The Power of Niching Down & Leading with Heart: How Cari Kraft Built a Top Recruiting Firm in Life Sciences

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
Coming up on this episode of the.

Cari Kraft [00:00:02]:
Elite Recruiter Podcast, believe that in order to be a good recruiter for the long term, you have to get a charge out of closing every deal because you get that high of the deal. But you also have to get that feeling of, you know, I'm doing good work. And you know what, when I say that out loud now, it seems kind of crazy. I was 41. I was the sole provider for my family. I had a nine year old. It's kind of like, what was I thinking?

Benjamin Mena [00:00:29]:
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. Attention recruiters. Source Whale has exciting news. Starting July 30th, you can try two powerful new AI tools for free. Inbox agent is like an assistant in your inbox, drafting replies in your voice and automating follow ups. Notetaker joins your calls, transcribes everything and instantly creates AI powered summaries that are automatically logged into your CRM. That means Source Whale handles the busy work while you focus on placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:11]:
Don't wait. Head to source whale.com free trial to start your free trial. I'm so excited about this episode of the podcast because I got my special guest year after year after year. She's a top biller, but we're going to talk about how she became a top biller. We're going to talk about like the path that she took and most importantly, I think one of the two biggest things that we're going to take away from this episode is one, you need to make sure that you niche down if you want to be successful in a recruiter. You cannot be a generalist. You have to niche down. But secondly, bring your heart to the table.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:43]:
Great recruiters, elite recruiters, the pinnacle recruiters, bring their heart to the table. So I am so excited, Carrie, to welcome you.

Cari Kraft [00:01:53]:
Oh, thank you, Ben.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:54]:
Carrie, real quick, the quick 30 seconds before we get started in figuring the deep dive into how you ended up here in this wonderful world of recruiting, give us like a quick introduction about yourself.

Cari Kraft [00:02:04]:
Sure. So I am caricraft, obviously and I run Jacobs Management Group. We are a niche recruiter in the pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device and diagnostic space. We've been doing that for 30 some odd years. I bought company in 2010 and have enjoyed building it and bringing good people to life sciences.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:29]:
That is awesome. And we're going to talk about building a team and all that Stuff. But before we get there, how did you even end up in this wonderful world of recruiting?

Cari Kraft [00:02:38]:
Yeah. So if you would have asked me, starting out, was I ever going to be in recruiting? I didn't even know what recruiting was. And that was never on the radar. I always loved the business of business. And my road to getting here was very, you know, had lots of twists and turns. I started out, I was going to be a computer lawyer way back when. And then I went to school in engineering. You had to have too much math.

Cari Kraft [00:03:03]:
So I moved over to the business school and fell in love with the business of business. After starting two small companies while I was in school, I thought, you know, anybody who really is going to grow in their career in life should go work for somebody who knows what they're doing. So when I graduated, I thought I should get some real experience. I went to work for a technology company and we took the Wharton Capstone course on the road, teaching executives with business computer simulations. And from there I stayed in technology and went to another consulting company, selecting and building systems. And I was the one that was always on the business side. Like, I loved the technology and I loved figuring out how the technology would be used in business. And I'm probably aging myself here, but I was doing that at the time of the birth of the Internet.

Cari Kraft [00:03:57]:
And the only thing I knew back then about life sciences was I did one project which was a competitive analysis project for a medical device company. And it's so funny now because I can clearly remember standing up, presenting to the board about this fast growing company, Medtronic, and their first website. And that's back when they were like $2 billion, you know, who knew they'd become one of my clients. And at that time I was working downtown in Philly and I spent a lot of time having lunch with one of my best friends, Laura, and she had started Jacob's management group. So me being the person who loves the business, of the business, you know, we would talk about the ins and outs of her business and I would love going through the recruiting deals with her. One day over sushi. I even, we even decided that, okay, I'm going to build a model that would help her run her company. Because I loved spreadsheets and we did that.

Cari Kraft [00:04:45]:
And I always knew I wanted to run a company someday. And going through, you know, the dot com bubble and watching before that, all of my, like all of my Wharton classmates, they were doing this with technology and building a business and, you know, disrupting that area and building a business. One Thing led to the next, and Laura and I zeroed in on building a niche job board in the life sciences. So we, after talking about that for a while, and after much contemplation and analysis, I took the leap to join her with the idea that I'd buy the business and also we would build a niche job board in life sciences. Wow. And you know what, When I say that out loud now, it seems kind of crazy. I was 41. I was the sole provider for my family.

Cari Kraft [00:05:33]:
I had a nine year old. It's kind of like, what was I thinking? And the only thing I knew about the actual recruiting process was that in the technology field that I was in, I always felt, you know, I always connected people. Like, I'm an extrovert and I was always connecting people. So I probably made as many placements back then than I, you know, than I did now in recruiting without actually doing any recruiting, but. Oh, go ahead.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:57]:
I was gonna say. And you just never got paid for those placements?

Cari Kraft [00:05:59]:
Never got. No, no, I was a connector. I actually. I was actually in the Society for sim, the Society for Information Management Professionals. And I led the transition group there, helping people, you know, with their careers just because it was a good thing to do. I love helping people. You know, underneath it all, I just love that.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:20]:
Okay, so you started this, like, niche job board based on everything that you're seeing. When did you officially get pulled into the recruiting chair?

Cari Kraft [00:06:28]:
Yeah, so actually the goal was to start this niche job board, but we decided that the first thing I should do is really learn the business, because if I knew the business making the job board, we'd be better, et cetera, et cetera. And so I started right away and I went in and built our marketing practice because it was an area aligned to Jacob's manager group, but I could go and build something. And then when we, you know, about six months in, when we got ready to look and build the job board, we looked around and the ladders had just launched and they did exactly what we were about to do. So we kind of changed direction and I turned my attention to totally focusing on recruiting and ran the business, learned the business, then ran the business together with Laura in like 2008 and 9, and then officially took over in 2010 when Laura retired.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:20]:
Okay, so she retired was like the retirement part of the plan?

