The Art of Hiring with Tina Van Delden

Justin Levinson (00:00.795)

Hey everybody, welcome to the Agency Side podcast. I'm here today with Tina van Delden, who is vice president, head of HR at AV Squad. And there's many other things we'll get into about you, Tina. Thank you so much for being here today and speaking with me.

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Tina Van Delden (00:17.518)

Thanks for having me, Justin. You and I have been working together for many years, so it's good to have just regular conversation outside of the office.

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Justin Levinson (00:25.581)

Yeah, totally. Well, I guess the question I always like to ask people, and I know it's probably a long journey to summarize in a short podcast, but how did you end up getting into this world of creative agency work?

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Tina Van Delden (00:44.122)

yeah, it's a, it's a pretty long story, but I think, it warrants telling like how just quickly how I got into the world of human resources, cause that's the world I entered first. I actually w know, I grew up in a really small Nebraska town and, but I always wanted to come out to Los Angeles. I saw, you know, so many movies and TV shows that were

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filmed here and then the movie Valley Girl came out in like 84 or something and I just became obsessed with like the sort of Hollywood and Valley kind of situation and decided very young that I wanted to move to Los Angeles. So when I graduated from high school, I made it happen. I got a scholarship to USC and I came out here when I was 17 to go to college. After my freshman year, I had to go home. I didn't have any money. I couldn't stay out here. I didn't have a place to stay and all of that.

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that culture shock of returning home after a, you know, almost a year in Los Angeles was like, you know, it pretty frustrating, pretty sad for me. So I vowed I was never going to, you know, do that again. And I was going to come back out to LA and stay in LA. But, you know, I needed a job and I started applying for jobs and I applied for this sort of administrative assistant job. It ended up being an executive recruiting firm. was like a small boutique firm. And it was the first time this is, I mean, this is 1990.

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It's the first time I ever realized the concept of human capital, that everybody has a value assigned to them based on their experience and their knowledge and their vitality and their likes and dislikes and their spirit and all of that kind of thing. And that's like an economic addition to an organization. And I just kind of became truly...

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Justin Levinson (02:13.329)

Hmm.

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Tina Van Delden (02:34.254)

passionate about recruiting specifically. That was kind of my foray into HR. So after I graduated, I ended up in other executive search firms and then kind of ended up in a tech startup that was a recruiting-based company. And from there, just kind of branched out into other industries. I ended up in visual effects and animation in 2008 or so for a company called Motion Theory.

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which then branched out into another organization called Marotta. And they still exist actually. So they do a lot of commercials, music videos. We did some feature film work as well. I left there to go back to tech and it didn't last very long. I was at an augmented reality company that went under and I found myself underemployed for a year or two. I helped a friend with an app. I did a couple of consulting gigs.

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And then a friend pointed me toward AV Squad because they saw they had posted for an HR director. And I met with the team and they felt like my people. And that was over seven years ago that I was hired.

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Justin Levinson (03:42.789)

Wow. When you were doing executive recruitment, what type of positions were you filling back then?

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Tina Van Delden (03:49.566)

The first boutique company I worked at, we were doing stuff in the financial services space, lots of banking and personal finance stuff. And then the other side of that, the other partner was focused on convention and tourism. So we were placing a lot of GMs of cities or heads of convention centers, that kind of thing. So pretty interesting stuff. And then I moved on to a firm called Ray and Berenson. I was working in their professional services practice. So we were placing consultants at

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BCG and Ernst & Young and Deloitte, that kind of thing. And then from there, I went to Korn Ferry's tech startup, which was a company called FutureStep, and they were targeting recruitment in the middle manager level. Nobody had actually done that before. So was a retained search in that sort 75 to 150k range, all functional areas and all industries.

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Justin Levinson (04:44.689)

Yeah, that's pretty interesting. Did you like, now that you're in like the creative agency space, do you feel like, like personality wise, you match better when you're like interviewing people and screening people opposed to like the different like more tech or financial or do you feel like you gel more with them or does that not make a difference to you?

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Tina Van Delden (05:03.878)

It does make a difference. It makes a lot of difference. think just culturally, entertainment and creative spaces and generally hire people from a holistic standpoint of like, I want to hire you and all your quirkiness and weirdness and all the stuff that comes with that because that's what creates all this amazing art that we see or has this perspective or this narrative that we want.

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I think when you're coming out of professional services, financial services, things like that, I think people are putting on a bit of a costume or a mask to go to the office. And so you're not quite getting the same person. So for me, I prefer my conversations to be more casual, more informal, more about who are you as a person, as opposed to the, you know, let's talk about your KPIs and what you did to achieve them, and you know, that kind of stuff.

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Justin Levinson (05:50.257)

Totally.

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Tina Van Delden (05:52.95)

I can do that too. I can talk the corporate thing. I spent a lot of years in corporate, but this is my preference, certainly creative spaces.

