100% Close Rate Strategies: Lessons from Elite Recruiter Steve Swan

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
Coming up on this episode of the.

Steve Swan [00:00:02]:
Elite Recruiter Podcast, best thing I found to do is talk to the candidate about, okay, we're here, our emotions could be kicking in, but let's think about what brought us here again, our logic, let's think about this decision. Staying put or leaving. Let's think about what that's going to look like in a month, three months, a year, 18 months. I think all the lessons we learned to be successful in this business we learned in kindergarten. And a lot of us have forgotten. You know, call people back. When I call somebody back, they're like, I can't believe you just called me back. I'm like, really? Like, what's everybody else doing?

Benjamin Mena [00:00:31]:
Welcome to the Elite Recruiter Podcast with your host, Benjamin Mena, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership, and placements. I'm excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast because my guess has had a hundred percent close rate on the last three years for every single deal that he's played. But here's the secret. He's understand emotions versus logic and where the shift happens, where all the decisions are logical. And then you have to walk both the client and the candidates through the emotional journey. And he has mastered that so well, clients come to him. He is the go to person in his space because they know that he will fill the positions and he will find and fill the heart of fill positions.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:27]:
So I'm super excited to have Steve Swan on the podcast. So welcome to the podcast, Steve.

Steve Swan [00:01:31]:
Thanks, Benjamin. Thanks for having me on.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:33]:
Real quick, before we start doing a deep dive in your background, talk a little bit about what you're doing now.

Steve Swan [00:01:38]:
Sure. So the Swan group, we're in New Jersey, we're in the heart of pharmaceutical land and we focus on biotech and pharmaceutical. However we do, we do operate around the country, right? California, Massachusetts, New York area. And we focus all on, we've always focused on technology. So it's all been technology based cybersecurity and analytics and data. You know, that's kind of morphed over the years, right? I mean, back in the day, When I started 25 years ago, anything technology was like three things. Right now, anything technology is like everything. So you got to be careful what you wish for.

Steve Swan [00:02:09]:
But now when the analytics roles and the data roles come up, they give us a call, which we've done a great job with, I think.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:16]:
Awesome. So like, okay, you're doing all that now, but how did you End up in this wonderful world of recruiting.

Steve Swan [00:02:22]:
Well, so how I ended up in it? My mom. That's the short answer. Right. I'm one of four boys, and growing up, my father was a Wall street guy. And we're all within seven years, my mother decided she wanted domestic help around the house. So she couldn't find it. There weren't anybody that place nannies back then. So she started a business that hired and placed.

Steve Swan [00:02:44]:
Back then, they called them babysitters. And I didn't even tell you this before. This is all news to you? In New Jersey, she grew to six offices placing babysitters. Yeah, yeah. She even got to the point where she went down and talked in front of the state legislator about minimum wage back then and things like that. So. But she grew to six offices, and then she got into it when it became it. And back then, it was data processing and punch cards, right?

Benjamin Mena [00:03:06]:
Yeah.

Steve Swan [00:03:06]:
And she was always after me to join her. I was the only one she would ask to join her. My brother. She didn't talk to them, but one. One's in investment banking, one's in real estate, one has his own company. And so she kept asking me and asking me. And then 25 years ago, right before we had our first kid, I said, you know what, Mom? I'm gonna do it. And I jumped on with her.

Steve Swan [00:03:24]:
I didn't take a salary, didn't take a draw. I didn't take anything. I said, if I sink, I'm going on my own. And took me nine months, made my first placement, and here I am, still doing it today.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:32]:
Okay, so what'd you do before you decided to join your mom?

Steve Swan [00:03:35]:
I was mainly in sales. Well, I was on Wall street, so I worked for Bloomberg. And I also worked for some brokerage firms where I was trading fixed income debt.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:44]:
And what was that decision? You were just like, I'm sick of this. Like, you know, maybe I'll go join my mom. Or it's just like recruiting is my calling.

Steve Swan [00:03:52]:
Well, so here's what it was really. It was more of a lifestyle call for me. So I knew I would do fine on Wall Street. I knew I would do fine where I was. It's just my commute was close to two hours a day. We were about to start having kids. My wife, who's been at the Same company for 36 years, she's at Bloomberg. She's been there forever.

Steve Swan [00:04:09]:
We didn't want her to leave her role. Right. So I said, you know what? Without a commute, because my mom had an office about Five miles from my house. She's been doing this forever. And she had six offices and she's hired a whole bunch of folks. So I trusted that she knew what she was talking about when she said, you'd be good at this. So she handed me a phone and a computer and said, go. You know, And I went, and there you go.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:29]:
Did you, like, have any training or is it just like open the book and start calling?

Steve Swan [00:04:34]:
I had no training. And I'll be honest with you, I didn't do anything formal when it came to any sort of training until probably about 10 years ago. Really? I interacted with a bunch of owners. I interacted with a bunch of folks at some of those naps, conferences and things like that. Right. But I didn't know, you know, and then what I started doing, like I said about 10 years ago, is, you know, folks do the coaching, right? You know, you spend certain amount of money and they call you and this is how we roll. And they're calling me and they're saying, you're doing What? Like, you've 17 openings you're working on right now. Why don't you have three other people working for you? I'm like, I don't know.

