Dec. 22, 2025

LinkedIn Recruiting Secrets That Actually Drive Placements

Welcome to another episode of The Elite Recruiter Podcast! Today, we're unlocking the secrets of LinkedIn recruiting with Stephanie Holman, a powerhouse recruiter in the highly cleared national security, intel, and defense space. Hosted by Benjamin Mena, this episode explores how Stephanie Holman built a thriving community of over 72,000 LinkedIn followers—more than half with active security clearances—and turned her digital presence into a consistent engine for high-level placements.

From making the leap out of education and military service to finding her footing in tech recruiting at AWS, Stephanie Holman shares her journey of relentless self-investment, genuine relationship-building, and the strategic use of LinkedIn to open doors that would otherwise remain closed. She gives practical advice on content creation, handling fear and criticism online, and leveraging authenticity to stand out in the quiet, competitive world of cleared recruiting.

Whether you're new to recruiting or a seasoned pro looking to supercharge your online brand, this conversation is packed with actionable insights, real-life stories, and a powerful reminder that success on LinkedIn is possible for anyone willing to put in the work and stay true to their values. Tune in to learn how you, too, can build influence, make more placements, and impact lives!

LinkedIn Recruiting Secrets That Actually Drive Placements

 🎙️ Episode Hook

Most recruiters think LinkedIn “doesn’t really work.”

She quietly proved them all wrong — and built a real hiring engine in the process.

🏆 Elite Recruiter Awards – Voting is Open

Recognize the recruiters and leaders making a real impact.

Vote now → https://benjaminmena.typeform.com/to/tK5kwRMe

🚀 Why This Episode Matters

If you’re an agency recruiter or firm owner struggling with cold outreach, low response rates, or inconsistent pipelines, this episode will change how you look at LinkedIn.

You’ll hear how one recruiter built a powerful community that drives inbound candidates, referrals, and placements — without spam, gimmicks, or chasing uninterested talent.

This is about leverage, trust, and long-term recruiting advantage.

🧠 What You’ll Learn

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How to turn LinkedIn into a daily inbound sourcing engine

• The biggest mistake recruiters make when “building a brand”

• Why top candidates watch your content before ever reaching out

• The mindset shift that turns posts into real placements

• Why community beats cold outreach for senior-level talent

• What to post (and what NOT to post) to build instant trust

• How recruiters can win without becoming “cringe influencers”

👤 About the Guest

Stephanie Holman is a high-performing recruiter in the cleared and national security space who built a massive LinkedIn presence and a reputation-driven hiring pipeline by showing up consistently and delivering value.

Her approach challenges traditional recruiter marketing — and it works.

🔥 Extended Value Tease

Imagine candidates reaching out already informed, already trusting you, and already interested.

This episode isn’t about hacks.

It’s about building a recruiting business that compounds over time and makes every future placement easier.

 

 

▶️ Listen Now

If you want to future-proof your desk and stop relying on cold outreach, this is a must-listen episode.

Press play and take notes.

 

 

 

⏱️ Timestamp Highlights

00:02 – Why LinkedIn “doesn’t work” for most recruiters

05:10 – The ROI of community-first recruiting

09:45 – How ghost candidates really job search

14:30 – Why job posts don’t drive placements

19:20 – Trust as a recruiting growth lever

24:05 – Why consistency beats talent

29:40 – The confidence shift recruiters need

35:15 – What agency recruiters can steal

41:00 – Avoiding burnout while scaling

47:10 – Why this approach wins long-term

54:30 – Final advice for recruiters starting now

 

 

🤝 Sponsors

🚀 Atlas – AI-first ATS & CRM

Automates admin, syncs resumes/emails, and builds AI-powered profiles.

👉 https://recruitwithatlas.com

🚀 Pin – AI Recruiting Assistant

24/7 AI for sourcing, outreach, scheduling, and screening.

👉 https://www.pin.com/

 

 

🎯 Summit + Community

🎯 2026 Sales & BD Recruiter Summit

https://bd-sales-recruiter-2026.heysummit.com/

💼 Join the Elite Recruiter Community

(All summits, replays, Billers Club + Split Space)

https://elite-recruiters.circle.so/checkout/elite-recruiter-community

 

 

🛠️ Tools & Links

PeopleGPT → https://juicebox.ai/?via=b6912d

Talin AI → https://app.talin.ai/signup?via=recruiter

Pin → https://www.pin.com/

Subscribe → https://eliterecruiterpodcast.beehiiv.com/subscribe

YouTube → https://youtu.be/2N4so9xKa0U

Stephanie Holman → https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniejholman/

Benjamin Mena → http://www.selectsourcesolutions.com/

LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminmena/

Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/benlmena/

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
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Benjamin Mena [00:00:35]:
Visit pin.com to book your demo today. Coming up on this episode of the.

Stephanie Holman [00:00:39]:
Elite Recruiter Podcast there is definitely a return on investment with the time that I put in on LinkedIn. If there was not, I would not do it. It is one of the best things that is ever being laid off. That is is one of the best things that has ever happened to me professionally and I say that with great care and respect to people that are going through it. It doesn't feel good at the time.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:04]:
Welcome to the Elite Recruiter Podcast with your host Benjamin Mena, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership and placements. Admin is a massive waste of time. That's why there's Atlas. The AI first recruitment platform built for modern agencies. Doesn't only track resumes and calls, it remembers everything. Every email, every interview, every conversation. Instantly searchable, always available and now it's entering a whole new era.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:39]:
With Atlas 2.0, you can ask anything and it delivers with magic search. You speak and it listens. It finds the right candidates using real conversations, not simply looking for keywords. Atlas 2.0 also makes business development easier than ever with opportunities you can track, manage and grow client relationships. Powered by generative AI and built right into your workflow. Need insights. Custom dashboards give you total visibility over your pipeline. And that's not theory.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:04]:
Atlas customers have reported up to 41% EBITDA growth and an 85% increase in monthly billings after adopting the platform. No admin, no silos, no lost info, nothing but faster shortlists, better hires and more time to focus on what actually drives revenue. Atlas is your personal AI partner for modern recruiting. Don't miss the future of recruitment. Get started with Atlas today and unlock your exclusive listener offer at recruit with atlas.com I am so excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast because this guest has done the impossible she has done something that I have been saying for years that cannot be done on LinkedIn and now she's proven me wrong. Over this past year and a half that I've gotten to know her, I have been wrong. But here's the thing. What she has done is something that every single one of us can do or should be doing.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:54]:
She's taken, like, everything people are saying and she actually implemented it. And she is making placements day after day and week after week in the highly cleared space. Like, this is talking like the CIA, NSA, all the crazy intel agencies, TSSCI, CI, Poly, Full Scope Poly. She's developed the community on LinkedIn and that community is turning into hire after hire after hire. So we are excited to have Stephanie on to break down exactly how the hell she did it and how she has proven me wrong. Man, I feel like an old dog. Welcome, Stephanie.