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Justin Levinson (06:00.515)

Yeah, it's interesting because it's like it is kind of a different language. And I've, I've trained some recruiters who have kind of jumped from other spaces into the ad space. And yeah, it's like there's, they have a very like, you know, it's, it's uber professional and like lengthy, and it's very like apples to apples. And like, either you have this specific skill set or you don't. And it, you know, I like

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speaking with people in this space, because you can just be like, hey, how's it going? Like, what are you up to? Like, you know, it's just very like, you know, I found like in recruiting and like tech, like a lot of people will be like, like, where's the role and how much is it paying? Like, it's opposed to here, it's just like, hey, like, what's up? So I kind of gel with this space better. So I, I'm with you there. I do know that there is a big difference. And this is something I'm kind of insecure about myself.

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in the recruitment that I've done is I don't really have all the background of someone like yourself who's the head of HR. I know there's like so much more that goes into it. There's all these certifications. I know when I've placed people in HR, the sherm and there's all these different things. What kind of things did you need to learn? What kind of sheepskin did you need to get to this point in your career?

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Tina Van Delden (07:22.926)

Yeah, I don't have a single certification, Jess, and I'll be honest with you. I don't have an advanced degree. I don't have a single certification. I think, you know, I got to a point in my career where I was like, should I go to business school now? Everybody goes back and gets their MBA at some point, but I was already past that sort of level and salary wise where it didn't really make sense at the time. I've been really fortunate to take positions under leaders that I was able to really watch and

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Justin Levinson (07:26.202)

Really?

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Tina Van Delden (07:51.886)

form my own approach, but learn from. And I think that's really key. I give this advice to people a lot and I've followed this advice. You take one job to be a student and then you take your next job to be a teacher. And I think if you flip-flop like that throughout your career, you end up really just making pretty significant gains from role to role.

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I don't think that getting thrown into something where you're the only person and there's nobody there to train you is ideal. I think if you're smart, you could kind of figure a lot of stuff out, but you don't know what you don't know in those moments. I tell people to try and be a student every other job and learn and look around and say, I really like the way that person approached that problem. I'm going to emulate that style. I'm going to form my own style, but I'm going to...

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I'm going to look to see what they do in terms of approaching employee relations issues or, know, unpeeling all the weird onions that we have to unpeel in the workplace. So I don't know, I've been fortunate. I've worked for some really great companies too, where I've felt really supported and I've gotten to do a lot of cool stuff, but I do not have like a formal HR training certification, any of that.

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Justin Levinson (09:09.753)

Interesting. No, that's great to know. Obviously, hiring is a big part of your experience with all your recruiting. you're looking to hire talent, what do you look for in terms of people that you feel are going to be a good fit for your organization?

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Tina Van Delden (09:32.46)

Yeah, I mean, you have to kind of know your company's vibe, I think, and really try to match that. Not only the company as a whole, but the hiring manager too. Like, you you might fall in love with a candidate you think is perfect. They've got the qualifications, they can do it. They make you laugh, but maybe they're not gonna really gel well with this department head that you're hiring for. So you have to really, you have to get to know your people internally and know everybody so you know.

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How is this person going to be successful in this team? Are they going to rub everybody the wrong way? Are they going to add something to the mix? So that's kind of the first thing. I think a lot of recruiters and HR people don't know what everybody does in a company too. And I have a production background and so I can talk to you at great length about visual effects and CG and design animation and the pipeline and everything that, what everybody does along the way. I've managed resources across a studio to do that.

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that kind of stuff. I sit up near the assistant editors. ask them questions. What do you do? How does this work? What are you working on? I understand the editorial process. So I think that is key to to not, just to be able to vet people a little bit, like, are they speaking the language? Are they going to kind of pick this up? Are they going to fit in this, this team or this function?

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Justin Levinson (10:51.985)

Yeah, totally. That makes a lot of sense. What are some of the challenges? I guess there's probably tough conversations too in your position at times. I guess in HR, you're probably doing hiring and firing and benefits and there's probably just a laundry list of things. What are some of the challenges?

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Tina Van Delden (11:16.844)

I mean, I think, you know, AV Squad, I think a lot of people in our industry know AV Squad has a really great culture and people love working for AV Squad. We don't have a ton of, you know, voluntary turnover, I guess it does happen. you know, the difficult stuff, you have to, first of all, you have to not ever get used to it. If I hear another HR person say, I fire people all the time, it's no big deal.

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That's a red flag to me. I don't sleep the week that I have to let somebody go and it's not even really my problem. I'm just doing the admin behind it. It wasn't my decision necessarily. So I think you have to care. You have to continue to care and know that people identify by their professions and that losing your job is a pretty devastating thing, not just financially, but just like a hit to your ego, your stability, your confidence, your mental health, all of that.

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And then you got to try to bring as neutral energy as possible, you know, and not make it about you or make it too dramatic. And it's hard because, you know, we have to be savvy about these things legally as well. And we can't say too much in a termination and we have to sort of make it short and sweet. And hopefully we're offering a good package or something that helps with the transition out, but it's never going to be easier.

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a good time for anybody in these conversations. You just do the best you can and get through them.

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Justin Levinson (12:44.367)

Yeah, totally. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, my mom has worked in HR for life. I think a lot of people who, she's always worked in the school systems and a lot of people is like, I know your mom Marlene. Like she's the benefits lady. My mom loves benefits. She just talks about them all the time. And I'm like, mom, you'd like talking about this stuff?