Steve Swan [00:05:11]:
I just. This is what I do. Like, this is how I do it. And so that's why I got so adept at working on everything it. I can go from one to the other to the other and keep it together and really focus on it and get them done. So. And a lot of folks that I've hired over the years, they can't do that. I just always assume that everybody could, but they.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:27]:
I mean, that's why your mom is like, this guy's a winner. I mean, he's my side, of course he's a winner, but, like, you know, he'll figure it out. And so before we start going back into, like, you know, more recent story, you say it took what, it was eight, nine months to make your first placement?

Steve Swan [00:05:39]:
Nine months, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:41]:
Okay, Nine months. And you said you took no draw, no commission, about ready to have a kid. Like, during that time period, did you ever think about quitting?

Steve Swan [00:05:52]:
Yes and no. I mean, you know. Yeah. The only reason why my wife would always ask me, do you know what you're doing? I'm like, I got this. And in my mind I'm going. I don't know if I got this. You know. So, you know, the only time that I would think about quitting was because she would say, hey, what are you doing? You know, and again, the kid was like, I mean, she's getting bigger and bigger.

Steve Swan [00:06:12]:
Right. You know, so I did think about it, but, you know, anything else that I needed to do would have been back in New York City or would have been traveling and that just I knew going forward would have worked counter. I mean, I saw a lot of games. I was at a ton of stuff. My girls call me the PTA dad. Right. So, okay. It was a lifestyle thing for me.

Steve Swan [00:06:28]:
And it worked. And it worked really well. And still working well. My kids are gone, but still working really well. So, yeah, I think about it, it was a struggle. It was tough, but got through it.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:36]:
But you knew that this was a way that you could really focus on the family.

Steve Swan [00:06:41]:
Yes, exactly. Yep, I knew that.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:43]:
That's awesome. So what I kind of just jump into like the secret sauce, like emotion versus logic. And I know that was kind of the hook of the story, hook of the podcast. And we'll kind of like walk through some stories that you told me, like offline.

Steve Swan [00:06:56]:
But sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:57]:
When you talk about emotion versus Logic, what do you mean?

Steve Swan [00:07:01]:
Well, so let me go all the way back here. I mean, my mom always talked about that with me. She would always say, you know, she would talk to me about buyers or more. She would talk to me about all sorts of different things that would get in your way as you coming around turn three and turn four with a candidate. I was a psychology major in pre med in college, so that kind of helped when it came to all this. And I studied it a bit. One of my favorite books is Charlie Munger wrote a book. He was the gentleman that just died.

Steve Swan [00:07:24]:
He was the co chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. I've gone to the meetings a bunch, and Charlie's the best. Bottom line is everything. So, you know, he talked a lot. His book was called From Darwin to Munger. And he talked a lot about just emotionally. Humans haven't been set up to make large decisions. You know, buying that house, buying that car, making a job switch, buying a stock.

Steve Swan [00:07:47]:
Those are decisions that, you know, emotions kick in at the end. And then all of a sudden the decision making process, which is usually logical, gets all messed up. You know, we all start telling ourselves stuff that, you know, gets us messed up. I mean, I meditate every day to try and keep that in line. You know, I started doing that and 2015, and so I started noticing what my mom was saying over the years, you're not getting in the first three, four, five, six years. You know, you got to have a lot of heartache. Between here and there, you're a ton. And you know, this business, there's so much you can't control.

Steve Swan [00:08:18]:
Right. But the one thing you can control is how things are viewed and how you look at them and how they look at them. Right. I mean, I can go through the whole thing of how I handled it if you want me to, you know.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:30]:
Yeah, well, let's kind of like walk through that in a bit. But, you know, I love that. That's kind of like one of your secret sauces. But, like, I know you have a lot of business that comes to you. You've been in the space for a while. You've developed some strong relationships. How did you become that go to person?

Steve Swan [00:08:47]:
So I think what I did, Benjamin, and I'm part of the Sanford Rose Network, so I talked to them, all those owners and stuff, and what they have conveyed to me, because, again, I've only been here. I mean, I've been in my cave, in the Swan Group for 25 years. I've never worked at another firm. I get to know the company, right. So, unfortunately, I do a lot of, you know, a lot of it, Like I said, the security, the erp, the whatever systems they are, you know, and then I work with them to help find a new CIO and a new ciso, and we sit down and we talk about your organization, where you are, where you're heading, those kinds of things. But then I fill the roles that are underneath those roles, you know, so one company, I place 70 folks at, you know, which sounds ridiculous, 71 folks. But the reason being is because I got to know the company and I'm able to work on different IT roles and understand, you know, what the needs are in each one of those IT roles. But half of it, half of it is understanding the personality of the company.

Steve Swan [00:09:42]:
And that's where I think I've made a difference. Right. That's why I get to repeat business, because, you know, somebody from the commercial team will call me and they need an IT person when they just heard I filled something over an R and D and how I did it or what I did. And a lot of them are hard, obviously, hard to fill roles, right. Otherwise. And they shouldn't be calling me on something that's not hard to fill or else, you know, they can do it themselves. But, yeah, that's how I became the go to guys. Really getting to learn organizations and really putting the right folks into the organization because I get to understand candidates, drivers, the company's drivers, and that's where I Think us as recruiters have a difference over the company.

Steve Swan [00:10:17]:
Right. Because we get to talk to an individual, we get to talk to a candidate prior to them really seeing much of a description. Right. First we identify, then we qualify. And as we qualify then we get them interested in the role. Well, a company has to first post a role or whatever. The candidate sees the position and they already think that they're interested. So they're three steps down the road from my process.

