Isaac (00:10): What's up everybody! Isaac here, Civil Engineering Academy. Excited to be with you on another podcast episode. Excited today because I bring on a recruiter, and I know many of you have been hit up by recruiters on LinkedIn. And so I wanted to bring a recruiter on and talking about all the questions you might have on your mind. Let's pull back the curtain and ask the questions that you've always wanted to ask. Maybe if a recruiter is the way to do it or if you should go out on your own to do it, what are the benefits of using a recruiter, how they get paid, all of that good stuff. So I bring on a special guest, Brandon McGill. He's with National Engineering Search. He is a recruiter for civil engineers, and we just talk about this. We have a good open conversation about all the things I just mentioned, and I think it's going to be very insightful.

(00:58): So if you've ever wondered how the recruiting process works or the benefits of using a recruiter, we talk about it in this episode. It's one that you're not going to want to miss, and it's coming up right after this.

(01:15): All right. We are running live. Brandon, thanks for joining the Civil Engineering Academy podcast. Appreciate you jumping on and doing this.

Brandon (01:22): Appreciate you offering it for me.

Isaac (01:24): Yeah. So we kind of connected over LinkedIn and it sounds like maybe some of the content we made made your way or something. I don't know, but we reached out and connected over LinkedIn, which is a great tool for that. And one of the things I've had on my mind is as an engineer, a lot of people don't know, or maybe they do know, but I just wanted to talk about recruiters and what they can do to help engineers in their field.

Brandon (01:53): The good, the bad, the ugly.

Isaac (01:55): Yeah, all that. So just want to have a good, honest conversation, the benefits of doing that. So I guess as we begin, why don't you tell us a little bit more about your background and how you found yourself into this engineering recruitment industry?

Brandon (02:14): Into recruiting.

(02:16): Yeah. It's kind of funny. A lot of people don't search out being a recruiter. Almost all the stories that I've heard from other recruiters is you just somehow dumb luck landed in it. And sink or swim, you have the experience now of being a recruiter, right? So there's no path that was a normal path, I guess. So I've been working in sales since I was 19, started working for internet marketing, doing SEO websites, things like that. I was in that industry for, man, I think six, seven years. I worked for a couple other companies and then I had my own company for about four years doing that. A big reason I got out of that wasn't for lack of success. It's just Google made some changes and I couldn't morally sell the stuff I was selling without having some sort of results for clients. So I just at the time decided I'm going to get out before this gets ugly, before people start getting mad at me and just decided to make a change.

(03:24): We were in a transition in life. My wife and I had moved and it was time to kind of clean slate and try something different.

(03:33): Ran across in the opportunity with National Engineering Search back then and working with Gary Todd. He brought me on as a project engineer with him and I really felt like I found what I really was going to enjoy and wanted to make a career out of. The way that things were set up back then, it worked out great. It got me exposed to it. I had a lot of fun. I actually got recruited away from National Engineering Search and went and worked in petroleum for a few years, got some good sales training. It was more of a bigger company, so better environment as far as learning sales, getting sales training. And Gary and I always stayed in touch. He's always been a mentor and a good friend. Every time I go back to Ben to visit my family, we try to connect with Gary and his family and it's just a good relationship.

(04:27): And when I was transitioning out of the fuel and oil, Gary reached out to me and said, "Hey, we've got a lot of work. I can't handle it all. You want to come back and we can figure out something here." So the short and sweet version is I'm now back with NES and great mentor, great reputation behind him. And we're having a lot of fun with looking at what the future's going to hold here.

Isaac (04:52): That's pretty cool. So in terms of becoming a recruiter, and I'm just kind of wondering myself, but it sounds like sales is definitely something that you should have a pretty good handle on. If you don't like talking to people - Do you guys get engineers that are doing this stuff too, like

Brandon (05:11): Engineers that are - I've seen some people that are engineers that have transitioned to doing the recruiting of engineers. It really just comes down to personality, man. I mean, my personality type has always been I enjoy sales. I'm competitive as heck. So when I hear a no, it's not always a no, it's just not right now. When they say no, they haven't finished their full sentence to me, right? Got

Isaac (05:39): It.

