How AI is Reshaping Staffing with Scott Fiore

Intro  

Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.

Anthony Codispoti (08:17.44)
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codaspodi and today’s guest is Scott Fiore, president of TriStar, a top staffing agency in Lancaster, York and central Pennsylvania. They successfully place hundreds of well-qualified people in the right jobs every year. Their rigorous process, experience and attention to detail

dramatically increases the likelihood of a successful employee-employer match. TriStar is more than a temporary staffing company. They approach every single job assignment with the same level of professionalism, whether the positions are temporary, temp to hire, or permanent. They can serve as an extension of your company’s HR department for recruiting, staffing, and they even offer consulting for the challenges your HR team may face.

Outside of his professional commitments, Scott is deeply involved in the Lancaster community. He has served as chair of the board of trustees of the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He chaired the board of directors of the Lancaster Cleft Pallet Clinic and the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra. He also served on the boards of United Way of Lancaster and Affiliated Staffing Group and the Longs Park Amphitheater Foundation. Now, before we get into all that good stuff,

Today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Adback Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cashflow by implementing one of our proprietary programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at adbackbenefitsagency.com. Now,

Back to our guest today, the president of TriStar, Scott Fiore. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Scott Fiore (10:17.208)
Thanks for having me, Anthony, and thanks for that great intro.

Anthony Codispoti (10:20.054)
How did I do with the pronunciation of Lancaster several times? How many times did I get it right?

Scott Fiore (10:23.532)
You did great. You did great for someone that just learned it a few minutes ago.

Anthony Codispoti (10:28.055)
Before we started recording, folks, I shared that intro with Scott just to make sure everything was accurate. And I was pronouncing it Lancaster. I spent a year studying in Lancaster, England. And so I had to quickly rewire my brain. so thank you for your help with that. So Scott, tell us first the path that got you into the staffing industry in the first place.

Scott Fiore (10:53.006)
Sure. Went to college, came out of college and got into the financial industry not knowing what else I was going to do. Didn’t like it. Spent a couple of years in it and then went to work for a wire and cable manufacturer here in the Leichster area. That I enjoyed. I enjoyed selling products. My wife at the time was working for a temporary staffing service called TriStar and we had become very close with the owner of the business.

And my wife was starting, well, we were starting a young family. had a couple of kids. And at the time, my employer at the time was bought out. So lots of changes with that and with that employer for me to continue in that industry meant moving. Again, the woman who now became my partner, but owned TriStar at the time came to me and said, Hey, would you like to come to work for me in the staffing industry? And I said, well,

I don’t know anything about it. She said, I can teach you and hopefully you’ll become my succession plan. And that’s the short answer to a long, to a long process, but that’s how it all worked out. And I’ve been in it ever since.

Anthony Codispoti (12:02.988)
So she must have had a really high opinion of you without even working with you to say, hey, I’ve got you in mind for being my successor.

Scott Fiore (12:09.069)
Yep.

Scott Fiore (12:13.26)
Well, we put a rigid plan in place. We spent five years where we were both feeling each other out. She wanted to make sure I was the right fit for her succession, but also that I felt comfortable in the industry and comfortable in the company. And to her credit, she presented me after that five years with a partnership agreement that she crafted.

And I was a young, young buck at the time. was like, yeah, I’ll sign it. She goes, no, you won’t. You’ll forget an attorney. You’ll have them review it. You’ll come back to me with questions to make sure you’re comfortable with this agreement. so I did. And that’s probably the single best business advice I’ve ever received or tried to give to folks, is when you’re entering a partnership like that, it’s just like a marriage. You’re putting together a prenup so that everybody knows should that partnership dissolve.

what that means for both parties, what the costs are for both parties. And I tell people all the time, we argued all the time and continue to argue nicely about the business and direction of the business and issues. We’ve never argued about that partnership agreement because we both vetted it, signed it, and it is what it is.

Anthony Codispoti (13:27.234)
Mm.

Anthony Codispoti (13:33.674)
And what is her name, your partner?

Scott Fiore (13:35.234)
Joan Paxton, founded TriStar in 1989, TriStar in Pennsylvania in 1989.

Anthony Codispoti (13:41.962)
Okay. so Joan gave you this advice, which yes, also from my own experience, I think is fantastic advice. In those early days when a partnership is first forming, it’s the honeymoon period, everybody’s getting along, all they see are dollar signs in the future. And so that’s the time really to have a lot of those hard conversations of what if this, what if that, and get that all figured out and on paper so that when you get into those, some of those tense situations where things aren’t going as well and

Scott Fiore (13:47.437)
Yeah.

Scott Fiore (14:01.804)
Yeah, exactly.

Anthony Codispoti (14:11.502)
you’ve got to make some hard choices, then you’ve got a document to go by that says, here’s how we agreed to deal with these things. So, okay, so you didn’t have any background in staffing, but you had this relationship and you got invited in. And so what were those first, I don’t know, weeks and even months like switching from selling a physical product to now selling a service?

Scott Fiore (14:18.819)
Right?

Scott Fiore (14:35.182)
You know, that was tough for me, because I could go out and hold something and show something to somebody, sit down with an architect, sit down with an engineer and talk about how they want that one of that piece of cable designed to a difficult sales process because I would go meet a prospect or a client and I could do the best sales job in the world, convince them that TriStar was the right service for them. But if they didn’t have a hiring need at the time.

I don’t get an order. So it took me some time to, to get that. But then also I had to figure out, okay, how do I maintain that top of mind for the time they need somebody, which I may not know. So there’s, you know, selling in the staffing industry is a lot about creating a relationship, creating trust, but also making sure you’re top of mind when the need arises.

Anthony Codispoti (15:22.391)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (15:35.622)
And I’m curious what techniques you found have worked to stay top of mind without being annoying.

Scott Fiore (15:42.934)
Yeah. So in the old days, it was phone calls, letters, know, real letters that went through the mail with a stamp on them. And then it became email and our industry changed pretty significantly when the, when the internet boomed because now we could stay in touch easier and less intrusively through a quick email. And the interesting thing was Anthony.

