What happens when you drop a former agency recruiter into a hypergrowth environment with no budget, no ATS—and 15,000 hires to make?
Joe Leno, Senior Director of Recruiting at Leaf Home, shares the inside story of how he scaled a grassroots recruiting operation into a full-fledged TA engine that powers one of the largest home improvement companies in North America.
In this episode, Joe reveals how he earned a seat at the strategy table, how he leads a team that supports 260+ locations, and what it really takes to scale hiring with consistency and culture.
Joe also shares:
The importance of tying investments in recruiting directly to company profitability.
Connect with Joe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-leno-4018a3126/
Connect with us:
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[00:00:00] Joe Leno: We were building a plane while we were flying it, and it was a little unnerving at the time because we have these huge aspirations, these huge goals. It's like we don't have the infrastructure to support this.
[00:00:11] Dave Travers: So what does it really take for your business to attract world-class talent today? I'm Dave Travers, President of ZipRecruiter, and on Talent All Stars, we shine a light on the people and the day-to-day processes behind recruitment and retention at some of the world's most influential businesses.
My guest today leads recruiting at one of the largest home improvement companies in the country. He's had the unique opportunity to build the whole operation from the ground up. Joe Leno is the Senior Director of Recruiting at Leaf Home, a direct-to-consumer powerhouse with over 260 offices and more than 15,000 hires annually across the US and Canada.
[00:00:50] Dave Travers: And in this conversation, he'll tell us how he went from a solo contributor tracking candidates on a Google sheet to a 45-person operation supporting thousands of field partners. So let's bring 'em in. Joe Leno, welcome to Talent All Stars.
[00:01:06] Joe Leno: Thanks for having me, Dave.
[00:01:10] Dave Travers: So excited to have you, so much to talk about, but starting with the fact that you are at the locust of an incredible business, and this is an incredible time of year. So tell us a little bit about. Leaf home and tell us a little bit about what it's like during this time of year as things ramp up.
[00:01:25] Joe Leno: Leaf Home is the nation's largest direct-to-consumer home improvement company. We specialize in gutter protection, a lot of water solutions, products, bath products, a stairlift, really anything exterior, interior. We dabble in it. We have 250 locations across the US and Canada. We service about 87% of zip codes across the nation. So I've been here for about eight years, and just been a tremendous ride.
[00:01:51] Dave Travers: That's awesome. So, take us back eight years to the very beginning. Like, what was it like back then? Just starting out, much smaller team, much smaller company, and take us back to the early days.
[00:02:02] Joe Leno: Incredible company. Even when I started, I came in as an individual contributor. I was one of the first recruiters here at Leaf. Really focused on the installation side of our business. We had, I wanna say 32 or 33 locations, only a couple up in Canada, and just for one product line, we just had the leaf filter gutter protection.
At the time, I had just relocated out of the agency world in Pittsburgh, and I was back in the corporate setting. And again, it was just this really fast-paced, really energetic gutter company. Never would've thought I would've stumbled across the company. That was that much excitement about gutters, but I found it, and just from day one it was just, it was a today, not tomorrow mentality and just again, full of energy.
[00:02:46] Dave Travers: Like so many businesses, when you think about it, there are a lot of gutters out there, and it's a real bummer when the gutters don't work. So it makes sense that you need people and you need talent to make that happen.
[00:02:55] Joe Leno: It's something you don't think about until you do,
[00:02:57] Dave Travers: until you really think about it.
[00:02:59] Joe Leno: Exactly.
[00:03:00] Dave Travers: Right. But you said you started as an individual contributor, so now you're leading this team of over 50, but like talk about what were the major milestones along that journey? So many people start out. Obviously, almost everybody's an individual contributor and dream of, and think about getting to the point where they're running a team and you're managing managers and all those sorts of things. What were the big shifts and big milestones along the way as you think about your management journey?
[00:03:25] Joe Leno: Yeah, I think, you know, I even before a milestone, I was in a role that was very much smile and dial. It was very high volume. I knew my role, but I also knew that I was a big spoke in the wheel of Leaf home, like I always felt like I was contributing, and the company really did a good job of Along the way, we really identified as the company was growing, the infrastructure really needed to keep up with that, that crazy growth around 2020, obviously the home improvement industry was impervious to everything going on in the economy. We actually about doubled what our projections were supposed to be in 2020 too.
So I had moved into a management role. I think we had about six or seven recruiters that I was overseeing, and by the end of 2021, we had a team of about 30 recruiters, both in the field and at corporate. Our COO at the time. He's the CEO. Now, Rocco had referenced. We were building a plane while we were flying it, and it was a little unnerving at the time because we have these huge aspirations, these huge goals.