Stephanie Holman [00:03:32]:
Thank you. Thank you. I don't even know how to follow that intro. You can be my hype person any day of the week. I'm actually going to sit up straight Raider right now to introduce myself. That was so dang good. So, yeah, for your listeners that don't know me, I'm Stephanie Holman. I recruit for national security, intel, defense, all in the cleared space.

Stephanie Holman [00:03:54]:
Right. So I recruit primarily engineers at the senior level. So senior systems engineers, solution architects, and a long list of other positions. That is just a super quick intro. And like you said, I've been leveraging LinkedIn and social media and we're going to talk about that.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:12]:
Yeah, we're going to go deep into this because, like, my God, the ability to build a community on LinkedIn and turn that into a gold mine. I've seen very few recruiters become elite doing that and excited about your story. So let's take a few steps back. How did you even end up in this wonderful world of misfit toys? Recruiting.

Stephanie Holman [00:04:33]:
Yeah. So to give you the quickest version of my story, so I actually started in higher education. Educationally, I have a master's in education, school guidance counseling, K through 12. So I started at the elementary level and eventually found myself in the higher ed community and stayed there for a really, really long time. I loved education. I really believe in access to information. Knowledge is power. I could rattle on and on, but basically at the college level, I was doing a lot of things.

Stephanie Holman [00:05:04]:
But for the purpose of this podcast, I'm going to just focus in real quick on some things that relate. I was recruiting for, like, computer science, information security programs. Right. So I knew all these degree Programs I got to know a lot of students. The students in the population I worked with, they were military, they had security clearances. Right. So I'm studying the stage here. There's a lot of things that happen in your life where pieces are kind of lining up together, but you don't kind of know where the puzzle pieces were coming together yet.

Stephanie Holman [00:05:34]:
Anyways, so those are the types of programs that I recruited for on the higher ed. Side. Long story short, I maxed out. This is not earth shattering information. There's not a lot of money in education. It just is what it is. Right. And so at some point I needed to decide, you know, whether or not I could stay in education financially and I couldn't.

Stephanie Holman [00:05:56]:
So I started spinning my wheels and trying to figure out where to go next. I'm also a military veteran. Right. And so as a veteran I had access to this program called Hiring Our Heroes hoh. Very well known shout out to these folks because it's such a critical piece of my story. I ended up applying with HOH to do a fellowship program through my resume in there and Hiring Our Heroes said, have you ever considered tech recruiting? We think you've got this fantastic foundational background for it. So long story short, resume goes in there, hits a bunch of tech companies like aws. And I ended up getting a number of offers through AWS and I got to cut my teeth with Amazon Web Services.

Stephanie Holman [00:06:45]:
First time in tech ever.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:47]:
Your first time recruiting was aws?

Stephanie Holman [00:06:50]:
First time recruiting in the tech space with aws.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:53]:
Which division of AWS did you join?

Stephanie Holman [00:06:56]:
Yeah, so this was. I supported the, it's called the AI2 initiative. So it's the, it's the intelligence sector and basically they would take any. Yeah, I won essentially Willy Wonka's ticket right into the factory of us to learn from the best. Some of the best people, right. That have been in this field for years and years and years and cut my teeth with them. So yeah, phenomenal experience. Thank you AWS for that.

Stephanie Holman [00:07:27]:
Supporting military members. It was a wild ride.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:30]:
I love that you like ended up in the cleared space as you jumped into this wonderful world. Because like the cleared space I've always joked around is like this quiet, this underground thing and you and maybe like two other people are really just bringing it to the forefront of like what's happening out there. So like we're going to get into that shortly. But so you went from. You worked at AWS for a few years and like after that, where did your story go?

Stephanie Holman [00:07:57]:
Yeah, I want to touch on something Before I get to that point, because I think this is so critical for recruiters that want to make a jump right in industries. Yes, I got the magic ticket, right? But make no mistake, when I got there, my hiring manager shout out to Andy Gill, he level set me and he said, hey, when you come in, there is a massive learning curve ahead of you, right? You have to run as fast as you can. Link up with people that, you know, you perceive to be successful, you like their style, jump in. And I did just that. Right. Leave your ego, your humble, leave that all at the door. You want to jump in tech, you need to learn tech. You need to learn how to speak tech.

Stephanie Holman [00:08:39]:
You know, you need to develop those hiring manager relationships. Go all in. And don't expect people to train you either, right? Because everyone at AWS is very, very busy. So I took a tech recruiting course, right, So I could learn different tech stacks. I Invest. It was 1200 bucks to do that of my own money. It was an eight week course. So again, I want to mention that because it's not just like I got lucky in all the pieces fell together and off I went.

Stephanie Holman [00:09:08]:
It's this magical story. No, no, no. I had many, many days of doubt, right? Many days of YouTubing. How the heck do I say this word? And what does it mean? You know, is it Jason or Jason? Like you have to invest in yourself. So back to your question. I worked at AWS for about a year and a half. Unfortunately, I was interested.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:31]:
We're going to stay on AWS for a little while longer and shout out to Andy, Andy, I love you. You're amazing, brother.

Stephanie Holman [00:09:35]:
I know. And he now works with me. I recruited him to my current company.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:40]:
So perfect. Okay. So okay, the cleared space is crazy. The hiding cleared space is crazy. How did you like start integrating with these hiring managers and with these programs where they, they can't like invest it in your own money onto a recruiting course. You're learning how to work these like crazy programs or proposals. And how did you start working with these hiring managers who can't tell you anything?

Stephanie Holman [00:10:06]:
Yeah. So I think I mentioned leaving your ego at the door. And there's a lot you can get pretty far in life with just being humble. I am, I'm going to go off key here. People know when you're bullshitting them. So when I was developing relationships with my hiring managers, be it at AWS or where I am now, I came in and introduced myself, but let them know like where I'm coming from, the level of understanding that I have and that I wanted to support, support them. So building that relationship is just so massively critical. And then you talk about, you know, the criticalness of intake.

Stephanie Holman [00:10:42]:
You need to know as a recruiter what you are recruiting for right beyond the job description, the job descriptions. In the cleared space, they tell you nothing. They're pretty generic. So you have to have those conversations with your hiring team to say, okay, can you tell me a little more? Get right to the line. I don't want anyone to do anything, you know, unethical, illegal, so that sort of thing. And then, you know, you start having these screening questions and inevitably candidates are going to ask you things you don't know. That's okay. Don't shoot from the hip and try to make something up.

Stephanie Holman [00:11:14]:
Don't do that, don't do that. Never ends well. But you can say, you know, that's a great question, I don't know. And that one, it hasn't come up, you know, in, in my intakes, whatever. And then follow up with the hiring team, it's okay to do, it's okay to tell people they don't know. And cleared engineers respect that. They would rather you say I don't know versus I'm just going to talk in circles and BS you and try to like hope that you forgot what you asked and don't do it. Just don't do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:45]:
Like all those engineers know all the projects and the programs. It's crazy.