Anthony Codispoti (15:50.914)
You

Scott Fiore (16:12.546)
You know, when the first job boards came about, the word in the staffing industry is they were going to put us out of business because people wouldn’t need us anymore. And those job boards pretty quickly figured out that we were probably going to be some of their best customers because we wanted access to that pool of candidates. So, you know, like I said, it went from letters, phone calls, emails, but it’s, you know, it was still labor intensive.

You know, you had to set a tickler, send this person an email, make sure you make a phone call to this person. Back in the early days, we set up some mail marketing campaigns through a marketing agency that were successful. Now what we’ve been able to do, and the big change now is automation and artificial intelligence. Now we’ve made that process automated.

so that as a new prospect is identified by our sales team, there’s an automated process by which we communicate with them, which includes email, which includes text messages, which includes phone calls, which might include a personal visit. But now we can automate that. We can scale it so I can do it to lots more people more often and allow my salespeople to spend the time actually being in front of people, whether it’s like you and I are now.

or actually in person. these days, that’s the biggest change. And that’s been my vision to how I’m going to scale this company.

Anthony Codispoti (17:40.738)
It’s.

Anthony Codispoti (17:46.336)
And so the tech, there’s some automation, right? It could send the email, could send the text message. You still need a human being, I assume, to make the phone call or are you using a recording or AI to do that?

Scott Fiore (17:58.156)
Right now we’re using a human being, but the automation is telling the human being when to make that phone call. So there are very specific times when that happens throughout the process. It would not surprise me if in the next 12 months that’s not a human being.

Anthony Codispoti (18:15.742)
Okay. Interesting. And before we talk about your plans for growing the company, I want to go back to sort of the last huge introduction into your industry that people thought were going to put you out of business, these job boards. Why do you think they didn’t put you out of business the way that people feared at the time?

Scott Fiore (18:37.142)
Looking back, I think it was their business model. I didn’t realize it at the time, but if I look back at Monster, Career Builder,

What they intended to do was create a database of resumes and candidates that they could then sell to people like me and people like you that are looking to fill a job. But they needed to get those candidates first into the database. And the way they get them into the database is to advertise for jobs so they upload the resume.

So the people that have the most jobs are the staffing industry. they came to us and said, hey, we’d like to partner with you. We’ll post your jobs for practically nothing for free. And we were like, hey, that’s cool. So we did that. And it drove a lot of business to us. But at the same time, it enabled them to create this database of candidates with which they charge a lot more money for today because that’s more valuable. So it didn’t put us out of business because they came to us and we worked together. We really partnered with them.

And they helped us grow as an industry as we helped them grow also.

Anthony Codispoti (19:50.676)
And so, you know, as we look, say, you know, today, fast forward, I don’t know, 20 years or so, 30 years, whatever it was since those job boards first came out. Why do you think a lot of clients, a lot of companies use TriStar instead of using Indeed themselves?

Scott Fiore (20:11.726)
So what Indeed can provide or another job board can provide is a resume. What a company like Weprovide is the vetting of that resume, the qualifying that candidate, and the determination if that candidate really matches that position. And it’s easy and inexpensive to attract a candidate. You put an ad out somewhere, wherever it is, and you get a resume. The difficult thing.

that most hiring managers and HR folks know is, how do you know that that person is what’s on the resume? That’s our job. And we do that by looking at the resume, by interviewing the candidate, by using automated and artificial intelligence tools to vet that candidate, to make sure what we present to the candidate is a lot more than what they get from just looking, from just getting that resume on a job.

So really what they’re buying from us is the time and the expertise.

Anthony Codispoti (21:11.936)
You know, and if somebody who has gone through the hiring process myself and getting flooded with resumes, I can attest to the enormous value of that process. It’s like, okay, well, I’m to put a job out there, you know, and I don’t know if I’m going to get any responses. I hope I get, you know, at least a few candidates to choose from. And then I get flooded with resumes and I don’t even know how to begin. Like I don’t have a process for it. I’m in over my head.

Scott Fiore (21:37.39)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (21:41.13)
So I’m curious, know, now that AI is becoming better and better, how are you using tools like that to help your agency vet through and kind of, you know, serve as a filter for some of those job prospects that come?

Scott Fiore (21:57.87)
Sure. So the first step in that process is the tools that we use. We’ll search our database, we’ll search the job boards, we’ll search the internet for people who on paper match what the job description or what we’ve asked that bot to look for. So once that candidate is identified, the next piece of artificial intelligence tool actually screens that candidate. So based on the…

on the resume of the candidate based on the job description, it will start asking questions through a text message or an email of that candidate, pre-screening them to come up with, to get to a point where the artificial intelligence says this candidate, as far as we’re concerned, meets the criteria and turns it over to a real human, tri-star or not. And that saves a tremendous amount of time.

And we can also do that 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which you can’t typically do in a right with a human, you know? So, and that gets to my fewer people, but able to screen more candidates more quickly and more effectively. And that tool is learning every day and every screen what we’re really looking for. So it gets a little better and a little better every time.

Anthony Codispoti (23:19.042)
So Scott, I know that you’ve got plans for growth. You want to be able to place more folks into jobs that are good fit for them and for the employers. You want to be able to grow into new geographies as well. All of this is typically rather labor intensive, but you guys have been working on a tech stack for what, the last 18 months that is positioning you for this growth. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Scott Fiore (23:22.328)
Mm-hmm.

Scott Fiore (23:48.952)
Yes. So about two years ago, looking forward into how I envisioned our industry, I knew that we had to make some pretty significant changes if we were going to grow the business. And I’d rather grow the business than remain stagnant. And we could have remained just like we are and been just fine. But what I saw and what I envisioned was

changing how TriStar sees itself. We were a, in the past, I would define us as a staffing and recruiting firm that utilizes technology. I’m moving that to, we’re gonna be a tech firm that does recruiting. So identifying core technology and then ancillary technology that all ties together to number one, speed up the identification and screening process.

then the communication process with them, then communication and.