Brandon (05:41): So that's always been my mentality in sales as a whole. And I've had success in sales and now with recruiting, I've always had a passion for just generally helping people, providing a service that helps people. And now with this, it's not really, I wouldn't really call it a service per se. I mean, the recruiting part is a service, but the end goal of just purely helping somebody find a better career path, better job opportunity, and then obviously our clients, helping them build their engineering teams. We've built some very solid engineering teams that have done some pretty cool things throughout the country at this point. So it's

Isaac (06:23): Fun to see. I think that's a good thing. And there's a lot of fulfillment in seeing that happen and helping somebody. So that's pretty cool. I'm curious, what kind of things do you generally see engineers, if they're using you as a tool to help them in their career, what kind of things do you see or that they ask for you to negotiate on their half or what are the benefits?

Brandon (06:45): On their behalf?

Isaac (06:46): Yeah, maybe some of the benefits of maybe using a recruiter. Maybe that's two different questions, but -

Brandon (06:53): It's kind of two in one, I guess, right?

Isaac (06:55): Yeah. What are some of the things they ask you to negotiate and then what are the benefits of maybe using a recruiter versus going on your own?

Brandon (07:03): I think in general, the best way to answer that is just I'm that third party. So people aren't always comfortable in negotiation with literally anything, whether it be salary or PTO or all those different things or trying to figure out how can I ask to be hybrid or remote or any of those things. I mean, me as the recruiter, I'm like, "Hey, I have nothing to lose here. Let's find out what the situation is and let's create a win-win." I mean, that's essentially what I tell anybody that I work with all the time is my job, it's create a win-win. I want client to be happy. I want candidate to be happy. And we figure out all those details of what everybody is comfortable with and then we can move forward. Because if we're not creating win-wins, it's not long-term relationships. It's not long-term job career stuff.

(07:56): And that's what we're essentially trying to accomplish is we don't want to do it short-term stuff. We want to provide good opportunities for people and let them grow from there.

Isaac (08:06): I can see that as a big benefit. I imagine most engineers, it's uncomfortable to really ask for the things that they really want, but when they do use a third party, you guys can do

Brandon (08:20): Much better job. You can be a buffer.

Isaac (08:21): Yeah. And you're a buffer to that. I just think it's way more comforting and easier to go through you to do that negotiating for -

Brandon (08:33): I'll say, I mean, a lot of the times with candidates, they'll ask us those uncomfortable questions and then I can go, okay, well, I'm not going to phrase it like that when I take it to the client. We're going to rework this and make this very simple and say, Hey, we would like to see this in a job offer. What will you guys be able to bring to the table in that situation? And that's where I can be the, again, I think the best word for it is that buffer is I take out that uncomfortable stuff where they can ask me and they can be purely candid because it's confidential conversations and I'm just kind of the messenger to say, "Hey, in order to make this deal happen, this is what we're asking for." And then just kind of find that best middle ground to make everybody happy.

Isaac (09:20): That makes sense.

Brandon (09:21): Yeah.

Isaac (09:23): And I have just a follow-up question to that, but what's the benefit for you as a recruiter? Is there a cut? How does the recruiter get

Brandon (09:36): Paid at the

Isaac (09:37): End of the day?

Brandon (09:37): It's all like unicorns and rainbows, man. We do this for free. No, a lot of the times our fee that we have gets passed along to the hiring company. So whether I'm representing a candidate and I'm marketing a candidate or we have a relationship with a company and then we have to go recruit and find those candidates, there's an agreement in place with the hiring company and that it doesn't affect the hiree, I guess would be the best.

Isaac (10:08): Yeah, it's no loss one.

Brandon (10:10): Yeah, it doesn't affect them. The company knows exactly what they signed up for and the expectations as far as me as the recruiter is laid out before we get into the conversations of interviews.

Isaac (10:24): Gotcha. So I don't doubt that changes depending on clients and who you're working with, whatever that percentage is, and probably what level the engineer you're finding as well. For sure.

Brandon (10:40): Yeah. The harder the search, all those numbers change, but we work on both contingency and retainer. Retainers a lot of the times will be either our very consistent clients that know us, trust us, work with us, and then we have that retainer relationship or if it's a tough search, we have to put time and effort into it. And it's one of those searches that it's not just a, hey, in a few weeks we'll have you - Needle in the haystack. Yeah. And we got to be compensated a little bit for the time to go put the time and effort in.

Isaac (11:15): Interesting. So what challenges have you faced as a recruiter trying to recruit people? I mean, it sounds like this is one of them when you've got a real niche and you got to find somebody, but I mean, are you super busy right now or do you have periods where it slows down? What's the flavor of being in this world?