Steve Swan [00:10:44]:
You know, they've already been identified and in their minds qualified and they're interested. Well, everybody's going to be interested if they're looking for a role. Right. So me and the candidate will talk about their qualifications and their drivers versus the company's drivers before we even get too deep into the Description. Written descriptions, 25 years maybe I've read 20 of them. You know, I just, I like talking to the manager and the manager will tell me what they're looking for. You know, it's so often when the.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:08]:
Manager like says exactly what they need and you look at the job description they give you and you're like, there's nothing on there.

Steve Swan [00:11:13]:
Well, yeah, because there's, you know, when the candidate interviews with 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 people, they're all stakeholders in the role and they all had two or three sentences that they put in there. So they each have a different thing that they're looking for. The managers got two or three sentences in the middle. You know, there was one company I used to work with where their descriptions were completely pre canned. The only thing they could change is the title. And so if they could only change the title, the description didn't tell them anything about what they were looking for, which was why they needed me, because they couldn't put out custom descriptions. You know, that's crazy.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:45]:
So that one company that you place 71 people at, like how do you even get that as a client? Start from the very beginning, like how do you land that as a client? And then how did you like work your way through the organization to place so many people?

Steve Swan [00:12:00]:
I was at my desk one day and I got a call from three folks and they said their names on the speaker phone and I thought it was friends making fun of me. Hi, is this Steve Swan? We understand you're the go to guy for hard to fill senior level IT roles within biotech. I said, yeah, that's me, but who's this again? And they just gave me their first names and they were just, you know, typical first names, you know. And I just kept trying to get them to talk. So I'm thinking it's friends. Am I making fun of me or something? It was a weird phone call and I pretty much said, listen guys, let me research your company. I've never heard of you guys. It ended up being a company with about six or seven hundred people at the time and let me call you tomorrow.

Steve Swan [00:12:36]:
Right? And they said, well, if you never call us back, know one thing, we're going to be the next big pharma. And, and our stocks go into several hundred dollars when it was at like 10 or 15. And I thought to myself, well, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that, I'd have a lot of money, right? So I did call them back the next day. They would been working on this role for nine months. I filled it in a month. And then the roles just kept coming and they would, you know, all the different recruiters internally would come to me in different areas because they knew that I could sell the company. It was a tough sell where they were physically located. Right.

Steve Swan [00:13:08]:
Because I asked them where they were located and I was like, that's your problem. That's part of your problem. And so I just kept working my way around the organization and eventually filled their cio, their CTO and all that stuff. And it just kept coming over the years. It's been 16 years. The company's now over 10,000, 15,000 employees, something like that. So it's pretty big now.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:27]:
Wow. I mean, talk about growth. Do they still call you now?

Steve Swan [00:13:30]:
They do, yeah. They'll call me. Yeah. I haven't done as much in the last year or so because as companies get that big, they start using, you know, all sorts of like RPOs and things like that. Right. So it's tough, but yeah, like if.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:43]:
You could like share with a recruiter like how you developed those relationships. Because it's not just like filling the job. Like I get it, like, you know, there's a lot of recruiters that can fill the job. But like, how did you work those relationships to have this be a long term, like, you know, over a decade long client?

Steve Swan [00:14:01]:
Well, so half of it is again those drivers, the individual's drivers and the company's drivers, really matching those and people continually. I got a call last week from one of the guys I placed there eight years ago, 10 years ago. When I first called him, I actually told him I wasn't going to present him because he was almost a two hour drive to the office. He said, you get me the job, I'll worry about the drive. He's still doing the drive five days a week. But he called me not to leave. He called me to thank me for all I had done for him, which is a great feeling, right? He said, you're the one that put me here, and I'm really excited that I'm here, and thank you very much. You know, even though we're not using you as much as we used to, right? They're still using me, but not like they did.

Steve Swan [00:14:38]:
But, you know, first it's making the right match and really caring about the candidate journey. And then secondly, it's about really understanding the organization, being able to sell it. And then them looking around and saying, where did that person come from? Where'd that person come from? Where'd that person come? You know, then they start figuring, aha. You know, they all came from Swan. Now you get to a certain point, right, where I did with 70 plus folks, where they look at a number and they say, look how much we're spending on Swan. We could do this ourselves, you know, And I don't know, can they? I mean, the folks that I place there will continually call me and say, hey, man, you've done a great job up here. I don't know why they're not asking you for more. I'm like, well, it's a procurement kind of thing, right? That kicks in for them.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:18]:
How are you keeping track of these relationships? Do you have them all in, like, a database? Do you have, like a tickler? Do you have, like, on a spreadsheet, like, to call them once a year? Like. No, I keep.

Steve Swan [00:15:27]:
Yeah, I keep them in a database and I do follow up with them. You know, I'll send them Christmas cards and things like that, right? I'll ping them, you know, if I see them on LinkedIn, just, hey, how you doing? You know, I'll have lunch. I have lunch with a lot of folks. So before COVID believe it or not, I did the best I could to see every candidate before they went in on an interview.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:48]:
Oh, okay.