Scott Fiore (24:54.958)
candidate presentation with our clients, back office automated tools. The more I can do with automation and artificial intelligence and technology, the less people I need to do that, that will allow me to hire different people. Two years ago, I didn’t have a person focused on tech in my business. I do now. That’s all they do. And they know all of TriStar inside now.

Anthony Codispoti (25:18.145)
and

Scott Fiore (25:25.388)
because they have to deal with all of those functions. So as I grow, I’ll be able to hire people who are really skilled recruiters that don’t have to worry about doing data entry, that don’t have to worry about doing initial screening. So they can really focus their time on candidates and clients, which is what makes the most sense and is most efficient for

Anthony Codispoti (25:38.401)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (25:48.994)
So what you’re describing, Scott, is not spending a weekend learning how to use chat GPT. What you’re describing here sounds like a pretty significant lift. mean, the way that you put it, I think, is evidence enough. You’re switching from a staffing agency that’s got some tech behind it to, are a tech company that does staffing. Now you’ve got a full-time person dedicated to helping to build this tech.

Scott Fiore (25:55.854)
No.

Anthony Codispoti (26:18.53)
How’s it going? Where are you in this process?

Scott Fiore (26:22.766)
So we are just at the point, I added a VP of Business Development, because I felt that the tech stack was ready this summer. And then started poking around for people and had one fall in my lap. So we just hired a VP of Business Development with specific and extensive staffing industry experience, who in my discussions with him, really bought into the technology and how we could use it to grow the business.

So he’s been on board, I think this is his fourth week. So we’re still here. I I spent a lot of money on this tech and investigating the tech and technology and all of that. And we’re still here. We’re still making money. And we’re positioned technology wise, but also financially to grow into those markets and really start to make a splash.

Anthony Codispoti (27:15.07)
What do you think the timeline looks like? mean, you know, don’t hire the guy on day one, you know, with tech that’s brand new from this summer, there’s going to be a process, there still is that business development, you have to cultivate the relationships in different geographies. In a good case scenario, when do you think you might start seeing some return on that investment?

Scott Fiore (27:37.068)
You know, I’ve really learned to set my expectations over my career. And my expectation for this one is 12 months.

Anthony Codispoti (27:45.868)
from about now, 12 months from about now, okay? And the tech that you put in place, was this mostly like out of the box tools that were made specifically for the staffing industry? Have you guys had to, know, customize or build your own tools because what you wanted didn’t exist?

Scott Fiore (27:46.924)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Fiore (28:04.79)
All of it is out of the box with some customizations for us, obviously, specific to the tech, to the staffing industry. I know I could have built it all. It would have cost me a fortune. I’d be nowhere near where I am in the process right now. There’s some great products out there, great vendors to our industry. And they’re constantly making updates, constantly changing. Part of my job is just keeping an eye on what they’re changing.

and my internal person, Paige, who does the tech, her job is to keep on top of them because they implement change so quickly. And we want to make sure we’re taking advantage of the latest versions of the products they have, but also the new stuff that’s popping up. You know, I happened upon one, I think it was in the winter, that really wasn’t even on the radar in the staffing industry world.

but has been a super game changer for us. It’s an AI tool that listens to our interviews and then populates the database. And that’s been a game changer for my team.

Anthony Codispoti (29:12.65)
listens to the interviews and then populates what specifically into the database, just everything that was talked about.

Scott Fiore (29:18.348)
Yeah, it really does. takes care of what we would call the interview notes, getting that, getting the information that was in the interview spoken into the appropriate field in the database. And it does it. And that was a, that was always a log jam for us. And I think it is for many people in the staffing industry, you do the interview, but then you move to the next interview, you move to the next problem. might be a day or two.

Anthony Codispoti (29:29.44)
Hmm.

Scott Fiore (29:43.554)
before those notes get into the database. And you can’t use the database to search if the notes aren’t in it. So this tool is called Quill, Q-U-I-L. They’ve been one of the best that I’ve seen come around in the last year, year and a half. Real game changer for us.

Anthony Codispoti (29:49.291)
Mm-hmm.

Anthony Codispoti (30:00.98)
And what’s the accuracy like?

Scott Fiore (30:03.402)
It’s unbelievably accurate. Probably better than we would be. It’s crazy. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (30:08.382)
wow. That’s impressive. You know, and this, this kind of reminds me of what we’re talking about with the job boards, you know, some people were probably running scared when those first became a thing. And, you know, and now that AI is becoming so powerful in so many ways, but particularly in the staffing industry, I think there are some people that, you know, kind of doing the ostrich thing, sticking their head in the sand and hoping that it goes away. But you guys are taking a much different tack. are.

embracing it. It’s not going anywhere. Let’s get to be a part of it. Let’s get ahead of the curve and let’s see how we can use this to leverage ourselves for future success.

Scott Fiore (30:47.01)
Yeah, we’re a small company. There are huge global staffing firms that have way more resources than we do. And they’re making investments in that technology. The advantage that I have is I can implement it a lot quicker than they can. And that’s always been my vision through the last couple of years is I have to find the tech that’s going to work for us, get it in.

into our processes, get it into our systems and be using it and be better at it than the big guys are.

Anthony Codispoti (31:19.22)
What do you think happens to those companies who don’t do what TriStar is doing now in the staffing industry?

Scott Fiore (31:25.954)
You know, I think many of them will be fine. There’s a whole lot of staffing firms that are small and local, like we used to be or now, but used to be in my opinion, that will maintain a good book of business through relationships and just being really good at what they do. I think over time, those businesses will probably find that they can’t grow as quickly and they can’t grow as profitably.

because they’ve got such a big investment in people. And those people are doing things that they really don’t need to be doing. Entering interview notes, that’s a long detailed process that takes a recruiter away from talking to a client or talking to a candidate or an employee. And they’re most efficient and most profitable for me when they’re talking to somebody, not doing data entry.

Anthony Codispoti (32:03.137)
And so.

Anthony Codispoti (32:20.546)
Mm-hmm.

