In this episode, host Jay Schwedelson interviews Oz Rashid, CEO of MSH, a leading global talent solutions company. They discuss best practices, common mistakes, and key considerations around hiring, both from the perspective of employers/companies and job seekers.
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Best Moments:
(03:01) Organizations should view recruitment and talent acquisition as a marketing function (not a cost center) to attract top talent
(07:00) Never misrepresent your experience or qualifications when applying for a job, as it will get caught eventually
(10:31) If you’re in a job you dislike, it’s better to leave even before a year rather than stay in a soulless existence, but be prepared to address job-hopping during interviews
(15:24) Remote work opportunities depend on your talent level, the company, and the role, so prioritize what’s most important to you in a job
(21:06) For reality shows like Summer House, bringing in new casts can revive the excitement, as long-running casts dealing with adult issues can become stale
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Guest Bio:
Oz Rashid is the CEO of MSH, a talent solutions company he founded 13 years ago that now has hundreds of employees globally. MSH offers hiring, advisory, consulting, and software services focused on talent acquisition.
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Transcript
Welcome to do this, not that, the podcast for marketers. You'll walk away from each episode with actionable tips you can test immediately.
You'll hear from the best minds in marketing who will share tactics, quick wins and pitfalls to avoid. Also dig into life, pop culture, and the chaos that is our everyday. I'm Jay Schwedelson. Let's do this, not that. We are here for do this, not that.
And we have an incredible guest. I know sometimes I say that, but I actually feel that way this time, which is terrible for every other guest I've had. But we have Oz Rashid here.
Who's Oz? Oz is the CEO of a company called msh, which stands for make success happen. Or possibly it may mean something else. Oz will explain that.
But they are a leader, a worldwide leader in hiring and talent solutions.
The reason I asked Oz to come on is that whether you are a small business, a big business, you are looking to add team members, there are ways to do it, there are ways not to do it. There are hurdles that we have to overcome.
And there is nobody that I know on planet earth that knows more about finding talent and really locking that in than Oz. So, Oz, I want to welcome you to do this, not that.
Oz Rashid:Hey Jay. I appreciate it. What an introduction. I've really enjoyed the time you came on my pod a couple months ago.
I think there's a lot of synergy between the way we look at things. Incredible introduction. I really appreciate it.
I think the thing that I would say and kind of compound on that is that I founded a company about 13 years ago. We have three different businesses now and it does all things hiring. So our company's been involved in tens of thousands of hires over that time.
We've worked with hundreds of companies, some of the biggest companies in the world, high growth startups, everything in between. And we do everything from full time hiring and advisory to consulting and project based work.
And also we're building software that we're leveraging for our customers that we're taking to market in the near future. So safe to say it's something I think a lot about.
I'm really excited to come on the pod and kind of talk a little bit about some ways that maybe we can help some of the listeners around things they can apply to take it to the next level from a hiring perspective.
Jay Schwedelson:Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm thrilled to have you here and Oz's company, I mean, you guys are a beast. Hundreds of employees all around the world. So you, you've Helped thousands of different companies, all sorts of shapes and sizes and industries.
So let's, let's jump right into it. Okay? I, I've seen you say this before and just want to get a better understanding what it means.
The person that's in charge of hiring in your company, whether you're a small business or a big business, and maybe it's you that you're in charge of the hiring, that person needs to be good at marketing. I've heard you say something along those lines. What does that mean?
Oz Rashid:Yeah, I'll take it a step further. I mean, I think a lot of organizations should really consider recruitment and talent acquisition for their business as a marketing function.
And what I mean by that is one of the reasons I got into this space is because I worked in a Fortune 500 company myself. I was in technology doing hiring and then I realized that it was very treated as very commoditized and very transactional.
And I looked at how it sat in most organizations and it was seen as a cost center. And I just couldn't disagree anymore with that. I, I actually believe that great hiring is very impactful from a bottom line perspective.
I look at it as a revenue generation center and the companies that are the best in the world at attracting great talent into their organization invariably lead the lead the world in market cap. You look at an Amazon, an Apple, a Google.
These companies are, are really, really famous for putting a lot of thought and a lot of resources into how they get talent into their organization and then of course, how they develop and retain them. And so I just think that not every company has always realized or looked at it that way.
And I think one of the biggest reasons why is because it sits in hr, which totally makes sense from a talent perspective. And there's a lot of great HR leaders and HR organizations out there.
But I know when I look at the rest of the business, sales, operations, finance, there's a different view between HR in your organization and marketing in your organization. And I think the thing is, is that the resources and time and effort dedicated to, to marketing, it's just very different from the CEO on down.