Stephanie Holman [00:11:50]:
Yeah, they do. Very smart people.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:52]:
This is kind of like off topic, but one of the times, many, many years ago, I came back to my desk from lunch and a security team was at my desk waiting for me because somebody shot me a piece of information and they had to come collect all my data to get it swiped.

Stephanie Holman [00:12:07]:
Oh yeah, that's like what my nightmares are made of, you know, And I've said many times like, no, no, no, no, no, no, stop, stop. Don't share that, don't share that.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:18]:
Yeah, yeah. I didn't realize it was shared. It was, it was on email thread, then it all got flagged and next thing you know I come back from lunch and multiple people are just waiting for me in my queue. But I'm like, hi guys.

Stephanie Holman [00:12:28]:
Yeah, your computer lights up multi Christmas tree.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:32]:
Good job, Ben. You're not fired this time, but next time you will be. And I'm like, it wasn't me anyways. Okay, okay. So aws, you had to work hard to get integrated there.

Stephanie Holman [00:12:45]:
Very, I'm talking 10 to 12 hour days. Very, very hard. I aligned Myself with an individual still there. Shout out to Josh Sachs, one of the phenomenal recruiters that I've seen in action. And when I went to him, I just said, I would love to listen in on some of your phone calls. Right. To see how you do this, what your style is. I'm not saying I liked everything about his style, but as a recruiter, you can adopt what you want and modify as you go.

Stephanie Holman [00:13:15]:
And what I learned very quickly about Josh is he had such an incredible referral system. So we can talk about that a little bit more. But you know, people are walking, talking advertisements. That is better than any commercial, any newsprint ad. They remember how you've treated them. And so you do that enough times, you have these good, candid experiences. Of course you're going to be top of mind. Hey, Stephanie treated me fantastic.

Stephanie Holman [00:13:45]:
Benjamin, he's top notch. I didn't get the job, but I had a good experience and I left feeling valued, you know, and respected during the process.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:55]:
So want to continue through this AWS story. And I know unfortunately it didn't end as well as you wanted it to be, but maybe that there was silver lining in that.

Stephanie Holman [00:14:06]:
There. There definitely was. It is one of the best things that is ever being laid off. That is. Is one of the best things that has ever happened to me professionally. And I say that with clear, great care and respect to people that are going through it. It doesn't feel good at the time. Right.

Stephanie Holman [00:14:24]:
I had a wide range of emotions and things to process. Fortunately, with that layoff, I knew that I would probably be impacted months in advance. Right. So I had time to chew on what my next steps were going to be if I was impacted. Do I utilize social media to put up an open to work banner and then think through how do I want to write about that online? Right. So I had my exit message crafted months in advance. Now, this was not a one time. Here's my draft.

Stephanie Holman [00:14:59]:
I'm ready to go. No, no, I wrote this. I looked at it every week, looked at it every revise, revise. And so that was my way of announcing to the world that, yeah, I'm open to work. I'm getting. I want to get right back in there. For me, I had a phenomenal experience. And again, with my backstory, coming from education, I am deeply grateful for any time that AWB allowed me to be there.

Stephanie Holman [00:15:25]:
Yeah, it didn't end the way that I wanted to be or that I wanted it to, but at the end of the day, they selected me. Someone with zero experience in Tech recruiting. There are thousands of recruiters, thousands, who had more experience than me, who would love to have had that opportunity. So for me, I left with gratitude.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:48]:
Awesome. And you jumped into whole nother cleared recruiting role. And this is where, I think this is where we're going to go deep with your story because you came out of nowhere in the cleared space. I was like, who the hell is this woman?

Stephanie Holman [00:16:06]:
Yeah, yeah. So I crafted this exit message, again, just leading with, with gratitude. And because I had been utilizing LinkedIn to talk about the cleared space, I already had visibility, you know, at that, at that point. What I grossly underestimated when I went into thinking about, like, LinkedIn, what I wanted to bring to that platform. Right. Was value for everyone in the cleared space. Right. Again, access to information.

Stephanie Holman [00:16:32]:
Kind of like the show Seinfeld. It's a show about nothing. How do you apply that to the cleared space? You just talk about everyday stuff. Doesn't have to be, you know, life changing, but you talk about everyday stuff. What I GROSSLY Underestimated with LinkedIn was the exposure for myself. I never built that account with the intention of necessarily for myself, utilizing it to find a job or whatever. And so when I put that exit message up, there's two things that happen that are important. Number one, the engineers that I had recruited, they saw it, right? And this is where candid experience, treating people well with respect comes into play.

Stephanie Holman [00:17:14]:
These guys and gals, like, holy smokes, my LinkedIn messages, my phone lit up right from these cleared engineers saying, I'm number one. I'm so sorry you were impacted to. I gave your name, your number to my former employer to like, they were making immediate connection for me. And from those connections, I had immediate interviews on roles that I didn't even apply to. Didn't even apply to. And you think about the power of that. These are cleared engineers that have said, this person recruited me. I like their style, she's sharp, whatever, a bunch of complimentary stuff.

Stephanie Holman [00:17:54]:
And they got me immediate access to my next opportunities. You know, I'm so deeply thankful for that. So please, anyone who's listening, man, watch how you treat people.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:09]:
That is absolutely crazy because I know hundreds of recruiters that got impacted, and many of those recruiters did not have actual candidates becoming their advocates.

Stephanie Holman [00:18:23]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:24]:
All right, so, like, we're going to do a deep dive in community building and LinkedIn branding and talking about nothing online. Seanfield. So real quick, how many followers do you have on LinkedIn at the time.

Stephanie Holman [00:18:36]:
Of this recording, 72,100 something. I love showing. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Look, I know the number, but I know the number.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:46]:
So 72,000 followers. And what would you say, percentage of those have security clearances?

Stephanie Holman [00:18:54]:
You know, I would say a little more than 50%. The rest are individuals who are looking to get into the cleared space. And that's something I think, for all of us in the cleared space, regardless of what type of position you are in, pay it forward, pave the road for someone else. Again, access to information. A lot of people don't know about the cleared space, how to even look for a role where you can get clearance, sponsorship. So, yeah, a good percentage, I would say the rest are individuals just looking to make the job.

Benjamin Mena [00:19:24]:
So here's what I have actually said for years. And maybe this is like an old dog, get off my lawn, whatever it is. But I'm like, people don't live on LinkedIn, they live on other places because of whatever. And then I've watched, see, and I've watched you over the last, was it two years? Like literally just build this entire community. And here's one of the things, here's the important thing that I want you guys to listen to about this. So often we talk about LinkedIn being a community and when you post something within that quote unquote community, you can make placements, you can make money, you have opportunities, things happen, but you have to cultivate that, that digital community. Taking a few steps back, did you think about all this or was it just like a happy accident that happened?