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Tina Van Delden (13:05.848)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (13:12.613)

man, this is above my pay grade. don't understand. And she, like it's funny, because all I've done is staffing. Like obviously I've gone through like offers and seen what people's, know, know, health care plans look like and all that other stuff. But my mom was just like, I remember when I started my business, she's like, let's get into the Health Connect and we're gonna like sign up and this plan is good. No, should buy this one. I'm just like, whoa. Yeah. So I have respect for some of that kind of work.

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Tina Van Delden (13:38.709)

Yeah.

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It's lot to learn. That's not my favorite piece of what I do. For me, recruiting is my first love and my greatest love in this realm. But yeah, I got to also do audits and enroll people in benefits and meet with my broker every year to figure out if we're doing all the right stuff. And I got to train people and administer the 401k and all these sorts of things. The HR function is really a legal and compliance function at its

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Justin Levinson (13:45.336)

Yeah.

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Tina Van Delden (14:11.054)

but it's one where you have to take into account the dynamics of people, people coming together in a large tribe and trying to figure out how that all works and what the dynamics are of that.

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Justin Levinson (14:17.498)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (14:24.411)

Well, it's cool that like your creativity seems like it's kind of your superpower. And it's interesting that how you have all the experience with VFX and you understand the creative and you ask all these questions. so, you know, I feel like that's the stuff that matters and being good at with people and understanding people. Those certifications, I'm sure are just, you know, they're there. They are what they are. But I think I can see what

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I can see your value based on things you're telling me. Are you a tech stack nerd at all? you have any gizmos that help you with your recruiting or your work that you can secretly tell me about to make me better at what I do?

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Tina Van Delden (15:09.034)

I this won't help, but you probably already have this too. I have a LinkedIn recruiter license that's been a game changer for us. Like to me, so I just did this presentation actually for our leadership team about recruiting at AV Squad and what that entails, because I'm not sure people know how many people we hire a year and how it all works, but we've historically worked with recruiters. We've had recruiters even on kind of on payroll or on

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a retainer with us. And we spent a lot doing that. But when I joined the company, you know, I have a really strong recruiting background and I was like, I think I could do a lot of this myself. I think some of some of the recruiting still happens at the ownership level of these agencies, right? So, see very senior editors, creative directors, those sorts of people that all the owners kind of know about and they check in with, you know, people around the, you know, throughout the year. And then so I'll get a notice like, hey, we've been talking to this guy and they want to hire this person, whatever.

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But for things like production assistants, assistant editors, asset managers, some motion graphics, things like that, that we need to do a search for, I can handle that kind of stuff pretty easily. And I had been sourcing on LinkedIn and we had an applicant tracking system and I think it was too much for us, for our needs. But a couple of years ago, we acquired a LinkedIn recruiter license. It's been an absolute game changer. has...

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It has an applicant tracking system kind of built into it. It helps manage the process and I can access LinkedIn. That whole database is like the largest candidate database in the world right now. And if you have a license, you can search with such granularity and precision and find the people that are interested in you, that watch your page, that have liked something you've posted and who might be a really great fit. Their algorithm's getting smarter and smarter. I'm pretty impressed with that. So it's not cheap.

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Justin Levinson (16:45.605)

Yeah.

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Tina Van Delden (17:03.97)

But I will tell you that we've gone from spending quite a bit on recruiting fees to this year spending zero. So, yeah.

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Justin Levinson (17:04.304)

way.

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Justin Levinson (17:10.481)

that's pretty cool. I've seen like, you know, because I'm like a LinkedIn stalker. That's basically what I do for every minute of every single day. And yeah, I'll go through and I'll see that, you know, job that you guys have. And then I'll see eventually who gets the position. I'm like, nice job, Tina. That was the right pick. That whatever I mean, not that my like, what I say is the gospel, but I'm like, that's a good that's a good person. I see she's right on the money there. Because I do know that like,

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Sometimes I'll look at other companies and they'll pick up somebody I'll be like I hope they're not paying a fee for that one. That's gonna be a wild card But you know, obviously not gonna say anything but it's like some you know, so I've just you know kudos to you that I have Been I'm aware that the people that you are You know, I think I see in people I think we see from similar perspectives and candidates based on the decision-making that I see that you do online

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So that's pretty cool. And then that makes me not really get, I might not get any business, but I do really respect that, I really do. And I think there's like, there can be like a, in some companies, there can be like a war between like external and internal, and it can be really like, it's not always healthy. And I've really strived to make that relationship work because I've really learned, especially since I started out on my own, like how...

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Tina Van Delden (18:06.478)

Thank you.

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Tina Van Delden (18:12.812)

Yeah, sorry.