And when you think about what recruitment really is, it's when you have an opportunity and you take it out to the market, you're marketing it to potential candidates, right?
And the how well you do at articulating and conveying what it's like to work at your company, what your culture is, why work at your company, the better talent you're going to attract, right?
And then invariably when you have A great candidate, you're marketing them up to the leadership to say, this is why this person's gonna be a great fitness organization. And so there's a lot of marketing mindsets that come into play here that I just think are so applicable.
And I think if more organizations looked at it from that perspective, they'd have a lot more success in the space.
Jay Schwedelson:So let me just play off that for a second. I wanna understand something. So if I decide, okay, I need a new.
I wanna hire a new director of sales, Is the world not set up where I just go and post a job thing on? Indeed.
And ZipRecruiter and LinkedIn and then just wait for a bunch of resumes to come in and then we just sift through those and call who we think is best. Is that not really the way it works or is that kind of a really pathetic way to do it?
Oz Rashid:Unfortunately, in a lot of instances, it is the way it works. And the way I would use the analogy from a marketing perspective is Coke is a great product. It's been around for a long time.
But what if the only way you ever heard about it is if you're in the gas station and saw it and pulled it out and drank the Coke and I got this, a great product. Of course, that's an ineffective way to look at getting the most amount of people to enjoy what you believe is a great product.
And so, yeah, most companies are going to go and they're going to use this job description, which in my mind is a relic. It's an artifact of the past. And a lot of times, just like this skills box that doesn't excite or entice anybody.
The best companies understand how to use that as a marketing artifact and really change the way that they get people into the company, the role, and show them what's in it for them. So I think that's one aspect of it. And if I'm reversing it, it's also the same thing with a resume. Right.
Also a very archaic artifact, something that my company's working on transforming for the betterment of meritocracy, of hiring and candidates all over. But that's also, to a degree, a marketing artifact.
And when it stands out to somebody who's reviewing it for a position, those are the people most likely to get interviews. And listen, we're in a tough market right now. Obviously there's been a ton of layoffs.
We've seen in technology, you've seen some of the unemployment rates are, are, are starting to go up and so the ability to have edges in this space, both for candidates and for companies is more important than ever.
Jay Schwedelson:So let's, let's go on the other side of it like you just talked about. Let's say I'm out there, I'm like, I want to get a new job. All right, you, I mean, you've probably seen a zillion resumes in your career.
What are some. Or let's say you have your LinkedIn profile and all. What are some never dues if you're trying to get a job? Give me the, the Oz never do list.
Oz Rashid:Yeah, so the first one's very easy. Never misrepresent your experience or what you've done that is going to get caught out sooner than later.
And so obviously being very authentic and genuine, you can market it. Right? But if, again, we'll go back to the Coke analogy.
If you told everybody that Coke was a very salty type beverage and then they drink it and it's, it's instead sugary, then you're going to have kind of an inconsistency there. So misrepresenting yourself is never a smart thing.
Even, you know, as you can understand why people might feel the need to, to do what they need to do to get a role. But misrepresenting yourself, I would say is the first big no, no. A lack of consistency, I think, is also a very big no, no.
And what I mean by that is Your resume, your LinkedIn and any other type of public profiles that you have out there have to be kind of telling the same story. It's about having a cohesive professional brand at the end of the day. Right?
And so again, if you're looking at, you know, one advertisement saying this for Coca Cola and another advertisement saying this, you're actually now getting out two very different messages. And that lack of cohesion is a really, really big issue.
And then I think the last way, and I'm going to just keep going with the marketing analogy, is think about the channels.
Okay, sure, you can go and you can post to a job and let's be honest, you're going to be in there with thousands of other resumes and you're hoping that your resume stands out in a sea of others or you can find different, more direct to consumer type channels, right, where maybe you're reaching out to the people that are doing the hiring and conveying to them why you think you're a fit for the role, or, or maybe finding and identifying somebody that you've worked with in the past who works at that company to open a door for you. So I think those are some of the do's or don'ts that really stand out to me for a candidate in order to be able to get the dream job that they want.
Jay Schwedelson:All right, now I want to go like 10 foot level because we didn't talk about this beforehand. But I'm just curious because I don't get an opportunity to talk to somebody with your experience on this topic. So I just want to know the truth.
So I see certain people that are stuck in a job and they've been working there, let's say four months, five months, and they're pretty early on in their career and they think that there's this magic one year thing on your resume that if you don't stay at a job for a year and you bail and it shows up on your resume that you're someplace for like six months, that you are, you know, a flight risk, that you're not somebody worth hiring. And so my question is from two sides. Number one, as a person who's working, do I really need to stay at a job for a year if it's terrible?