It's like we don't have the infrastructure to support this. So we identified that pretty quickly, and when he started throwing these really large numbers around for installers and sales reps, and all these other initiatives, we grew pretty quickly. Then I had moved into a director role and oversaw basically the whole talent acquisition department shortly thereafter.
[00:04:50] Dave Travers: Got it. Okay. So, describe what that's like the first time you start managing people. How different was it than being the individual contributor superstar, when all of a sudden you're responsible for others?
[00:05:02] Joe Leno: It's a feel-good to have somebody else feel that success that you had. It's awesome to be able to pass on knowledge to folks that. You were peers with prior to that? Right. I felt really empowered because the folks that I was peers with were taking the advice from me. I think they always even viewed me kind of as that leader because they've told me even prior to being in that role with the title, they still viewed me as the leader.
I kind of just assumed that position before actually being in it, but it's an incredible feeling to have a hiring manager or an executive come to you and say. John or Zach, or Rich or Nadia, they're doing an incredible job. Right? And that just feels so much better than them telling 'em that you're doing a good job because you knew you played that role, and you know the feeling of success that they have.
[00:05:50] Dave Travers: That's all great, that it was wonderful. And knowing you, it's easy to believe that was the case, but what are the struggles? Tell us about some of the difficulties of scaling into being a manager
[00:05:58] Joe Leno: Oh, I mean, again, we were growing so quickly, and to be completely honest, I had came from a staffing agency prior to being in the corporate world. I had no corporate recruiting experience prior to coming to Leh, so I was very much so homegrown. I didn't know any other recruiting style from a corporate standpoint, right? I only knew that agency world. So I was basically learning not only the organization, but how to grow out a corporate team with the limited knowledge of how a corporate structure even worked.
On top of again, expanding, like we were, we definitely didn't make a perfect pancake the first time. We burnt some, we messed some up along the way. I'm not saying we're perfect now by any stretch, but the struggles were growing at the rate that we were while adding product lines in a lot of different locations.
So logistically, if you think about recruiting somebody in Winnipeg and then recruiting somebody in Fort Lauderdale. It's a completely different profile. The way that the candidates speak to you, the hiring managers are completely different. It's really even the same role is completely different market to market.
So it was a lot of trial and error. It was a lot of learning who the hiring managers were. Trying to get the right folks in front of them, regardless of location or role that we are looking for.
[00:07:18] Dave Travers: When you think now, as somebody listening, who's about to take on that sort of growth for the first time, where they're gonna have to enter a new market, or they're gonna have to start staffing up to support a new product line or something like that, you've learned so much as you've gone through several of these.
What advice do you have? Somebody just starting on that journey, who's got like a system down for their one location or their one role or set of roles they have to fill and now the locations and the types of roles are changing.
[00:07:45] Joe Leno: I feel like I'm speaking to myself a little bit here 'cause we're still going through it with some new product lines and some relatively new product lines, but really, you have to prioritize the relationships with the hiring managers.
You really have to understand what it is they're looking for, the why they're looking for that. Where specifically they're looking for all those competencies that go into hiring, really understand, so you're providing them value. The other one is gonna be on the candidate side. You really have to understand the motivating factors for candidates.
Why are they looking for that next role? That should be one of the first questions when speaking to a candidate in these markets. Why are you looking for that role? They're gonna tell you exactly. It's either it was commute, it was pay, it was a number of reasons, but they're gonna give you exactly what you need to fill those new markets to fill those new product lines.
But again, those two things, you really have to understand your hiring manager. You have to understand the candidates. Everything else will fill in.
[00:08:40] Dave Travers: What I love about the way you talk about that is really listening to both sides. You're the expert that the company turns to when it's time to think about growing in a new way, and you're really listening to both the hiring manager and saying, what's the real why behind what you're saying.
And also to the candidate, you're the internal expert on the candidate, and saying, why is it somebody would want to come do this job or join? What's the attributes of that? And when you're the expert internally who brings. That base of knowledge, that's really powerful for a company to have that.
[00:09:09] Joe Leno: Absolutely. Our new product development team does a tremendous job of working closely with HR and talent. When we look at a go-to-market strategy for a new product line or even a new location within a current product line. To understand what are gonna be the hiring struggles there? Are there more fruitful markets than others?
Should we look at a different market because of the talent there? Should we look at a new product line? When we start thinking of new things, it's really incredible the amount of collaboration that they don't just say, Hey, we're gonna go do this. Figure it out. I think we started doing that, and they realized quickly this might have been a little shortsighted.
So again, we've came a long way in really understanding the full scope of opening these new locations or product lines from when we first had started.