So two years ago, I had this vision. I started working on the tech stack about 18 months ago. It’s ready this summer. Now you got a VP of business development. When you think about growth in terms of geography, do you think about moving sort of from where you are in Pennsylvania and kind of moving out? is it like, we don’t even have to think that way. Like we could go to Utah right now and be a player there.

Scott Fiore (32:50.99)
We’re looking for people in Vegas right now. But the plan is to be somewhat

Scott Fiore (33:03.982)
The plan is to be somewhat careful about growing too quickly. I’d like to increase my presence in this area in Pennsylvania first, Maryland, Jersey, New York to some extent, but there’s nothing to prevent me from filling a job anywhere in the country, if it makes sense for us.

Anthony Codispoti (33:24.64)
And so for you, it’s about, I’m guessing that, you you think about the chicken or the egg, the thing that needs to come first is the relationship with the employer. Right. And then once you’ve got that, then you can find, you’ve got your process for finding candidates that you can bring and present to them.

Scott Fiore (33:41.622)
Right? And I think we can do it more quickly and more accurately than most of our competition right now.

Anthony Codispoti (33:51.276)
So talk to me about the types of positions that you are really good at filling now and will that change now that you have this new tech stack in place?

Scott Fiore (34:06.338)
Yes and no. So we’ve built our business on filling what’s called office clerical administrative positions, support positions, think customer service, think bookkeepers, back office, that type of thing, secretaries, admin assistants. We know how to do that we know how to do that really, really well. What we’re growing into is that next step up in management, not really the C-suite or executive placement.

But we used to do accounting assistants or bookkeepers. Now we can do accountants. So that level moving up in an organization, engineers, project managers, those types of things. Anything where we can utilize the technology that we have to screen this wide funnel of candidates down to fewer that then we can spend time with, those are the ones that we’ll be focusing on.

Anthony Codispoti (35:02.42)
And how would you break down the percentage of your business that is temp, temp to hire versus permanent?

Scott Fiore (35:09.452)
Right now we’re about 90 to 95 % attempt to hire on any given week or month. And I anticipate that spread will start to grow a little.

Anthony Codispoti (35:22.046)
And that’s because you’re specifically growing into filling these sort higher level positions where it makes sense that those would be folks that are there longer term. What about industries then? What kind of industries do you guys have a strong foothold in now? And are there any that you’re not sort of a big player in yet, but would really like to get into?

Scott Fiore (35:25.741)
Yes.

Scott Fiore (35:29.388)
Right. Right.

Scott Fiore (35:44.46)
Yeah, right now the industries that utilize us the most are where we’ve been super successful in our healthcare, not clinical, but in support positions, the insurance industries.

Scott Fiore (36:00.694)
And then manufacturing, but again, not on the floor in those support roles. where I envision us growing into, are those types of businesses just not in our current market. that that’s where we tend to do best. We don’t fill warehouse positions. And these days, you know, 20 years ago, there was, there was back office and support roles in warehouses. There really isn’t much of that anymore. They’ve automated that.

You know, go to Amazon warehouse, there’s hardly anybody working in it. But the people that are there are not the ones that we typically place. The order fillers, the picker packers, the forklift drivers, that’s not what we do. So warehouse is not something that we’re gonna really super focus on.

Anthony Codispoti (36:48.768)
what you would do in those environments are more the office jobs, the admin.

Scott Fiore (36:52.486)
Mm-hmm. Yep. And those just don’t exist anymore. The computers are placing the orders and sorting the orders and telling the pickers what to pick and that type of

Anthony Codispoti (37:05.015)
Talk to me about the consulting work that you provide for some of your clients, sort of becoming an extension of their HR department.

Scott Fiore (37:09.378)
Sure.

Scott Fiore (37:13.218)
So what I, many years ago, I was asked to serve on a search committee for one of the nonprofits that I was on. And, you know, I hadn’t learned to keep my mouth shut at that time. So I jumped right in and said, here’s the process that we should use to hire this executive director. And after that, lots of nonprofits started calling and saying, hey, could you do this for us? Could you help us find an executive director?

So we’ve worked with many, many nonprofits and coached their search committee through the hiring process. And then what we started also to do is help human resources, excuse me, departments, when they needed more resources to come in and be an extension of their recruiting arm. That’s where most of our consulting is done, doing what we know how to do, just helping a client learn how to do that. And we’ve kind of…

built a little name for ourselves locally in the nonprofit world when they need to do a search to help them through that process. And, you know, I don’t charge what a search firm would charge because they’re a nonprofit, they’re in my part of the community, and I don’t offer the same services that that search firm does also. The search committee still does the bulk of the work. I’m just there to coach them through it.

Anthony Codispoti (38:36.104)
What might that look like? You’re sort of teaching them the process that you would use for your own clients so that they can do it themselves?

Scott Fiore (38:44.492)
Yeah, so I’ll sit in with the interviews with them. I’ll manage the interviews for them. They still have to make the decision. They still have to do the heavy lift of screening, you going through the candidates that they want to interview. We’ll call it down for them a little bit. But it allows them ownership of the selection of the candidate. One thing I learned is, especially in the nonprofit world,

The hiring of a leader of an organization, an executive director or president is critical. When the search committee and then therefore the board feels invested in that hire and when the candidate has invested time with that group of people, the odds of the success of that are much higher than if they just go out, identify two candidates, have the search committee interview them and then move on. So the success rate seems to be a lot better.

And the other thing is I often know the organization, so I know what they’re looking for.

Anthony Codispoti (39:44.258)
I’m gonna guess this consulting, this coaching that you offer is probably not part of the scaling plan that you have going forward. we, AA can’t duplicate Scott Fiore, yeah.

Scott Fiore (39:54.166)
No, that’s too much work. That’s too much work and I can’t scale that. That’s personal, that’s individual, it’s me. It would really take away too much time away from the other stuff to really grow the business effect.

Anthony Codispoti (40:14.774)
I mean, obviously you’re charging a fee for the service that you’re providing, but it sounds like part of this is also, you just have those relationships. These are friends in the community. I mean, we went through a number of the nonprofits in your area that you have been, are a member of, chaired. And so it sounds like this is a little bit of sort of that giving back to the community kind of mindset that you have.