Cari Kraft [00:07:25]:
Sort of. The plan was for Laura to continue working as she wanted. She was going to take the summer off, see how it felt in retirement, and then, you know, in the fall, you know, come back and Work as much as she wanted or as little as she wanted. She figured she'd work for another five years or so, but she had a great summer and she never came back.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:48]:
And so, like, you okay? Like, was it just you and her at this point?

Cari Kraft [00:07:52]:
No, it was Lara. I. And we had a few, too. I think we had like a team of five or six back then.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:02]:
Okay. And like, how did you even, like, did you approach her, like, saying, hey, I'll buy this off you, or did she actually say, like, hey, like, I'm looking at selling, like, I'm done. I want forever vacation?

Cari Kraft [00:08:11]:
Yeah. When we made the plans for me to go there, the intention was for her to retire. You know, for me to buy the company. It wasn't for her to retire, but for her to have a plan for her retirement. So it was always planned that way. But it was planned that we would build a job board first. Okay.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:30]:
And we're going to talk about some of the marketing things that you are still doing now that's really helped the business. So we'll talk about that later because it sounds like you've included that in your journey. Let's pull back to 2010 and just like, okay, the company's now yours. You have a team. What were some of the first things that you did? Like, now that you're, hey, oh, crap, this is mine.

Cari Kraft [00:08:49]:
Well, one of the very first things. And it wasn't, and I do have to say, I mean, Laura was great, and we worked over time. Like, it wasn't like 2010. It was like, boom. Here's Carrie. We'd been managing the business together. I had some of the people reporting to me, she had some of the people reporting to her. So it wasn't like a boom.

Cari Kraft [00:09:07]:
But one of the things that I did when we, you know, in 2010 was to go through a vision process, to go through a vision process with the team to look at what we wanted to create for the future. So that was. That was really eye opening. And some of the things that we put in place then we are still living into. What we did was we sat down and we created the vision that we want it to live into.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:35]:
How did you go about doing that with a team?

Cari Kraft [00:09:39]:
There was a lot of. I'm sorry, I'm just envisioning the conference room with all of the, you know, the sticky paper all over. We basically looked at every conversation that we had that wasn't being said and rewrote it and then boiled that down into the principles that we wanted to operate on.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:58]:
And then you like built the team even more, right?

Cari Kraft [00:10:01]:
Yeah, and then we grew the team. It's so interesting to grow a team in recruiting. I mean, it's the hardest part of this business. You know, recruiters, we really need to work smarter, harder and faster to do what we do. And in our industry, because we're in the life sciences space, there's like this extra level of criticalness and regulation because the products that our clients make, they can kill people, you know, and it's so important to have the right talent. And then we add to that. We're not your typical recruiting company. I would say when I interview recruiters that work in other kind of hard, down, focused, you know, all about the money, you know, bill, bill, bill.

Cari Kraft [00:10:45]:
We want a bill, you know, and we have, and we've been successful in growing our revenue, but we're a little bit kinder, gentler, and we go a little bit deeper. It doesn't mean that we're not, you know, top notch hunters, qualifiers and closers, but we want to build the bridge between ourselves and our clients and our candidates. And really we're building that bridge between the client and the candidate. And that takes a lot of integrity and a lot of finesse. So when we recruit for ourselves, we're marrying those two things, you know, the persistence and the resilience and the drive, and then also the facilitation, the understanding, the consultative nature of somebody and then also the heart. I believe that in order to be a good recruiter for the long term, you have to get a charge out of closing every deal because you get that high of the deal. But you also have to get that feeling of, you know, I'm doing good work. And we're lucky in our field.

Cari Kraft [00:11:45]:
You know, we're in the life science space. So pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device diagnostics. If you go to a hospital, your doctor's office, every piece of technology, everything that you take is a pill. You know, all of those products are made by our clients. And so when we make a placement, I believe we're making the world healthier. We get the feeling that they get of doing the good work. So I think you have to, I don't know, that has to make you feel good. When we have our company meeting, one of the things we talk about every year is we go through everybody's favorite placements and why, and it's a component of how they help the person in their career and how they helped our client.

Cari Kraft [00:12:27]:
Right. Because the manager who hired that person will get a promotion because they Bring in good people. That's how anybody in a management position grows. It's by bringing in great people. And then there's the underlying that we helped the person who created the heart, you know, the heart that will keep a five year old alive.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:49]:
Wow. Well, there's like a few things I definitely want to like, dive a little deeper on. First of all, you said that part of your company meeting each year, every single person has to share their favorite placement, the most impactful placement. Like, can you talk about that again for a second?

Cari Kraft [00:13:07]:
Yeah, it's their favorite placement. But consistently the ones that they share and they bring them to me and I share them with everybody. Right. Like it's part of my company, let's say address or whatever, speech or whatever in the beginning of the meeting. Actually, it's usually at the beginning of the dinner party. But what I find is that they get to choose their favorite placement, but what they choose are the ones that are most impactful. And that's how I, you know, that's how I know they're in the right place.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:34]:
So somebody listening to this, they're looking at growing the recruiting team. How did you find these recruiters that are focused on the billing, focused on the heart, focusing on the client and focusing on the candidate? How do you find them?

Cari Kraft [00:13:50]:
Yeah, it's a, it's an interview process. You know, I mean, we find them the way we find candidates for our clients. We leverage our network and we talk to everybody and we get referrals. But it's in our interview process that we kind of ferret that out.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:05]:
Okay. And now that your team's been growing, your team's been doing amazing. Like, how have you been equipping your team for success?