Stephanie Holman [00:20:15]:
Gosh, that's a, that's a loaded question. You know, I approached it as an experiment. I, when I started on LinkedIn, when I just started at AWS, I saw some really big accounts, right? And so my initial thought process was, oh, these people are just really lucky, right? They're good looking, they play the part, they speak the part, they are just operating at a different level. And then I think what you find out is, no, they're willing to do it, they're willing to suck, they're willing to put the work in, but there's also a framework, right? They have dialed in their messaging what value they want to bring to the platform. And I wanted a part of that. I also saw that there is an opport, there was an opportunity at that time and there still is, there still is a massive opportunity for cleared recruiters to jump on this platform and bring more information about the cleared space to LinkedIn because there's just not a lot of information there. So for me, yeah, it's it, it started as, as kind of like, how are these people doing this, right? And then, how can I do this? And what does that look like? And then trial and error, experiment, experiment, experiment. But the more you do that, the stronger you get at it, right? And then your followers, they will tell you what's valuable to them.

Stephanie Holman [00:21:31]:
I think the biggest misstep I went into LinkedIn with specifically was what do I want to say about myself? Like, what parts of me do I. Me, me, me, me, me. No, no, wrong. It's about you. It's about you. Clear community. What do you need? What do you find valuable? And if you listen to your comments, responses, impressions, LinkedIn's gonna tell you that they're gonna say, hey, this piece of content worked, this didn't. And so you reiterate, right? And just keep trying and then it'll all just kind of come together.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:04]:
So I'm gonna attack this more. But I also want people to see what the end game is. Like, so 72,000 followers, I'm guessing about 40,000 of those already have security clearances. So, like, that's a massive number. That's a huge. Like, when it comes to your recruiting desk and what you're hiring for and the managers you support and the programs that you support, you're making a ton of hires.

Stephanie Holman [00:22:25]:
I am, yeah. I am, yeah. I'm seeing a lot of success again. I try to stay really humble, but there is definitely a return on investment with the time that I put in on LinkedIn. If there was not, I would not do it. A lot of my content writing happens before and after hours on the weekends. For the senior level folks that I've hired from LinkedIn, they have ghost profiles. I would never find them with a normal Boolean search.

Stephanie Holman [00:22:56]:
Their experience isn't listed in their profile. Nowhere does it mention they've got a security clearance. It's a ghost profile. There is no way I would find their profile. And a lot of these folks, they sit and watch, right? They'll never like a post, they'll never comment on a post. But they continuously see me in their feed and a lot of the feedback that I've gotten from them is like, hey, number one, I like that you're on this platform. I appreciate the accurate information that you share and I've learned a little bit about you and what your style is. People want to know that you will advocate for them and that they can trust you.

Stephanie Holman [00:23:34]:
So my avatar, so to speak, my, my LinkedIn representative digitally is out there. So someone, without talking to me can go and go, huh? Okay. I see how Stephanie interacts. I see what she finds. Valuable hiring timelines. They gain access to that before they ever speak to me. And then they can make the determination. Because let's be clear, highly cleared folks, especially at the senior level, they have lots of options.

Stephanie Holman [00:24:05]:
There are Stephanie's every which way from Sunday out there that they can contact. Why should they contact me? Why should they spend their time. So yes, there's a lot of cleared engineers on LinkedIn. That is fact. That's not my opinion. That is fact from the outreaches and placements I've made.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:21]:
And that's why I want to kind of jump to the almost the end of the story. Like, hey, no, like there's an roi. There is. You were seeing the benefits of like building this online community for like the last, what, two years? Really? You've dialed it in?

Stephanie Holman [00:24:33]:
Yeah, two years. I would say two years. The accounts, it's taken off. Absolutely.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:38]:
All right, so when you're thinking about posting and when you're thinking about like this, are you sharing like, hey, I have this job or what are you actually doing that's getting all these hires?

Stephanie Holman [00:24:48]:
Yeah. So it's really talking about what it is that I do, how I do it, why I do it, the company that I support, I can't stress this enough for a recruiter. You know, if you work for a good company, tell people about it. Like, it doesn't have to be perfect, but people trust people. Right? It's individuals are better than any marketing advertisement People, in my opinion, they want that social, organic, social. They want those firsthand account. Why should I work there? Right. So all of that information, you know, snippets adding up over time, I would say that that definitely draws people to you to check out those roles.

Stephanie Holman [00:25:27]:
So, yeah, I post about the roles I support, the teams that I support. Again, hiring, timelines, candidate experience, what happens at placement, you name it, I'm talking about it. As long as it's not classified or something, I shouldn't be putting on social media.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:43]:
Most people in the cleared space understand what to say and what not to say.

Stephanie Holman [00:25:50]:
Right.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:50]:
But it's also one of those things, like it's such a quiet industry. Why did you decide to go all in?

Stephanie Holman [00:25:57]:
Quite honestly, because I had to. So again, you think of my story, right? I peaked out in education. I had some really big titles. I had gone as far as I could go in that industry. And then I took the biggest professional risk of my life, leaving everything I had known and these positions there Was not many of them. Right. So you have to work years and years and years and then hope and pray that a seat opens for you. Right.

Stephanie Holman [00:26:25]:
So took the biggest professional risk of my life to jump into tech. It was run and I'm so glad again Andy Gill said that like you, you know, just really appreciate the opportunity that you've been given here. So with that and me knowing, okay, speed is part of this, access is part of this, what did I have within my control that other people were not leveraging that I could be bold enough to try? And that was social media.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:57]:
Okay. Now when it came to like the types of postings, like I asked you the question about like job postings.

Stephanie Holman [00:27:03]:
Sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:04]:
Like are you doing videos? Is it all text based? Like, should I be adding pictures? Like, what advice would you give to, to a recruiter listening to this? Like, holy crap. Like, I see the benefit of spending the next one or two years creating a brand, creating a community on LinkedIn, but what should I be doing to actually do that?

Stephanie Holman [00:27:23]:
Yeah. So test it all. I do videos, I post pictures, I sprinkle in a little bit of my personal life. You might, you know, catch my 6 and 8 year old on there, making an appearance here and there. It's primarily though like centered around cleared recruiting. Right. And then just human experiences that, that people can relate to. I'm not the only working mom, right.

Stephanie Holman [00:27:45]:
Trying to figure out, okay, yeah, how do I balance everything and prioritize and still be a good mom and be a kick ass cleared recruiter. So I'm not a fan of like the 1 to 10. Here's what you got to do to be successful guides. None of that matters if you don't find it of value and success for you. And that's where you really have to know yourself. If you hate being on came, do not do a bunch of recordings if you are interested in it. But you know, deep down you're like, I'm kind of afraid, you know, what if people say I'm ugly? What if the what if that. Okay, like work through those fears.

Stephanie Holman [00:28:21]:
Throw a video up there, see how you feel about it. You might just go, that was better than I thought it was. Right. Or it might be a dumpster fire. Delete, get rid of it. Test it all out. There are folks who are just straight up written posters. You'll never see a photo or video from them.