Scott Fiore (40:23.736)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Scott Fiore (40:41.302)
Yeah. And we’ve always felt both Joe and the founder and I, this community has been very good to us. and we owe something back to the community and that’s why we’re active in the community. We encourage our team to be active in the community. and you most recently we, we helped the United Way of Lancaster hire their, their executive director. I’ve been involved with that organization for years. Joan has, we know what they’re looking for. We know what they want. and the funny thing was.

they had looked for an executors, we had helped them with a search for an executive director about four or five, six years ago. And she was on the list of people that I contacted, because I knew she would, the one that they just hired, but she wasn’t ready. So when the current, when the old executive director moved on, he had a great opportunity, left on good terms. She was one of my first calls, the woman they eventually hired. And now she was ready.

And that’s part of what a firm like ours, a recruiting firm, can offer. They know the right candidate. Maybe the candidate’s not ready. Maybe the organization isn’t ready. But when that happens, it’s our job to then make that match.

Anthony Codispoti (41:53.154)
Scott, what’s the biggest mistake that you see companies make when hiring?

Scott Fiore (42:01.154)
biggest mistake I think companies make is falling in love too quickly.

once they fall in love with a candidate, not following procedures that they had put in place to appropriately vet that candidate. Some people interview super well, and the resume looks great. And I always tell people 80 % of what you see on a resume is probably a work of fiction in many cases, or embellished. I was just looking at something on the internet where they

A consultant was saying, you know, use this word when you mean this on a resume, that type of thing. There’s plenty of ways, you know, chat GPT can make your resume look great. So you look at a resume, fall in love with it. It’s perfect. It’s perfect because chat GPT probably lined it up to your job description. Then you interview the candidate and they do a great job because they’ve gone on the internet and said, what questions might they ask me about this job and how should I answer them and all those things?

Because everything’s so great, maybe you don’t do the background checks as maybe a skip a step. Maybe you don’t look into their credit history if it’s an accounting position. Or maybe you skip the references because you know they’ll be good. And maybe just call the references they give you instead of maybe doing a little extra work and calling some people that might be able to give you a reference that isn’t on their reference sheet.

So it’s doing that work is what I see most often. When we make a placement and they don’t work out, it is hardly ever because of the candidate not having the skill to do the job. It’s because they don’t fit culturally with the company or they don’t have the soft skills that that organization.

Scott Fiore (43:59.382)
or that fit the culture of the organization. That’s mostly why candidates don’t work out. And these days when you can very quickly skill up, when, you know, if the person that I hired for our tech didn’t join the organization for tech, just fell into it and, you know, she learns things by going on YouTube or asking questions of the vendors, you know, and she learns it like that.

because the resources are available for that. You don’t have to go take an Excel class to learn Excel anymore. You just go into ChatGPT and say, what’s the formula for this? So it’s that ability to learn that is more important than the skills that you may possess. And that’s another thing that I think people put too much weight on. What’s their experience? Well, their experience probably doesn’t matter because of the way, because of how things change so quickly these days. It’s what’s their capacity to learn.

And you have to have a conversation and you have to look at what they did in the past, not these are the skills they have, but how did they learn them and how quickly did they learn them and why did they have to learn them? And did they enjoy that? Can they show me that they had a problem, they went out and found a solution to that problem wherever it might be and then implemented that solution. Those are the most effective employees in today’s environment in the office world.

Anthony Codispoti (44:58.614)
How can you gauge that in an interview process?

Scott Fiore (45:29.432)
how can they find out the latest and greatest way to fix this problem that my company has?

Anthony Codispoti (45:35.97)
Are personality tests part of your process for any of the positions that you fill?

Scott Fiore (45:38.86)
Yes, much so. they can also give some, we use them because they give some validation to what we may or may not find in the interview. If someone says they’re a great problem solver, but the personality assessment leads us to believe they may not be, then we’re going to focus on those questions and background checking that more than an area that may line up. So yeah, we use them extensively now. We’ve used them as long as…

as I’ve been involved in the company as a validation tool. I always try to tell clients, they’re not, you don’t make a final decision on a candidate based solely on a personality or behavioral assessment. It’s just a tool that you use to validate what you may see in the interview, what you may hear from the references and what your gut tells you.

Anthony Codispoti (46:31.586)
Do you have any specific favorites in terms of the different personality tests out there?

Scott Fiore (46:36.43)
You know, I spent a lot of time with these things over the past several years, and they’re all based on young and Freudian technology. Not technology, whatever the word is. School of thought, there you go. know, disk is one that I’ve used forever. So many tools are based on the disk model and how it works. And then when you get on the personality side, they…

Anthony Codispoti (46:49.602)
Schools of thought,

Scott Fiore (47:05.23)
They’re all based on pretty much the same science. So find one that fits for you. Find one that, where you have a good coach who can teach you about them because, you know, I’ve been looking at disc profiles for 25 or so years. So I can look at a profile pretty quickly and make some, some determinations, but someone who just trained in disc and it’s their first, second or third interpretation, they’re probably not gonna.

see some of the subtleties of that product or that report that someone who’s much more experienced is. So you really need to be careful how you interpret those tools because they can backfire on you pretty quickly.

Anthony Codispoti (47:47.282)
Scott, you threw out an alarming stat, and I don’t know if you were exaggerating this or if you believe this to be true. 80 % of what you see on a resume is some form of fiction or embellishment. Do believe that that’s an accurate number?

Scott Fiore (47:59.606)
Yeah, I’d stick to that. It might be on the high side, but especially these days where you can take a job description, put it in ChatGPT, take your resume, put it in ChatGPT, and make my resume match this job.

Anthony Codispoti (48:03.222)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (48:19.628)
Okay. So that’s a thing. Of course, that’s a thing. It wouldn’t have occurred to me, but that’s, it’s a little bit clever. You know, here’s a question that I’m going to guess a lot of other business owners or managers out there would like to know the answer to, because I’ve gotten some conflicting information. When somebody calls me for a reference on somebody who worked for me, you know, previously, am I allowed to just be blunt and honest or

Scott Fiore (48:22.242)
Yeah, of course it’s a thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (48:47.314)
is my safest course of action to just confirm their employment dates if it’s not a good reference that I would give.