Steve Swan [00:15:49]:
I know, man. It was a lot. And that was old school for my mom, right? And I saw a lot of people. I mean, I was doing a lot of lunches, but after, nobody wants to see much anymore, right? I mean, I think since COVID I maybe I've done 15 or 20 lunches, you know, But I would go to the companies a lot. I'd walk around, I'd go say hi to all the folks that I worked with in HR and the hiring managers, and then end up going out to lunch and so on and so forth. I even got to the point where I would go out with some of the technical leaders, especially at that company. I'd get calls from HR after that. What are they telling you? What are they saying?

Benjamin Mena [00:16:20]:
Like, really, you know, so shouldn't you be knowing this?

Steve Swan [00:16:24]:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It was funny. Yeah, it was really fun.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:29]:
So, well, you're doing excellent your go to person. Like, I feel like you don't have to do that much business development, but when you do business development, how do you do it?

Steve Swan [00:16:36]:
So it's changing, right? Business development's changing. So like I said, for like the first 10, 15 years, I did almost nothing. I mean, you know, I do one project, and then, you know, somebody would have left from this company to go to that company. Hey, you got to call Swan. He's getting this done. You know, now it's changed, right? So now with business development, I mean, I started a podcast, right, to get some recognition. Yeah, it's been good. I actually started that about a year ago to interview my CIO buddies, because I know so many of them, and everybody, you know, all the CIOs, they definitely want to help each other.

Steve Swan [00:17:08]:
And, you know, they also don't each want to reinvent the wheel Every time they run into an issue, you know, they know that Benjamin's had this issue before. So, hey, I met Benjamin, or I saw Benjamin do a podcast with Swan. I'm going to ping Benjamin and say, hey, saw you on Swan's podcast. You know, tell me how you handled X, Y and Z, or can we chat about this? Or whatever, you know, so that's part of it. Another part of it is just like you said, continually staying in front of folks and reaching out to them and understanding what they need and what they want, you know, staying on top of the market, seeing who's doing what as far as funding, you know, phase two, phase three, you know, wherever they are in their process. And then there's others that don't know you and I don't know them, but they have technology needs and they don't know where to turn. And if you start hearing about some of those things, you know, you're reaching out to them or you're. You're pinging them, or some of your other CIO buddies are telling, you know, this company, hey, you know, you might want to sniff around with Swan and see what he's got for you or how he can help you.

Steve Swan [00:18:06]:
So there's a lot of different angles, right? There's a lot of different prongs to this.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:10]:
I do, you know, because I have a podcast right here that you're speaking on. You know, I love that you have a podcast for your space because, you know, it's something that we need to get back into, is a podcast for our industry, you know, since I don't recruit recruiters, but it is like this super trojan horse to really do some deep relationships.

Steve Swan [00:18:28]:
It is.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:29]:
And get to know people. Like, what kind of business have you gotten? Or deeper relationships have you got because of the podcast?

Steve Swan [00:18:35]:
I'd say, you know, I'm getting to know my CIOs. Like, you said it better at a deeper level. And I'm doing a roundtable at the end of the year. So some of them had said to me, some of the CIOs from the larger companies that said, you know, why don't you do an end of year wrap up, you know, get four, five, six, seven, eight of us on and we can all talk about 24 and what we saw in 24, what we saw in 25, and do that kind of thing. And a couple of them wanted to do sort of a social, a mingle, a face to face. So I'm doing that. I just did two of those. I'm going to do a third one in January.

Steve Swan [00:19:08]:
So what I'll do is they were like, listen, man, do like appetizers and drinks. We'll even pay for it. We don't care. They said, listen, we don't want to go to a conference. We don't want to learn anything. We don't want to use our brains. We just want to bring our cards, have fun, shake hands with people, give them our card, and then we'll solve problems later offline. But you know, there's other organizations in my space that used to do things like this.

Steve Swan [00:19:30]:
They didn't do podcasts, but they did some of these mingles. They couldn't help themselves, though. They were starting to really do hardcore sales with, you know, selling services or selling technologies or whatever, you know, And I'm not doing that. I'm just letting them mingle and exchange cards. But I'm not doing more than like, I think 10 would be too many. Five, six, seven of them, you know, is what I've done so far. And the response has been great. I mean, people really like it.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:53]:
That is such a differentiator because I think bringing people together as recruiters, we know everybody, but bringing them together is really what I've seen is almost like a superpower for a lot of, like, recruiters. Out there. So genius move on that.

Steve Swan [00:20:06]:
It's been great. Yeah, well, it wasn't my idea. It was the CIO's idea. It was their idea. They said, hey, can you do me a favor? All these guys and girls that you have on your podcast, would you mind getting us together? I'm like, cool, you know, and even on my podcast, I gotta tell you, Benjamin, on my podcast, when all my guys are talking about AI and they're talking about how data feeds into AI and you know, data is the Achilles heel of AI. Well, so a data company saw some of my podcasts and they asked me to make an introduction to some of these folks, and they did. You know, they hooked up with three of them and so on and so forth. And these companies are gonna start growing and then they're gonna, you know, give me a call to help them out with their CTO needs or whatever they have.

Steve Swan [00:20:41]:
Right. You know, so it kind of all feeds on itself, it seems to me. Right.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:46]:
That's so awesome. You know, you've been in business for like, just shy. Actually, when this podcast probably goes live, it'll be 25 years.

Steve Swan [00:20:53]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:54]:
How have you had to reinvent yourself and has there been multiple times you've had to reinvent yourself over the years?

