Introduction: Welcome to Hire We Go!, the show that’s all about transforming talent acquisition. If you’re looking to revolutionize how you find, attract, and engage top talent, or just love staying on top of the latest HR trends, you’ve definitely come to the right place. In this episode, we’re thrilled to host Matt Buffington of KinISO! Get ready as Matt shares his unique journey from staffing frustration to creating an all-in-one solution, and offers his expert take on the ever-evolving market.
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’re in the right place. I’m your host and director of solutions here at Joveo, Ashlie Collins, and joining us today is Matt Buffington of KinISO. Thank you so much for joining us. Why don’t you tell us a little bit more about yourself and KinISO.
Matt Buffington – KinISO: Hi, Ashlie. So I was in the staffing industry for about 20 years, owned and operated my own agencies, started out working for an agency and was frustrated because I couldn’t find a platform that was an all-in-one business in a box that would run my offices. And so out of frustration, we built KinISO. So it’s K-I-N-I-S-O, kinetic energy in search of a candidate or in search of a client.
So it’s that all-in-one, full-suite, 360° platform. If you own a staffing agency, everything from sales and marketing to recruiting and retention, and as well as a full back office for payroll and billing.
Ashlie Collins: I like that. I like the science reference behind the name there from one nerd to another. I’ll take it. And from your clients are staffing firm owners… So, what trends in the market are they talking about in terms of hot sectors or renewed hiring?
Matt Buffington – KinISO: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. We’re, in a period of, of massive change, rapid change, AI. Everybody’s talking about AI and how do we use that? How do we apply that to, to what we’re doing? We’re coming into a period where I believe we’re going to see massive growth, especially in the clerical and the light industrial sectors. If you look at all the jobs that are being repatriated, if you look at Arizona, all the chip manufacturing that’s going to go on there, all the automotive that we’re bringing back.
2024 was a tough year for a lot of our clients. And the main thing that we’re hearing is how do we create and keep more customers? How do we get more job orders? And so, whereas we were in a boom right after COVID, that cooled off and people went from being just flush with job orders to, oh my gosh, you know, I’ve got all these people, where do I put them? But I think we’re coming out of that.
Ashlie Collins: Awesome. Next question for you. If you had a magic wand, what would you change about talent sourcing in 2025?
Matt Buffington – KinISO (02:32.205)
If I had a magic wand, everybody would get back to a little bit of old school recruiting where we actually engage with the people we’re recruiting and get to understand what they can do, what they will do. And the same thing on the client side, really get to understand the work, go beyond the job description. Job description, in my view, does not describe the work. You know, a lot of times it’s very generic.
Matt Buffington – KinISO: I’d really like to see our industry dig in and really understand the work first and focus on that. I think that would improve things massively.
Ashlie Collins: Yeah. And what role do you think automation has to play in terms of facilitating that getting back to the old school human connection?
Matt Buffington – KinISO: Yeah. Well, obviously there’s a lot of things you can do with automated texting, email, triggers on your desktop or on your dashboard that tell you, hey, you know, follow up with this person or you need to make a service call to this client. So anything you can do to reduce the labor on the recruiter, you know, the mundane picking up a phone, manually dialing, or crafting a text. All that stuff is great. And it really frees you up to again focus back on what’s the work here and who’s this person that I’m trying to place in a job.
Ashlie Collins: Yeah, I love that because we do spend a lot of time talking about the candidate experience. And I would say we spend significantly less time than we should talking about the recruiter experience and how that’s changed over time and why it needs to be as amazing as the candidate experience if this is going to feel good for everybody.
Matt Buffington – KinISO: Well, and you said, you know, feel good for everybody. I think really what you’re talking about, if you think about this, sounds a little strange, but you know, what we do is it’s really an exchange of energy. Sales is an exchange of energy. We’re selling the invisible. We’re just, we’re taking a client company with job orders and we’re taking candidates who need a job. We’re putting them together. It’s not a physical product there. So definitely that experience is important. It makes you perform better. It reduces burnout which reduces turnover within our industry. So I agree with you.
Ashlie Collins: Amazing. Love that so much. And thank you for sharing your experience and your insights with us. And thank you all so much for joining us today. And we’ll see you all soon. Thank you.
Matt Buffington – KinISO: Thanks so much.
Conclusion: And that’s a wrap on another fantastic session of Hire We Go! Today’s conversation with Matt Buffington of KinISO brought invaluable insights into the staffing world, from the trends in clerical and light industrial sectors to the crucial role of automation in empowering recruiters. Matt’s “magic wand” wish for a return to old-school recruiting – truly understanding the work and engaging with people – perfectly highlighted the show’s core theme: balancing technology with the human touch. Huge thanks to Matt for sharing his wisdom, and thank you for joining us!