Stephanie Holman [00:28:40]:
There's other folks that are really successful with video content like yourself. You have to experiment, experiment with it all.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:48]:
I hate to use the word influencer because I Kind of cringe when somebody says I'm one. I'm like, no, no, no. I'm a recruiter and I just share stories. But have you seen, like, where else have you seen the benefit wise of you sharing your story and sharing this and gaining all these followers and making all these hires? Like, what else have you seen come out of this? Like the rewards?

Stephanie Holman [00:29:09]:
Yeah, absolutely. So I would say that I've gotten invited to some pretty big tables, right? Clearance jobs. I've spoken at a few of their events, which was scary but fantastic at the same time. And through those experiences, I've gotten to know individuals over at clearance jobs that I wouldn't, I probably wouldn't have had access to. So that's just a quick example of the opportunities that have come. You never know who is watching your account. I've also gotten numerous employment opportunities. So employers out there, they can see how I professionally interact with the world.

Stephanie Holman [00:29:47]:
And you know, this is a challenge for the listeners. I will give you 100 bucks if there's anyone out there listening. One person, you know, I'm not trying to lose a bunch of money here, but if you can go through my account and find anything negative, degrading, disparaging on my account in my posts or comments, I'll give you a hundred bucks. It does not exist. And so these employers that have, I know that's just how I interact with the world. More power to you if you want to do that on your platform.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:18]:
Oh, I just said something negative about LinkedIn games today. I'm like, dang it.

Stephanie Holman [00:30:22]:
It's just for me, this is just like, yeah, this is how I operate. I just don't find the negative stuff valuable. It doesn't add to my life. Right. Like, I live in the real world. I have a 6 and 8 year old to deal with. That is what my life looks like. I'm not fighting people on the Internet, but, but my LinkedIn page, it does show employers how I interact with the world as a recruiter, all that stuff.

Stephanie Holman [00:30:43]:
So I think that's been one of the most unexpected things I get a lot of inquiries about, like, hey, have you thought about, would you like to work with our company? We have a recruiter open. And you know, and so I, I've just been like shocked at that over the last few years.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:02]:
The Recruiter Sales and Business Development Summit is coming back. It is kicking off January 26, 2026. It is going to be the best, biggest, most focused conference for recruiters to help them grow with business development and sales. Remember with all the summits, the live sessions are free. If you want to go for the replays, you got two options. You can go VIP on the summit platform, or you can join the community and have access to all the summits. But this is a summit that you do not want to miss. If you want 2026 to be the absolute best year possible, be there, be ready to learn, and be ready to crush it.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:36]:
I'll see you there. Okay, I gotta ask this question. Like all of us, like fall into recruiting. Like you pretty much fell into recruiting. It seems like you like recruiting.

Stephanie Holman [00:31:46]:
I love recruiting. I don't like it.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:48]:
Here's a quote, here's a question. How did you learn to love recruiting? Because it's hard.

Stephanie Holman [00:31:55]:
Yeah, it's, it's very hard. I like a good challenge. I think my heart is in the right place. Again, I think that just comes with like self awareness, what drives you, what lights you up. This is an extremely hard space to, to be in. I love being part of someone's journey. I always have, right. Education, background, all that stuff.

Stephanie Holman [00:32:18]:
So this just takes it to the next level and then I think it's deeply cool. You know, as a military veteran, the government customers that we support, I can't say some of them right on, on this podcast, but that's something I'm deeply proud of. Like I, Stephanie Holman, this little recruiter over here, had a part in that. Right. Bringing some phenomenally intelligent, experienced folks to the company that I support and these government customers, my heart's in it.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:50]:
So you just hit a thing that I absolutely love. You learn to love it, you love it, but you also understand the value that you have as this matchmaker. And maybe it's easier to see because what we do in the govcon world has a direct impact on lives many times.

Stephanie Holman [00:33:10]:
Absolutely.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:11]:
Let's just say, like looking at other places, other industries, like, you know, medical or engineering or it. How can somebody look at what they're doing recruiting wise, fall in love with it and see the value. What advice would you give to that recruiter?

Stephanie Holman [00:33:26]:
Yeah, I mean, challenge yourself, take on a role that you don't think you can recruit for. You know, nothing about those experiences will build you again with, with loving something. You know, we've all had jobs where you're like, oh, I do not want to do this for 20 years. Like have those honest conversations with yourself. Because ultimately recruiting is a position of trust. Right. If you do not like it, I'm not asking you to love it. If you don't like it.

Stephanie Holman [00:34:00]:
Right. You got to do right by people. Right. It's like the do no harm thing. You gotta be a good advocate for folks, really listen to them, know what it is that they're targeting in the clear space.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:12]:
We're gonna switch gears a little bit.

Stephanie Holman [00:34:13]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:14]:
Do you work proposals at all?

Stephanie Holman [00:34:16]:
I do. I have worked some proposal work.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:19]:
God bless you.

Stephanie Holman [00:34:20]:
I know it's tough. It's tough.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:22]:
So for those that don't know about the proposal process in the cleared govcon space, many times a company has to write a proposal to help win the work. Many times the proposal team waits until the very last second before they talk to recruiting and saying that they need this magical person within 24 to 48 hours or this proposal that they've been working on for six months is going to fail. Has your LinkedIn influence with what you've been doing helped close some proposals?

Stephanie Holman [00:34:52]:
Indirectly, I would say so, yeah. I mean, again, it's just exposure to the company, the culture, back to what you said, the speed, the timeline. That's a common pain point I think companies feel and this is why it's so critical to make sure your recruiting team, your business development team like your partners, right. And coming and saying hey, we'd love to know about this sooner and here's why. It's not exactly easy to find somebody with five years of hands on kubernetes. I think it's closed the gap in some ways. Right. Again, Back to my LinkedIn.

Stephanie Holman [00:35:26]:
Your question. It again is putting information out there about the company.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:33]:
So in the career space, like you've been talking with these ghost profiles that can never be pulled up on a bullying search, they don't say anything about what they're doing, but they're doing the roles that we're looking for. I've had some crazy hires of like meeting people at breakfast locations and the Chick Fil a by one of the Virginia customer locations and crazy stuff. Do you have a crazy placement story that was a successful hire?

Stephanie Holman [00:36:00]:
Nothing. You know, I thought about this one. Nothing too crazy. Just I've had so many candidates who didn't make it in on the first try, the second try, the third try. So I think that would surprise people. And again, like that relationship building piece is so just, it's so important. Also with the notes that are archived from the interviews. So when I was at aws, for example, there was someone who, and I'm going to leave out some details, but there was someone who interviewed for a role, didn't get it right.