Steve Swan [00:21:00]:
So I did start, I told you that I sort of, you know, handling a lot of different technologies. In the beginning of my career, I was mainly handling SAP, if you've ever heard SAP. I did a lot of that for 10 or 12 years. Then after that, the SAP kind of took a nosedive in popularity, right. So got more general. Right. And then after my mom decided. So my mom had six offices, right.

Steve Swan [00:21:22]:
And after she decided to retire is when I started growing our company here, hired an assistant, got the podcast, got a production team, got a fractional marketing team, hired a couple other folks, you know, so kind of growing it like that, so kind of reinvented how we focus on things. You know, the other folks here will handle some of the roles that I used to do, and I'm going to focus more on the higher level roles because I know all these folks, you know, I know a lot of them. So I don't think my reinvention has been something super conscious, but maybe it should be more conscious and for listeners.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:54]:
Are especially like the, you know, newer recruiters because, you know, I remember the new days for me where it was like, you know, you had to do something. Every call, you had to get something out of it. Do you do a lot of calls where you're just like, consultative and just, like, talking about what's going on or maybe like, talking about the organization without ever doing a hard sell.

Steve Swan [00:22:10]:
I am. I'm doing a ton of those, you know, because when you're doing that hard sell, everybody's giving them the hard sell. You know, they're seeing through that, right? I mean, in my opinion. And so, you know, the more value you can add, and, you know this, you know, the more value you add, the more they're like, okay, this guy knows our space. This guy knows what's going on. This guy's not just here to make the placement for the transaction, which I've never been there for the transaction. I've been there to make sure that I always tell my candidates, the first call I get from you in six to 12 months is not, hey, this might not have been the right move. I want to hear from you, hey, I'm growing my group.

Steve Swan [00:22:47]:
Can you help? That's what I want to hear. And I get a lot of that. I get a ton of that, right? Because I'm really looking out for them and the company. And I like what we do as a group because we are truly making a difference. Yeah, we're in sales. We're selling ourselves, we're selling our services, we're selling what we can do for an organization. And there's a lot of us out there. But at the end of the day, if we're doing our jobs right, if we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, you know, an individual and an organization is thinking about you at night or on the weekends.

Steve Swan [00:23:15]:
There's not many other sales jobs that that happens. I used to work for Bloomberg in sales. The minute you turn your back on a sales floor, they're done thinking you're. It's over, man. They don't care that you're even there, right? So that's one of the things that sort of made me, you know, and on Wall street, right, with fixed income trading and such, same sort of thing, it's quick transaction, you're done. This, you're actually, you know, I'm having lunch with people that I placed 10 years ago, 15 years ago, you know, or I'm helping them get to a new role. You know, I did a podcast with a guy yesterday. I placed him.

Steve Swan [00:23:45]:
I don't know. I bet it was probably six, seven, eight years ago. He's now a CIO at another company. I got new cards, right? So he was at my CIO mingle. I go to give him my new card. I go Here, you know, here's the card. He goes, I don't need your card. You're here.

Steve Swan [00:23:57]:
He goes, you're the reason I'm where I am, so I'm not forgetting you. I'm like, all right, cool, thanks. You know, so it's just make a difference and treat others how you want to be treated. I think all the lessons we need in this business we learned when we were in kindergarten. Some folks have forgotten that, but I think you remember and, you know, others do as well.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:15]:
Say that one more time.

Steve Swan [00:24:16]:
I think all the lessons we learned to be successful in this business we learned in kindergarten, and a lot of us have forgotten them. You know, call people back. When I call somebody back, like, I can't believe you just called me back. I'm like, really? Like, what's everybody else doing? No other recruiters are calling you back. Like, you know, the hard sell, I think, is just a tough one, right? I mean, folks, they're going to swallow hard, listen to you, and then they're going to be down with you. You know, help people out. You know, I know it sounds a little crazy, but, you know, and I know we do have metrics, and I know we do have numbers, and I pay attention to them too, right? So I do a sheet. I have a sheet of how many marketing calls, recruitment calls, submittals, the first interviews I do, you know, each day and each week, right? Because you got to keep that.

Steve Swan [00:24:55]:
That's kind of your dashboard, right? To understand where you are and what you're doing. But at the end of the day, make them all value added, all those phone calls, you know, don't waste people's time.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:05]:
I love it. And before we head over to the Quick Fire questions, I want you to spend a little more time talking about your 100% close rate for the last three years. What have you been doing? You know, I just had somebody fall off recently. I know it's because I live in the world of security clearances and there's many things I can't deal with, correct. But, like, what are you doing that you might feel like is normal for you, but is probably different for a lot of recruiters to have that such incredible close rate.

Steve Swan [00:25:33]:
What's normal for me, I took the combination of what I learned from my mom because she was a super closer, but also what I learned from my psychology and the emotion versus logic thing. The kids that I hired, the younger people don't like it because maybe they feel it's a little pushy, but, you know, it gets us to the bottom of it, you know, so nobody's going to get an offer from a company that I'm representing until I know they're going to say yes. How do I do that? So I first start talking to them, them, both sides, about the number. What number are we looking at? So first I say to the candidate, what questions do you have? Right. So what are your questions you have today? As if you had an offer in your hand that you need to know. And they'll say, well, what do you mean? Well, when you get a number in your hand, I want it to be on this side of this number, I'm a yes. On this side of this number, I'm a no. Okay, but before that, what I want to know is, do you have questions about the company? The location, the color of the tile on the floor, the anything.