Brandon (11:35): As we're talking here, we're in Q4, but Q4 always slows down because people are looking at end of year, they're looking at budgets for 2023 or what will be the next year. So yeah, it slows down in Q4, but smart companies are the good companies that are ahead of the game a little bit, for lack of a better term, will be still looking and be active right now because you have your kind of passive candidates that are like, "Maybe I'll look at the right opportunity." And I've got some clients right now that are interviewing the week of Christmas. They're not taking that time off because a good candidate you can't pass on. I mean, if they're passively looking, that next person or next recruiter could call them and have another opportunity for them, then you'll miss your opportunity to have that. I mean, right now in the space that we play in with civil, geotechnical, and then associated practices, it's kill or be killed, man.

Isaac (12:33): Isn't

Brandon (12:33): There some

Isaac (12:33): Data around there? It's kind of like if you don't get somebody an interview quickly that you've kind of lost that window or I don't know.

Brandon (12:42): Yeah. There's always that. When you have a, let's just call them a warm candidate, I mean, you want to be able to get them in and get them conversing sooner than later. I mean, because the longer you wait, the less intrigued they're going to be. We've worked with some companies and saying, "Hey, this interview process is a bit much. What can we do here to minimize this, to still accomplish the same thing, but not keep this person just on the hook, dragging them behind the boat and we can actually do something with it."

Isaac (13:14): Gotcha. So we talked about this already a little bit, but one of the benefits is that you're able to negotiate as this third party, but I guess as an engineer, a lot of times engineers want to do stuff on their own. They want to go, "If I want to work for this company, I'm going to go find it, go to their career page, and I'm just going to go apply." So in addition to being this third party negotiation, have you seen statistics or is there data that says if you use a recruiter, typically you can get more salary or you get a sign on bonus?

Brandon (13:57): I personally haven't dove into those full details, I guess. A lot of the time, just like most engineers, our heads down and we're busy working.

Isaac (14:06): Yeah, just

Brandon (14:06): Grinding

Isaac (14:06): It out.

Brandon (14:08): When we get people that call us to say, "Hey, I need help finding a job." I mean, I would say a big perk to this is you're not just getting thrown into the big pile of HR resumes, right? When you're utilizing recruiter, we're going directly to senior decision makers. A lot of the times HR will get brought in obviously because that's part of the process, but we are going directly to the decision makers, the hiring managers and saying, "Hey, we've got this individual with X, Y, Z skillset. They've got all the right things for the job that you guys potentially..." Either they have it posted or they don't have it posted. A lot of the times we'll take, let's just say a 15 year geotechnical engineer that's got diverse experience in both materials and geotech design. Almost every company's going to try to find a way to get that person on board if they have any sort of a need, that's a needle in a haystack type of a candidate.

(15:07): So we sometimes as recruiters and having those relationship with these different companies and different hiring managers, we can come in and say, "Hey, we have this person. Do you want to talk to them? They've got motivation to change or they're open to the right opportunity." But I mean, if you're just going to go apply online, I mean, it's pretty passive in my mind to do it that way. This is a lot more direct shot. I'm going to go directly to the hiring manager and we do all that work for the individual. They can continue doing their engineering for the company that they're working for. That doesn't stop. And then we just call them and say, "Hey, we've got an interview. What's your availability? When can you be available?"

Isaac (15:52): Okay. So I'm hearing that you have access to people that make the big decisions, so you immediately get that, which is nice. So your chances of probably getting hired have gone up. And I'm willing to bet, although we don't have the data on this, but I'm willing to bet with you as a third party negotiator that you could probably, people are willing to work with you to get a higher salary even or even a sign on bonus or whatever that is.

Brandon (16:21): Yeah. I mean, we've got a little bit more flexibility within that realm. I mean, myself as the recruiter, we're usually paid off what that person's salary ends up being. So I'm always realistic with salary expectations. I don't shoot for the moon when a company is saying, "Hey, we can offer this." We're not going to ask for 50 grand above that. That's just not being realistic. But I'm very upfront with, "Hey, he's making or this person, this candidate's making X in order to get them to move." I mean, unless they're desperate, they're not going to take a lateral move. They want to see some sort of a pay increase. So I mean, the largest, I guess, offer and pay increase that I've seen in somebody making a job change is about $40,000 a year. They went from making not six figures to into six figures by just simply changing companies, changing companies.