Just the way my resume doesn't look weird?
And as somebody that's hiring, if you look at a resume that someone you're looking at potentially recruiting and they have like, they jump from job to job to job and they're no place for like an extended period of time, is that like a big red flag?
Oz Rashid:Yeah, I mean, it's a very nuanced answer.
So the first thing I would say is as much as a company is interviewing a candidate, even if you are very desperate for new work or you're out of a job, I feel like you have to be interviewing the company as well. And it's actually more important for, for there to be a realistic job preview for the candidate.
Because at the end of the day, if it doesn't work out for the company, as much as I know there's a bottom line impact on that, they're going to move on, they're going to let go and then they're going to hire somebody else. But for a candidate to your point, you start to go like, let's say that you go through the interview process and it seems great.
And then within two, we all know this has happened a bunch of times. Two weeks in, you're like, oh, this isn't what I thought it was. In fact, they probably did too much marketing. Right.
And weren't being very real about what to expect. And so if I'm A candidate that's in that position. I, um. I feel like there's. There's a couple different things you have to take into account.
You know what, people are going to see that on your resume. And it's very common. Recruiters, hr, hiring managers. To make an educated.
What we're doing is we're making educated guesses based on people that we're bringing into our organization.
And it's an educated guess to say, if this person hasn't had long stints at multiple companies, then it's most likely that they're not going to have a long stint here. So if you do find yourself in the situation. Right. I don't necessarily think that you need to stay the full year.
You just have to be ready to address that. And, and you either want to. You want to be able to tell the story of why in an interview, but you also have to make sure you get that interview.
And so somehow maybe talking about that in the actual resume or finding a way to convey what the situation was like, maybe there was a, you know, a misalignment of values or a layup or something like that might lessen the need for you to have to be able to get that opportunity to interview and be able to actually tell that story in person. And so it is something. It sucks. I gotta be honest with you. Like, I hate that for candidates. I.
It's why it's so important for both sides to be as realistic as possible about what you're getting. Because it's a really big decision at the end of the day.
And so my take there would be, ultimately, yes, there are going to be repercussions and cause and effect there, but I would never, never recommend anybody to stay in a job that they don't feel good about, that they don't feel that there's purpose to that. They don't feel like there's. Even if it's tough initially, that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. We spend way too much time at work, right.
To be at something where you're going in and you're punching a clock and, um, you're living a soulless existence. That doesn't mean that, like, you know, work has to be puppy dogs and lollipops all the time and always great. Nothing worth having is always great.
But at the end of the day, if you feel like you're just hitting your head against the wall month after month after month, year after year, that's no way to live.
And if you're in that moment, I would definitely start to think about what is it that matters to me, and let me go pursue that from a professional perspective. Then on the client side, I would.
You know, I tell clients, I get why you make these educated guesses on what this person's going to be, but my gosh, you're missing out on a lot of great people by. By taking that type of mentality. And that's, again, why. I'll go back to why I think the resume.
And a lot of times can be not just not an enhancer, but I think a lot of times it can be a blocker. Because when we have this piece of paper, right, or this digital print of evaluating somebody's life and career, it doesn't tell their story.
't explain that, you know, in:Or maybe there was a reason you went on a sabbatical, or maybe you had a situation that, with a manager that everybody would understand was completely untenable for you to be there.
And so I try to tell clients to collect data points and not make judgments as much as you can, because if you keep that funnel pretty open and then you start to realize who the right people are going to be for you, you're going to make better hiring decisions rather than just jumping to conclusions right off the bat because of a resume.
Jay Schwedelson:I love when you said, if you have a soulless existence, you shouldn't stay there, because it's true. It's like, you know, and I also think it's important when you said that you're not going to love every day of your job.
I know that there's always everything out there. You got to love your job. You got to love your job. Listen, you got to like your job. That's important.
You don't need to wake up, be like, I love every minute of my job because I just don't think that that's. I don't think that's realistic.
And I'm curious about something else that shifted, you know, since COVID which is the amount of remote work that's going on. Right? A lot of people, a lot of jobs are remote. All this different type of stuff. Is it.
What is the marketplace for people that are companies that are hiring and saying, this is a remote job? Is that still like, oh, there are a lot of good remote jobs available, or is it now mostly hybrid and from the.
From the person applying or trying to get the job.
If you're saying, I only want remote, are you significantly crushing your opportunities that you can get because the world is shifting back, or is it not shifting back?