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Justin Levinson (18:35.471)

like those relationships are actually so important between internal and external. it's like, their forces can be combined, it's really like the next level of staffing. Because there's certain strengths in each that you just, you like you know the people that are in your company, obviously better than I'm gonna ever know them, you know? And then I might have some perspective based on

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previous experience with people based on other places we've placed them or other information and also may be able to understand sort of, you I guess you must know as an external recruiter is that sometimes people on the outside, they'll disclose things a little differently to an external recruiter opposed to the person that's inside. So it's just an interesting dynamic. And I think when both are able to kind of like share information and work together,

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Not that it's like, that external recruiter is trying to take my job and, and, or, or I'm trying to take that person's job. And it's really like this, you know, yeah, when, when there's synergy, I've found it to work really well. I know I'm kind of rambling, but you get my point.

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Tina Van Delden (19:48.846)

It's true, but I'll tell you I'm really discerning too because I came out of very rigorous process-oriented recruiting environments from start to finish all the way through. And I do meet a lot of recruiters who don't have the depth of that experience. And certainly there are different motivating factors, right? When we're hiring an external recruiter, of course you want to place...

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the best person for it. want the best chance of placing somebody with us. You want to try to get the highest number that increases your fee as well. Justin, I've always liked working with you, but you, but you know, and there's, know, like maybe one other recruiter that I like working with, but you know, in this industry, there's a lot of recruiters that are just playing a numbers game and they, are just throwing resumes at you and, and doing some kind of like not real above board stuff too. So, you know, I have gotten, you know, a lot of recruiters will

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Justin Levinson (20:39.792)

Yeah.

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Tina Van Delden (20:43.168)

send a resume for a position I don't have open and then claim that they own that candidate for a year and things like that. like to me, you know, I didn't even open the resume. Like how do you own this person if I hired them eight months from now when I actually do have a position open? It's not because of you. There's a lot of recruiters that aren't doing a lot of that candidate development work that aren't

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Justin Levinson (20:49.83)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (20:59.643)

Totally.

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Tina Van Delden (21:05.25)

checking in with their candidates to say, what are you really motivated by here? you like, these guys are not the high price leader, but you're going to enjoy this culture the best and helping kind of make those arguments for us when a recruiter might be submitting that person to several agencies and we're in a competitive position we don't even know about necessarily. You know, there's just a, there's a lot of conflict there. And in my, in my brain, I'm like, well, I can do it myself.

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Justin Levinson (21:24.867)

Yeah.

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Tina Van Delden (21:31.554)

the best anyway, because I don't have a middle person with another set of competing interests that are going to kind of screw up my deal, right? And I've been really disappointed a few times in the past where I've gone to offer with a candidate who declined the offer where like, well, that wasn't enough or that wasn't, and it's like, well, the recruiter should have been actually feeding me that information. What's it going to take to close this deal and not let me go to an offer that's going to

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Justin Levinson (21:37.073)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (21:55.579)

Yeah.

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Tina Van Delden (21:57.88)

fall apart or use that to hedge and get a higher offer somewhere else, which I think happens as well. it's really hit or miss out there in terms of recruiters out in the industry. And I think a lot of them are doing disservices to candidates this way because listen, if you want to work at AV Squad, I'll say this on your podcast. If you want to work at AV Squad, you contact me directly. I will do a freaking meeting with you. I meet with every single young person who reaches out. I meet with people who reach out, who are trying to change careers and maybe break into this world.

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Justin Levinson (22:01.349)

Yeah.

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Tina Van Delden (22:27.854)

anybody who's brave enough to kind of try and find me and reach out, I do meeting with for a couple of reasons. First of all, it's just, it's like good karma and good employment brand stuff and just good for our, just give our reputation. But it also saves me a crap ton of time. So when I have a PA opening, I don't post for a PA opening. I'll get a million resumes. I don't know how to go through a million resumes for an entry level job that doesn't require any particular experience.

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Justin Levinson (22:40.347)

Yeah.

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Tina Van Delden (22:57.198)

Instead, I literally go into the folder of the 17 young people I just met with over the last quarter and I say, are you still looking? Do you want to join the interview process for this PA opening? And I hire PAs within two weeks, every single time. And they're great, you know, and I hire AEs the same way. And I, you know, I do all of that prep work and all that stuff. So there's not a of recruiters out there that have that in mind or are building up those pipelines and understand like what's useful where.

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Justin Levinson (23:11.387)

Great.

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Tina Van Delden (23:26.09)

who's useful where and when and the timing and the relationships and all that stuff. don't know.

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Justin Levinson (23:30.665)

yeah. I mean, I've played, I've trained or I've worked with people that have been in the industry for a while and they don't really look at like the key words to understand like what the people are doing in the agency, whether they're an art director of print or they're art director of motion or they're doing static, like what is their, what are they doing? Because if you send a print art director to someone who's asking you for a motions art director, they're gonna think,

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you're, you know, that you don't know what you're talking about. and it's really like, not only is like looking in the skills and being like, are they doing C4D? Are they doing what you know, what are they doing? This should tell your mind where they're at. But it's also like clicking on their profile, like looking at their work and saying like, what, what agencies are doing this type of work? Are they like, is it a comedy drama shop? Is it a shop that's doing more action? I mean, obviously, a lot of shops do a mix of different things, but you can kind of like,