Cari Kraft [00:14:12]:
Number one there is having the team operate as a team. You know, you asked earlier about the process that we went through for creating the vision of the future. One of the things we realized is we had some amazing individuals goals and, you know, metrics and targets and everything, but we had no company goal. Like, and everybody wanted to win. Like, you know, if you're playing a team, if you play baseball, you know, when you win, there's a scorecard and you win. So one thing we did was put a company wide bonus program in so that when we, you know, when everybody wins, everybody wins together. So, like, it's important as a team to have that overall team essence or feeling. From a technology standpoint, you know, given my technology career and background, that's something I think we've probably nailed a little too much, you know, I think, I mean, our recruiters have so many tools and technologies.

Cari Kraft [00:15:07]:
They have access to, you know, everything. I mean, and now with AI, you know, it seems like what we used to do in five minutes, you can do what used to take, you know, a half an hour or an hour. And we've also been really deep in technology. Even Laura, when she started the company, she had somebody build her a database. You know, we're four iterations in, and now, you know, you could search through 350,000 candidates. I think, I think we're probably close to 400,000 now in like 10 seconds. Wow. So, yeah, and each time we upgrade our system, we keep all of our old conversations.

Cari Kraft [00:15:43]:
Like when I talk to somebody on the phone, I can see like, wow. You know, back in 1992, you know, we sent you out as a sales rep and now you're the vp. So there's that. And then another key part is having the processes to go along with the tools. You know, initially, maybe I went a little too far with this, but we found a balance, you know, and with bringing things in, like one of my favorites, probably because it's, I don't know, it's one of the only things I really brought from my kind of Wharton decision sciences background is a multi attribute decision making model. It's just a way of helping clients evaluate candidates. And so we have lots, lots of tools like that. And then there's also building the team through training.

Cari Kraft [00:16:24]:
I mean, we've had, and we, you know, it's been since, you know, I started back in 2004, a weekly training meeting. There's so many facets to recruiting. We can go a whole year and not repeat a topic. And now we also had to add, we have a weekly tech meeting that anybody could attend to help, you know, get any kind of technical walkthrough. So. And training can take lots of, lots of forms. I would recommend to make it fun. I can be really boring and serious.

Cari Kraft [00:16:51]:
And the feedback I've gotten was to people learn better when they have fun. And I should know this. I mean, my first job out of school was building computer simulations to teach business. And it was like, learn by doing. That was what the whole company was based on. So we've done things like from the training of, as a poker game, one of my kind of side vices, I guess you would say, is I love playing poker tournaments. You know, one of my personal claim to fames is I knocked Annie Duke out of. I don't know if you play poker, but I knocked Annie Duke out of a poker tournament.

Cari Kraft [00:17:27]:
I still have the picture, and when it comes up on Facebook, I repost it every year. But I digress. But so to make it fun, you.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:35]:
Know, throwing it out there, I know Scott Love is going to the next conference. I feel like you guys should do a poker tournament in the evening.

Cari Kraft [00:17:42]:
Oh, my gosh. I cannot wait to meet Scott Love. He was one of the people I found back in 2004 when I was, you know, here I am in the new company. Totally different field. I'm used to being a consultant and learning the business quickly, so I just steeped myself in all kinds of anything I could get my hands on. And Scotty Love, he's one of them. And, yes, I love that he's a poker player, and I am so looking forward to meeting him in the next Pinnacle meeting. When I saw him come up on the roster, I was like, oh, yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:10]:
He lives about 10 minutes away from me, so we grab drinks occasionally.

Cari Kraft [00:18:13]:
Oh, my gosh. Oh, you. Oh, it's like, you know, meeting your idol. It was like, oh, my gosh. When I met Danny Cahill in person, it's like, oh, I still can't talk to him, and I still can't talk to him at a Pinnacle conference. I like it all.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:26]:
Like, if you want a good laugh. I think the last Pinnacle conference was my first real speaking opportunity, and you guys had me go after Danny Cahill, so I just wanted to cry. But anyways, I digress. Okay, so I got a question for you. So, like, you're a Pinnacle Society member. You also have a team that's doing it. How do you juggle being a top biller while at the same time, like, working with an entire team to making sure that they're growing and they're, like, chasing their dreams and hitting their goals?

Cari Kraft [00:18:53]:
Yeah. So it's interesting. In Pinnacle, there's a formula when you look and you break down your revenues, which is great, because I really am client focused. So we do a lot of breaking up of our. You know, like, when we do our internal revenue, we actually kind of chunk our revenue like Pinnacle does. And so I'm focused on bringing in clients and then managing clients and then staying involved. But my people really are stepping in to, you know, in our world. You start, you learn the business, then you become, like, a recruiting partner where you source candidates and you work with a recruiter.

Cari Kraft [00:19:34]:
Then you become a candidate developer, and you move up and you manage more of the candidate interactions. Then you take on candidate management, Then you take on the whole, you know, the whole thing. So over time, we've built that structure and everybody, you know, I have a lot of great people who do it all and then have built out their components. So we originally started, we were like, in sales, and then I added marketing, and then we were in all of commercial. And then little by little, we were brought into other areas and my people run the different areas. So now, you know, I get to really be more client focused and strategy focused on what we're going to do next.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:14]:
I got some questions on, like, bd, but before we start hitting the BD side of the house, it sounds like you're a master at marketing. I want to know, like, some of the things that you're doing. Like, you have an industry magazine, like comp and hiring surveys, like, what are you doing? And what's the secret to crushing it on the marketing side as a recruiting business?

Cari Kraft [00:20:30]:
You know, I wish I felt like I was crushing it on the marketing side. I mean, when you. When you look at it, we have a lot of things and we're doing a lot of great work. I don't quite feel we're completely crushing it, but we've done a lot of things, you know, and I think some of this goes back to being a niche recruiter.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:48]:
Okay.

Cari Kraft [00:20:49]:
You know, and being in our industry and I mean, I don't know if you want to go there, but maybe.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:53]:
Let'S, let's jump, jump there real quick. Like, you know, focus on your niche. For so many years, I'm sure you get tempted to leave the niche and take some other stuff. But, like, why have you really stayed 100% focused in the world that you're in?

