Bet on Yourself: Zaharo Tsekouras on Starting a Recruiting Firm

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the elite Recruiter podcast with your host, Benjamin Menna, 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.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:19]:
I am so excited about this episode of the Illbeat Recruiter podcast. I have been looking forward to this conversation. One of the things that I absolutely love about recruiting is just about anybody can take the skill sets, whatever industry they're in, and they see an opportunity and they could change the direction of their career by jumping into recruiting. Zaharo Decoras is somebody that did just that. She was the chief of staff at some amazing organizations, working with venture capital, working with all sorts of incredible places. But she saw an opportunity in recruiting and decided take that leap, and she started her own recruiting company, focusing on the background where she was at because she saw a huge gap in the marketplace. So I am so excited to welcome you to the podcast.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:01:02]:
Benjamin, thanks so much for having me on. This is long overdue and I'm so excited to have this chat with you.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:08]:
Well, let's go ahead and get started. First of all, your business focuses on chief of staff recruiting. Before we do a deep dive into how you ended up in this wonderful world of recruiting, talk about right hand and talk about what is a chief of staff.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:01:22]:
I named my firm after what this person actually does, who they are. So they're the right hand to their principal, the principal being founder, CEO, or some other c level executive at the company. And so the chief of staff is in a unique position because their focus is on boosting the efficiency of their principal. And what this means is typically taking big chunky projects and initiatives off of their plate. These fall into a couple of camps. One is the stuff that the principal can't actually get to, that he needs to or she needs to because they just don't have the bandwidth or stuff that they're currently working on, that they're having trouble kind of moving the ball forward on. So what do these initiatives look like? They could be expanding the marketplace to a new region or bringing on a new customer or testing out a new kind of pricing strategy. Who's going to kind of take these things from zero to one, not just at a very high level, like being that strategic thought partner to their principal, but actually doing the work.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:02:28]:
So the chief of staff is the person who really takes on, like, those meaty projects. They're also the person who is an interim leader. Maybe there are current ownerless projects at a company and it doesn't neatly fall under. Let's say the COO's remit or some other executives remit. And you know, the chief of staff is going to be the one who's going to plug those leadership gaps. They're also the person who leads strategic planning quarterly, annual multi year planning just at a very high level. They're like plugging in business systems and processes depending on the stage of the company. So I could go on and on, but those are really like the major things that the chief of staff is leaning into.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:09]:
It is one of those things I absolutely love about recruiting. There are so many different places and niches that you can create a business and you created your niche on literally chief of staff, these high level professionals. So let's just go ahead and take a few steps back. How did you even end up in this wonderful world of recruiting?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:03:28]:
Yeah, you know, I've listened to a lot of your podcasts and have heard other recruiters talk about kind of just falling into recruiting. No one kind of really grows up saying, hey, I want to be a recruiter one day, and this is the job for me so very much. I follow the similar path. So my story begins many years ago. I was in venture capital earlier part of my career and was working at a venture studio in New York, and we had the opportunity to build a startup within the venture studio. And so that gave me my first kind of crack at being in the trenches with the founder and managing partner of the firm and in building this stealth company that showed me something totally new, right. Very different from allocating capital and investing in early stage startups. You're actually doing the thing.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:04:19]:
And I didn't know what I was doing really in that role. Like, what do I title this? Because I'm doing so many different things and I sort of just discovered the chief of staff role. I stumbled upon it as I was kind of doing my own research and as I continued to look into it, I said, wow, this is actually what I want to be doing full time. And that's a very different career trajectory than, let's say, the partner path at a venture firm. And so, yeah, I kind of got tunnel vision around the role and I landed at a series, a startup in Austin, eventually moved out here, and this is where I'm recording the podcast. And that was my journey, if you will, and then eventually decided, hey, I want to do my own thing. What's that thing going to be? I knew I didn't want to work for anyone. And so I think this is an element of most, if not all entrepreneurs.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:05:16]:
They really don't want a boss. Of course, if you're venture backed, you have a board to, to report into. But as a solopreneur, as a small business owner, it's just you that appealed to me. I wanted to start a family. My plan was to get pregnant, you know, and I launched right hand talent at the start of my second trimester last February. And so. And so I like to say that we did all the things in 2023, and it was the best decision I've ever made for myself, for my family, for really, the next, let's say, five to ten years, let's call it, and beyond.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:55]:
Hold on a second. Hold on a second. You launched your recruiting company in, what was it, you said, the second trimester of your pregnancy?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:06:03]:
That's right. That's right. You know, the belly's just starting to pop up really around then. And I said, yeah, let's dedicate like, every hour of every day to getting this thing spun up. And I think the beauty of recruit. And so here's, let me maybe take a couple steps back. So, you know, why recruiting? I did see that the chief of staff role was going to start really taking off. I saw an opportunity to lean into not just my interests and my kind of network that I built up from my venture days, from being a chief of staff, but also the opportunity to educate the market a little bit.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:06:39]:
So not just on the candidate side, but on the client side as well. Because, I mean, one of the most popular questions that people ask is, what is a chief of staff? And then it's what can I have them do? And then it's how much do I pay them and how do I train them, retain them and so forth. And so I discovered that one of my passions is creating content, whether that be posting on LinkedIn or writing on our right hand talent substack. I can kind of clue people into interesting things that I'm seeing on the front line recruiting for this role. What are the common archetypes of a chief of staff that are best suited for this, for this kind of founder, for this stage company? And it's just like an endless amount of stuff that you can talk about, and I really enjoy that. And so I saw a lot of these kind of, like, intersections and overlaps between my skillset, my interests, what I want to do, potential career paths. And that's where I saw recruiting as really the best of all worlds.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:37]:
That is so awesome. So we're going to talk in a little bit about, like, how you successfully launched on top of, like, I didn't even realize that was like during your pregnancy too. So we're going to go into some details on that too. But lessons learned about how you launch, how you start your company, all those things. But just out of pure curiosity on somebody that doesn't know that much about the chief of staff. I've seen the occasional chief of staff in the Govcon. I see a lot of that around the Pentagon. How is a chief of staff different from a COO and also like an executive assistant?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:08:06]:
That's a great question. I forgot to mention that that's another really big one as founders determine. Okay, who do I actually really need as my next kind of hire? And let's call it the office of the CEO, right? You have an EA, you have a chief of staff. When do you know which one you need? The first exercise I actually advise founders to do is just sit down in front of a blank piece of paper with a pen or pencil or in front of your laptop and just do a stream of consciousness exercise. Just start dumping down in that document all the things that you either need to get done, like right now, or is coming down the hatch. And the things that are top of mind end up being like the stuff that they can't get to, the stuff that keeps them up at night. And so it's like if you go back through that list and see that half of it is like admin, completing tasks, checking boxes, back office stuff, you know, you probably just need an EA. But if it's big, chunky, meaty projects that aren't getting done or things are slipping through the cracks and they're mission critical for a product launch or some other experimentation that you're doing for the business, and you just need a highly capable, like, high aptitude, strong executor in the trenches with you, then that's gonna be your chief of staff.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:09:26]:
COO is very different. It sounds like chief of staff and COO are very similar because they're both kind of like ops focused, but there are some distinct differences. The chief of staff is a lone wolf role, as I call it. 99% of the time they don't have anyone reporting into them. They might have a dotted line EA, they're working in close conjunction so that they're with the EA, so their founder is focused on the right things in the upcoming week or weeks. But, you know, the chief of staff is solo. They are a hardcore individual contributor. They are typically not that person coming in with a decade of experience building and leading teams that might be interesting for like a series e startup or a public company.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:10:10]:
Right. But for early stage, mid stage, you know, scaling organizations, that's usually not the need they have or, you know, requirements they're looking for in their chief of staff. You know, so where the COO is actually managing a team, right. He's leading Stratdhejdehe. He or she, let me say, is leading strategy and ops or customer success or other teams kind of underneath them, and they're goaling all of those people. They're reporting into them, they're tracking their KPI's. The COO also might own company wide objectives and key results. The chief of staff is not running a team.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:10:44]:
Not typically owning company wide okrs, but helping everyone who does own them, you know, make progress against them. So those are kind of the big differences between the cooze and the chief of staff on the people management side, and then just their overall focus. Like coos focus on the day to day operational efficiency of the organization. The chief of staff is largely focused on the day to day efficiency of my principal.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:11]:
All right, I got two more questions on this. We'll jump over to getting started. First of all, chief of staff, like, what's their pay range in a startup versus a late stage? Startup versus a public company?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:11:22]:
Yeah, that's an amazing question. There are a couple of ways of backing into this. One is what is the skillset that you're optimizing for? What are the years of experience you're looking at? What level is this person at? So you can have somebody come in with seven to ten years of experience, grew up in investment banking, venture capital, has a couple of years of, you know, upward trajectory at an early stage or, you know, scale up, but they're going to come in at minimum, like 200 on the base. Right. Because you want somebody with all the bells and whistles. But if you're wanting somebody a bit more junior, you know, salaries can get down as low as 100. I would also say that anything below 100, and you're probably not looking at a chief of staff candidate. It might be just like your first hire that you really need them.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:12:09]:
Focus, like, on this one thing that's giving you a headache. Chief of staff might be like overtitling, because also, who's going to take a job that's like 60 or 80k? Like, that's not the chief of staff candidate. That's like someone just right out of college. Right. Who's kind of like this biz ops, let's say associate or an analyst or something like that. I would say that 100 to 200 is really the range that you see, like at a seed stage startup. And later when you start getting into like series C, D, E, it's like the salary floor is more around like the 175, 185 mark. Salaries can get up to 350 on the base, let's call it depending on how aggressive the company wants to be.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:12:53]:
And also the skillset, again, that they're optimizing for, like the VP level, senior director, VP level candidates are just going to command the higher salaries and the companies are going to pay for that as well.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:05]:
Do you think recruiting companies need a chief of staff?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:13:08]:
Oh, that's a great question. I've actually been approached by one of the, one of the biggest recruiting firms out there in tech to help them find a chief of staff. And so, yes, I would say at a certain size and scale, sure, not everyone needs a chief of staff, but I could see the value in having one at a recruiting firm, particularly if they're going to be very like, client facing and they're going to complement the founder. Right. In a lot of ways, that's actually an interesting kind of segue. The chief of staff that you bring on can either be complimentary to you or amplify you. So let's say, like a lot of founders say, I don't want to deal with processes and systems. I don't want to deal with, you know, being super, super organized.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:13:52]:
I'm the visionary. I'm the one charting the path. I'm the cheerleader for the entire company. Like, I want somebody who's gonna bring in structure and help manage the chaos. And so very frequently see that kind of chief of staff coming into the mix, the other route is like, amplifying. It's like, okay, if I can close one new deal a week, what can a really strong chief of staff help me do? Does that then double the amount of deals we close? Can they help me manage clients? Starts to get interesting when you start looking at it from that angle as well.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:24]:
Awesome. All right, so now we're going to jump over, shift gears over to you getting started in your second trimester. You launched your own recruiting company, first of all, like, what did you. I'm just this craziness to begin with. And awesome, what did you do to help yourself have that successful launch?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:14:43]:
Yeah, the thing that I kept in the forefront is like, what's the minimum viable thing that I need to do to get this off the ground? I spun up the website in a weekend. Like, I used a wix template. Like, it didn't have to be fancy I didn't think about brand too much. I thought about, like, okay, what could be a good name? I spent some months thinking about what my next move would be. It wasn't like something that came to me overnight. It was just, it kind of like, grew on me. And then when I decided to take the next step, I just did it. And then in terms of, like, tech stack and things that I needed to get in place again, it's like, you know, who has done this before me and has done it with success? Who can I reach out to and get some tips from my friend Natan.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:15:26]:
He runs single sprout. He is amazing. He was one of my first chats that I had before I even got anything off the ground. And I said, how do I set up my process? What does your process look like? What are the blind spots? What am I not thinking of that I need to be spending time on? And so people who have been around for many, many, many years have made a ton of mistakes and probably are continuing to make mistakes, and they're just learning at whatever phase of the business they're in. I'm sure you can relate. And so you can kind of like, take those learnings and keep them in mind and try to take good steps forward to set yourself up for success. So I think reaching out to people who have done it and done it well was a big help. I listened to your podcast.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:16:12]:
Certainly you're the first podcast I'd come across. And I was like, wow, this guy has some interesting things to say, and his guests have really interesting things to say. And so that definitely helped me understand what does success look like? What does it take to make it in recruiting? And so those couple of things I think were helpful in the very, very beginning.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:31]:
Okay, so it wasn't just an overnight thing. You jumped in, you thought about this, talked to people like almost like virtual mentors. You'll dug in, found some more information. You launched. How did you actually start picking up your first few customers? Like, how did you get new business as a brand new company? The reason why I'm asking this is because, you know, there's a lot of people that are either starting off in the recruiting field, they've gone to a new company just the way the market has moved, or they've launched their own, and they're just wondering, how do I get that initial traction? How did you do it?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:17:01]:
Yeah, everyone has said this before so many times, right? It's a referral based business. So especially in the beginning, I mean, nobody knows about you, right? Nobody knows what you're doing. You don't have any credibility. You haven't made any placements before. Right? So who are you? Right? Why should we care? And so the people who can recommend you because they know you personally. That's where a lot of your initial, let's say, businesses is going to come from. The other way of getting business is like letting people know who you are. And that means, you know, being where your customers are.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:17:34]:
And where's that? It's LinkedIn, it's Twitter, it's on the Internet. It's people who are reading your newsletter. Right. And so, like, building this sort of content flywheel is definitely a strategy. It's like you need to get the word out about what you're doing. If you don't talk about what you're doing, no one's going to discover you organically. And that's where you're really looking to. I mean, you don't want to be dependent on referrals forever.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:17:56]:
Of course, as you make successful placements, as you expand your candidate network, referrals can come in from friends, they can come in from placed candidates, they can come in from candidates that didn't get placed right but, you know, had another opportunity come across their awareness and it isn't a fit for them. But they say, hey, you know, I did work with this recruiter and they're amazing and you should talk to them. We've signed clients that have come through candidates that we didn't end up placing somewhere, who come across these opportunities and then end up referring us. So there's a lot of ways that business can come your way. I think in the beginning, if you're really starting from zero and, like, you don't have a LinkedIn presence, you don't have a newsletter. Like, it's a true cold start. You do have to, like, brute force it a bit. You have to just put in the hours, put in the dedication, and just start writing online.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:18:47]:
I wrote a post about this on the right hand talent newsletter. Start like, building your brand, building your voice. It's like that's what people trust. In the end, they start looking to you as a thought leader. And that is certainly a big strategy. And more importantly, in, you know, to quote like GBT, in this dynamic environment that we find ourselves ever changing business landscape, you know, what's going to rise to the top is authentic from the heart, content and brand voice. So the more you focus on developing that, you're going to separate yourself from the chaff and people are going to flock to you and not to this sort of generic, GPT, robotic kind of content that people are putting out. The people who are okay at writing online are going to get somewhat better because they're relying on, let's say, AI.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:19:48]:
But the people who are really honing that voice and developing their brand and then utilizing AI, it's like they're never going to be reached, right? They're carving out their own place on the Internet and in the universe, and it becomes emote. That's the advice that I've given to someone else who I became friendly with over LinkedIn. He was following my stuff for a while. Silas moner. He runs a climate tech focused placement firm. I think he's focused on, like, sales biz dev folks, maybe some other roles. He was asking me for advice, you know, and I started my recruiting firm last year, and I was like, holy smokes, I was getting my nails done one day and just kind of, you know, dumped all this information on him. He was asking all these, like, rapid fire questions.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:20:31]:
I was like, yeah, do this, do this, don't do that, don't do that. You know, he started his firm, I think, a month or so ago, and I. The best advice I gave him was, like, I think he was waiting or thinking about, like, you know, waiting to make the move. And I was like, no, just do it now. Do it now. Like, don't wait. Take the bet on yourself. If you're in a financially secure position, just do it right.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:20:49]:
There's never gonna be a perfect time. There's gonna be a great time. And the great time is, like, today and now. And, like, tendering your resignation and just taking a bet on yourself, right? I think, like, analysis paralysis stops a lot of people from taking that big, big next step, and you just gotta take the bet on yourself. And I'll pause there because I know I've been rambling now.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:10]:
I mean, I will say the analysis paralysis is something that kept me from making the job. I had, like, David Stefan Patterson. I had people like, you name it, like, just like, do it, do it, do it. I'm like, but I have this nice, safe, secure internal recruiting job. And then when I got, like, let go, I was like, all right, let's go. But all right. So I love that you're chatting with other people that are just starting off their recruiting business, too, and kind of giving them the lessons learned, because it's a lot different coming from somebody that literally are you. You're still in the trenches.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:39]:
You're still, like, in the beginning of your firm, you're seeing success rather than sometimes somebody that's been doing this for 2030 years where they're like, I don't know. I just recruited and it works and I know what I'm doing, and there we go. So I absolutely love that, but I want to take this back. Is there something that you wish you didn't do with the start of your recruiting business or stuff that you did that didn't work?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:21:56]:
That's a great question. I have to reflect on that one a little bit. Yeah. I think one of the bigger mistakes is, like, nothing. Qualifying clients thoroughly enough. Let me take a step back. People have a perception of contingency recruiters, let's call them. They're going to send us 2030, 40, 50 resumes a week.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:22:17]:
It's rapid fire. They're kind of like, keep them at a distance. Like, it's not a close relationship. It's just volume. Pushing resumes through. There's not really any relationship building that is part of the engagement. And you also don't know what questions to ask to qualify a client. You weren't full desk recruiting.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:22:37]:
You weren't responsible for, like, getting new business, closing the client, doing the kickoff call, and so on and so forth. So, like, how are you going to qualify them that they're actually, like, somebody you want to bring on and engage with? I've discovered that, you know, sometimes people bring on contingency recruiters when they are at the very end of their hiring process. So they'll have, like, two or three candidates at final stages. Like, final interviews. Like, offers are going to go out within, let's say, one to two weeks, and then they say, but let's just bring in a contingency recruiter at the end and just make sure that maybe they don't have someone who's, like, better than who we're prepared to, like, extend an offer to. And so the biggest lift for a recruiter happens right at the beginning. It's kicking off the search. Like you're initially going out into the market.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:23:25]:
You're going into your database, you're pitching the role, you're interviewing, you're calibrating on candidates with the client, hopefully right, a first batch that you send through, at least. And that is, it's just a heavier lift. And so you end up, like, spinning your wheels if you don't thoroughly qualify the client and understand, like, where they are in the process currently with their candidates. It's like, my preference. I don't want to be a kind of, like, just in time recruiter. I don't want to have, like, superficial engagements and relationships with clients. Like, I want to be. Be the first person they call.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:23:57]:
I want to be the person that they say, we don't even want to open up our own pipeline. Like, we don't want to handle this. Like, can you help us? Can we build this relationship? And, you know, of course we have clients that open up their own pipeline, and that's totally fine. We're still going to engage with them. But, like, you know, early in the process, early mid stage in the process is kind of where I'm looking to get in, and I want to, like, build those relationships with clients. And so I've made the mistake of taking on those engagements. They didn't work out. And, you know, I'll take ownership of that, obviously, if we didn't make the placement.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:24:26]:
But, you know, also, it's like, well, I gotta give myself a chance to make this placement. Right. And that's not giving yourself the best chance.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:33]:
I would say, okay, that's absolutely great advice. And talk about a heavy lesson learned that a lot of career critters do need to listen to. But I want to take this back again because you've said this multiple times, relationships, relationships, relationships. And you've actually gotten clients from people that you ended up not even placing because of what you're doing. What are you doing in these conversations with these people that they're coming back to you?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:24:58]:
Yeah, I actually give a damn. And I think that's what the. I mean, right? Like, you actually care. You actually advise your candidate on, let's say, multiple offers that they've received. It's like, here's what I think about this. Here's what I think about that. Like, you just get down to brass tacks, whether they're evaluating offers from your client or from other sources. It's like you can say, hey, like, here's what I've learned about you through this process.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:25:23]:
It sounds like this is your big motivator, or it sounds like this is really important to you. Where do you see that popping up in with this client or that client or the other opportunity, right? And then you just have a conversation around that. It's like, that's what I care about. Because at the end of the day, it's not a win win win. If you're pushing something that isn't a good fit for your candidate onto them because you want to make the placement and you want to get the fee from the client, the candidate's going to get upset because they got pushed into something, and it turns out they didn't really like it. After a couple of months or six months or whatever, the client is going to get somebody who's not fully engaged and it's not a full body. Yes, from them, but fine. Like, they took the role and now we'll make the best of it.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:26:05]:
And then the recruiter's upset because at the end of the day, you didn't really make everyone happy. You got what you wanted, but everyone else kind of had a, you know, meh experience. And then you might even end up giving back your fee after some time. Right. Because what if that candidate leaves within the guarantee period? So that's not in the interest of anyone. Like, I want, like, win, win, win all the way around, not just for myself. Like, I want the long term relationship with candidate, with client. And, yeah, I think it just comes down to long answer to this question, asking good questions, really understanding your candidate's motivations, playing that back to the client.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:26:44]:
Right. Keeping them aware throughout the process of, like, what matters to your candidate. Because you don't know, like, what your client can offer to make something more exciting for the candidate that they're really excited about. And so when it comes to your.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:58]:
Business, do you think a lot of your success is because you actually niche down? Because I know there's a lot of recruiters out there that when they get started or their own desk, they kind of just go wherever the business is. But you went, you niched fast and you niched hard. Do you think that's one of the reasons why you've had success with your business so early on?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:27:15]:
Yeah, absolutely. You can't be everything to everyone. Maybe one day, right? But when you start, it's like, go an inch wide and a mile deep versus the opposite. I'm, like, living in a chief of staff universe. It's my entire world. It's all I think about. It's all I talk about. That's all I write about for the most part.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:27:34]:
I mean, also, you know, there's, like, this spiritual path that I'm exploring and on, you know, I weave that into some of my writing. So I think that, like, what I talk about in the chief of staff world with respect to career excellence and talent and all of that, you know, it, I think it's a unique offering. Cause that's kind of my angle, additional angle that I add to it. But definitely, I mean, if you wanna be a thought leader in your space, not going to talk about, like, a lot of different things and be all over the place. Like you're really just going to talk about this one thing and you're going to go really deep. And because of all of your shots on goal with all things chief of staff, it's like you're going to share all those learnings that sort of like the front line that's happening in recruiting with your audience. And like they're going to know to come to you for specific insights around this role and what's happening in the market and what you're seeing around comp for this role and all that. And especially like on this point, just to pull on this thread a bit more, comp is always like a big question regarding the chief of staff role.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:28:38]:
And the thing that really sucks about things like Carta and, you know, Carta's great, but the thing that sucks about databases with salary ranges and equity ranges and all these things is that the chief of staff role varies so widely, company to company, candidate to candidate, you know, skill level skills that we talk about all these other things. So it's not an apples to apples comparison. So even if you have like a set of data at a series a company in New York, let's say for the chief of staff role, it's not always certain that it's a good average of what comp actually should be for the role because maybe this person is more of like an EA archetype, right? Who's like a really strong EA project manager versus someone who has the finance management consulting kind of skill set. And so bringing it back around, you start collecting all this data when you start niching down, and then you can package that up into really interesting content and help educate your market. And so candidates don't just come to you, but then clients come to you because they say, hey, I saw this post. I saw this write up. You did. I want to chat.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:29:46]:
People booking your calendly link directly from your LinkedIn page, and you're like, who is this person that's reaching out? It's like, well, they came from somewhere, right?