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use, you know, you can't just spackle a, you know, a great editor everywhere and expect something that's going to take it be a hit because the work just might not match, you know, or if you're shopping a creative director or producer who's got business, maybe you don't want to have all the same clients, you know, we want that person to bring in something different, like

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So I think it's like some strategic thinking. A lot of recruiters are just like, okay, here's a title for a graphics coordinator. It doesn't matter if they're like, you know, worked in the NFL or anywhere they can find, they're just gonna throw it at the wall and hope it's the motion graphics coordinator the Davie Squad is looking for. And I think that that, I think you're right. think agencies are doing a disservice and I understand a lot of them with the MPCing approach, trying to find that most placeable candidate. And if they're trying to like,

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send them to a lot of places, they're hoping that you're gonna be like, that person does look cool and then they're gonna build a relationship with you and then they're gonna maybe get more business from you later. But for me, when I'm using that approach, at least I'm trying, I think I'm trying to be a strategic in a way of like, there is something that I really am seeing that's gonna match with what the agency is looking for and that's whether it's brand or gaming or whatever.

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Justin Levinson (25:53.137)

you know, whatever we're trying to fill. I try to think about it. I mean, I have sent people, obviously every recruiter is going to a candidate that's not a fit sometimes. can't know one's perfect, but I think if everyone was executing a little bit better on the agency side, I think recruiting agency side, I think it would help everything. So I completely agree with you.

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Tina Van Delden (26:16.992)

Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of noise out there. just, just recently we hired a, we had a position open for a asset coordinator position, but in the print side of things, we wanted somebody with a photography background who had done photo asset management. very specific skill, but people were sending me like assistant editors and data IO people and you know, things that were, you know, clearly these people wanted to have an editorial.

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career path and, you know, it just wasn't the right asset manager, they're moving stuff from server to server, motion, you know, whatever. It doesn't, you know, like at least read, at least read the job description, but, you know, also just think about it for a little bit and think about what I might need and what I might be looking for. That's a, that's a job I can fill on my own. So what are you bringing that special to the table? And by the way, I meet great candidates all the time that

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Justin Levinson (26:44.475)

Yeah.

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Tina Van Delden (27:10.382)

aren't a fit for us or aren't the winning candidate. I share people out too, to other, you know, I'm in touch with other HR heads at the other agencies. say, hey, if you're looking for an AE or something, I've got a couple of strong ones that were like backup candidates that are so great. We would have hired them too if we had the openings. So I want good people to work all over town. I'm not selfish about it. And I know the recruiters,

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obviously want that too for their own reasons to be able to place people anywhere, but you to really think about who should go where and is it the right fit for the role.

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Justin Levinson (27:46.225)

Totally. I like your approach where you're kind of starting people out, like you're filling these like junior level roles and kind of like investing in these people and speaking with them. And that's something that I've been starting to do a little bit in a sort of a different capacity. we've been really connecting with like a lot of the design schools, the colleges, and like I've been going after a lot of like the professors and the people who are running the arts departments and saying like, who are your stars?

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who are the kids that are gonna be next level and sourcing those people and getting them ready because it's crazy, especially the great design people. All those design studios, they start picking them up so fast. You'll start seeing Imaginary Forces or Elastic or all these different places. They're gone and you're like, how did that even happen? So I started to pick up on that, especially in a lot of trailer houses and even in Brandside, if I can make these connections.

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early too, because the future these kids are gonna, they're gonna be sitting where we are at some point, and the faster we can get to know them. So, I mean, that's not where the big fees aren't there, obviously, and it's a certain client that wants that junior level person. But I sort of have felt that recruitment's a really long game. So if I can foster the relationships with these kids now,

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Tina Van Delden (28:53.218)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (29:10.353)

and even just get them on the phone with a recruiter so they kind of understand like what it's like to speak to a recruiter and it helps them on their interview process too. Even just talking to a recruiter, it's just like practice. I'm always wondering when people are like, no, I don't wanna talk or I don't wanna, I'm like, dude, like even if you don't get something out of me, like just having a conversation, some market insights, some...

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you're gonna learn something even the scene even very senior level people because I'm always surprised. You know, I've had people on meetings who who you know, they make half a million dollars a year. And they go into the agent, they go into their meeting and they just like totally blow themselves up. And it could be something they said could be they didn't turn their like camera on on their like, on their zoom and the client was like, Justin, we really like Jeff, but he didn't really turn his screen on. That was kind of weird.

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boom, you're gone, you're half a million dollar guy and you're gone like in a poof. And it's like, or or just things like, I mean, I remember having one person go to an interview, and it was like dress down day at their job. And they thought they could just still go to their interview that way. And they went in like sweatpants and their hat backwards. And it was like a really senior level role. And just got that message back that like, yeah, we really liked him. But you know, kind of weird that

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you know, showed up at, know, we're not a corporate place, but it was a little too like the other side. So, you know, I feel like there's something to be learned from any conversation. I know I've taken the conversation in whole different place. But yeah.

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Tina Van Delden (30:36.813)

Yeah.