Cari Kraft [00:21:06]:
Yeah, we get tempted every while, every now and then. But. But really not. We have always focused in life sciences. I mean, that's the company that Laura built. That's the company that I bought. And focusing in one area, it's such a great strength. I mean, we go back, like, I can go back in our history and like, look at where we built out the teams for, like, J and J and Covidian, who's now Medtronic, and teams for early biopharma buildouts like Viro Pharma, which became Shire, that then became Roach, or Cephalon, that became Teva.

Cari Kraft [00:21:38]:
Like, having that history and knowledge of the industry, like, when we talk to a client, we don't need to. We don't need to ask them anything really about the specifics of a role. Like, we know what those roles do, and so we can go a little bit more in Depth and being in the industry for so long. Like there's some people who we placed as like a sales rep, actually more than a few that are now the presidents and CEOs of the industry. So having those contacts and those longstanding relationships, it makes such a huge difference. I really think that being successful in recruiting, it's like a combination of three things. One, having access to the best talent. Two, being able to move with speed, like so fast, like especially today, like if you slow down at all in a search, the good candidates are gone.

Cari Kraft [00:22:32]:
And then third, being a great consultant that we can know our clients needs, get the candidates who weren't thinking about making a move, closing the deal. And all of that I think happens in a much bigger way. By being in a specific niche, there's nobody we cannot get to with a warm referral. I mean we take the six degrees of Kevin Bacon to a new level and that leads to speed and being known in the industry. We have a constant influx of people and we get to be a great consultant. I mean we always on our intake calls, our client says, hmm, nobody's ever asked me that before. That's a great question. And then they have to pause and really think about it.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:13]:
Now they have to ask what are some of those great questions that nobody else is asking?

Cari Kraft [00:23:17]:
You know, I don't do the intakes anymore, but it's, you know, they're, it's really very specific. I'm just going to go back and pull from my history, right, which was marketing. So I'll pick a product manager. You know, like a product manager in medical device company can come from three places. They can come from engineering, they can come straight up from marketing, or they can come from sales. So which kind of product manager do you need? You know, or a product manager in pharma, do you need somebody who's really managed a huge ad spend or do you need somebody who's going to be more focused on messaging? You know, like they're more. The questions that are around the particular ins and outs of knowing who's the best candidate and where they're going to come from.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:02]:
Okay, gotcha.

Cari Kraft [00:24:03]:
Yeah. I mean, and the other thing about being in a niche is the data. Like we keep track of people so we know this person has always wanted to work for this company. Like they'll make a move to go here, that's it. They're not moving to go anywhere else. Or this person wants to get closer to their in laws so they'll take a lateral to go over there. You just get to know the market and you can tell your client's story better in relation to the competition. Now, our clients are always amazed that we can bring them, especially when we do high end vp, senior vp, top level searches.

Cari Kraft [00:24:40]:
They're always amazed. Like, we've been trying to get that person to talk to us for a long time. Why were you able to? And it's because of the relationship. It's because, well, we placed them back in the day when they were lower on the totem pole. And when you know your niche, you know what's good for a candidate. You know, I'm going to go meet somebody way too early tomorrow at the Biltmore in Miami. And we've built this relationship. I placed him I don't know how long.

Cari Kraft [00:25:06]:
It's over 10 years ago and I still can remember our final phone call. Like, I know exactly where I was because I was out of the office and I was like struggling for sales service. And I said to myself, look, you can't let this one get away. You know, taking this job, it's going to be the accelerator for your career. I've watched Chris's career. That was the manager for this. And I've seen what he's done and I've seen what he's done for his people. And you're going to be working with, like, you're going to just take a step up and work with doctors with more complex products.

Cari Kraft [00:25:36]:
And it's going to increase, you know, it's going to increase your whole set of skills. And that's something you can only do when you stay in a niche, you know. Oh, go ahead.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:46]:
No, go ahead, go ahead.

Cari Kraft [00:25:47]:
Oh, no, I was going to say, and when you're in a niche as a boutique firm, I mean, we're, you know, we're not huge, you know, we, we're 20, 25 at times. You know, we're a boutique firm. But I was at a small trade show last week. There was an exhibit hall, right? So I was there to meet, you know, see some of my current clients who are exhibiting and some future clients. One person stopped me and said, say hi to Laura. Like, two people that I was talking with thank me for the compensation and hiring survey that we do every year. And another one talked about they love getting the headlines that we do in their inbox every two weeks because it allows them just in like one quick moment to be up on the industry. There were only 12 companies in those booths.

Cari Kraft [00:26:29]:
Being niched is the only way to do that. You asked me earlier about, do we get the, you know, the draw to go outside of our niche. But being niched has been our platform for expansion. You know, our initial roots were in sales, right. And then commercial. Right. And it's always life sciences, which I totally wish there was a better way to say life, like to encompass pharma, biotech, medical device and diagnostics. I say that all the time.

Cari Kraft [00:26:59]:
I even like, it's like, because life sciences people think just pharma and biotech, it's like, no, we do pharma, biotech, diagnostics, you know, medical device, med tech falls in there and all the companies that support them. And originally, okay, so sales expanded to commercial. That makes total sense. But now we do a lot of other functions. And that came about because one of our clients, 15 years ago, they asked us to hire a VP of regulatory. I said, I'm sorry, we don't do regulatory. And they said, well, we want you to. And I said, but we don't do regulatory.

Cari Kraft [00:27:35]:
And they said, well, you've placed our entire executive team. You found us people that nobody else has been able to find and we want you to do it. This position's been open, Nobody's been able to do it. And I said, well, it's really not in our lane. And they said, look, we're the client, right? I said, okay, we'll try. I'm not going to make any promises, but we'll try. And then we did it. You know, and if you're good at recruiting, you know how to do it.

