. Uh, what opportunities are there you ask? Um, we see a great opportunity helping employers and job seekers connect, align, if you will, on company culture. Um, what challenges does it present? That's, that's, that's a big one, right? The, the challenge for some companies and for some people is change. Change is interesting, especially when, you know, when you've started a company you've poured years of your life, experience it into your, your business. It's, it's all rightfully so. It's all very personal. Uh, I've seen it firsthand for the last 15 years, working with business owners, um, and marketing. And we all know it starts with the leaders of the organization at work Zynga. You know, we're excited on a daily basis around here because we're meeting those challenges with science and with technology,

Speaker 2: 9:16

As mentioned earlier, you, you haven't been within the HR and recruitment world for very long, but you have been a pretty successful marketer for, for a number of years. Um, maybe you can share your unique take now with our listeners on the connections between successful recruiters and effective marketers. So for example, um, how, how to tell the story of, of a, of a company, uh, to make it attractive to not, not just to, uh, customers, but also to employees.

Speaker 3: 9:49

Yeah. It's, it's interesting. You said the word story that's exactly. Um, you know, my, my first thought is as a marketer, it's all a story. Um, how the recruiter tells the story and the initial engagement, how the experience is to the engaged person that goes to check you out across all the online platforms, you know, are those stories aligned? Are they telling the same story? Do they even have the same brand tone to it? Or, you know, is the recruitment department, you know, running in a completely different direction than the marketing department? I, I say that recruitment should have a part of the marketing budget. Remember, you know, I was told this a long time ago and it has never left my brain. Remember that almost no one is in the market for what any of us are selling on any given day. It's only when they need you, that they may remember you. I think successful marketers are continuously telling a brand story, um, that the audience can relate to and remember successful recruiters, in my opinion, help further tell that story.

Speaker 2: 10:57

We're gonna switch up the, uh, the, the speed. Now I'm gonna challenge you on the next question, actually, Cole, um, cause I like to do that sometimes with my guests, switch it up. Um, so in 90 seconds or less, okay. Uh, this is gonna challenge your word Smith REA your storytelling<laugh>. So work zinger is focused on helping companies and candidates match based on culture fit, of course, in 90 seconds or less co what, what does culture fit mean to you?

Speaker 3: 11:26

So culture fit to me is when is when, you know, on a foundational level build that you and the company align when it comes to how you manage your team, how you treat your level of empathy, what type of leader that you are, what type of leader do I need? You know, I'd ask your listeners to check out, uh, episode four 17, our, our head of psychological sciences, Dr. Margarita Raphael, she mentions trust setting boundaries, communications, and a few key factors in building company culture that are, that are foundational factors in company culture. You know, we've all worked at a place. Our research says eight out of 10, 80% have worked at a place that you knew was a bad culture fit. We also know, um, it depends or used to depend on what stage of life you were, what generation you are, how old you are for how long you'll put up with it today. We know more, we expect more and we're not settling and that's less than 90 seconds. Bill.

Speaker 2: 12:37

That's less than 90 seconds call that's. That's pretty nicely done. Thank you. Um, and you, you even did my job there in the middle, because you said you guys had totally check out episode four 17, uh, with margarita.

Speaker 3: 12:50

It's good. It is good. I'll tell you, even though a little bit of just, uh, as my job, listening to all of our content, um, I, I really enjoyed that conversation and I've gotten know margarita pretty well over the past few months, and she is a she in the entire, uh, team that she manages here at works Inga, or just a plethora of knowledge. And, um, yes, that that episode is, is very, uh, informative. And, you know, aside from building our unique assessment, now I'm build, now I'm tearing into my 90 seconds bill, but aside from creating our, uh, proprietary unique assessment, um, you know, margarita is a clinical psychologist and has patients, um, across continents and is, uh, very well in tuned with, um, you know, what she hears in her own world and, and how that, um, you know, comes into the creation of our assessments and our methodology here. So definitely check that episode out.

Speaker 2: 13:50

Mar margarita is awesome, uh, wonderful energy. She really knows her stuff. She's from beautiful Lisbon. And I just, coincidentally, I was wearing my Lisbon hoodie when we did our interview. There you go. What about that?

Speaker 3: 14:01

That is very incidental.