Stephanie Holman [00:36:38]:
One of the hiring managers remembered that individual months and months later, and it had nothing to do with that person's experience. They wore a future Amazonian T shirt to the interview. And so when the hiring manager reached out, I was like, who? I don't remember this person's name or what. I know it was a good interview. You know, they hired somebody else, but they were wearing this T shirt, right? And the T shirt got him in the door in the end, you know, they had to go through another interview and all that. But no, I would say my, my craziest stories are just the person that stayed motivated and kept an eye closely on the website, you know, didn't burn the bridge, didn't think they were dead to us. They just, they stayed motivated and persistent.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:27]:
So the future of recruiting, I think there's going to be a separation between, like, types of recruiters and the success of recruiters. And I, I hate to be saying, like, people need to become influencers, but you have to start building a brand. Do you see a divergence between those that are building a brand and those that don't?

Stephanie Holman [00:37:46]:
I do. I mean, you think about how accessible information is to us now, right? I, I didn't grow up with an iPhone or phone at all until I was for my twenties, don't ask for my birthday people. But now we have this. These are super computers in our pocket. And so I think for those who do have some sort of social media presence, again, who are you? What do you do? How do you do it? Why do you do it? What do you like about the company that you support? It, again, gives people access to that information and it might tip the scales for you that they call, you know, Benjamin instead of Stephanie or Stephanie instead of Benjamin. I do think we're going to see more of that.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:26]:
So I know we covered a lot. Before we jump over to the next part of the podcast, is there anything that you want to go deeper on when it comes to community building or building a brand for yourself?

Stephanie Holman [00:38:36]:
Just experiment. Everybody has fears you're not going to be perfect right out of the gate. Right. But through that process, you will figure out what works for you and, and what people value. So be willing to fail. I would have never in a hundred million years thought I would have 72,000 followers. Like, it's. I'm just a regular person, right? Yes, I'm good at my job, but I also know hundreds of other, not hundreds, but maybe like a hundred other recruiters who are fantastic at what they do.

Stephanie Holman [00:39:11]:
So give yourself the chance to fail if you want a piece of this, that is not too late. You can start at any time. Age what you look like, it doesn't matter. People want access to information and value.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:25]:
I love it. Jumping over to the quick fire questions, they don't need to be quick answers.

Stephanie Holman [00:39:29]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:30]:
So I've seen you interact with recruiters, like especially cleared recruiters online on LinkedIn. If somebody comes to you, let's just say they've never been in the recruiting chamber before. They just got hired by a government contractor or a agency that supports the govcon world, and they hit you up like, hey, Stephanie, I see that you're like, you're out there, you're doing great. What advice would you give to me to have a successful career in the recruiting chair?

Stephanie Holman [00:39:54]:
Yeah. You have to know what you're recruiting for. And that starts with having a solid relationship with your hiring managers. Work on your confidence to ask the questions that you, you need to know. Also, one of the things I learned from AWS is AWS is very data driven. Right. Data's kind of indisputable. It is what it is.

Stephanie Holman [00:40:16]:
Know your data, Know your data. Every time you screen and a candidate says, I read this on the job description, I was kind of confused. This didn't make sense to me. Well, tell me more. Why didn't it make sense to you? One of my favorite sayings is, I'm not an engineer and I don't pretend to be. I think that's the most dangerous thing. It's like me walking into the ER and saying, hey, can I help out? No, I can't help out. I'm not a doctor.

Stephanie Holman [00:40:43]:
I know a little bit about a lot related to tech and these roles. But at the end of the day, I'm not an engineer. So if somebody says related to the job description, you know, this doesn't make sense to me. Cool. Tell me more. I'm gathering data points and then collectively, if I hear that from more people, I'm going to go back to my hiring managers because they see me as a trusted source of information. And to say, hey, I'm getting a lot of the same feedback from folks on our job description. That doesn't, you know, make sense.

Stephanie Holman [00:41:14]:
So, new recruiter, a hiring manager can make or break you. In my first conversation with a hiring manager, I always ask just kind of what they expect, Right. What works for them? Again, how can I add value to their processes? Hiring, how can I be a trusted partner?

Benjamin Mena [00:41:35]:
You, you said two things. First of all, you said confidence. Have you always been this confident or did you learn how to be confident?

Stephanie Holman [00:41:41]:
Not at all. No. So confidence is found. I deeply believe this. Through trial and error. Every successful, confident person I've ever met, they started somewhere. They didn't come out of the womb. As, you know, a doctor, the world's best recruiter, whatever, it's built through experiences.

Stephanie Holman [00:41:59]:
And some of those experiences fight you back a little bit. Right. If I forget to ask something in the intake, I get on a screening call, and I'm like, oh, the position's hybrid. Now this person's asking me, well, define hybrid. And I don't know. Ooh, ah. I should have asked that. Right? I think confidence is just built through these interactions, these experiences, and then you do it enough that you retrain your brain to not go, oh, stop the brakes, stop the brakes.

Stephanie Holman [00:42:26]:
You're gonna look stupid. But to just ask the question. Just ask the question. I'm asking the question because I want to help our team meet the hiring goal, whatever that is, and people respect that.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:40]:
So I know the aws. The. The ic. AWS for intel community for those that. I know how they worked. And you mentioned something about know your data. What was the data that you, at the very beginning of your recruiting career, dialed into to make sure that you were successful?

Stephanie Holman [00:42:57]:
Yeah. So how many, you know, applicants were applying that were actually qualified? How many applicants got close to being qualified for the position but were missing some tools, that sort of thing, like, know your numbers as far as who's applying, what their profiles look like? Is what we're recruiting for realistic? Right. Like, kubernetes, in the grand scheme of things, is still a sort of newer technology. But if a hiring manager was like, hey, I need someone with 20 years of Kubernetes. Wait, what? What? So, like, yeah, it's know your data that can really help you to tell factual, accurate stories with your hiring team of what you're running into.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:42]:
You just brought back nightmares. And like, no, you need to go talk to the core, because the core doesn't know what they're doing. Right. The core doesn't have the experience. They just help put it together. So I tell the core that it has not been around for that long, so they need to rewrite the stupid thing. Sorry, guys. Govcon world.

Stephanie Holman [00:43:59]:
Yeah, it really is fun, though. It's. It gets mild sometimes, but, you know.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:03]:
You have to tell the government that they're an idiot.

Stephanie Holman [00:44:07]:
Nicely, nicely, tactfully, professionally.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:10]:
Has there been a book that's had a huge impact on your career?

Stephanie Holman [00:44:14]:
Yeah, I wrote this down because I did not want to forget the author's name Blink. So that's by Malcolm Gladwell. And it's. Oh, how can I describe this without giving too much away? It's about decision making and our unconscious biases that we, that we have. Right. It happens in a blink. You see someone and you're like, oh, this person has this story. No, no, no.

Stephanie Holman [00:44:38]:
I would recommend it for recruiters because there is bias in recruiting and hiring and you need to check your bias at the door because it comes to recruiting, hiring, like, we can impact people positively and negatively. Our brains are super computers. If you think about it, we're taking things in visually through audio. We're like processing all this stuff really quickly and we don't always get it right. So I think anything on bias is a good thing in recruiting.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:12]:
Is there, like, other people outside of books that you also learn from?