Cari Kraft [00:28:03]:
And if you're in, you know, if you're in a niche, you can call all the people on commercial and say, who's the best people in regulatory? You know, like, if you're in a niche, you can do that. And so that's how we've grown. So then we added regulatory and then, you know, regulatory. We got quality and quality, we got engineering and product development. I mean, they didn't go in that order, but we were able to kind of expand that way. So now we can answer all of our clients needs. And that's how we got into the side building this whole additional practice of companies who sell into our clients. Because one of our clients went to a company like that and they're like, hey, we want you to hire these kind of people.

Cari Kraft [00:28:42]:
And they're like, well, we don't really. And they're like, well, they're just like those kind of people that you already hire. And you know, so we did that. And you know, just in case you think niching makes you too Narrow. It also allows us to do things like, we built a company called Experts on Tap, and then it's now a subsidiary of Jacobs Manager Group. And that's again, answering the call from our same clients. Our client said, well, can you just give us an expert? We're doing a due diligence. It's like, well, we only do permanent placements.

Cari Kraft [00:29:11]:
You know, that used to be the answer. Or we need you to backfill somebody while somebody's on maternity. Or, you know what? We don't have the budget to hire a W2 employee, but we can fund them from an expense budget. So can you give us a contract? You know, can you do it that way? And after enough, we, like, just were like, okay, we're going to add Experts on Tap. You know, we're going to add something. And then. So we built a separate company just to make sure we figured out all the ins and outs and then rolled it into Jacob's Management Group.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:38]:
Your relationships are so good because you've been in the niche that your clients are like, no, no, no. We want to give you business. Like, shut up and go do the search. We want to pay you. That's insane.

Cari Kraft [00:29:52]:
Like, well, you know, look, I mean, look, it sounds better than it is. I mean, they couldn't find anybody. You know, I mean. And regulatory is the hardest position. You know, in our compensation and hiring survey, every year, we look at the hardest positions, how long positions take to fill. You know, we look at everything. It's like, no, it's up to 100 pages. But regulatory is the hardest in the life sciences, regulatory is the hardest function to work with.

Cari Kraft [00:30:18]:
So, yes. And, you know, they were struggling, which is why they came to it.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:23]:
But still, relationships matter.

Cari Kraft [00:30:27]:
They do. Well.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:29]:
Okay, you've been talking about this hiring, the salary survey. What is that? And I'm sure it's something that everybody wants to know in your industry, too.

Cari Kraft [00:30:37]:
Oh, it's become a staple. So, you know, it's kind of funny, like, I'm proud of this because when I came to Jacob's Management Group, again, I came from the tech space, you know, data. You know, I've got that business background we always looked at. How can a company capitalize on their expertise to create value and build credibility, especially if you're in the services business. So I said, you know, hey, we should do a compensation hiring survey. This is back in 2000, I think. 2000. I think I said it when I came, but it wasn't.

Cari Kraft [00:31:07]:
I think we did the first one in 2005 or 2006 and then it was a 12 page pamphlet. It was like, hey, you know what, we should ask our clients how much they pay people, how hard it is. And we started out and little by little it's grown over the years to now. Last year, literally we had to go to the format where you need to download it from the website because it's over a hundred pages and the PDF is too big to put in an email. Like, I can't attach it in an email anymore. We have to send a link for somebody to download. That's how much legs this thing is taken on. We have people like, hey, when's the competition hiring survey coming out? It's our good for the world.

Cari Kraft [00:31:46]:
I mean, it's good builds us credibility, it's good for our clients. And there's a lot of people who get that and use it. And there's a lot of companies who just do that and charge for it. You know, you can go buy a report like that for 3, 3, $5,000. And I have flirted with selling it, but every year I'm like, no, we just do this. This is part of who we are. This is part of what we do.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:06]:
Somebody listening to this, like, how much work does. And I, I know you have like a marshal people doing this.

Cari Kraft [00:32:11]:
No, it takes so much work. It takes so much work. You can't imagine. I mean, we, we do it once a year. We probably spend the whole year doing it. Okay. Like we spend half the year collecting it and then putting it together because there's so much to like ferret out and you gotta send out enough to have enough responses. Every time we send it out, we have to, you know, it's good though.

Cari Kraft [00:32:35]:
I mean, it keeps us, you know, like every time we send it out, when we get a bad email address, we know, oh, somebody's moved on. You know, it's got pluses for us. But yeah, it's a big investment. It takes a lot of work. And I think the only reason we are, you know, it is what it is now is because we've been doing it all these years. So people get it and they're like, oh yeah, I want to fill in this one because I want the report, you know, and then we each year, like, we take input from our clients and we add questions like, everybody wants to know now what's up with remote and hybrid work and are people coming back? And then we have some of the staple questions, which always surprised me because at first when we added this one and we got the answer, I Was like shocked. Which is how much is the cost of a bad hire and how much is the cost of an open position. We do it in each function, like for pharma, for med device, for biotech.

Cari Kraft [00:33:26]:
And it's crazy that year in and year out since we've been doing it, the number is pretty close. Like it's a right number you can see year in and year out when you get the same information over and over again, it's like, yeah, that's pretty validating, you know.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:40]:
And you also have an industry magazine too.

Cari Kraft [00:33:43]:
Yeah, yeah, that was an accident. Not an accident. So that is something I never I imagined I would do. I come from the cloth of you need to be a good student. Right. And the only thing less than an A minus I ever got in college was in freshman English class. I mean, I'm the math and science person, not the English person. So the fact that I'm the publisher of a magazine is kind of crazy.

Cari Kraft [00:34:04]:
But the way it came about was I good. A friend of mine ran a business where she would publish industry based magazines. That was her business. And she came to me, well, you know, after much talking and whatever, she said, hey, you should do a magazine. You know, all the people who would get the magazine and you know, all the people we could interview to write the articles. And I was like, hmm, that sounds interesting. And she said, it'd be good for you, it'll build credibility. And I thought, okay.