Oz Rashid:Yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to come to that. Let me address the point you made a second. I think it's important.
I read somewhere the other day that the worst prison you can have is when you go home to a place with no peace. Meaning, like, if you've made the wrong decision as a partner or a spouse, that can be like a prison. Right? I look at it the same way with work.
If you go and you don't have peace in your work, you don't feel at least good about what you're doing. That's like a prison. And so, yeah, I agree with you. It doesn't mean it has to be like the greatest thing going in your life.
But, man, if you're going somewhere where you just don't believe in what you're doing, who you're working with, and the overall purpose, for me, I would be looking to do something different because that's just too big a part of our lives to do otherwise. To your point about remote work, it's interesting, right?
If I look back at Covid, it's funny how many companies and employees and people bet on what was happening in that moment in 20, 20, 21, 22, that this is the new way forward. Now, I will say this.
A lot changed fundamentally with collaboration, tools, technology, the ways we interview, for sure, but what we thought was a swinging of a pendulum that was going more to the employee side and the flexibility for the employee. We are invariably starting to see things are starting to return back.
Not full nine to five, five days a week in most instances, but some level of hybrid or some level of putting importance back to being in the office.
And listen, I would say that anybody that's arguing one side or the other, a hundred percent one way or the other is being disingenuous because there's definitely benefits and downsides when you're with both sides.
The other aspect of what I would say and what I think is really important to kind of get out in front of is if you want remote work, that's absolutely okay. And there's going to be certain areas and companies that are more flexible than others.
For instance, if you're in technology, right, you're much more likely, especially if you're in a niche space or a specialist space, you're much more likely to be able to get opportunities that are remote, maybe that are different than say marketing or finance or other roles. Okay. At the end of the day, it's really comes down to the company that you're pursuing and your talent level.
So if you have the talent to be able to dictate and say, this is what I can bring you and I do my best work from home, there's going to be an appetite for that with some companies out there for sure.
But if you're not able to kind of, if you're maybe ascending in your career, if you don't maybe have those options, then there's some level of compromise in work that comes to everybody. So, you know, I look at it this way.
At some points the employee is giving to the company and the and then of course, at some points the company is giving to the employee. It has to be a reciprocal relationship where not one way is getting what they want all the time.
That just never lasts on a long enough timeline in any type of dynamic or relationship. And so I think it's important to evaluate what your priorities are.
If remote is at the top, you might be closing your funnel a little bit, but you're going to be happier and you're going to be in a better space by pursuing that. So if that's your top priority, then make that your top priority and pursue roles in that space.
But if you, if it's purpose and compensation and collaboration and team and company mission, well, then if those are the things that are important to you, then maybe you make the remote work a little bit secondary and don't make that as big a priority.
Jay Schwedelson:That's really interesting and I feel it too. I feel that it's swinging back. I agree with you.
I don't think it's going to fully swing back, but I also don't think that it's ever going to be the way it was. It just, it just won't. The Pandora's Box type thing. So.
All right, I want to get into the last segment of this podcast and we didn't prepare for this, which is amazing. It's called Cincinnati. You didn't ask. We talk about nothing work related or whatever. Now Oz lives near me. He lives in Fort Lauderdale.
I live in Boca Tone, Florida. But I'm a big loser. I go to bed early, I do nothing. I, I, I hope that Oz, you are cooler than I am.
And because you live in Fort Laudelle, I want to know like on the weekends and stuff, are you on a constant spring break? Are you just living this wild life or, or what is Oz's story when he's not talking about hiring.
Oz Rashid:Oh man. I mean I, I must. Maybe it's the, the Persona or the hair. I'm not sure that couldn' truth, my man. Now listen, Fort Lauderdale is an amazing place.
It's an up and cominging city. There's lots of great restaurants. They're doing a lot of great things from a mass transit perspective.
It's really on the come up and I love working down there, but I got four kids and they're 13 down to 5 years old and, and in between and so that takes up a lot of my time.
So I've got this company that, that, that three different businesses that we're running that at different times there's different fires going on or different excitement and successes going on and, and then my focus really then becomes my family and my four kids. What do I do in my free time when I'm enjoying myself? Listen, I have a group of friends like anybody, we enjoy a good glass of bourbon.
I love sports, super passionate about sports. We were talking about that earlier. Football, basketball, soccer. I love to attend games when I can.
I have all the different like Sunday tickets and NBA package to watch my hometown teams and so that's really where a lot of my time. But at the end of the day, like, you know, you're always making decisions right on what you have to be, ability to prioritize.
