Ryan Englin on The NTM Growth Marketing Podcast: Why Recruiting Is a Marketing Activity and How Storytelling Wins the Trades

I sat down with Andrew Gottlieb on The NTM Growth Marketing Podcast to talk about how Core Matters markets itself, why storytelling is foundational to recruiting, and how our Core Fit Hiring System flips the script on traditional staffing.

Andrew asked me right out of the gate what Core Matters actually does. Here's the short version: we are not recruiters. We are not a staffing agency. We are trainers and coaches who help companies implement our process so they can hire better people faster. That distinction matters. We teach people how to fish. We don't fish for them.

We talked about my background, and I think it surprised Andrew that I didn't come from HR. My degree is in human resources, but I never landed an HR job out of college. I went into sales, marketing, and operations. I ended up running a banking fulfillment center with atrocious turnover. I was interviewing a hundred people a month. It was a revolving door. That frontline grind is where I learned the mechanics of recruiting and hiring at volume. A lot of what we built at Core Matters came straight from those early lessons.

One of the things Andrew noticed was how different our brand feels compared to other companies in our space. That's intentional. I grew up in the trades. My dad was an owner-operator. I have a deep passion for the people in this industry. Most of them haven't gone to college. Most learned everything in the School of Hard Knocks. And when they visit a company's website and see the whole leadership team in suits and ties standing perfectly for a photo, they look at that and think: these people don't get me. Our branding is built to resonate with the people we serve. We get them because we grew up in the same world.

Andrew pressed me on how we find our audience since they're not searching Google for "teach me how to recruit better." Nobody wakes up looking for that. They want someone to do it for them. That's not us. So we meet our clients where they are. Trade shows. Industry associations. Podcasts. Keynotes. I'm a Vistage speaker, so I do workshops all around the country. Leaders used to be readers. Now leaders are listeners. That's why podcasts, audiobooks, and shareable video content are so central to what we do.

We spent a good chunk of time on storytelling. It's the oldest form of communication. People remember stories because of the emotional connection. And in recruiting, the emotional connection is everything. People don't leave jobs. They leave people. They're looking for a different team to be a part of, not a different job listing.

Here's what I see all the time: companies with amazing culture, great leadership, real investment in their people. And nobody knows about it. No one ever said, "That's a story we need to tell." One of the first things we do with a new client is dig in and pull those stories out. Usually it's a mess. Some values on a wall. Some stories from somebody who doesn't even work there anymore. We put our arms around it and figure out how to tell a very succinct story that connects with the ideal employee. Then we go to market with it and teach the whole team how to tell that story too.

Think about the difference. Your best tech can say, "Hey, my boss has an opening, you want a job." Or that same tech can say, "Let me tell you what just happened at work. Let me tell you where we're headed. Let me tell you why I'm excited to get up every morning." That second version is what compels someone to go home and tell their spouse, "I want to work there." That's recruiting as marketing in action.

Andrew also asked how my book fits into the marketing strategy. I wrote Hire Better People Faster because I wanted the message out there. I wanted people to know there's a different, better way to do recruiting and retention. We pulled back the curtain on all seven components, all 14-plus tools, how to implement them, and what to do when they break. I didn't want to write another mindset book. There are plenty of those. I wanted a how-to book. And it's become one of the best top-of-funnel tools we have because once people consume the content and start implementing, they realize they need help and they give us a call.

If you liked this conversation, I go deeper on employer branding, storytelling, and the full hiring system on Titans of the Trades.