Cari Kraft [00:34:36]:
And I thought, oh, it'll be a good way to keep track of everybody's contact information because you know, everybody will want it and if they don't get it or it comes, you know, they'll send us their updated contact info. So we built it in 2014, I built the editorial board, we launched the first issue. We decided we were going to focus it on sales and marketing because that's where the, you know, back then, that's where the depth, you know. We had more contacts there than anywhere. And we launched, it's called Healthcare Sales and Marketing magazine. H-S A N D M.com not my most shining moment in naming. It doesn't say anything about Jacob's manager group. It says healthcare, not life sciences.

Cari Kraft [00:35:16]:
But we created it and everybody was interested in it because we focused on lessons learned. And then she came to me and she said, look, I'm getting out of the business. I was like, what? She's like, yeah, but I'll show you how to publish it. You can do it all yourself. Then we ended up taking it ourselves. And it started out as an E magazine and she was going to sell ads and make it self funding and make it a real revenue source and, you know, yada, yada, yada. Now it's, you know, it's my part of my industry gift back. We fund it, we do it.

Cari Kraft [00:35:49]:
But you know what, I think it's great for anybody to have, you know, for your career. I think it's great for you to have an article sharing your lessons learned. And if you're a company, it's good to be able to have some friendly press. So we continue to do it and it's, you know, it continues on.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:06]:
Up next, are you guys starting a podcast?

Cari Kraft [00:36:08]:
You know, oh my gosh, if I, if I had the bandwidth, I would, I should, believe me, part of doing this with you, for me was like, ooh, let me just see how it goes and how hard. And I mean, you can tell just from me talking. I don't like being on camera. Like, it's nerve wracking. I mean, you should see how many preparations I did to get here to this moment. So, you know, you gotta be you to do a podcast. So I don't know, it's something I know I should do. I just know that I can get over doing it.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:38]:
Carrie, you have enough of these conversations with all these people. It's another way to highlight them. And guess what? You do barely. Barely talking. And they do all the talking.

Cari Kraft [00:36:48]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess if I'm not the one that's on the spot, I could probably do it. Yeah, it's probably in the future somewhere.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:56]:
I love that you've, like, done so many different things that most recruiting companies don't do when it comes to marketing and getting your name out there. So take that aside, looking at business development, what is working for you guys outside of referrals, outside of your major marketing arm, what's actually working on BD, like right now in 2025?

Cari Kraft [00:37:18]:
You know, it's a combination of being credible. Right. I always come from the point of I want every interaction with anybody that they're better off. Right. Because we cross their paths. I mean, that's one of my personal mottos, right? I always want our interaction. Like, if we have any interaction, you'll see me at the end of a call. Sometimes I'll be thinking and somebody will say, what are you thinking about? And I'm like, my goal is always.

Cari Kraft [00:37:42]:
Because we spend time together, you got some value. So I'm just thinking, did I give you enough value or is there something else you might want to ask me. And I think being a respected advisor and coming from that place, even in business development is the way. So whether that's putting forth great candidates for someone we know has an open role, we are constantly connecting in so many different ways. I can't really tell you the one that works. And maybe it's the omnipresent connection that is the thing that's working. I also think that communication has changed over time. Like, I come from the world of an email is really long and thoughtful and you don't use like let's chat or you know, you need to be formal.

Cari Kraft [00:38:34]:
And that's not the way of the world anymore. I come from the world of, you know, you write a long email and then at the end there's a subtle request and ask. And now it's like, no, it's direct. Long has moved to short, you know, waiting for follow up has moved to immediate. So I think those are the things that have kind of changed our underlying business development more than anything. And then the other thing is just to track what's working. You know, we have so much data. I mean, we run with metrics on our recruiting side, on our business development side, on our outreach side.

Cari Kraft [00:39:09]:
You know, the things that we were doing three years ago have totally been reinvented and tweaked and moved. It's gotten so technically complex, that whole process. I don't even know how to tell you how it happens.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:19]:
You got an expert to help you on that, right? Didn't it?

Cari Kraft [00:39:21]:
Oh, yeah. Oh yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:24]:
I'm glad you said that because I was actually about ready to ask a question going into the data and you're like, there's an expert.

Cari Kraft [00:39:28]:
That area. That's one area that's like, I don't. And you know what I mean, I even get my email, like, my instinct is no longer the right one. My instinct for an email response is no longer the right way. You know, I am of a certain age and the people that I'm dealing with are not. I was always dealing with people who were even, you know, more to my senior. And now it's not, you know, knowing your audience and how to connect to that audience and what that audience wants to hear and the way that audience like takes in and digests data and a message, it's just totally different.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:05]:
Oh man, you're right on that. Well, we've covered a ton of stuff. We've covered about like niching down. We've covered up putting your heart out into the business. We've covered BD Marketing. Before we jump over to the pinnacle pointer questions, is there anything that you want to expand upon on the stuff that we covered?

Cari Kraft [00:40:25]:
No, go for it.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:26]:
Cool. And they don't need to be quick answers. So, okay, what piece of advice would you give a brand new recruiter that's literally just getting started off in the industry in 2025, they sat down with you like, hey, I want to succeed. What advice do you have for me?

Cari Kraft [00:40:42]:
So they're already in recruiting or they're thinking about going in recruiting.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:45]:
They're sitting in their desk like their first month.

Cari Kraft [00:40:48]:
Got it. Inhale everything from the fire hose. Like, literally this is a craft and you need to learn and master that craft and look around at the people who are being successful, watch what they're doing and inhale it and then just get in action. I'm sure wherever they are, whatever they do, there's a process. You know, jump in, get in action.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:15]:
Same question, but for. We'll just say like somebody that's been in the game for 10, 20 years, they're sitting down with you, like, hey, every year you're a top biller. What do I need to do?

Cari Kraft [00:41:23]:
Sure. And wait, I just want to go back to the other question because there's another point that I think is critical that I forgot to say, which is learn to close and qualify your candidates. There's nothing that you can do worse in your career as a recruiter than to have a candidate interview with a client, have the client make them an offer, and have the candidate say, no, that like, wastes everybody time and it creates, you know, a lot of bad blood. So definitely learn the art of qualifying. Sorry, that was your other question.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:56]:
No, all good. But same question. For somebody that's been in the game 10, 20 years, what advice would you give to them?