Scott Fiore (48:56.482)
Right.

I’ve asked attorneys this and their advice is as long as you tell the truth, you’re probably safe. And I said, well, why probably? And it’s because they’re lawyers and nothing’s ever, ever black and white. But if, if you tell the truth and you, and you can validate that you still may get sued and it still may cost you money, but you’re probably more likely to spend less money or win.

so I’m always honest. and one of the questions I and many in the industry and many HR people ask is a simple one. Are they eligible for rehire? if they are, they probably left on pretty good terms. If they aren’t, you know, I might ask why they might tell me why they may not, but that simple yes or no answer is going to tell me a lot about a, about a candidate.

Anthony Codispoti (49:44.503)
Yeah.

Scott Fiore (49:58.466)
But as long as you’re honest, Anthony, you should be able to, you know, that that’s what references are about. you know, we, people get scared about being sued and people get scared about ramifications. if, you know, if someone was late, every day for two weeks and you coach them and you tried and, you know, you had to terminate them, you can probably verify that. So if you say, well, they were late.

10 days in a row, I coached them, I gave them five warnings, I had to terminate them. That’s the truth. So if they sue you, you’re gonna show them that information. And yeah, you’re gonna spend some attorney fees probably, but they really don’t have a case.

Anthony Codispoti (50:40.448)
Yeah. Unfortunately, I’ve had mostly really good folks that worked with me in the past. I can, I’m trying to remember the person, I didn’t see him in my head, where I got a call, you know, to be a reference for them and they were just not a reliable employee. And I wasn’t sure how to approach that. And so my response is I just kept confirming their employment dates. They would ask a question and I can confirm that they, I, and eventually, you know, after two or three times, they kind of got the picture. Yeah.

Scott Fiore (51:08.302)
Yeah, they figured it out. You know, references are many companies are have outsourced that process so that it’s it’s automated or it’s simply these are the dates. You know, these are the this is their title. You know, that’s a key opportunity for you to learn about a potential candidate. And we’ve automated it, but we have very specific questionnaires that we email out to

Anthony Codispoti (51:10.293)
So.

Scott Fiore (51:37.582)
to references that really get pretty deep and give the person giving the reference an opportunity to really provide good information. then we put together all in one report for our clients to look at. So they get a lot of information in that reference. And if you’re just calling for dates, why do it? I wouldn’t even make that call. It’s a waste of time. What you want to find out is how did they perform in the job? What were the things they did really well?

What were the areas they maybe needed coaching so that you know if you hire that employee what you might need to do to help them be a better performer. So that’s an area we’ve always spent time on. We will always continue to spend time on. Many companies don’t because it’s hard. It’s hard to get someone on the phone. It’s hard to get someone to give a reference. But we’ve always had a…

a policy that if we can’t get a reference on them and they haven’t worked for us so that we could be a reference for them, we’re not going put them to work.

Anthony Codispoti (52:39.552)
Yeah, makes sense. You know, lot of the employers that I talked to, it’s still a pretty tight labor market. We’re recording this in October of 2024. And so, you know, we talk about different strategies for finding good talent. And obviously, that’s where a company like TriStar comes in. But then also, once you have somebody and they’re working out, how do you hold on to them? That’s probably a little bit outside of the scope of what you do. But obviously, you

have been in so many different companies, you’ve seen so many different employment scenarios, you’ve talked to so many employers and employees, what do you think employers can do to hold on to those folks that they like?

Scott Fiore (53:22.072)
So here’s my philosophy on that, because I have 10 people that work for me internally in my company. My job is to give them the opportunity to reach their potential.

Number one, when I hire them to be the best they can be within TriStar. Then another job I have is to grow my business such that as they advance in their career, I have a space for them. Now, if I don’t and they come to me and say, hey, I’ve got an opportunity to take this job, I’ve done half of my job. I allowed them to excel in their job and then I haven’t enabled them to advance in my own company.

And that’s why I want to grow my company because I want to hold on to the people that I have. So provide opportunities for people, provide training, provide coaching, constant feedback. You know, there’s, there’s all kinds of schools of thoughts on the different generations in the workforce. But what I found is no matter how old an employee is, the more feedback I give them, weighted to the positive, the longer they’ll stick around, the happier they are in the job.

And then, you know, getting to know your team. I noticed that my current team is on the younger side and every day they come in with these coffee cups from Starbucks or wherever it was. We just did a kitchen renovation at my house. So we had this whiz bang coffee maker, cause I’m a coffee snob. And I figured, you know, why don’t I buy one of these whiz bang coffee makers for the office? You know, so now they can make lattes, cappuccinos, you know, the whole nine yards.

And they were thrilled. And now they don’t have to spend $5 on a cup of coffee on the way into the office. And I kind of did. you know, it wasn’t cheap. You know, it’s not like a Mr. Coffee Coffee maker. It’s not inexpensive. But the ROI on that is fantastic because now they can at 10 in the morning, they don’t have to run out to Starbucks to get a coffee or they have to drink a curry cup of coffee because they’re coffee snubs. So it’s just understanding your team. What makes them tick?

Anthony Codispoti (55:08.16)
You just gave them a little pay raise.

Scott Fiore (55:31.918)
talking to them like you’re equals, but at the same time, holding them accountable to do their job. It’s a balance that a good manager has to learn over time. And I’ve made mistakes with that. I’m sure most managers have. And over time, you learn.

Anthony Codispoti (55:46.902)
Yeah. You know, Scott is a business owners. Obviously one of our big jobs is to keep our eye on the profit and loss statement, right? Like we got to make sure that those numbers look healthy. And as I think about this and sort of two big levers, we’ve got, you know, increasing sales and, you know, decreasing expenses. We’ve already talked about the tech stack that you put in place, which is huge on both of those. I wonder outside of that, this new tech that you guys have put in place.

Think about each of those levers. Is there a creative solution that you’ve tried in the past that’s worked well for you to move one or both of those?