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Tina Van Delden (30:44.11)

No, it's good. I agree. And I try to prepare candidates to not have mishaps. I tell people, hey, we're a casual work environment. You don't have to go too crazy when you dress up. But I still expect you to come like you actually thought about it, like you're going to a new one. You what mean? You don't have to come in a suit, but maybe not come in the ripped jeans and crop top or holey whatever. You still want your candidate to have cared and thought about it.

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Justin Levinson (30:58.127)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (31:07.515)

Yeah.

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Tina Van Delden (31:13.422)

and come in. But I used to talk to a lot of school, to go back to your recruiting at the schools, the design schools, I used to talk to a lot of classes and I was always really surprised because they would come in and it would be a career class, was like motion graphics kids, mostly after effects, maybe a couple guys know C4D, whatever.

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Justin Levinson (31:13.67)

Yeah.

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Tina Van Delden (31:40.014)

And they would come in and there were supposed to be seniors and getting ready to graduate. And this was the course that was preparing them for all that. And we'd get to Q &A and I'd say, okay, has anybody talked to you guys about how to put together your reel? No. Okay, great. Because when I get student reels, it's all the same. You're all working on these group projects together. So I need to know just on the shot, put, I did the CG modeling for the dragonfly, whatever. Just overlay it, tell me what you did. cool.

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How long should it be? Okay, well, you know, try this. Don't go crazy. You're a student. I don't need a three minute reel. I need a minute and a half, you know, kind of thing. And I would ask, has anybody told you what you guys should charge? And not a single, you know, class is covering that kind of stuff. So I used to tell young artists, okay, well, there's a couple of ways you might get paid. You might get paid as like a 10.99 where no taxes are taken out. This is, know, back in the day.

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Justin Levinson (32:17.115)

Totally.

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Tina Van Delden (32:34.046)

Or you might be run through payroll. So those are two considerations. You might be part-time, you might be full-time. This is kind of the range for maybe entry-level roto. This would be a range for like a junior, know, designer animator kind of thing. you know, kids aren't really getting training and people in general don't get training on how to develop their careers. Like to do these things, to have these conversations, to walk into a room properly, to turn on their camera. Now don't have, like, I'm almost 50, so I don't really...

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give a crap anymore. I would just say like, hey, your camera's not on. Is there a reason for that? turn it on? Like, I don't care. want to see, I got to see the whites of your eyes. You know, I'm not going to hire somebody, you know, that I can't connect with, you know, on a camera. But of course I'm going to do it in person as well. But, you know, but even people, those, those people you're talking about who didn't say, Hey, your camera's not on. Can you turn it on? Are also people that didn't get training on how to develop.

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Justin Levinson (33:08.027)

Yeah

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Tina Van Delden (33:30.712)

their careers or talk to candidates or do all these things. These things are just not covered in life. It's like growing up and not learning how to balance a checkbook or a budget or shop for groceries or all these kinds of really practical things, but learning calculus instead. Great if you're pre-science and going into that kind of field, but these are real things and everybody, even the most introverted people, need to know how to advocate for themselves in their professional careers. so a lot of that's missing. I give people...

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Justin Levinson (33:33.873)

true.

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Tina Van Delden (34:00.162)

the benefit of the doubt a lot. give them a lot of grace. I say, hey, look, this person is young, right out of school. They haven't worked in an environment where they were interacting with a lot of people because they were remote. Just keep that in mind when you're interviewing them and they're awkward or weird. But also awkward and weird people can produce really amazing work.

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Justin Levinson (34:14.65)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (34:20.014)

Totally, they're usually the only people I've ever fit in with. But yeah, mean, there are things in interviews where people, know, they don't say things in their best interest. sometimes it's not even just because they're nervous. Sometimes people will go, I think people don't necessarily always see that like when you're interviewing or I'm interviewing somebody that I'm looking for like not just putting their butt in a seat.

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right now, but like what their trajectory, where they kind of like see themselves going. Because yeah, I some company could, I know I keep saying graphics coordinator, I don't know why graphics coordinators are on my mind, I don't even have a graphics coordinator role, but you you could be asked trying to interview somebody for a graphics coordinator, but they, you know, and you're hoping that they're going to move to an AP into a producer in graphics, and you're hoping that's the path that that's the path that works best for you. But they're coming in and they're being like, well, really, I want to be a

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you know, whatever, I want to be a, you know, producer, creative, in a creative produce or something, or a post-breakthrough surprise or whatever, something completely different. You know, you can't go into an interview and say that you, that's my cat singing. You can't say that you want to do something that, you know, just you get it. It's like kind of like, you kind of can blow yourself up with some of these things.

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Tina Van Delden (35:41.902)

But you want to know as the hiring company, right? So, and this happens all the time. I met a young person I really, really loved. He had been an assistant editor at an agency and had been promoted into a production coordinator role in the AE room. But he really wanted to be an associate producer on the AV side of things. He wanted to make that lead. But I needed an AE and I needed an AE who might be interested in being a production coordinator or a senior AE or an editor at some point.

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Justin Levinson (35:46.075)

Totally.