Cari Kraft [00:42:02]:
Be willing to change. Be willing to change. Be willing to learn and leverage new technology. You know, I would say to them, look, and I have said this to many, I know it's scary, I know it's going to be painful. But literally once you get this, you'll be able to do in 30 seconds what it used to take a half an hour. So change with the times and learn and work faster. You know, it's just there's a speed at which the world works now that's just fast. So be good with the speed.

Cari Kraft [00:42:35]:
And also stop writing those long professional emails, which I still do, and then have to get rewritten and be more chatty when you communicate.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:43]:
I love that. What does the Pinnacle Society mean to you?

Cari Kraft [00:42:49]:
You Know, Pinnacle, it's so interesting. Pinnacle. For me, it's like getting into the Harvard of recruiting. Many of the people who I have, you know, have followed to learn recruiting from are Pinnacle members. It's why I joined, you know, and even though the process of getting into Pinnacle, I mean, it was harder than getting into Penn. It really was, I think. I mean, maybe it's more recent, so it feels that way, but it's not easy. You really gotta want to be part of Pinnacle, to be part of Pinnacle, and you really gotta be at the top of your game.

Cari Kraft [00:43:18]:
And all these people, everybody's at the top of their game. I'm just so grateful they accepted me, and I am awed every time I go to a meeting. I am so tired after a Pinnacle meeting, because I don't want to miss a moment. Just the people I'm sitting next to at breakfast or lunch or in between the session, like, for the 15 minutes in between there, you just learn so much. It's being part of the. The top of the top.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:46]:
I see that you have a bunch of books behind you. Has there been a book that's had a huge impact on your entire career?

Cari Kraft [00:43:53]:
That's a problem with me, you know, because I love books. I mean, first and again, it's probably dating me, but, you know, Michael Porter's the Competitive Advantage, like, that was the rage when I was in business school. I still remember meeting him at a Wharton Healthcare conference years back. And I, you know, I still have that picture on my phone. Just the essence of defining your business, focusing on your competitive advantage and the core of what makes a company successful. There's everybody in business should read that book. Everybody who. Who's a recruiter should read Business Relationships that Last by Ed Wallace.

Cari Kraft [00:44:29]:
It's the quintessential book on how to build relationships over time. I have so many, like, if somebody asked me what books I should read, it's like, and you should read the Speed of Trust. That's by, like, the son of the seven, Stephen Covey. Like the he did the Seven Habits book. But this is his son. Because relationships with trust, that's the way things move and that's the way things happen. If you want to learn how to be the one who or why the person in the room. Like, when you go into a room and there's somebody who you want to go talk to.

Cari Kraft [00:44:59]:
The Power of Nancy, a little teeny book, but it's like, oh, that's why. And if you love Data, Built to Last and Good to Great or Anything by Jim Collins. And if you get spiritual like Scotty Love. I love Scotty Love. He said that somewhere along the line, all recruiters eventually get a little spiritual. The Surrender Experiment by Michael singer. He sold a 5 billion built and sold a $5 billion company to WebMD or. Yeah, yeah, he sold it to WebMD for $5 billion.

Cari Kraft [00:45:30]:
And he was like a yogi. So I encourage those books.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:34]:
You know, you've been in the recruiting game for a little while, like looking at, you know, your future in the recruiting space or, you know, out of the recruiting space. Recruiting has the capability and the possibility to present a lot of opportunities. How do you want to give back?

Cari Kraft [00:45:50]:
You know, I look at giving back in a number of different ways originally. Right. I think of giving back as I need to make some great big charity and give tons and tons of money, you know, and I have some friends that I work with who are building those kinds of nonprofits and I help with them. I think I said it earlier, I've kind of adopted this north star in my life, which is I have a goal that everybody that I interact with like they are better off because our paths crossed. That can be in business, that can be personally. That can be walking down the beach and smiling at somebody and taking a picture of their family because I could see the mom struggling to get the two kids positioned right in a picture. So I think there's that on a day by day basis. I think Jacob's manager group, we give back.

Cari Kraft [00:46:41]:
I talked a little about earlier that you asked about what I did when I took over and we did the vision process. One of the things that we have as one of our principles is contribution. We make a positive difference in our clients and candidates lives and in our industry that translates to being, you know, making a healthier world. So I feel good that we are helping to make a healthier world. I've been on lots of boards over time and my current one, I am the chair of the career transformation group in the Healthcare Business Women's Association. That's a group of 20,000 women in healthcare. And I lead the group that helps with career transformation. That's like my current volunteer, you know, give back.

Cari Kraft [00:47:20]:
Oh. And one of the things we did again when we did our vision process as part of contribution is we wanted to literally give back. So as part of our bonus program every year we created a. Well, it's called the Lois Gardner and CJ Giving Circle. Lois Gardner was our office manager, bless her heart. She passed from cancer. And C.J. was Laura's dog who Came to the office and passed away.

Cari Kraft [00:47:45]:
Every year everybody gets to designate where they want their charity money to go. So Jacob's manager group will give back. And somewhere I do have a book about relationships which I will write someday way later on.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:01]:
I love that you are also set up for your team to give to charities and support charities that they believe in. I don't see too many recruiting companies that even offer that.

Cari Kraft [00:48:13]:
Yeah, it was, it definitely came out of that visioning process years ago. You know, it was like, we want to contribute, you know, we want to contribute back to the world. It's interesting the charities that we support, you know, there are a wide variety.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:27]:
So being a recruiter. A recruiter is hard. Like, it's tough. The wins are awesome. We talk a lot about success on this podcast because that's the highlight of like, how people got there to share those stories. But those hard days, those hard weeks, how do you get through them?