Benjamin Mena [00:29:54]:
If you're listening to this, you're a generalist, and there are generalists that are doing great, but I mean, talk about having incoming business because you've niched down. That's absolutely incredible. Well, before we jump over to the quick fire questions, is there anything else that you want to share about chief of staff role? Launching a business while pregnant, getting your business off the ground, or even just building deeper relationships that keep these people coming back? Is there anything else that you want to share on any of those topics.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:30:22]:
If people leave with the biggest takeaway, it would be just take the bet on yourself. If you're on the edge of making a decision like, do I do this? Do I not do this? It's like you'll always find reasons to not go do the thing. And that ultimately, my personal belief is that that is your ego doing its best to protect you from the things that you are scared of exploring or going into. For example, a deep fear of failure, a deep fear of being seen, like you're not good enough. What if you don't make any placements in your first year? Then what? Then you put other things at risk. Is it your family, is it your finances? All this stuff? But I would say that you kind of just have to go for it. And through that experience, you will get through that fear. You'll be confronted by the fear, and you'll take it on, you'll get through it.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:31:13]:
And there's something amazing on the other side of that. And so that would be my biggest piece of advice, I would say.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:20]:
All right, jumping over to the quickfire questions, what advice would you give to a brand new recruiter that's just getting started in our wonderful world of recruiting?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:31:29]:
Pick a niche. What do you want to be known for? What do you know really well? Where's the intersection of your passion, your interests, what you're really good at? It's your ikigai, if you've heard of it. So apparently the ikigai is like a japanese symbol, although those origins are actually questioned. I read somewhere that it's actually not japanese, but everyone thinks it's japanese. But anyway, it's like the intersection of what I just said, the things you're really good at, your passions, your interests, what you can get paid for. And in the center of that, all the overlap is what you should be doing with your life. I would say you have the blank slate. You can choose what you spend every single day of your life.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:32:08]:
If you're working on, think hard about what you really, really like and what you want to pursue and what you can get excited about. When you chat with candidates, when you chat with clients, it's like your passion, your excitement, your expertise is going to come through in how you speak about things. And so you can't fake that for very long, right? You might be really good at it in the beginning, but it's tiresome and tiring. And it's like if you're going out and doing your own thing, it should be what you're really excited about. It's not even where you think you're going to make the most money because the money will come. If you're passionate about it, you have to trust that the money will come because you're going to do all those things that we kind of chatted about earlier, like writing the content and becoming a thought leader and like being in people's faces every day talking about this one thing over and over and over again, and you're like, you become this beacon for clients and for success, ultimately.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:03]:
Love that same question. But for experienced recruiters that have been around the block, what advice would you give to them?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:33:08]:
Wow. Wow, what a question. Because am I experienced with one year, you know, one and a half, not even one and a half years of recruiting. Right. I would hardly consider myself an experienced recruiter in the sense like, yeah, when you're talking about somebody who's been doing it for decades. Right. You'd say, I'm an inexperienced recruiter, but my sole focus is the chief of staff role. So I would think that I'm experienced in chief of staff recruiting.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:33:31]:
Let's call it that. But if we want to take it more, go ahead. Did you want to.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:36]:
I was going to say it's one of those things. Like, I have also realized over time is there's, even though you were looking at yourself with a frame of, I've been recruiting for one year. You have an entire career history that you're leaning into. But at the same time, one of the things that I've seen is a lot of newer recruiters haven't created these ruts that us old dogs have been living in. So that's why I think it's still a relevant question from your vantage point and the things that you're doing.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:34:04]:
Yeah, it's, you know, experienced recruiters are in a different phase. They are not kind of like looking for those first couple of clients to just get points on the board. Right. Just get those first couple of placements, and then it's something you can talk about with in your future client conversations and point to, you know, successful placements that you've made. I guess experienced recruiters are building out their firms. What's your own hiring strategy to build your team for business development? You have data points to look back on and say, okay, I have, like, this set of business development, this many outbound calls that I did, I didn't close the business. Like, why didn't I close the business? Or these many placements that we're doing. I didn't make the placement.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:34:47]:
Why aren't I making these placements and you're just kind of looking inward. I think looking into the business, it might be things that they're not used to doing. Let's say. Like if you're really good at closing new business, that might be like your focus area. But at some point, like, at some point you do have to look like internally, like processes and systems, like, how do I become more efficient? How do we increase throughput? How do we get in front of more candidates or more clients? Those might be the things that I think would be top of mind for someone who's building their recruiting firm and might be an area of focus.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:20]:
So this is going to be a fun question because I know I love shiny objects, rec tech tools, but do you have a favorite that is working for you for your business?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:35:30]:
Yeah. So we use Ashby. I love that tool. That was a recommendation from my friend Nate over at talent team. He's a customer of theirs and recommended it to meet another person that I chatted with. And it's actually a good friend. Early when I was getting started, had a lot of coffee chats with him about getting started and placements and all that. Good stuff.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:35:52]:
Yeah. Ashby is a really powerful tool. So you can do full text resume search. So anyone who's in your database, you can just look up, you can pop in a boolean string and find your candidates. Right. We have like 9000 candidates in our database who are just looking for chief of staff roles. It's kind of insane. And so when you get to those kind of numbers, there's no other way of managing it than having a powerful tool, I would say to be able to sift through those resumes and actually, like, run a process, keep track of, like dozens of many dozens of candidates across, like, 8910 searches.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:36:26]:
Let's say that we're doing at any given times. There's other stuff too. It's like your outbound stuff. Like mix Max is amazing.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:32]:
Wait, what is that?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:36:33]:
Mix max.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:34]:
Mix max?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:36:35]:
Yeah. So mix Max is like email sequences.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:37]:
Okay.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:36:38]:
So you can set up, you know, a campaign and multiple stages and all that. Like for client outbound, for candidate outbound. Because part of our process is not just going into our database and our network of finding candidates that could be a fit for our clients, but also just pure headhunting. Right. Like pitching the role to people who are definitely not looking but are picking up their heads and saying, wait a minute, this is actually interesting. And, you know, fun little like sound bites I've heard from candidates is I've been hit up by recruiters almost weekly for the past year. And you're the first recruiter that I'm talking to because this opportunity is really interesting and we've heard that time and time again. Anyway, that's part of like our outbound kind of headhunting process.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:37:20]:
Obviously there are tools to get contact information. So Lucia is awesome, signal, hire is awesome. Zoom info is obviously very expensive. Not using that, but I know that that's out there. I would say for someone who's getting started, it's like, look for the minimum viable thing, like what works with your workflow. That would be a piece of advice. But yeah, the minimum viable thing is something I'd recommend there on the tech stack.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:42]:
CEO's are crazy busy, but your job is to actually place people with CEO's. How are you even getting in front of CEO's for business development?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:37:54]:
Cold email.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:55]:
Is it just writing a good email?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:37:57]:
Yeah, it's like putting effort into it and not doing cookie cutter stuff. It's like providing value at every touch point. It's like, why should somebody respond to your email? Why should they take time out of their day to respond, even if it's a no thank you? And we've gotten like, we've gotten no, thank yous, obviously, right? Like 99 point whatever percent of the time. I don't know. What is it, like a one to 2% on response rate on cold email? Something like that. We're a little north of that, but we have gotten responses that are like, no, thank you, but let me take the time to actually explain why this is one of the best emails I've ever received. And it's like they'll write paragraphs as to why this email is awesome and so cold email works. There are some people who say cold email is dead, it doesn't work.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:38:41]:
And it's like, yeah, maybe it's dead if you're doing it wrong. People read their emails. They don't just like kind of like dump them in the trash. Especially if you know you're hitting on someone who is actually looking for the service that you're trying to provide. You could have a list of 1000 founders and you have this like B two B SaaS tool that you're trying to sell and it's like, who knows if they're even looking for that, right? But if you know that your customers looking for a chief of staff placement or chief of staff candidate and you're hitting on them providing that exact service, there's probably going to be a pretty high response rate, right? So that's why it also makes sense to niche down, because you can have a highly targeted client list or database or companies you're going after who, you know are either looking for a chief of staff. Currently they're going to be looking for a chief of staff, or, you know, variations of that. But, yeah, cold email works and also just generally putting out good content. Be the honey that attracts the bee, because people are, like, looking for expertise and guidance.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:39:34]:
And if you're the person that is providing that, you basically create a larger surface area for yourself, for people to find you, and for you to bump into other people's bubbles. Right. More contact points between those two bubbles that are bumping into each other.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:47]:
Is there a book that's had a huge impact on your personal career?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:39:51]:
On my personal career, I have to say, the alchemist, you know, I just love that book. Everybody knows that book, right? A lot of people have read that book. It was very moving to me on a very spiritual level. And my biggest takeaway from that book was to trust the blueprint of your life. Things are never a straight path. Career paths are squiggly lines. Life paths are squiggly lines. You do get from point a to point b, but it's never in the way that you expected.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:40:16]:
And so, yeah, I think trust is the biggest lesson and takeaway from that book. A recent book that I finished was the conscious Parent, which basically talks about how our greatest responsibility as parents is not to raise our kids well. It is to grow in our spirituality and to expand our own consciousness to be better versions of ourselves and model that for our children in the way that we bring them up. So we're not projecting our own crap onto them. Right. Because that's, like, where we go wrong. We have unresolved anger and issues and things that we're dealing with, like, our triggers show us where our work is as individuals. And if we don't do the work, we then project all of that stuff onto our children, and then our children grow up with that stuff.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:41:06]:
That book had a pretty big impact on me and kind of the things that I'm interested in learning and working on and growing in.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:12]:
I'll definitely go check that out. It's, you know, I have a tiny human at home myself, and I'm already seeing the seven months old, so we're not really having full on chats yet, but it's definitely. He sees what I do versus what I'm saying sometimes.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:41:26]:
Yeah, babies are. They're like sponges, but they're like energetic sponges so they absorb our energy. There have been studies on, like, you know, the nervous system of the mother, like, impacts how the child develops. They just, like, soak everything in. And, like, if you're angry about something and they're sitting right next to you, they're gonna pick up on that vibe. Like it's gonna impact them. Whether it's happening on a conscious level or subconscious level, it doesn't matter. It's still going to kind of influence their development.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:41:55]:
And so there are some amazing things in this book. I highly recommend it for anyone who has a small human that they're raising.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:01]:
His favorite thing right now is to go out and about, and it's a little too hot to walk around the neighborhood. So, like, we sometimes go to the stores just to walk around. He's like, people, people. Hi.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:42:10]:
Yeah, yeah. It's so precious.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:13]:
And this is actually one of my favorite questions and to talking about the squiggly line of your life. If you got the chance to sit down with yourself and have a cup of coffee at the very beginning of your career, what advice would you give yourself?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:42:23]:
It'd be, trust your gut.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:25]:
Did you not trust your gut early on? Is that what happened?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:42:28]:
Yeah, because a lot of things influence your decision making, and those things tend to be things that don't matter. It's like, what do my parents think? What does society think of this title or role or compensation or, you know, thing that I'm getting involved in? We're at a place where people are having, like, these mid midlife crises. So it's not happening in their fifties. It's happening, like, in their mid twenties, early thirties, where they're like, hey, this thing that I've been doing and pursuing for the past, like, 510 years of my life isn't cutting. It isn't fulfilling me, isn't giving me energy. I'm not growing in it. I'm not excited about it, not because it's a grind, but because it's just not aligned with what really sets them alight and gets them excited. And so if your gut is telling you that something's not working out, you need to trust that feeling.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:43:19]:
Because we have knowledge in our, like, our bodies cue us into, like, what's really going on. Like, we can make sense of our world and what's happening in it based on, like, listening to what our bodies are telling us. What happens when we're in a fight or flight situation? What happens when we're triggered? It's like our heart rate goes up. We start getting sweaty. Maybe we get foggy brained or things like that. It's like this is telling me something is not aligned and trusting your gut, you'll never go wrong trusting your gut. I'm a strong believer in that one. And so that would be my advice.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:55]:
That's awesome. Well, for the listeners, if they want a chance to follow you, what's the best way to do that?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:44:00]:
Yeah, a couple of places. So LinkedIn. I'm the only Zahara Socorros on there. You can find me on Twitter as well under zsekoras. And we have a right hand talent newsletter on Substack. So if you just google that, it'll pop up and it's free. We have like over 8000 subscribers on there. But yeah, generally speaking, that's where you can find me.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:24]:
Before I let you go, is there anything else that you'd love to share with the listeners?

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:44:27]:
Yeah, this is going to probably sound cheesy, but the first thing that's coming to mind is the Nike slogan of just do it. Right. Just do it. Just do the thing. Start the blog, start the company, do your own thing. You don't have to be caught up in the rat race. You can just do your own thing and chart your own path and take a bet on yourself.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:46]:
I absolutely love that. So I just want to say thank you so much for coming on, like, talking about you launching a company and still my mind's blown. Launching during your pregnancy, talk about a chance of just betting on yourself. And that just happened to be the right time for you to bet on yourself, bet on your family and bet on your own success. So and just sharing, like, some of the things that you're doing for, you know, getting your company off the ground, what is it doing that's working? Because there's so many people out there that, you know, at least this last year in the recruiting space that are like, what works? I need to answer. How do I dig deeper? And you just shared, like, what you're doing on the business side. You shared what you're doing on the relationship side. Once again, thank you so much for coming on.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:23]:
Like I said, I've been looking for this conversation and for the listeners. I am so glad that you guys got to take a listen and make sure that you make 2024 your best year yet. Thank you, guys.

Zaharo Tsekouras [00:45:33]:
Thanks, Benjamin. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast with Benjamin Mena. If you enjoyed, hit subscribe and leave a rating.