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Tina Van Delden (36:11.874)

I didn't need one who wanted to make that jump. And it's not an impossible jump to make, but I can't make that guarantee and you're not gonna be happy. You're just gonna come here and it's gonna be another couple of years and you're like, I'm still trying to make that jump and probably have to go somewhere else. So it doesn't make sense. And I need to know that. it's not, you know, it's in everybody's best interest that we don't pretend like, yes, this is gonna be my career trajectory even though that's exactly not what I want, you know, but it's.

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also a hard job market and people aren't going to talk themselves out of jobs either. you have to be astute as a recruiter or a hiring manager. Am I really getting the sense they want to do this or do they just need a job? Are they just trying to get in the door and then hopefully do something else internally? Which we don't do a lot of internal transfers. We do some promotions. We've been really great at developing people and moving them into higher roles, but not necessarily making wild leaps across department boundaries.

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Justin Levinson (36:42.161)

Totally.

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Justin Levinson (37:07.665)

Totally, totally. Well, I know we have about 10 minutes left, so there's a couple of things I really wanted to ask you that are maybe even outside of the HR nerdy stuff that I've probably been hitting you with. But I know just from a couple conversations and just doing a little online research before we were speaking that you have a podcast yourself and I know that you are a fan of 80s metal. Am I in the right spot?

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Tina Van Delden (37:35.394)

That's true. Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (37:36.033)

Yeah, maybe you can tell me a little bit about that hobby and maybe a little bit about your podcast as well.

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Tina Van Delden (37:42.124)

Yeah, we're, you know, actually we're on a little bit of a hiatus right now. you know, this is a lot of work. It's like a second job that doesn't pay anything. So that's a super fun hobby to have. but, I grew up in, know, like I said, this small town in Nebraska, the Midwest with, my best friend, Erica, which we were obsessed with all things, 80, 80s metal, you know, Motley crew, Bon Jovi warrant, poison rat, the whole.

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thing and a few years back she convinced me to start this podcast with her to talk about it. We're subject matter experts in it and we managed to generate over 107 episodes. We interviewed a lot of our hero rock stars during the time and got a lot of backstage access and got to hang with a lot of people and really great opportunities. It's really, really fun.

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Justin Levinson (38:24.091)

Wow.

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Tina Van Delden (38:35.47)

podcast if you're into 80s metal or even if you're not, it's kind of a goofy time. And we had listeners in countries all around the world and some really faithful ones and stuff. We sort of plateaued with our listenership and we were kind of like, let's take a little bit of a break and maybe figure out how we can like retackle this in a different way. But everything that comes with it, Justin, it's like marketing this work, your social media strategy, like getting listeners, getting people excited by it.

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It's not easy, you know?

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Justin Levinson (39:06.961)

Totally. Yeah, I know it isn't easy. But it is fun and I'm sure like, I have a lot of passions. And well, for me, and know it's this podcast about you, not me, but I do actually like talking with people and learning. And I think that's why like recruiting too, because I'm just talking to people, I'm getting more information. And by, know, when I'm able to talk to people in HR and creative people and all the people that are in these roles, and it gives me more...

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information to use and I can grow and I can do better at what I'm doing. So I really just like, you know, I'm, I'm not always looking for the eyeballs. I'm sure your niche in 80s is much cooler than just a niche in creative advertising. But it's still like scratches that itch. And you know, we all have to do things that are, you know, outside of what our day to day is, you know, I got these guitars behind me like between

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you know, conversations. a dad rocker and I pick up my guitar and I strum along and I like, you know, I have fun doing it. I don't take it too seriously anymore, but I do have, I do actually have an 80s story for you. It's not 80s metal, but I can give you a quick little anecdote. Are you familiar with John Waite from The Babies? yeah.

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Tina Van Delden (40:24.335)

Lily, Missing You is a perfect song, by the way. He's fantastic.

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Justin Levinson (40:28.529)

This is one of my most embarrassing moments. So I'm gonna have to disclose it here on this. I know the whole world is watching waiting to hear. So yeah, this was probably like, it was like 10 or 15 years ago when I was taking music a little bit more seriously and I was touring and I had a management company that would kind of put me on all these like different tours. So I went on tour with John Waite, which was pretty funny.

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And I did love that song, I Missing You. thought that was kind of cool. And so he was like an older guy by then. I wasn't really actually at that time very familiar with his catalog. So when they told me I was going on tour with them, I really like wasn't sure what I was getting into. I sort of just like jumped on the road and got on.

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And so when I got to the venue, like I didn't talk to him or anything. We kind of had separate rooms and then I like got on stage. It was like a pretty, know, those rooms that he was playing then, I mean, it was still probably like 500 people there, which for me was a pretty big room and I was nervous. Like I always was before I played, which is part of the reason why I stopped. The first thing I said was like, I'm so excited to be here opening up for Tom Waits. And like the whole crowd was like boo.

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Tina Van Delden (41:45.038)

Thank you for it.

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Justin Levinson (41:48.409)

Like they booed me before I even played like my first note. And I was like, like I was so deflated. It was like the longest, like 30 minute set. Like my parents were there and I was just like far from home. I had been driving and like really, you know, when you're the opening act, you're really trying to win over and like selling the merch and like you're trying, like you're trying so hard. And I just, just ate pavement so hard. That's my story.