Stephanie Holman [00:45:16]:
Oh, gosh.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:17]:
Do you have a favorite?

Stephanie Holman [00:45:19]:
I do. I, I love Amy Miller. I know you know Amy Miller on LinkedIn. She's also, she's still at Amazon and. Oh my gosh, what is she, Project Kuiper? She does stuff with satellites. Wildly cool stuff with satellites. But I just, I love her presence, her advocacy for candidates. Truth telling.

Stephanie Holman [00:45:43]:
Right? Hey, here's what recruiting actually is from someone who is actually a recruiter who has done it for years and years and years. I have massive respect for that and the amount of time that she pours into this and giving free information again so people have access to these opportunities. I, I just, yeah, she's probably my number one and has also just helped me in my own journey of, like, how do I want to show up? How do I want to show up? What kind of like, value do I want to give the world?

Benjamin Mena [00:46:14]:
Do you have a favorite tech tool?

Stephanie Holman [00:46:17]:
Oh, so many. Okay. Related to recruiting right now, I have been using, using Bright Hire. Have you heard of Bright Hire? Okay. Yeah, I, I love it because it can record, obviously you get people's folks permission, but it can record the conversation, take notes. So from a recruiter perspective, I can really, really focus deeply on the conversation. Whereas before, you know, I'm having the conversation, I'm typing, you know, a hundred thousand miles a minute, hoping that I'm accurately capturing that information. Again, this goes back to advocacy.

Stephanie Holman [00:46:57]:
Be a good advocate for people. Part of that is capturing their experience correctly. So I think that Bright Hire eliminates some of those things that you can just kind of naturally miss because we're, we're human in this process. I still take notes myself. So Bright Hire is running. It's capturing stuff. I Still take my own notes as I'm doing that. But yeah, I think bright hire tools like that are tremendously helpful.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:24]:
So one of the things about the cleared space is cleared recruiting isn't nine to five.

Stephanie Holman [00:47:28]:
No, not at all.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:30]:
It's a lot of weekends, a lot of after hours. You got two wonderful kids. I've seen them on LinkedIn.

Stephanie Holman [00:47:36]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:36]:
How do you balance being a rock star recruiter with also balancing a family?

Stephanie Holman [00:47:44]:
Yeah, I think, number one, it starts with the company that you're supporting. I could not do what I do if it weren't for the support of the company. So what does that actually look like? It means that I can flex my hours here and there. Right. If I choose to jump on on a Saturday, I can maybe leave early during the week. The other piece of that is you don't have to be perfect. I think when I started in my head, I thought, okay, I want to sound like super professional. Heavily scripted, no background noise.

Stephanie Holman [00:48:14]:
Here's the thing, as you build your following, your community, whatever. My number has been given out multiple times and I'm getting a lot of referrals. So, yeah, sometimes I'll get a call on a Saturday at a soccer game. I answer the call and I quickly realize, oh, this person's calling about something recruiting related. Hey, I have a few minutes. As long as you don't mind background noise. And people, they're like, no, I'm good. I'm calling you.

Stephanie Holman [00:48:41]:
That doesn't mean I stay on the phone for a super long time. These calls are pretty quick. But I can say, hey, can you just give me a baseline real quick of your experience? Shoot me an email. Shoot me your resume to, you know, my email address. I'll follow up with you. Thanks so much for calling. So that's really what it looks like. There might be a kid in the background kicking a soccer ball.

Stephanie Holman [00:49:00]:
And people can relate to that.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:02]:
I got a question going back to the community building. Yeah, I think a lot of people are coming inbound to you now, right?

Stephanie Holman [00:49:07]:
Yes, absolutely.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:09]:
At the very beginning of this community building, were you actively out there going adding connections within the space?

Stephanie Holman [00:49:15]:
Yeah, yeah, that's a great tip. And I still do it to this day. I maximize my connections every single week. And what I'm specifically looking for is the population that I'm working with. Folks who are in the cleared space. They have an active clearance. So I'll search by that. I'll add them to my network.

Stephanie Holman [00:49:35]:
Do I send them, you know, an AI generated message and all that? No, I actually don't do that. I just hit connect. The majority, they're like, accept, you know, also LinkedIn. I can't speak too much about the algorithm. I really don't know. This is just from my, like, individual perspective as a user. I've done that enough now to where LinkedIn, it will recommend all cleared connections. So I just, you know, hop on my computer, connect, connect.

Stephanie Holman [00:50:04]:
You, you want to put them in your network. And as I've maximized my connections and they're all cleared, I think like the algorithm knows that's who I'm looking for. And so they, they show up more in my feed.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:16]:
And this is something I made note of and I should have asked you earlier when we're talking about the community building, because I think so many recruiters, they have their 6, 7, 8,000 connections, they keep on talking to those without adding to that bucket of the community.

Stephanie Holman [00:50:29]:
Yeah, I definitely made that misstep too. Like getting it to a certain number. 10,000 was. I just thought, oh, let's just see if I can do 10,000 and then I'll just end it here. And then obviously it kept going beyond that. But, yeah, be really intentional. It's okay to tell people what you are recruiting for, what you're looking for, why you're here. That's okay.

Stephanie Holman [00:50:49]:
And I post that very frequently, like, hey, this is what I do, this is what I'm looking for. These are the types of positions that I'm recruiting for. Tell people what you actually do.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:59]:
Has there been a challenge in your recruiting career that you've had to work through? That's been tough.

Stephanie Holman [00:51:05]:
Gosh, so many, I would say you can't possibly know everything in this space. And so that's again, where you have to let go of your ego and just be willing to suck, you know, a bit. Not every screening call is going to go the way that you want it to go. I think if you keep the heart of what you do as valuing someone's time, like, generally it can't go too wrong. But yeah, when you get on screening calls, if you don't know something that someone's referencing, it's okay to say, hey, I haven't heard of that tool. What, what is that again? Can you, can you give me the spelling of that? Is it comparable to something else? Like, you know, you have a duty to, to capture that information. So be humble enough to ask. And yeah, I don't.

Stephanie Holman [00:51:52]:
Nobody wants to sound like an idiot. I don't want to sound like an idiot. I have. I don't Know if you can see it. But there's all the tech related books I've read several times. I haven't just read them once. I've read them like three times, you know, and I still some stuff I'm like, right, what is that? It's okay not to be perfect.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:11]:
So I've seen your interactions on LinkedIn. I see you talking with other recruiters. I see actually like also advocating for other recruiters.

Stephanie Holman [00:52:19]:
Absolutely.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:21]:
In that I'm also seeing a lot of recruiters like asking you questions, which is super cool. And I'm sure people ask you like the tactical questions like how do you grow your network? How'd you grow your career? How'd you like, you know, get into the places? How are you getting so much inbound? How many inbound like placements and hires you're making and all those tactical questions. Is there a question that you wish recruiters would ask you, but they never do?