Scott Fiore (56:26.446)
You know, I’ve learned in this, our industry, revenue is very much dependent on the current economy. This is probably the only time in my career where I’ve seen low unemployment numbers, but our industry is kind of in a valley of revenue right now. And my opinion on that is in the 2003 timeframe, you 2022, 2023,

it was really hard to hire people. It was really hard. And our industry was just booming. And as the economy has slowed down, and there’s lots of indicators to show that, what I don’t think is happening is employers are letting people go like they would have in a previous slowdown, because they know how hard it’s going to be to find them again. And that’s why I think the unemployment numbers are still pretty low.

I think it’s somewhat artificial because, not artificial because they’re wrong, but companies are holding onto people where they may not have in the past. And that’s made the hiring landscape a little more difficult. Certainly easier than it was a year or two ago, but probably more difficult based on the economic conditions that we’re seeing.

Anthony Codispoti (57:54.924)
That’s interesting. you’re saying the first time in your career in this industry that you’ve seen there be low unemployment numbers, which is what we have. But the staffing industry in general is sort of in a valley. It’s in a little bit of a funk right now. And the reason, you believe, is companies are not hiring as much, right? Because a lot of things have slowed down in the economy. But even with that,

Scott Fiore (58:09.582)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (58:22.07)
companies are not letting go of employees in the same way that they would have in the past. So there’s also not sort of this influx of extra workers available to be placed.

Scott Fiore (58:30.062)
Right. That’s strictly my opinion. And it’s part of the puzzle, I think. I do think that companies are implementing technology and automation so that they may not need as many people as they have in the past. But I think when you combine those two things with baby boomers not retiring at the rates we expected, all these other things that are all coming together at the same point in time, think those are some of the things.

I always bring up that companies are holding on to people. think that’s the difference. The one thing that I can say is the oddity right now of what we would see typically.

Anthony Codispoti (59:12.002)
Are there any specific mentors or books, maybe podcasts or experiences that have helped shape you or your professional career,

Scott Fiore (59:23.586)
I don’t know that there’s any specific book I’m always reading. I threw my camera around, you’d see books everywhere. know, mentor-wise, I try to…

I’d love to play golf and I spend a lot of time doing that. And I try to put myself in a position where I can be golfing with people who I can create a relationship with that can help me grow personally and professionally. I have a guy I met several years ago. He’s become a really good friend into all kinds of different businesses as an investor. And, you know, as I’ve

picked his brain over time. He’s been a great source of help for me. Just, you know, I’m in this little company and he’s got 30 companies and what’s he, what does he do for in this situation or that situation? But I know he’s giving me the advice because he wants to help me and it’s not because he wants something from me. And I try to surround myself with people like that.

Anthony Codispoti (01:00:28.17)
Yeah, that’s really important to be able to have folks that you can learn from people who have been there before. What about any like sort of mastermind groups or, you know, sort of like small circles of like minded people? Has that been part of your process?

Scott Fiore (01:00:41.627)
Yeah, so I’m in a group, a president’s group that meets a few times a year in person and then every month or two, virtually right now. You know, it’s about 12 of us that really can kind of lay it out, lay out our issues, our problems, our failures, our successes. So that’s the small group I’m in. I’m in a bigger industry peer group.

which is independent staffing service owners, is about 40 businesses represented in the group. That one, we certainly get together as owners separately from, we, most of the time we’ll bring our key folks to provide them some learning opportunities and provide them some networking opportunities. But in any group like that, I’ve always, I always try to find that subgroup that thinks like I do, that,

has different experiences than I do that I can lean on either at that time when we’re together or when we’re not. Lots of emails, lots of phone calls go back and forth. When you can trust someone like that, it’s really important.

Anthony Codispoti (01:01:50.294)
Yeah, I do think that’s really important just from my own personal experience, you know, having sort of that safe place where you can open up about what you’re struggling with, you know, and to be able to get helpful feedback from people who have been there. They’ve been through it. They’ve got some ideas and solutions how to come through the other side.

Scott Fiore (01:01:59.171)
Yeah.

Scott Fiore (01:02:07.448)
Great.

Scott Fiore (01:02:11.822)
Yeah, it’s key. sometimes it’s good advice, sometimes it isn’t. You have to be smart enough to figure out what’s the good advice and what’s not good advice.

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:22.838)
You know, while we’re on the topic, be curious to hear about maybe a particular challenge that you’ve gone through, Scott, either personally or professionally, maybe what you learned coming through the other side.

Scott Fiore (01:02:34.002)
so I would say one of the biggest challenges I went through, or we went through, my partner, Joan and I is in the 2008 recession. You know, we’re still a somewhat young company. we, we, we’re an okay financial position, but not great. You know, we we were trying to grow the business.

We didn’t have a ton of cash in the bank. We were young in our careers, both personally and professionally. So that recession hit and it was, you know, nail-chewing time and us not taking paycheck time. you know, we came out of that and we came out of it stronger. And I remember her and I sitting down and saying, you know, we’re never going to go through this again. We’re going to build a strong balance sheet so that

We can weather storms because economies are always cyclical. We can get through them. We can get through whatever might be thrown at us and not have to worry about money. So we spent the next several years, more than several, improving our balance sheet, getting rid of our debt, making our cash position strong so that when the COVID crisis hit,

We weren’t worried about money. sat my staff down and I said, you know, when they first sent us home, they sent us home for what they said was going to be a couple of weeks. And it was certainly longer than that. But I sat my whole company down and said, listen, we could take zero sales for this many months before I have to worry. Not before I’m out of business, before I have to worry. And that allowed me to convey to them that

They didn’t have to worry. Your job’s safe, you’re gonna work, you’re gonna get a paycheck, you’re gonna come to work every day, your benefits are safe, we don’t lay anybody off. We certainly could have.

Anthony Codispoti (01:04:31.777)
Yeah.