Speaker 2: 14:03

<laugh><laugh> so go, uh, Ziga recently showcased at the April, 2022 Sher talent conference and expo. Maybe you can take a minute or two now and tell me why your team felt that it was important to be front and center at that particular event.

Speaker 3: 14:19

Sherm is, as I'm guessing, 98% of all of your listeners know, uh, you know, it's the largest global association of HR professionals. Um, it's, it's very important, uh, for our people, for our story, um, for our brand to connect with as many people as possible at Sherm. Um, the people at Sherm we believe are the people from all across the us. Now, the people that we met last year, I'll say it this way, all have, you know, a common goal, uh, to learn more and do better. I, I heard that over and over from the conversations I have in the HR community, uh, this year's theme a as you know, for the global, uh, or I'm sorry, the annual event is caused the effect. And, and I think it's on point, you know, it is time technology and innovation met companies and people where they are, and that's, that's why we're excited to be at talent and, um, really excited about Dan's session.

Speaker 2: 15:23

Yes. Thank you. And, uh, while we're in the groove of, uh, name dropping episodes, uh, listeners, please also do check out, uh, the recent interview with Emily M Dickens, who is on the leadership team at Sherm, a great conversation that Emily and I had talking about all sorts of different things. And, uh, she is a very entertaining and clever person. Okay, let's continue through then. Um, your founder, Dan hunter, who has been on the show previously, he presented at Sherm talent. Can you tell me a bit about the session and what the attendees learned from it?

Speaker 3: 15:55

Anytime we can get our founder in front of the camera, you know, excuse me, that, um, that is always a good thing. Um, while Dan might not, uh, say that as the very first thing he wants to do during the day, uh, it's one of those, uh, things that he's very, very good at, and that is authentically stating the, the, the problem, the reasoning that he created work Zinga and, and, um, our path in, in solving this problem. So we're really excited, um, uh, anytime that he can, uh, speak and, and like I said, be in front of a camera, speaking at talent, Shem is absolutely no different. Um, when you were surrounded with like-minded people, when it comes to recruiting, bettering your practices, understanding the tools and technology that are out there to help you, um, do your job, you know, that that's and do it in a better way than you did it last year, if you will. Um, that's always a great thing. Uh, Dan was able, you know, to really talk about companies, understanding their own culture. You know, we, we always say we don't create culture. We just help you find the words when you can't seem to find them. Um, you know, he talked about people's preferences, bill and, and how important it is to appreciate your, your employees and, and people in general and their preferences. Um, and, you know, closing out the session, um, you know, talk about the alignment, you know, connecting matching employers and, uh, candidates on company culture. Um, we were able to meet with a lot of people connect with other speakers, uh, saw a lot of the same faces we saw last year because the organization is so strong. Um, the Sher community really shows up and engages in, in, in their events. And, and we're really excited to have been part of talent and, um, you know, really looking forward to all the upcoming events that we have coming up this year as well.

Speaker 2: 18:02

Yes. Which I wanna ask you about actually, uh, so worksin will be exhibiting at the main Sherm conference in beautiful new Orleans in June. I can never pronounce that without signing like a, a city Bri new Orleans. That's just how I'm gonna say. Okay.<laugh> um,<laugh> what, what can attendees expect from your team at that event? And, uh, any other events coming up for you guys in 2022?