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Tina Van Delden (41:55.79)

you

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Tina Van Delden (42:17.89)

That's too bad. Tom Wade's also an incredible artist, but not even close.

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Justin Levinson (42:21.833)

Not even close. I got the weights part right, but yeah. But who are some of the people that you had on your podcast? I'm curious. And what is the name of the podcast?

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Tina Van Delden (42:31.054)

So the podcast is called Ages Nine to Adult, or A92A for short. There's a few things hidden in there. Ages Nine to Adult is how long she and I have been friends. Actually, it was a little bit earlier than that. So we've been friends for over 40 years, she and I. 92 is our graduation, our high school graduation year. And Ages Nine to Adult is this silly, it's the age range on the life board game.

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Justin Levinson (42:58.341)

interesting.

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Tina Van Delden (42:58.882)

which we used to play when we were growing up, but we changed all of the squares to like rockify the board game. Like we created a rock and roll version of the board game where we married rock stars and then named the kids. you know, instead of being this profession, you were a roadie or you were a rock star or whatever. So, so it's all three of those things. It's ages nine to adult. You can find it anywhere you stream. There's 107 episodes, I think. And we've had some really great people and we've had...

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Ricky Rachman, everybody kind of remembers as the OG host of Headbangerz Ball. We've had Tracy Guns, founder of Guns N' Roses, and then lead guitarist for LA Guns and a pretty big star in his own right. Bobby Blotzer, drummer from Ratt. We had Rudy Sarzo, who's played bass with Quiet Riot and with Ozzy and Whitesnake. So yeah, lots of really good big names on there.

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Justin Levinson (43:43.921)

Cool.

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Justin Levinson (43:56.027)

Yeah, that's cool. I'm gonna have to tune in and take a listen. That's pretty awesome. How'd you go about finding these people?

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Tina Van Delden (44:02.984)

so we actually had an, we kind of had an agent actually who is, working with us and helping us and connecting us with a lot of people. But my podcast partner also, book shows for a living. So she's in Omaha, Nebraska, and she booked shows for a few venues there. So she's tapped in, she knows agents, booking agents. And so we got a lot that way. Some, just like, I DMed Rudy Sarzo and I was like, we'd be on our podcast. He's like, sure. Like pretty wild, but that actually works a lot of the times.

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Justin Levinson (44:28.017)

Cool. You're a recruiter, of course you did it. I that's like the whole gig, you know? It totally makes sense. If anyone's gonna find those people, it's gonna be you. Yeah, yeah. I mean, for me, I think the best skills I developed were just trying to self-pitch myself places and trying to be like, check out my music and this is what I do. I found it's much harder to...

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Tina Van Delden (44:34.542)

Right.

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Tina Van Delden (44:38.68)

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

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Justin Levinson (44:57.521)

pitch yourself, it's much, at least for me, I find it much easier to pitch somebody else that I believe in, opposed to myself. It's just, you I guess that's why they're booking, you know, that's why there's music management, music agents, because they represent you. And it's, it's the same kind of thing. We're, we're kind of agents in a way, you know? But anyway, I want to thank you for coming on the show and talking and telling us about your history and your passions and

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Yeah, I hope we can maybe do a part two sometime and we can maybe geek out on some more music and HR stuff.

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Tina Van Delden (45:38.606)

I would love that. I could talk about this stuff all day long for sure. And I know a lot of the other agency pods aren't really talking a lot about this sort of back office operational kinds of, you know, they're talking to a lot of editors and producers and creative directors, but I think it's cool to talk about, you know, some of the spine of the agencies and companies that are making, you know, a lot of really cool things happen.

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Justin Levinson (46:00.121)

Yeah, I mean, one of my hopes, and I think that like people who are who might be listening are people that are like looking to either get into the space or trying to work their way up the ranks. And, you know, sometimes they see somebody who has made it from, you know, lower on the totem pole higher, and they want to know how how they get there. And a lot of that. It's not just the creative people. There's people like yourself who are operational and creative and personalities. And it's just like

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you know, every part of the company's success, it's a broad, it's not just from the creative. So I'm curious because someone like you is who they're gonna essentially talk to and to knowing what you find interesting in them and your hiring process and your thoughts. And hopefully it's gonna give somebody who's maybe, you know, looking into the business some insights on how they can get there and.

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knowing somebody like you who is very approachable, who is willing to talk to people who are production assistants and you're saying, reach out to me, I wanna talk to you. It's a great thing for them to get that experience and it's great that you're open to that, because like you were saying before, it's just such great marketing to just be like, yeah, we do talk to people and this is what we do and here's our work. Because people do remember where they interviewed and who they talked to and they'll tell somebody else, I had an interview at Avisquad, it didn't work out.

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for this particular role, but I spoke to Tina, she was super nice. I can give you her message. If you're just keeping good vibrations all around, they usually come back. least that's my view. I won't give anybody else any more sermons here. But yeah, I do appreciate the time and I look forward to chatting with you again soon.

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Tina Van Delden (47:49.422)

For sure, thanks Justin, thanks so much. You too.

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Justin Levinson (47:51.373)

All right, Tina, be well. Cheers.