How Dodge Data & Analytics Hires 80% Faster

Always Be Recruiting: How the Head of TA at Dodge Data & Analytics Hires 80% Faster

Dodge Data & Analytics is North America’s leading provider of analytics and software-based workflow integration solutions for the construction industry.

The company’s construction project information is the most comprehensive and verified in the industry—the go-to for building product manufacturers, architects, engineers, contractors and service providers looking to grow their businesses. And with a 100-year-old legacy of continuous innovation to live up to, leaders at Dodge need top of the line talent.

And Eric Krause is the guy who keeps Dodge's talent pipeline full of awesome candidates.

A salesman with the heart of a recruiter

Eric's been in the recruitment industry for over 20 years. In fact, the hard-hitting recruiter was collecting business cards from the fishbowl at his local lunch spot since before LinkedIn was a glimmer in Reid Hoffman's eye.

From a long-established career in sales, corporate training and consulting, Eric is now in charge of all things talent acquisition at the nearly 500-person company. "I'm still a headhunter at heart," he says.

We sat down with Eric to find out how he hires the best sales talent for his teams.

How did you know it was time to change your recruitment process?

When I started my career before Y2K, I used diskettes to store applicant leads and created a database that was like a rudimentary CRM. I collected 20,000 contacts all through different means.

When applicant tracking software became more advanced, I tried some of the common enterprise solutions, but they always seemed overly complex, not intuitive, and had a lot of things missing. Now that we use Breezy, I can immediately look up a candidates’ names and track who we hire.

I handle mostly the mid to high-level positions and there's one other person on my team who handles the rest of the positions, so it's really important that we're able to collaborate well with the other members of the hiring team. Breezy helps us partner much better with our internal team using the scorecards. It keeps us very much on track so that nobody misses a beat.

Recruiting is really sales and one thing I've learned is that without a system you'll skip a step and things get missed and deals don't close.

What are your biggest hiring priorities right now?

Sales is our biggest focus. We're always recruiting for revenue-generating positions, inside and outside sales and business development.

Once a position opening is approved, it goes into a requisition (req) report which then goes straight into Breezy. We post it and make sure the ad’s details are correct. It's as simple as 1, 2, 3.

After that, it's just about talking to the hiring managers about what they prefer in a candidate. If they agree with our top selections, we use behavioral interview guides for all the interviewers so that it stays consistent, then we move to onsite interviews. We use Breezy to accentuate the positives and make it easier to decide when we're ready to make an offer.

We also use the LinkedIn extension to source candidates that go straight into Breezy. The automated job boards distribute and post all our open positions. Many times, we have used Breezy’s SMS feature to get a fast reply from candidates with whom we have an interest. Candidates don't always look at their email, but they usually look at their cell phones.

By far, Breezy saves us over 80% the amount of time compared to what we did before.

Where do you get your best recruits?

Our best recruits come from our employees and Breezy is a great mechanism for that.

It's seamless, intuitive and easy to track everything. We will pay a referral fee to mostly any of our employees who finds a candidate with whom we had no previous knowledge and who is interviewed and subsequently hired.  We use Breezy to make sure the referred candidate puts their name in the referral box instead of having a completely separate workflow for tracking referrals.

What does winning look like for you?

First, selling has always been in my blood. I'm a competitive person. I like to win.

I love it when we close a candidate, they start the day we agreed to and they're successful in their role. At the end of the day, as the expression goes: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. I'm also involved in onboarding and I want to make sure every candidate we hire is going to succeed here.

I never take a candidate who has any doubts about a position. For me, when the internal client is happy, and the candidate is happy, that's a true win-win.

What does losing look like?

I don't really see it as losing. When you have a candidate that's not really interested in an opportunity with us then we must let the candidate go.  However, we always leave the door open for well-viewed candidates. Often for candidates like these, the timing is not right.

I believe in my company and the opportunities here. I work hard and smart and believe in what I do. I'm a cheerleader for the company.

What’s different about recruiting now vs. five years ago?

The biggest issue today is the very best candidates have multiple offers—how do I make mine stand out? Again, this has something to do with your enthusiasm.

I tell them, "If you want visibility and the opportunity to get promoted from within, this is the place to be. It's not a place to hide." When I get emails from salespeople that say, 'I can't wait to meet with you', that's how I know we're on the right track. If they're going to represent us to clients, we need to feel that exuberance.

I also tell them that we're not just a startup, but an established startup, one that probably had something to do with every building in the New York skyline, for instance. In most new business development roles, there's no cap on what you can earn.

I don't worry so much about what other companies offer; I focus on what we can offer. And at the same token, I'm asking him or her for candidate leads.

I'll ask, "Who do you know who's actively or not actively looking for a job?"  My assumption is that the individual would know one or the other.  With those leads, we create a candidate pool in Breezy for possible future openings.

What metrics do you use to track your recruitment efficiency?

LinkedIn is our primary source of candidates. We get reports regularly on the percentage of InMails and response rates compared to our competitors. We're not looking to fill positions for positions' sake. We want to find candidates that are already actively working which is why we use LinkedIn. For us, quality is more important than time to hire.

What's the one piece of advice you wish every candidate and recruiter knew?

Whenever we arrange an interview for a candidate, we always tell him or her before the call to make sure you sell the hiring manager on why you are the best one for the job.  Then I tell the same to the hiring manager: "Make sure you're selling the candidate on why he or she should work for Dodge Data & Analytics."

My job is to make sure they're selling each other.  For me and Dodge, this is a win-win scenario.