Steve Swan [00:26:34]:
I literally say that to them. Whatever your questions are, let's get them out of the way now. So I'll get them a lot. Eight times out of 10, it's, I haven't seen the benefits package. I'll get that for you. Is that the only thing you need? You know, whatever. I've spoken to wives on the phone. I've spoken to wives.

Steve Swan [00:26:48]:
I get them on the phone sometimes, like if they're reloan or if I can sense somebody's having an issue there. Do you mind if I speak to your wife for a little bit? You know, like. And I've done that. I've done that Anyway. So then I get them to the point where they say, okay, I'm ready to hear the offer. That could take days. You know, a company could come to me and say, hey, I want to make an offer today. Okay, we're not there yet.

Steve Swan [00:27:09]:
Let me do my thing. And if they like you and they trust you, they'll let you do your thing. So you go back, you do your thing with your candidate. Hey, you've done a great job. They like you. I sent an offer is coming. You're not saying an offer is coming. I sent an offer is coming because the company's already told you an offer is coming.

Steve Swan [00:27:24]:
You don't want to hand them because you lose your power, right? You lose. They're done with you at that point. Right? So, you know, you get to the point where they say, okay, cool, all my questions are answered. I'm comfortable with this, this, and this. Okay, great. Now I'm just going to make it up. We originally told them you were looking for 165 base. Is that where you are? Well, you Know, after everything I saw, you know, 170 is where I want to be, but I'm like, listen, if we start switching it now, you know, so we go through all that, and then once I get that person to the number where they say, this is where I got to be, as long as it aligns with what we talked about, I'll go back to the company, I'll say, cool, he's ready.

Steve Swan [00:28:00]:
He's going to accept at 165. He's probably going to accept on the phone, you know, so I already talked to the candidate. I say, so, you know, it's either me or, you know, Benjamin's going to call you from hr, whoever. We figure that out, and I think he's going to give you an offer, you know, And I already know an offer is coming at 165 or 172, because sometimes they say, hey, listen, we're going to do a little bit better than that. Because I know when he was doing the conversation with us, he kind of hemmed and hauled a little bit of 165. So we want to make him happy. So we're going to do the 172 or whatever. And, you know, nine times out of 10, I can get him to say yes on the phone, and then we're off to the races, you know, So I really.

Steve Swan [00:28:35]:
I try and eliminate all the variables. Now what happens a lot of times the emotion versus logic is you start getting to the point where they say, well, you know, I've been here a long time, or my boss here is real flexible with me working. You know, you can sense it. Right again after, you know, riding the bike for so long, you know, when you're getting wobbly, Right? Okay, okay. I hear what you're saying, you know, and when I hear a lot of this, I say to him, you know, we're at an intersection where it's your emotion versus, I call it right out. This is your emotion versus your logic pulling you along all along. Since we started speaking eight weeks ago, it's been your logic that's pulled you to this point because you know that there's a reason why we've been doing this. And you put so much time and effort into this, you know, but now it's your emotion taking over.

Steve Swan [00:29:20]:
And I get that. I get that. And a couple years ago, I'd sent you an article, but a couple years ago, I sent that article to four candidates within two months and kind of got them over the hump. But essentially, what the article talks about and Why I mentioned Charlie Munger earlier is because, you know, as humans, and this article talks about it too, as humans, you know, for the last 10,000 years, we've all honed our fight or flight skills, right? And it's a real emotional response to something adverse that's going to happen or something big that's going to happen. But now we click a button to buy a stock or we buy a house or we change jobs. Those two heighten our emotions and they cloud our thought process. So what the best thing I found to do is talk to the candidate about, okay, we're here, our emotions could be kicking in, but let's think about what brought us here again, our logic. Let's think about this decision, staying put or leaving.

Steve Swan [00:30:08]:
Let's think about what that's going to look like in a month, three months, a year, 18 months. The same problems are still going to be there if you stay, right? And if you go, you know why you've gone to this extent, you know, so you kind of get them thinking about the compare and contrast now and then, you know, in increments in the future. And that kind of grounds them back in the logical. It sheds the emotional part because the emotional short term, I mean, we do make, you know, road rage, whatever it is, you know, those are short term emotional decisions that unfortunately could have and we could think of some other worse ones that unfortunately have some long term ramifications, but they're short term decisions based on emotion which nobody should be making. So I kind of help get through that. So that's what's led me to the close rate I've had because I got too tired of listening and I had to figure it out, right. I went through all this, right. And I spent a lot of time figuring it out.

Steve Swan [00:30:57]:
A lot of heartache, right. But, but it helped me a lot over the last bunch of years to really get to that point. So. And if I get to a point where the candidate where, you know what, Steve, I need Instead of that 165, I need 182. Well, this isn't going to work. Then you're not even going to get an offer. We're not even going to let that. We're not going to waste their time or your time because it's been 165 since the day we started and they're not going to go there.

Steve Swan [00:31:18]:
I'm going to tell them that you're looking for 182, but it's not going to go there and they're going to drop you you know, just so you know. And then I say, are you comfortable with that? You're comfortable if I say 182 to them that you're okay if they drop you? And if they don't say yes and say, well, then, what do you want me to say? You know, I can go back and pedal it lightly and say, he doesn't want to lose it. He knows the offer could come in at 165, but he wants to know if you can do any more, that kind of thing, you know, so that the offer stays on the table but you don't lose it. And, you know, some six or seven times out of 10, the candidate will be okay with that. But if they really, all the way along had 182 in mind, we're just saying yes to 165. They're going to be fine walking, you know?

