Welcome to The Phone Screen! Every week, we’re featuring the talent folks who get stuff done. Just like the first part of your hiring process, we’re going to get to know people a little beyond their resume by asking about their background, wins, favorite tools, and thoughts on most meaningful recruiting metrics. For our inaugural installment, we caught up with Honeybook’s Employer Brand Manager and Talent Partner, Jess Park.

How did you get into recruiting?

I had studied psychology and wanted to help people, and guiding folks to their dream job was something I could relate to and feel excited about. The feeling of receiving an offer was probably the most exciting aspect for me at the time, and I wanted to be on the other end providing that experience.

What are your most successful hiring channels?

LinkedIn and referrals. We hire about 50% through referrals currently, and all of our sourcing relates back to LinkedIn profiles.

What’s an example of a recruiting campaign, tactic, or hack you used that was really effective?

Time is so precious in recruiting—from that first email to offer, the clock is ticking. So I decided to package up aspects like “What is HoneyBook” and our mission, values, etc. to send to candidates prior to their screening, or at the initial outreach. It saves my team time during our screens in explaining who we are and what the role is, or what we care about, and shows we want to set them up for success.

Which recruiting metric do you focus on the most? How do you calculate it?

Quality of hire. We send a survey to our hiring managers asking how they rate their hires based upon the first 30/60/90 days. That speaks to how well we as an interviewing team found, assessed, and hired. We put the ownership on the hiring managers and the recruiting team, not necessarily the hire themselves.

If you could change one thing about recruiting, what would it be?

Having recruiters do onsite interviews with the rest of the interviewing team. I phone screen my candidates and interview them when they come onsite for an hour and a half. This is of course after I have thoroughly vetted resumes, phone screens were performed by myself and the hiring manager, and they’ve completed an assignment. So I only talk to our top candidates, and it’s scalable. This allows me to focus on culture fit, decision-making, and collaboration, things that are harder to vet when for instance, a hiring manager is sussing out technical ability and strategic thinking.

It also allows me to help the hiring team when they have a gut feeling, but aren’t quite sure how to articulate those softer, intangible qualities of a candidate. Most importantly perhaps, it allows me to have a seat at the table, and I really am a partner to the hiring manager and can really get into my candidate’s corner if necessary, or advise against hiring that person, which does happen occasionally!

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to other recruiters?

Create a thoughtful experience—it doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming, but if you set up processes that scale, it makes a world of a difference to candidates. From the very basic like following up to close out candidates, to checking in throughout the process to see how they’re feeling and being their advocate, to having the hiring manager reach out and building a relationship from day one, it really is those touches that make us stand out from the average interviewing experience.