Stephanie Holman [00:52:45]:
More questions that are, that are fear related. I think that keeps a lot of people from testing this out. And what I mean by that is no one wants to be judged. We're not always going to get it right with our posts. There might be some information that you get wrong. There might have been something you could expand on a little bit more if you post a picture. I actually have had this happen. Someone was like, you should be more attractive to post selfies.

Stephanie Holman [00:53:16]:
Well, you gotta take it up with my mom, Sandy K. If you don't like, you know. But like I like and I love myself at this age. So that is not damaging for me at all. It's like, oh, I wonder what this person says to themselves. If they can jump on right. And like attack somebody's physical looks, whatever. They're probably not in a good place.

Stephanie Holman [00:53:37]:
It has nothing to do with me, but for a recruiter, especially a younger recruiter, like that could be a really not nice experience. So back to fear. Yeah, I wish, I wish people would talk about what is holding them back. I can give you every framework you want to post and whatever, but at the end of the day you're exposed at some level. With having a social media presence, can you handle the negative feedback and criticism that you inevitably will get? It will happen. It's just a matter of time.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:11]:
It's always the accounts with under 500 connections and mostly no profile picture.

Stephanie Holman [00:54:17]:
It is, yeah, yeah. So and you need to, you know, I think too, I wish people would ask too, like how do you safeguard that? Right. How do you safeguard yourself? How do you protect yourself, your spirit from being impacted by, you know, the negative things and the attack. And I don't get that too often. It happens every blue moon. But now when I see it, I identify it very quickly. If I get some off the wall email. So I'll read a couple words.

Stephanie Holman [00:54:48]:
Stop, pause, delete, block. I don't read the whole thing at all. At all. Couple sentences, you know, couple words. Not even sentences. You're out of there. You're rejected. We will never interact again.

Stephanie Holman [00:54:59]:
So, again, I think that holds a lot of people back with just not knowing where to start and thinking that they have to be like, perfect at all times. You're not. You're not. We're imperfect people. That's what makes us kind of uniquely beautiful. We're not perfect.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:17]:
One last question or maybe two last questions. But like, LinkedIn can just easily suck you down a rabbit hole. You can spend hours interacting, doing all this stuff. With LinkedIn, how do you balance the interaction with the community and actually getting shit done?

Stephanie Holman [00:55:33]:
Yeah. So I have a responsibility to my employer to dedicate the time that they are paying me for to filling the positions that we have that I'm assigned to. That is what I am responsible for. Monday through Friday, 8 to 4, whatever my hours are for that day. And I'm upfront about that. Right. I think you, as a recruiter, you have to know the difference between what a recruiter is and what a coach is. I'm not a coach.

Stephanie Holman [00:56:04]:
I'm a coach for the people that I recruit and work with that are actively in the process. But if someone reaches out and says, hey, Stephanie, I'm, you know, I'm going for this logistics role, which I don't recruit for logistics at all. I don't have any logistics roles. Right. A role that is not in my wheelhouse whatsoever. Do you mind reviewing my resume? Oh, the human side of me, like, of course I want to, but I don't have time for. And that would be a gross misuse of my employer's time. So you need to get really clear with where you are spending your time.

Stephanie Holman [00:56:37]:
Yes, I try to answer as many questions as possible on my own time. But then there's that balance. As a mom, do I take time away from my kids to answer 40 messages, or is the more effective thing to you to do is go through those 40 messages, identify some common themes, and then do a post about it to bring more information to the public? It's not perfect. Some days I get it wrong, some days I get it right. I'm still kind of figuring that balance.

Benjamin Mena [00:57:04]:
Out and last question and then I'll let you go.

Stephanie Holman [00:57:09]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:57:09]:
If you could go back to the very beginning of when you started this journey, this recruiting journey, this building a community journey, have a conversation with yourself, what advice would you give yourself?

Stephanie Holman [00:57:19]:
Yeah, everyone starts somewhere. And for some of your listeners out there, this might be your somewhere. Don't rush the process. There is so much value in the time that it takes to, to learn about your hiring team, what you're recruiting for, job descriptions, like, I know with social media and everything that we have access to, it's like overnight success, be a badass in 10 days. Like, that's not reality. It is for a small percentage of people, but that's not how it really works. Don't rush the process. Right.

Stephanie Holman [00:57:57]:
And you truly are competing with yourself. If, and this applies to any industry out there, any job, if you can be better than the person you were Yesterday, even by 1%, all good. Right. And continue that moving forward. And one day you're going to wake up and go, whoa, I kind of know some stuff here. Right. So you're competing against yourself. If there's high flyers out there around you, don't be intimidated of them.

Stephanie Holman [00:58:23]:
Ask them, how do you do what you do? And can I take 10 minutes of your time to learn a little bit more about it? Drop your ego, be humble. Go find out how people do what they do. Some people are going to say no, some people are going to say yes. Don't limit yourself. Don't close the door on yourself.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:43]:
This has been a phenomenal conversation. But before I let you go, if somebody wants to follow you, how do they go about doing that?

Stephanie Holman [00:58:50]:
Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn. Stephanie Holman. It is spelled just like it sounds. And you will see me on there. Yeah. Connect with me, follow along, shoot me questions. I'm so grateful for everyone out there who does follow because that is exactly where the content comes from.

Benjamin Mena [00:59:09]:
And is there anything that you want to share before I let you go?

Stephanie Holman [00:59:12]:
Yeah, just to the recruiters listening again. Recruiting is such a true, you know, position of trust. We see people at their strongest. We also see them at their weakest. Right. And sometimes that results in someone lashing out, someone maybe acting inappropriate with you. We're all human job searching. You know, financial pieces are really, really stressful.

Stephanie Holman [00:59:39]:
Try not to take it personally, but also give people grace.

Benjamin Mena [00:59:44]:
I love this. I just gotta say thank you for proving me. Absolutely. I said for years people would be like, you need to be on LinkedIn. And I'm like, I literally said for years. And this is like before the podcast really took off. Yeah, I don't need to be on LinkedIn because the clear community isn't on LinkedIn, so I don't need to post on the stupid platform. The fun thing about recruiting is there's always somebody out there to prove any theory that I've had wrong.

Benjamin Mena [01:00:08]:
So Stephanie, thank you for absolutely crushing it in the govcon space and showing what's possible on how you can build a community, build influence, and most importantly, with the amount of hires you're making, impact more lives. So for the recruiters out there listening, we've been talking about this. I've had so many people on the podcast talking about what you need to do to build your brand, talking about what you need to do to build a community. She has done it. Go to her LinkedIn profile, watch what she's doing. Because this could easily be a one to $2 million book of business if you follow her game plan and follow her blueprint. So keep crushing it, guys. I want to see what you could do in this next year.

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