Speaker 3: 18:23

This question, you know, immediately makes me start smiling.<laugh> we, uh, we've taken a team of really smart people, uh, HR pros, designers, videographers, uh, our team of engineers. And we've created an experience that we feel confident our friends at Sherm are really gonna enjoy and have a good time with, uh, we're not selling anything. Uh, we've created a work Kaga experience. We feel confident that, um, attendees will walk away from our exhibit with the same feeling that they'll have after experiencing a work Zinga match. They'll feel happy. You know, bill, I always say, imagine having an interview with a candidate when, you know, scientifically proven with no bias that that candidate in front of you is the exact type of candidate you're looking for. You know, I, I pose the question, what kind of interview would that be? You almost have to pause and really think about it because we all know the interview is as being, you know, kind of the first dance that we, that we do, where the best representation of the company and the best representation of the resume are, you know, being crossed at the same table together. It's, it's usually this nervewracking experience. Um, so we're really excited to give information, to give a great experience, um, and, you know, tell the story, um, of why our company is doing what we're doing and why, when we're talking with other recruiters with small businesses, with healthcare companies, with manufacturing companies, why we are getting the exact same feedback over and over and over again, because we're meeting the need, we're meeting people where they are right now, they wanna know more and they're not settling. And we're really excited about that. So, um, whether it's new Orleans or new Orleans or no, uh, we're excited that Sherm annual is there this year. New Orleans is a, uh, a great city and, uh, we're taking<laugh>. I think we have 20 people on our team going and, um, you know, we, we, we say it's our great debut, and we're really excited about it. Um, if you're familiar with Sherm, um, Sherm, uh, the, the Association's exhibit is usually in the very center and this year we're directly beside them. So, uh, and if you're listening and you're gonna be at Sherm annual and new Orleans, please come find the work Zinga booth and, um, come tap me on the shoulder and tell me, you heard the episode. That would, that would be awesome.

Speaker 2: 21:07

And there should also be a couple of folks there from the HR gazettes, um, uh, I still haven't got, uh, my flights sorted yet, so I need to jump on that call, but, uh, we do have the media passes sorted, so we we're getting the, uh, and I'm very much looking forward to it. Hey, listen, before we do wrap up for today, Cole, how can our listeners connect with you personally? So maybe through LinkedIn, maybe you wanna share your email address, whatever else there, and also, how can they learn more about all the cool things happening over at work Inga?

Speaker 3: 21:32

Yeah, no, I really appreciate you asking, uh, bill. This has been great again, thank you for, um, you know, giving us some, some time here in space with the community that you've built. Um, it it's really been great. Um, I am Cole Evans on LinkedIn. Um, I should be pretty easily found through just searching Cole Evans and works Zinga. Um, I am Cole at works, zinga.com and, but I will tell you, uh, LinkedIn is a, a, uh, a wonderful place that I am a, uh, quality over quantity person. And so I, I really appreciate my LinkedIn community. And, uh, if you wanna connect with me, let's start there for sure. Um, I also would ask every, um, every listener to this podcast, excuse me, to go on, to work zenga.com and, you know, creative free profile, take your assessment. Um, and if you're an HR professional, listening to this, come by our booth, uh, right beside Sherm in the middle, like I said, uh, we're gonna give away 800, uh, job postings for free on our platform. Uh, we are going to have, uh, really awesome, um, uh, marketing pieces that we're gonna be giving away. Uh, yes, we will have food. We're very excited about that. And, uh, you know, I'll close out with saying, uh, kind of a, uh, a little bit of a teaser here, but we're also gonna have a silent disco bill. Do you have a clue what a silent disco is?

Speaker 2: 23:06

I have been, I've been at a silent disco many, many years ago. I, I passed on down at a sign of disco in the countryside and they had all the tech set up for it. So,

Speaker 3: 23:17

Oh, that is,

Speaker 2: 23:18

I am. It, won't be my first sign of disco Cole.

Speaker 3: 23:21

That is so awesome. We're, we're excited about it. We've got some, uh, really great music align, uh, lined up, um, aligning with our wonderful theme in new Orleans, and we're just really excited about it. So, yeah, go on to work ziga.com set up a profile, read our content. We we've spent months crafting our content. And so we have a lot of blogs. Uh, our research piece, our culture report is out there. You can fill out a report, uh, form, and we'll, we'll send that to you for free, obviously. So, uh, yes, please connect with me on LinkedIn. We are, we're connecting and, and, and, and starting a lot of, of conversations and, and that's a really exciting thing for our team right now.

Speaker 2: 23:59

Awesome. Well, Cole, I always enjoy chatting to you, sir. Um, so I hope we get to do that again very, very soon. Um, but for now that just leads me to a Cole Evans. Thank you very much for being my guest on this episode of the HR chat show.

Speaker 3: 24:13

Thanks bill

Speaker 2: 24:15

And listeners as always until next time, happy working.

Speaker 1: 24:20

Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR chat podcast. There are hundreds of conversations with business experts available for free on the HR Gazette website, apple, Spotify, and all the main platforms, and remember to like subscribe and follow us on social media.