Benjamin Mena [00:31:58]:
Yeah, true. Ooh, man, I feel like that was like a masterclass right there.

Steve Swan [00:32:02]:
Sorry. And it all hit my head, and again, I had people here that work for me were like, that doesn't work. I'm like, it works, man. I'm telling you, it works, believe me. This is trial and error, a lot of error.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:16]:
Look at all the positions I've closed. There you go.

Steve Swan [00:32:18]:
Yeah. So, anyway, well, awesome.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:21]:
Before we jump over to the Quickfire questions, is there anything else that you want to share or cover about anything that we've already spoken about?

Steve Swan [00:32:26]:
No, I think. No, no, I think we've done a good job covering a lot of different. I could talk all day about different things with this, so, yeah, if you got me going on another tangent, you're going to be here for another 25 minutes. So I apologize on my rant here.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:39]:
The rants are the best. That's one of the things I love about podcasting. Well, jumping over to the quickfire questions, and you've been in the game for a while, so definitely love to hear your answers on these. What advice would you give to a career that's, you know, just getting started in our industry, and we'll just say 20, the end of 20, 24, 20, 25.

Steve Swan [00:32:56]:
Don't give up. Keep pushing. Because it's a career that for the right person. Right. And there's very few of us that are resilient enough to stick with it, but stick with it. You do have the flexibility. Like, I started out right with my kids. That's what I needed.

Steve Swan [00:33:10]:
And then you're also going to do fine financially, you know, so if you do it right, you know, and the rewarding part is, you know, you get to make a difference. But my advice, don't quit, don't give up.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:21]:
And same question, but for people that have been in the game, like, we'll just say 5, 10, 20, 25 years, they want to get ahead or get to the next level. What advice would you give to them?

Steve Swan [00:33:31]:
Well, I'd say become more of an advisor. I'd say do some value add. Right. And I don't say give away candidates and your services, but give away your expertise for free. You know, you don't have to, you know, do a podcast, do something. Right. Post, write articles, you know, put out some content that people are going to care about and they're going to want to read so they can see that you've, you know, you're good at what you do. You know, that you are embedded in the industry and that you're not just here to pull moisture off the pipes.

Steve Swan [00:34:00]:
Right. You're actually adding something. But in today's environment, I would say it's almost the same thing. Don't give up. This is. It's a tough environment right now, you know, in most spots for recruiting, and I've been doing this 25 years. It's never been this much of a rough Patch. In 25 years, it'll pass.

Steve Swan [00:34:18]:
So, yeah, don't give up.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:21]:
Has there been a book that's had a huge impact on your professional career?

Steve Swan [00:34:25]:
I'd say what the book I just mentioned, Charlie Munger's book, the Little Tiny Thing. And I don't even know if you can find it anywhere. I bought it at this shareholder meeting from Darwin to Munger. The COVID is black and there's an outline of Charlie Munger on it and then an outline of a monkey on it and right next to each other, staring at each other. I thought that was great. I think Charlie was, I gotta say was now, I used to say is the best. Just bottom lines, everything. Real smart guy.

Steve Swan [00:34:49]:
I think more people need to pay attention to what he did and what he said because he just, he just gave it to people, didn't really care. I mean, he was 90, 99 when he died, so. And a billionaire. So he could say and do whatever he wants at that point. Right, so.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:01]:
So you've been in the game for a while. You know, you learned from your mom, you've had your own business for, you know, 25 years. What do you think has been a major part of your personal success? Like, what can you attribute it to?

Steve Swan [00:35:15]:
I think constant curiosity, really. And I haven't even talked about this. You got to really want to understand a lot of different things because the personalities that come into play. Different personalities. The emotion versus logic. You know, you got to really be curious. Why did that fall apart? Let's reverse engineer that. Let's understand.

Steve Swan [00:35:34]:
Was it the company? Was it the process? Was it this? Was it that? You know, there's some organizations that don't care about the employee. I'm sorry. The candidate process. I've had companies stick people in conference rooms and hand them lunch and say, you know, have lunch in here, and then Canada will come and say, I'm not going there because I just got stuck in a conference room. You got to be constantly curious and understand what everybody's drivers are from day one. And then, you know, apply that to your knowledge base and then do research and figure out what that is. If it's only anecdotal, too, right? By talking to so many folks, my. My kids go crazy because of my curiosity level.

Steve Swan [00:36:08]:
I basically interview all their friends, and I get in trouble all the time. My kids are 24 and 21. Like, you got to stop. You just got to stop. And I'm like, I'm just curious. I honestly want to hear, you know, I'm asking the kid what their drivers are, you know, and that's. That's what. Just what I do.

Steve Swan [00:36:25]:
I've always done it, you know?

Benjamin Mena [00:36:26]:
So what do you think has been one of the hardest lessons that you've had to go through through your recruiting career?

Steve Swan [00:36:33]:
That most. Most everything is out of your control. Most everything's out of your control. By going through my process, I just went through earlier with the emotion versus Logic. I'm trying to reel in something else and pull it into my control. And I do the best I can, but ultimately, that whole thing's out of my control. Right. At certain points, you got to take your hands off the wheel and say, okay, that's out of my.