Scott Fiore (01:04:45.066)
And it would have made sense for a little while, but we bounced back more quickly than I think some industries did. But knowing, you know, having went through that period of not collecting a check to, hey, team, you don’t have to worry because, know, now I’m at different financial position than most of my employees. If they’re not getting a paycheck, that’s if not the first or second week, the third or fourth week, it’s going to be a big deal. And knowing that I could offer them that safety net and security.

Anthony Codispoti (01:05:09.921)
Yeah.

Scott Fiore (01:05:15.283)
And we worked on lots of different things. We worked on vision statements and we found things to do. But that’s probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned is have your balance sheet strong because things aren’t always going to be rosy.

Anthony Codispoti (01:05:29.216)
Yeah, it’s gonna the rain clouds are gonna come in eventually. What was that like for you in 2008? When maybe there were some questions about are we gonna make it? I mean, you and your partner had to stop taking paychecks at different times. Like what kind of stress were you going through and what helped you cope with that?

Scott Fiore (01:05:31.97)
Yeah.

Scott Fiore (01:05:51.462)
I wouldn’t say that we ever thought we weren’t going to make it. but you know, when that, when the line of credit starts ticking up to its max, and you know, your, your, your revenue’s down, so you’re not collecting as much money. It was stressful because at the same time, I don’t want to go home and convey that stretch to my stress to my wife or kids. so, you know, at that time it really was that.

the group, the big peer group, the 40 independent members, because we were all going through it. And knowing they were too, wasn’t just me. They were doing the same things we were doing. Having some of the members that had been through more than I had, older folks, saying, hey, every time this happens, we come out stronger. OK, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel. This isn’t going to be forever. And then starting to see some signs.

from different members of the group that things were starting to turn around helped me alleviate my stress. But it was tough. You know, I probably…

Scott Fiore (01:07:02.328)
Probably didn’t eat as healthily as I should have during that time. Probably drank a little bit more than I should have too.

Anthony Codispoti (01:07:10.518)
You know, and we laugh about it, but I think those are good things for people to hear, right? You know, people look at Scott and they’re like, wow, he’s really successful. He’s got this great, strong business now and he’s putting the tech in place. He’s going to be growing in new regions. Like, you know, this is just a sharp guy. He’s smart and like everything comes easy to him. And it’s like, no, like I went through some really hard stuff and I drank a little bit and maybe when I shouldn’t have, I wasn’t eating the best food because, I was searching for comfort in other places. So yeah, thanks for sharing that. think that’s important for.

Scott Fiore (01:07:13.784)
Yeah.

Scott Fiore (01:07:29.954)
Yeah.

Scott Fiore (01:07:36.93)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (01:07:39.83)
for people to hear. We’re all human beings. We all bleed the same color of blood. So keep that in mind, folks. Scott, I’ve got one more question for you. But before I ask it, I want to do two things. For those listening today, if you like today’s content, please hit the like, share, or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. I also want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you, Scott. What would that be?

Scott Fiore (01:08:02.766)
LinkedIn is easy and or just go to our website trystarjobs.com to Rs and star.

Anthony Codispoti (01:08:11.362)
All right, so last question for you, and I kind of have a feeling I know where you’re gonna go with this. How do you see the staffing industry evolving in the next few years? What do you think the big changes are that are coming?

Scott Fiore (01:08:22.67)
I think that over my career, the staffing industry has gone from filling quick open positions, my secretary is sick, I need someone today, to being a much more strategic partner of our clients. I think as I look out five, 10 and 15 years, I think the way our industry is going to change is in response to how people work. I think…

more people will work not just for one company, but they’ll have skill sets that they can work with several companies at a time. And the way they’ll be able to do that and access benefits is through a company like mine who will.

Scott Fiore (01:09:13.048)
have the talent that companies need. And I think you’ll see fewer and fewer companies, I believe, hiring full-time people all the time. They’re going to come to a company like me and say, I need someone that can do this project, and it’s going to take this amount of time. And it might be a week, it might be a year, it might be two years, or it might be 20 hours a week that they need something for. We’re starting to see that a little bit in the bookkeeping side of the business.

Small companies don’t need a full-time bookkeeper, can’t justify it. Well, if I can package two or three bookkeepers, one bookkeeper to handle two or three companies, they get their full-time work, they get their benefits through me, the customer gets the 20 hours, 15 hours a week that they need for that skillset. I think that’s how our industry is going to evolve.

Anthony Codispoti (01:10:04.286)
Interesting. So when you first started talking about that, I thought you were sort of describing like a fractional CFO kind of a thing. Yeah.

Scott Fiore (01:10:11.458)
That too, you’re seeing that too. And I think our industry will be how those people can effectively and easily get paid.

Anthony Codispoti (01:10:24.458)
And so the benefit of this for both the employer and the employee is the employer doesn’t have to carry the expense of this person on their payroll full time, but the employee, mean, they want a full time job with benefits, right? And so when they’re on the TriStar team, they don’t have to worry about that. When you are going to help to fill in, you know, if this job’s only 20 hours to fill in the other 20 hours somewhere else.

and or, you know, if this is the three month assignment, they know that you’re going to find something else for them after that three months is up. So they’ve got job security.

Scott Fiore (01:11:02.37)
Right. Yeah, that’s the way we’re starting. We’re just in the beginning of that. Companies, our clients are just, they’ll have to get comfortable with that. And we’ll have to make some changes as an industry to get comfortable with that too. And it may, not saying it will, but it may involve, it may change who pays us. Right now our clients pay us. I could see a time.

Anthony Codispoti (01:11:26.86)
Mm.

Scott Fiore (01:11:31.606)
when a fractional CEO is the person paying us, much like a professional athlete pays an agent.

Anthony Codispoti (01:11:38.642)
that’s interesting. We’ll have to check in with you in a few years to see how this is shaping up. See if your crystal ball held true. Yeah. Long-term. I like it. I like it. Well, Scott, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Scott Fiore (01:11:45.464)
That’s further out there. That’s my real wacky thinking. That’s what the second bourbon usually starts me.

Scott Fiore (01:12:00.076)
It was my pleasure. enjoyed it. a great conversation, Anthony.

Anthony Codispoti (01:12:02.956)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.