Search Solution Group’s Managing Partner for Western New York, Chris Zanghi, was recently featured on Inspire Career’s Spotlight Podcast. This episode highlighted the latest trends and tips for job seekers, directly from the inside knowledge of Zanghi’s recruiting expertise.
Inspire Careers is ran by CEO, Cathy Lanzalaco, of Buffalo New York, and focuses on personalized career coaching and job transition solutions. In this podcast, Inspire Careers Spots on Recruiting, Cathy and Chris discuss detailed yet simple steps to effectively boost the job search process.
Published through Inspire Career’s YouTube channel on November 4th, you can view the full interview video or read through the talking points below to learn more!
CATHY
Well, let’s start off the interview like I start out at every interview and say, “tell us a little bit about yourself first, give us a little bit of information about your background.”
CHRIS
Sure. So, I took a little bit of a different path to the recruiting world. I went to undergrad at Alfred University, and got my degree in general psychology – played a little football while I was there. I later moved down to Georgia Southern University, where I got my master’s degree in sports psychology, and from there moved back to Buffalo. I’ve been here ever since. For the first six years of my career, I was actually a mental health social worker, which was a really interesting time in my life.
After about six years, I kind of reached the top of what I could do there without actually having a degree in social work. So, I decided it was time to move on and took a position with my old high school as the Director of Alumni Relations. From there, I actually ended up taking a position as an outside sales rep with a local printing company here in Buffalo.
A few years later, Jeremy Gnozzo, who is our President and founder at Search Solution Group, reached out to me and asked me if I knew anybody that was looking for a new job. I asked him what the position was, what he was looking for, and he said that he was looking to establish a presence on the ground here in Buffalo.
So my first question was, are you asking me if I know anybody, or are you asking me if I might be interested? I have been with the company now for five and a half years and I am loving it.
CATHY
Excellent. I’m glad to hear that. That’s great stuff. And I love to hear about people that love Buffalo and love building up Buffalo and all the connections. It is a small town, but it’s a great town.
CATHY
Why don’t you talk to us a little bit about Search Solution Group and tell us what type of placements you specialize in?
CHRIS
Sure. What makes Search Solution Group so unique is that we actually have three divisions. Search Solution Group, which focuses primarily on direct hires – anything from entry-level positions, payable accounts, receivable customer service, receptions and all the way up through the managing director level. Then, we also have Search Solution Staffing, which is exactly what it sounds like. It is our staffing division. So, it focuses primarily on more volume temp, temp to perm, contract and contract to hire roles. We also have Search Solution Elite, which is more of our executive-level searches and is really reserved for VP level and C suite level.
CATHY
Have you seen growth in all of these areas within this crazy job market that we were talking about before?
CHRIS
Yeah. Absolutely. 2021 has been pretty much a whirlwind. I’m sure everybody remembers what happened in 2020. Things were down, people were downsizing. It was certainly a difficult time, but especially the past five months or so, it’s been the busiest that we’ve ever seen.
CATHY
Yeah. And I was telling you earlier that I shared a post on LinkedIn earlier today. Just about how my clients are landing jobs, which is awesome, which is my job to help them do that. But the amount of people that are receiving offers after they’ve gotten jobs is what I’ve never seen before. So there’s a lot happening out there. Definitely.
CATHY
So, Chris, what advice would you give job seekers about interacting with recruiters? Give them a tip that is going to help them really make that better connection and help you to help them.
CHRIS
Yeah, absolutely. So the best tip I can give you is to keep your LinkedIn profile updated. A lot of the candidates that we do find are via LinkedIn. We are true headhunters and that is what really sets us apart. We’re going after passive candidates, candidates that are happily employed, not really looking to make a move, but willing to listen for the right opportunity. We are going to find those candidates predominantly through LinkedIn. So again, keep your LinkedIn profile updated. If a recruiter reaches out to you, the best advice I could give you is to respond. Even if you’re not interested, you never know. If a recruiter reaches out to you, it’s definitely worth following up, even if it’s simply “I’m not looking.” It’s good to stay engaged.
CATHY
Yes, it is. I mean, there’s a lot of talking about recruiters online. Recruiter ghosting and so forth. But the pendulum swings both ways. So great tip. Why don’t you just tell us a little bit about your clients that you serve or the type of clients in particular that people can expect?
CHRIS
As I mentioned, I’m more on the business development side. So I’m more the liaison with our client. And when a company has a position they’re looking to fill, I’m the person that they talk to get the details about the position. I then share that with one of our recruiters. The recruiter then is responsible for sourcing and finding candidates that fit the position. What’s nice about this is my focus can be solely on customer service with our client. The recruiter then has their full day to focus on finding the right people.
To continue the conversation, you can view the full interview video here.