Steve Swan [00:36:59]:
Even. Even though, you know. Right. So. And you've had this happen. You had to have had this happen to you where, you know, a candidate goes the other way on an offer or a company goes the other way on a candidate, and, you know, you've been doing this long enough. This is a perfect situation for both. For both.

Steve Swan [00:37:17]:
But I had a candidate once. I got so many stories. I got a candidate once. This was about 15 years ago. This guy lived an hour away from where he worked. He calls me and he says, I want to roll closer to home. I said, cool. So I got him an offer at a Company I was working with at the time, 10 minutes from home, 15%, 20% raise.

Steve Swan [00:37:36]:
Everything was cool. He was done. It was good. And then at the end, he was 62 years old at the time, and he said to me, he called me and said, you know, I just got a job offer from the company that he was working for, which was 50 minutes away, had consultants inside. The consultant said, hey, I know that you're probably going to be gone from this company soon. We'd like to hire you as a traveling consultant. And he said, my wife and I thought that that would be a good idea for me to be a child. I said, 62, it's wear and tear in the body.

Steve Swan [00:38:02]:
And da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. I hit all your drivers or what you wanted? He said, no, I'm going to turn it down, so don't even bother getting me the offer. Three months later. Hey, Steve, is that real? So I already filled it. Yeah. So, you know, lots of things are out of your control, but there's also times where you know something's right and it goes away. So it happens.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:23]:
I know this has been an interesting market, especially, we'll say tech, and I feel like maybe bio has been a little safer than other industries. But how have you been able to, you know, you've been also been in the game for a while, so you've seen a lot of ups and downs. But how have you made it through those hard days or those hard months?

Steve Swan [00:38:39]:
Well, I mean, you know, I think the best way to get through them is keeping your expertise level up. Right. So going to some of these conferences, doing some of these things so that you are making yourself better, so that as things come around, you're in a better spot to share your wealth and knowledge that you've learned over that time. Right. Whether it's the podcast, whether it's, like I said, some of these conferences, whether it's just chatting with folks in the industry, which I'm doing all day long. Right. Folks in the IT industry or the biotech industry, to hear what they're seeing as the latest trends and things. So what do I do again, with my curiosity level? I just try and keep soaking things up.

Steve Swan [00:39:15]:
You know, I have to. We have to. We all have to.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:18]:
That's awesome. You know, a month or two after you launched your business, you decided to go all in on yourself.

Steve Swan [00:39:23]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:23]:
Instead of working at another firm, Mike, you start your own recruiting company. Everything that you've learned, everything that you've gone through, the ups, the downs, the pain the success, the wins. If you can go back and give yourself advice at that point in time, what would you tell yourself?

Steve Swan [00:39:38]:
Personally, I think it's perennial advice that's probably good for anybody. And this is be a better listener. You know, listen and do your best to understand. As we get older, we understand what people are really saying and what their inflections mean and. But you can't underestimate listening to somebody and really, really absorbing what they're saying and what they're really trying to convey. Right. You can read between the lines. You know, people say things for a certain reason in timing.

Steve Swan [00:40:04]:
They say things for a certain reason. They say things at certain points for a certain reason. So it's not only what they say, it's how they say it or when they say it. Right. It's crazy. There's so much there. So be a better listener. Be a well rounded listener.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:16]:
Awesome. And if somebody wants to follow you, how do they go about doing that?

Steve Swan [00:40:22]:
Meaning?

Benjamin Mena [00:40:23]:
You mean like, you know, like LinkedIn or Twitter or.

Steve Swan [00:40:27]:
I would say LinkedIn. Yeah, that's the best for me. Yeah, LinkedIn, because I try and keep it there. I don't have much of a social media presence anywhere else but there. My podcasts are posted in different spots. Biotech bites. But LinkedIn. Yeah, LinkedIn's the best place if somebody.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:41]:
Wants to follow you. Awesome.

Steve Swan [00:40:42]:
Absolutely.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:42]:
Well, Steve, this has been an awesome interview. And, you know, I'd love the, like, how you broke down, like, the secret to closing. Is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners before I let you go?

Steve Swan [00:40:52]:
I don't think so. I mean, if anybody wants to. Again, I'll talk about this all day long with anybody. I don't want to chew up your whole, you know, your monthly allotment for bandwidth. Right. But if anybody ever. And if you ever want to reach out, if anybody wants to reach out on anything, I'm an open book. I don't think that there's any secrets for any of us.

Steve Swan [00:41:08]:
I think we all need to share. I think we all need to be collaborative. I think we all can help each other. I think that, you know, one person can take on two. Two people can take on the world. Right. So we need to help each other out. And that's part of why I'm doing the podcast and part of why I'm doing this.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:24]:
Awesome. Well, Steve, I just want to say thank you so much for sharing. I think closing is one of the things a lot of recruiters like learn in the first two weeks. But it takes years to master.

Steve Swan [00:41:32]:
It does. Yeah. It's like riding bikes, and each bike rides differently. You know, you feel a wobble at a different point. And if you've seen it for 25 years and you get your butt kicked enough. Okay, cool. I got this. You know, so it was fun.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:45]:
Excited that you shared and for the listeners. I want you guys to keep crushing it. I want you to make 2025 the year of personal abundance. So let's get it, guys. All right. Thank you.

Steve Swan [00:41:54]:
Thanks, Benjamin.