(17:21): Wow. So you have some companies that, or people that have been with the same company for 15 years, your three to 5% pay increase maybe every year doesn't exactly add up when I can confidently say that we're going to advocate for around a 10% or possibly more pay increase in making that change.

Isaac (17:45): Yeah. I've told engineers this, and I know this myself, but the biggest increases I've ever seen have been when you've taken a step to a new company. So definitely something to look out for.

Brandon (17:58): We sometimes have those unspoken jobs. They're not listed. They're not on the company website. They just say, "Hey, we just need to find this person, go find them." Yeah. But the job listing online doesn't get the type of person that they're hunting after. Yeah. That type of person is working.

Isaac (18:16): That's right. They're busy.

Brandon (18:18): Yeah.

Isaac (18:18): What advice would you share, I guess, with future engineering applicants that are looking or they're wanting to land their dream job? Is there any tips that you may have for somebody up their LinkedIn or I don't know what it is.

Brandon (18:36): Definitely make sure that you have your skill sets and the things that you're confident in doing. Make sure that you have that on your LinkedIn and you highlight those skillsets on your resume. Different practices call for different things like water resource engineer is going to have different skill sets, obviously geotech and all the different practices within it. So make sure you highlight the skill sets that you're comfortable with, whether it be CAD or the different design programs that are out there. And again, just focus on the skill sets and where you are comfortable and confident because if you're going to go in and BS your way through an interview, it's going to shine really quick on the things that you maybe don't know, but they're like, "Oh, on your resume, you said you had this. You haven't?" It doesn't go over too well.

Isaac (19:27): Have you ever had a hard time, I guess, I don't want to say selling, but giving assurances to a company to match with a candidate? Or is it just typically that a resume kind of sells itself in that

Brandon (19:44): Situation? The resumes are always a great tool because it shows the experience of the candidate, the types of projects they've been on, the types of work they've been doing so they know the diversity or type of work the person's been doing. So that gives a good snapshot when a company goes to interview somebody, but really I feel like the biggest weight is on that initial interview. They get to know the person, they talk to them about the types of projects and more of a real conversation versus just a snapshot of, "Okay, you've worked at three companies in the last 10 years. No red flags come up on the resume," which leads into the conversation and then the real meat and potatoes I feel like happens once the interview process starts. It's not always on the resume, but a resume definitely gets your foot in the door.

Isaac (20:33): Interesting. Well, I have another kind of oddball question maybe, but every year the ASC puts out salary reports for engineers, civil engineers, different disciplines that they go into. I guess in your opinion, you've worked with probably a bunch of different disciplines in civil engineering now.

Brandon (20:54): I've talked to a lot.

Isaac (20:56): So what, in your opinion, are you seeing, I guess in today's market is more of the higher paying disciplines that engineers are going into and maybe what's less or are they all about equal?

Brandon (21:15): It's kind of a give or take. I mean, it kind of all depends on demand is what's really what I'm seeing right now. So I've seen those five to eight year engineers normally, I would say in previous years, previous markets, they wouldn't really be considered a senior engineer at that point, but companies are to the point now where it's like, "Okay, we can train you on this. We'll put you into this role. We'll get you up to speed." And now you're an eight year senior geotechnical engineer getting paid as a senior geotechnical engineer. So that maybe not so much the pay scale, but more the flexibility around what those roles and who fits into those roles.

Isaac (22:00): Yeah. I've kind of sensed that. I'm in the utility world, so I am in the transmission engineering world

Brandon (22:06): Designing

Isaac (22:07): High voltage power lines. I've seen a very similar thing where if somebody gets three to five years of experience and you do move around, you can

Brandon (22:16): Get - Next thing you know, you're a principal engineer.

Isaac (22:18): All of a sudden you've moved up.

Brandon (22:20): Yeah. Again, I'd have to go look at the statistics, but I mean, it really is. There's a lot of proof out there that really to grow your career, it happens the fastest when you change companies. I mean, you can get experience at one, change to a different one. I don't care if it's a different brand, same building, but it could be different company, your value changes when you make that change, you have the experience, your badge changes essentially, but now your title changes because you have growth opportunity or you didn't at the previous role because the people ahead of you are young or for whatever reason, they're not going anywhere. Your opportunity is to go move and move up.

Isaac (23:09): I've also seen people leave and occasionally come back to a company that they were originally working to, and that moved the needle for them because when you're willing to leave, you have to be committed to it. You have to follow through with that, but anyway. Well, is there any other

Brandon (23:32): Tips - It's all about timing.