I've got to be a great leader for my organization first. I've got to be a great father and husband first and then all that other stuff is somewhat secondary.
But don't get me wrong, I'm going to get you out, maybe out in Fort Lauderdale. We're going to spend some time together. I'll get you to stay up past your bedtime and we'll enjoy it. We'll enjoy our time together.
Jay Schwedelson:Dude, four kids, five to 13, that you are in it right now, man. You are just in it. Like you get home and there must be like a lot of action in your house.
Oz Rashid:A lot of action. And my kids have personality for days and they all got opinions. In fact, my biggest haters are my kids.
Like they're the ones that like keep me in check and let me know how I'm doing, what I'm not doing. It's pretty amazing. I love being a father.
There's a lot of parallels between managing a team and growing people within your team and obviously growing a family and growing your children, helping them develop to what you want them to be. So yeah, I really enjoy that part of My life. And it's pretty much the reason I do what I do.
Jay Schwedelson:I love it. I love it. All right, so let me. Let me blow up Oz here for a second.
So, first of all, the way that I connect with Oz is because he has an incredible podcast. I'm not just saying that. There are a lot of podcasts out there that are epically boring. His is awesome. It is called Higher Learning.
We're going to put it in the show notes, but you got to give this thing a listen. He doesn't just have on HR people. He's all business people. So check out Higher Learning and Oz. How do people find you? How do they find your company?
Share it all.
Oz Rashid:Yeah. So we're on LinkedIn, right? You can find our company MSH, and it does stand for we can cuss on this podcast. I can see happen. Okay.
I just want to make sure you can find us on LinkedIn there. You can find me on LinkedIn at Oz Rashid. You can find me at TikTok at Oz Rashid.
If anybody wants to email me, you can get me at oz.talentmsh.com I'm happy to answer any questions. I'm happy to help. My. My mission, my life's work is to help transform hiring for companies and. And. And candidates for the better.
And so anything I can do to kind of take steps towards that, I am happy to do, whether that be an individual or an organization. So I hope I hear from lots of people, and I really appreciate you having me on.
If you're gonna listen to one of the episodes of Higher Learning, I would highly recommend the episode with Jay. You were incredible. I loved all the conversation. I do have something I want to ask if we have a minute.
Jay Schwedelson:Oh, yeah.
Oz Rashid:We talked a lot of reality tv, and since recorded, I. My wife got me into a new reality TV show called Summer House. You're familiar with this?
Jay Schwedelson:Yes.
Oz Rashid:Okay.
Jay Schwedelson:Very.
Oz Rashid:So I got caught up on all the seasons, and I just give me your. Your take on. On this show and what you think.
Because I'm watching it kind of as a third party, as my wife is enjoying it, I'm just interested in your take on it.
Jay Schwedelson:Well, that's a great question.
So Summer House, for those of you have a life and don't know, is a reality show that's all about these people that are doing a share in the Hamptons together, and they're in this house. And here's my take.
The first few seasons, Summer House were great because it was these young people, and they didn't really know each other and were they going to be in a relationship or not? And they were drinking too much and it was chaos.
But the problem in my opinion of the show, and then I want to know what you think is that they kept with the same basic cast and now these people are older. They all really know each other. Some of them got married and I don't care about, like, you know, their long term relationships.
I want new people, I want new things. And so I think it's gone into the toilet. That's my opinion. What do you think?
Oz Rashid:I think that is a great assessment. So I, my wife heard about the show from a. A podcast called the Giggly Sisters or whatever it may be with Paige Disorba. And we're actually.
I got our tickets to go to an event later this year, but my take was I really like the premise of the show, how they live in New York in the week and you kind of get to see them at work and then they go to this house in the Hamptons and just to your point, chaotic drunkness. I agree with you though.
As they've started to build like, familiarity with the characters, they've all kind of dated or married at some point, they're the type of issues and drama they have is, is, is no longer like the fun, childish stuff. It's like the adult stuff. I'm totally with you, man. So as I've watched the progressive said, man, can we get a new cast or what's going on here? No.
Jay Schwedelson:Yeah.
Oz Rashid:Anybody out there? But just that's my take.
Jay Schwedelson:Well, we were on the exact same page. This might be the most important thing that we talked about on this episode. Absolutely. All right, well, this was awesome. Everybody. Follow Oz.
Connect with Oz. He's the man. Oz, thanks for being here, man. And next time we're going to do something in Fort Lauderdale. It's happening.
Oz Rashid:Yeah. I appreciate you. Namaste, my man. All right, thanks. You did it.
Jay Schwedelson:You made it to the end. Nice. But the party's not over.
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