[00:09:52] Dave Travers: So you said the word collaboration there. So now that you're this head of this 50-ish person department, one of the things you have to do is collaborate with people well beyond the TA function. Talk about that. As a business leader who's obviously responsible for TA, but you're interfacing with everybody from all over the business, what's the key to doing that? Like you started out as a recruiter, but now you're this executive. What's the key to making that transition?
[00:10:18] Joe Leno: I never pass up an opportunity to have a conversation with somebody. It doesn't even need to be work-related, but just going up and shaking a hand or asking somebody how they've been. Most of the times where conversations revolve around recruiting, but it doesn't always have to be that. Any event that I'm at, I make it a point to go speak to people. Maybe I have never spoke to that individual before.
We have thousands of hiring managers. I'm never gonna be able to meet all of them, but I want them to know me as Joe, the person, not Joe the recruiter, or Joe the director of recruiting, or this or that. I want them to just know me as an individual who's here to help. And I think having that level of connection with the individuals really helps with that business side of it as well.
When you have a personal connection with somebody. I feel like it's easier to work with that person.
[00:11:06] Dave Travers: What I love about that answer is that is a skill that is A, you're so right about that, but B, that's a skill that as a recruiter who's up and coming, that's a skill you've been developing. That's not some Now learn finance or some new skill that you may or may not know before. Building rapport and connecting some with someone as a person first. That's a superpower you've already been working on as a successful recruiter.
[00:11:27] Joe Leno: It takes time and it takes a lot of effort. On light of Father's Day recently here, I'll thank my father for teaching me at a young age. Look, somebody in the eye, shake their hand, say hello, or Thank you, or Yes, sir. No ma'am. And I think as somebody young coming into the profession, they need to really understand the basics of how to treat somebody with respect, because I feel like they're going to naturally be more inclined to reciprocate that respect to you and ultimately work with you.
And that's what we're trying to do. We're looking to be true partners. I don't wanna be an order taker. I want to be a recruiting partner. I wanna really be as efficient as possible. And again, I really think that comes down to building those relationships.
[00:12:06] Dave Travers: Okay, so you wanna be a true partner. You've established that true relationship with your fellow business leaders and executives. You've listened to what their needs are, but one of the things you mentioned earlier is that going from, you know, a handful of recruiters to a big team, you need infrastructure, you need resources. How do you go out and advocate for that and decide amidst all the different things you could need and the business needs, all sorts of things.
How do you decide and effectively advocate? Hey, if you want us to be successful and take this to the next level, we need this new technology, we need this new headcount. A lot of it's just begging and pleading with our CFO. For the most part. But, uh, it really goes back to we built a structure, homegrown specifically for our business.
[00:12:48] Joe Leno: We didn't have a blueprint at Leaf Home to say, this is how we're gonna develop this recruiting structure. It was completely off of, I'm not gonna say this was all me by any stretch, I was involved in and most all of it, but there's been a lot of people along the way who have said. We need an a TS. We didn't even have that when I started.
We were using a Google sheet, um, and tracking candidates just one by one. We need to implement programmatic partners. We need to use vendors for sourcing. We didn't have anything set up right. It was very much. Grassroots recruiting. We were doing a lot of referrals, you know, kind of candidate generation gorilla recruiting.
We were hitting the streets for recruiting. So we really had to just kind of prioritize, okay, what do we need the most? Do we need this as a TS? Do we need a more robust system? Do we need to partner with that vendor? Do we need this resume database? And again, I joke about pleading for a budget. There was a little bit of that, but we also, in 2020, when a lot of these systems were being developed and we were piloting a lot of different programs, the senior vice president of operations at the time had said to me, you don't have a budget.
I just need more people. So hearing that is like music. I'm like, oh, I can try whatever I want. And being somebody new to corporate recruiting and even management within corporate recruiting structure. I was like a kid in a candy store. I got to try whatever I wanted and see what worked, see what didn't work.
Nobody was really looking and saying, you know, why did you try that? Why did you do this? And we ended up finding something that really worked well for us.
[00:14:23] Dave Travers: I think a lot of TA leaders went through, but from the end of the pandemic and the reopening of the economy to today, have been through cycles where it's like, there is no budget.
Just get me the people I need. Two, being back to a little bit more begging and pleading with the CFO, what's that transition like? Like, those are two very different operating environments. How do you behave differently when it's a talent shortage, crisis versus, or return to normalcy? What is the difference between those two kind of errors?
[00:14:52] Joe Leno: It's an incredible challenge. One that I really never anticipated here. I had never experienced it. The one thing I'll say is we went from this enormous budget or lack thereof. We really didn't have one at the time, right? It was just still find as many people as you can to now. We need relatively the same amount, if not more, folks.
