Introduction: Welcome to Hire We Go!, where the mission is to transform talent acquisition into a more precise, efficient, and strategic process. This session dives deep into how to find, attract, and engage top talent, making it a must-listen for HR pros and anyone fascinated by the world of recruitment. Today, the show welcomes Joel Lalgee of The Realest Recruiter, a true content and recruitment expert. Tune in as Joel shares his journey and the unique insights behind The Realest Recruiter!
Ashlie Collins: Hello and welcome to Hire We Go!, where we’re chatting all things talent acquisition transformation. Whether you’re an HR vet or someone who’s simply fascinated by how to find, attract, and engage talent, you are most certainly in the right place. I’m your host as always, Director of Solutions here at Joveo, Ashlie Collins, and joining us today is Joel Lalgee of The Realest Recruiter. Thank you so much for joining us. Why don’t you go ahead and tell us a little bit more about yourself and The Realest Recruiter.
Joel Lalgee: Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks, Ashlie. It’s great to be here. You said my last name right, as well, which is amazing because a lot of times people say it wrong. My name is Joel. I’ve been in the recruitment space for a decade, mainly on the agency side. So I’ve worked for a variety of different agencies, everything from an hourly RPO, which is kind of how I started in the business. I’ve also worked as a contingent full desk recruiter. And then I’ve also worked on the coaching side, actually coaching recruiters on how they could build their own personal brand, how they can use social media to attract candidates, build up their desk if they’re on the agency side. So I’ve had a variety of different positions and then The Realest Recruiter is essentially a media company, which has really just come out of the fact that I’ve created content for so long, I thought, you know what, I’m going to actually build a media company out of this.
So The Realest Recruiter is a media company that works with HR tech, TA tech, any kind of emerging technology that’s there to help HR and talent acquisition and I help with getting these companies names out there with branding, promotion. I’ll drop the I word. I’d probably be considered an influencer within the space, like kind of a B2B social media influencer and I also host my own podcast, called Recruiting Is No Joke. So it’s been a great decade. I’ve loved every moment in recruitment and am fascinated with how our industry is changing and how obviously technology is going to impact what we’re doing on a day-to-day.
Ashlie Collins: Awesome. Well, hey, I was curious to know from your perspective, what are three skills or areas that will be crucial for recruiters to succeed over the next three to five years?
Joel Lalgee: Yeah, I think one, the first one that comes to mind is emotional intelligence. And I think this is really understanding people, right? And as we get more into technical sourcing tools, as we get more into AI playing a larger part in skills matching and matching resumes and job descriptions and reliance on that tech, I think there becomes just a lot more of an emphasis on understanding people and understanding how people fit in organizations, understanding what motivations people have as they come into organizations, and really looking at a part, I think technology might struggle with in the future and it’s just understanding people, right? Understanding how people work.
I think the next skill that’s going to be huge is creativity with content. Obviously I’m really biased with this because I’m a big content creator. But one thing I’ll say is when, when you’re able to differentiate yourself with your brand it’s a massive game changer with any type of outreach you’re making, whether you’re recruiting candidates, whether you’re, you know, in sales, the game is the same, right? You’ve got to get attention. You’ve got to build trust. So I think that ability to create content that’s engaging, you know, from an employer brand perspective or recruitment marketing perspective, I think that’s going to matter a lot more, especially as inboxes get flooded.
And then the third piece that I would say, would be just kind of in the same vein, but just our outreach and like how we’re connecting with people. One thing that I’ve noticed as a business owner is I’m inundated with spam. And the spam is kind of getting better. I’m not going to lie. Like the spam is getting more personalized it does seem like, you know, AI can do a decent job pulling things from my profile quickly and making it seem more personalized. And so I think there’s just going to be a lot more emphasis for recruiters, particularly if they’re sending InMails or they’re sending email sequences – how creative can you get and how good and effective can you be at standing out from the noise? ‘Cause I just think everything is going to get noisier in the near future and, and you know, kind of beyond in, into the long term as well.
Ashlie Collins: Yeah. And as I listened to you, I sort of heard this underpinning theme of connection, right? So we’re using automation and AI to get rid of the mundane tasks that prevent us from connecting, but just really honing in on that human edge, which is our ability to understand and connect with each other. So pretty powerful stuff there.
Joel Lalgee: Massive. As someone who’s got a lot of followers online… Obviously, I haven’t made an individual connection with each person that follows me, but I’ve been going out to a lot more industry events and industry conferences. And one of the things that I’ve noticed is there is a real desire for real connection and meaningful connection. I see this and I also know that within workplaces this is something that’s needed a lot as well as candidates. They’re wanting that. They’re wanting to feel a sense of belonging and connecting as well. I think that desire is only going to grow and the desire for authentic and real content and connection, it’s going to matter more and more because there’s just so much more of this, like generic content that’s done by technology and not say it’s all bad, but I think it emphasizes that need for real human authenticity as well.
Ashlie Collins: I love it, absolutely love it. And my next question for you, if you had a magic wand, what would you change about talent sourcing in 2025?
Joel Lalgee: Well, I do have a magic wand here. So I do have a magic wand that my daughter has been eyeing up for the last two weeks. And it’s like, dad, can you give that to me? But I think, I think for me, like if I, if I could wave a magic wand over our industry, kind of going back on what we just said, like, just think we’re, we’re becoming, we’re becoming like overly reliant on technology and I kind of like looking for like this secret hack or this like one solution that’s going to solve everything and I think we’ve kind of just gotten away from the basics of what we do, which is listening to a hiring manager, working with a hiring manager, understanding what their needs are, understanding the business, understanding what their team’s trying to accomplish, looking at what are the needs, like what’s the business case of what they’re looking to do and then from that point going and finding people.
And I think we’re looking for the next hack and I see it when I talk to talent leaders, I see it when I talk to agency owners, I see it when I talk to recruiters. There’s this belief that there’s like this secret hidden tool that when you unlock it, everything’s going to be fixed. And it’s just not. And I’d love to change that. And I love like, there actually to be a reliance on who we are as humans and getting better at these human elements of our role, which ultimately, I think that makes you a better recruiter. Like the more you understand your businesses that you work in and the more you understand the people and the kind of like the working between the two, the better a recruiter you’re to be, instead of just going, what’s that shiny object? What about this shiny object? What about the shiny? Now I have 20 shiny objects. I don’t even know how they fit together.
Ashlie Collins: Love it. Let it be done. And so it is. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today, Joel. And thank you so much for taking the time to listen in. Until next time, folks.
Joel Lalgee:
Ha ha ha! Bye Ashlie.
Conclusion: And that’s a wrap on another fantastic session of Hire We Go! Today’s conversation with Joel Lalgee truly illuminated the future of recruiting. He emphasized the critical roles of emotional intelligence, creative content, and the power of standing out in a noisy digital landscape. Joel even playfully wished for a return to the basics, reminding everyone that genuine human connection should always triumph over the endless search for tech “hacks.” Huge thanks to Joel for sharing such powerful insights, and thank you for joining us!