Isaac (23:34): Oh yeah, timing too. I helped a lot. Well, this has been fun, Brandon. Is there any other tips you would have to share with an engineer either starting or is it even in a more senior role that you could

Brandon (23:47): Share with us using

Isaac (23:48): A recruiter in general?

Brandon (23:49): I think that in general, sometimes recruiters have bad reputations. I don't know why. I'm sure there's good and bad in every industry. Why is that? I don't know, man. It's a typical human nature, I guess. Some people are going to ghost you, they're not going to communicate well, whatever it is. But luckily we're within a niche where I don't have 50 jobs on my desk and I'm trying to just get people in front of. We really focus on quality candidate, not just quantity. So I mean, I talk with a lot. I make 40, 50, 60 calls a day, talk with engineers all over the country. And really, I mean, I want to have quality conversations, not just quantity, but.

Isaac (24:35): Wow.

Brandon (24:36): It is what it is.

Isaac (24:37): So polish up your LinkedIn profile. If you're in the hunt for another job -

Brandon (24:42): Don't be scared to talk to a recruiter because we're not there to hurt you. We're just saying, "Hey, we maybe have an opportunity for you." Maybe.

Isaac (24:50): And you help. I think where people get scared is, as a recruiter, you're searching for people to fill a role, and so you have to reach out to people. That's

Brandon (24:59): Just

Isaac (25:00): The nature of

Brandon (25:01): It. What seems to come up, or at least lately it has, is the confidentiality side. So people don't want to talk to a recruiter in fears that it's going to get back to their employer that they're looking. And for myself, I can't talk for other recruiters, but I know how we work is everything we do is confidential. It stays with us, conversations between us, and we are a separate company. We're not the hiring company. And really, we have the conversation. We're going to tell you everything that we can about the opportunity, including client name in that conversation. So you can tell us if it's a company you want to talk to or not. And if not, then we can go. If you're really motivated to find a change, we can help you find an opportunity that fits what you're looking for at the type of company you want to work at.

Isaac (25:46): Awesome.

Brandon (25:47): Yeah.

Isaac (25:48): Well, Brandon, tell us a little bit more about people you're looking for and where can our audience connect with you if they are in the hunt to make a switch or use a recruiter?

Brandon (25:58): The needle in the haystack right now is that mid to senior level civil and geotechnical engineer. We work a lot with materials as well, so not just engineers, but related fields to those things. If you're a licensed engineer or somebody that's working, again, in the similar field, we're always open to a conversation. A conversation never hurts anybody to at least know what you're looking for. We may not have something right now in the area that you're looking for, but we'll know when the one pops up. The worst thing that can happen is you know a recruiter that gives an advocate for you.

Isaac (26:36): And go from there. And

Brandon (26:37): Go from there. What's your

Isaac (26:38): Website?

Brandon (26:39): Our company website is nes-llc.com and you can always find me on LinkedIn. It's just linkedin.com/brandonmagill.

Isaac (26:50): Perfect. Okay. Well, we'll make sure we list all that in the show notes. I appreciate you jumping on. Give us a little behind the scenes curtain of talking to recruiters and how it works in your world. I'm

Brandon (27:01): Sure people

Isaac (27:02): Are getting lots of messages on LinkedIn to come back.

Brandon (27:07): I'm one of many, but it's just one of those things. Try to differentiate. Being a 6-3 red, I've always felt different in my life anyways, so stand out like Waldo in a crowd.

Isaac (27:16): There you go. Well, thanks for jumping on. Appreciate it. We'll have you come on in another episode sometime.

Brandon (27:23): Yeah, definitely. I appreciate the time.

Isaac (27:25): Okay. See ya.

Brandon (27:25): Have a good one.

Isaac (27:31): All right. I hope you enjoyed that episode with Brandon. Feel free to reach out to him on LinkedIn. If you are in the hunt for a job, he'll help you negotiate a better salary or whatever you're looking for. But if you need help to enhance your own ability to look for more jobs, you definitely need to get your FE and your PE taken care of. If you haven't done that, definitely check us out, civilengineeringacademy.com. You can get those things over with so that you can enhance your search and go out there and get more money. So anyway, thanks for checking things out. Definitely go check out Brandon. I think you can enjoy his stuff and we'll see you in the next one. Bye.