Cari Kraft [00:48:40]:
Personally, you know, I think it's a combination of meditation, centering, being fiscally conservative and my team. You gotta be resilient to be in this industry. I mean, you just, you have to be resilient. You're in an industry where, you know, it's like playing football. If you got on the football field and you got tackled and you were like, who did that? You know, like, why did you do that? It's like, wait, no, football's not for you, you know, so you got to be resilient to be in recruiting. And I definitely have a practice of centering and letting go. I mean, I wake up in the middle of the night with that anxiety, like, and then I have to talk myself off in the ledge, you know, so that's one thing, so building that kind of a practice. Another thing is being fiscally conservative.

Cari Kraft [00:49:26]:
I mean, I think it's a combination of, you know, going to business school and my father being an accountant, ingraining the notion that you never buy anything you can't pay for. In my entire life, I've never carried any credit card debt. From the business standpoint, we don't spend anything. Like we know what we're going to spend next year and that we already have it this year. I think if I didn't live that way, I think I'd be totally anxious all the time. And we've designed in the company again, going back to those principles, mutual support, listening for each other's engagement, greatness, engaging in others success, not tolerating self destructiveness, supporting and coaching one another. Like I think many in recruiting, the hardest Times were during COVID and I'm really proud how we came through. If you were talking to some recruiting, and I was talking to recruiting presidents at that time, they were like, hey, you know what, you're gonna have to lay everybody off and then restart later or furlough or whatever.

Cari Kraft [00:50:24]:
And we didn't do anything like that. We got creative, we dug deep. And I think that, you know, that makes it work. And my team, I mean, I go to them and say, hey, tell me something good. And they get uplifted. And sometimes they do or don't realize that I'm like looking to get uplifted in the process.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:39]:
I love that. Well, handling so many things, running a firm, running industry magazine, running 100 page, like salary survey that everybody in the industry wants to be part of. You jumped into recruiting like, hey, cool, let's do this. There's been a lot of success. Looking back on your core, like, what do you believe is like the biggest driver for like your non stop success?

Cari Kraft [00:51:03]:
Well, believe me, we've talked about all the success, but there was a lot of hard things that happened. Yeah, right. You know, there's a lot of really hard things.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:11]:
Well, you have to go through the hard things to get the success too.

Cari Kraft [00:51:13]:
I think that's part, you know, I mean, I went through, I would say, one of the worst divorces in history. I had an ex that threatened to kill me. I mean, I've been through it. But you know what to start out with, I gotta say, I had amazing. I hit the draw with my parents. I mean, I do. My mother told me every day that I could do and be anything that I wanted to. And she really did.

Cari Kraft [00:51:33]:
Like, if you met my mother, you would understand it, you know, and my father, he grew up, I mean, and my mother too. You know, my mother grew up. You would think she grew up as a queen, but she lived in a one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. But in her world, she grew up as a queen. You know, my father, he grew up in the Bronx. The worst part, but he got into accounting and, you know, he got a college education and then he eventually bought a company. I got an amazing education, going to one of the best business schools. My first job out of school, I mean, I literally traveled for two years with the top Wharton professors, teaching companies, business, like having dinner with them.

Cari Kraft [00:52:10]:
So I got some great education, you know, and I think having an analytical mind and an open heart and then also having some major setbacks. I mean, if I had some major things go on in my life that, you know you have to grow to get through. You got to stand up and be resilient. And also I've been lucky, you know, lucky and purposeful to be surrounded by a really talented and dedicated team, you know, and plus, I have an amazing son that kind of had me do it all for, you know, who brings me into the future. So it's, I'm grateful, appreciative, and I.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:46]:
Feel very fortunate with your ups and downs, with your success, with your wins, those hard months, those hard times in the business and outside of life. If you had the chance, with everything that you know now about the recruiting space, about what you've been doing, and you had the chance to sit down with yourself a month into your wonderful world of recruiting, what advice would you give yourself?

Cari Kraft [00:53:07]:
Hmm. Well, I think one would be, don't worry, it's all going to work out. Anxiety and panic, they don't help. I wish I would have learned earlier to clear my mind and then take a step forward.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:23]:
Love that. Well, before I let you go, two things. First of all, if somebody wants to follow you, how do they go about doing that?

Cari Kraft [00:53:31]:
Oh, they can go to. Well, www.jacobsmgt.com is our website. And you can also find us on LinkedIn. Just put in Jacob's management group, not JacobsEngineering, the engineering firm. Or you can go to our website and find the link and you can follow us on LinkedIn. And once you follow us on LinkedIn, you'll get our communication. And if you go to our website and you put your name in, you can get access to getting the magazine when we release a new article and healthcare headlines that comes out every two weeks. And be notified when we have our new comp and hiring survey out.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:04]:
Awesome. And before I let you go, if there's one more thing that you want to share with the listeners. What exactly is that?

Cari Kraft [00:54:10]:
I don't know. Maybe I'm too mushy. But I think that recruiting is a business of the heart. To do this business well for a long time, you really have to love contributing to people. And I think you can get further a lot faster if you niche and then technology, it's going to change. You got to go with it.

Benjamin Mena [00:54:30]:
I love that. Well, I just want to say, Carrie, thank you so much for coming on. Like, we literally covered so many different things and I know recruiters listening to this are going to be filled up with ideas, actionable insights and things that they can actually do to really set them and their businesses apart. So once again, thank you so much for coming on. I truly believe 2025 is a year that recruiters can absolutely change their lives. And thank you for helping make that happen and sharing your insights from everything you've done and from the Pinnacle Society. So once again, thank you. Attention Recruiters.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:00]:
Source Whale has exciting news. Starting July 30th, you can try two powerful new AI tools for free. Inbox Agent is like an assistant in your inbox, drafting replies in your voice and automating follow ups. Notetaker joins your calls, transcribes everything and instantly creates AI powered summaries that are automatically logged into your CRM. That means Source Whale handles the busy work while you focus on placements. Don't wait. Head to source whale.com free trial to start your free trial. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast with Benjamin Mena.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:33]:
If you enjoyed, hit subscribe and leave a rating.