And now there's a lot of talk about the cost of everything, and everything's getting so expensive. So it has been a lot of difficult decisions, things we trim or things we really need to invest in, and we have to be way more diligent in our data-driven decisions. We have to understand. Way more meticulously where we're spending our budget, and if it's not efficient, we have to cut things here and there.
It's been a, a unique situation to navigate, but one that I truly am grateful for because I think there's going to be easier times at some point, and I'm gonna look back at this and go, oh my gosh. I can't believe we had to do what we did, which it gives me a sense of pride. Even in the moment we're hiring a partnering with 15,000 people annually. It's a robust structure at this point, and again, it's hasn't came without some pain.
[00:15:57] Dave Travers: As you've now zoomed out and reflect upon it. You've gone from being this individual recruiter closing your first candidate at leave home to now managing this process that recruits 15,000 people today, more probably tomorrow, and next year and beyond. What does that mean to you? What does it feel like to think about that journey and what the impact of that is?
[00:16:17] Joe Leno: It almost feels like surreal at times. I still feel very much a part of the business. I don't ever want to get to a point where I remove myself from that day-to-day completely. I love being able to walk around and know that I was just in that seat a few years ago.
Right. And I love having that connection. And I think I have more buy-in from my team because they were there with me. We used to do this. I sat in that pit with them and I was on the phone with them, and they remember having those times with me and I don't wanna lose that. I also feel a sense of accomplishment.
I think anybody would, as you grow into a role or if you reach any milestones we had just discussed, you still feel like you've accomplished something. Now my wife will tell you I'm never happy with anything. I get a promotion, and the next day I say, how should I go get the next one? She would like me to take a day and be happy, but I just like things moving.
I never want to just, even with our current process, people say, wow, you guys have done a tremendous job building this out. I'm always saying, what can we do next? This opportunity wasn't as filled quickly enough, or this cost us too much or this or that, and they're like, would you just be happy with, with something like just for a few days? It's just not in my DNA to be complacent, I suppose.
[00:17:33] Dave Travers: Okay. That's a perfect transition to the way we always end these conversations is with a lightning round. And so I want you to envision, you mentioned your CEO earlier. I want you to envision the CEO walks up to you at the coffee bar or on the elevator and says, Hey, Joe, you know exactly to what your last point was about never being satisfied.
I was thinking about our TA function, how should we be measuring ourselves? And how should you be measuring your team for me over the coming year or two? What's the right answer to that?
[00:18:04] Joe Leno: That, that's a tough one. I've talked to the CEO about this, and I think it's truly is the recruiting team producing the results needed for the overall profitability of the company. It's what we're here for. At the end of the day, we're here for a specific goal for the company. It's the overarching goal. Are we finding the right folks to fill that financially and also culturally? Are we finding the right individuals for that, for the business to accomplish their big overarching goals?
I'd say the second one, and it's not so much a metric, but I really feel like this ladders up to, are you finding the right people for the company, is when you ask somebody about recruiting, you ask a hiring manager, you ask one of the other executives in the C-suite. About recruiting? Are they happy that you're talking about recruiting, or are they like, oh God, Joe's team is not doing so well?
Like what is their overall feeling about recruiting? Because I feel like generally when people are happy with talent acquisition, the business is doing.
[00:19:02] Dave Travers: Okay, one more rapid fire question, which is, okay, so same scenario, you and the CEO bump into each other over a cup of coffee, and the CEO says, you know, Joe, you're the expert at this.
Like, I spend a fair amount of my time, and one of the most important things I do is interview people to join us here. Well, gimme your one best tip. How do I become a better interviewer?
[00:19:25] Joe Leno: Understand that a candidate is gonna be very vulnerable. They're looking for a new position for a number of reasons. Vulnerable candidates are generally emotionally predictable. Again, get the reason why they're looking just like a salesman. If you're in a sales role, you wanna understand why that customer's looking. For the new product that you have, you don't just instantly jump in and start selling them. It's the sell me this pen routine, right?
It's understanding what that customer's looking for. What's that candidate looking for? Once you uncover that, which they're going to give it to you, you can sell your opportunity while weaving in all those things that they said they're looking for.
[00:20:03] Dave Travers: It is so clear why you're a Talent All-Star. Thanks so much for joining us today.
[00:20:07] Joe Leno: Thanks for having me, Dave.
[00:20:13] Dave Travers: That's Joe Leno, Senior Director of Recruiting at Leaf Home. We'll drop his LinkedIn profile in the show notes below. And just a reminder, we publish video versions of these conversations on YouTube. Also, head to the official ZipRecruiter channel and look for the Talent All-Stars playlist. If you've got feedback for us or a guest idea, send us a note at talentallstars@ziprecruiter.com.
[00:20:36] Dave Travers: I'm Dave Travers. Thanks for listening to Talent All-Stars. See you next time.