How to Generate Top Applicants for Your Business

Summary

Podcast Summary: The EntreLeadership Podcast – “How to Generate Top Applicants for Your Business”
Host: Ramsey Network
Guests: John Felkins (Entree Leadership), Armando Lopez (Sr. Executive Director of HR, Ramsey Solutions)
Date: March 30, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode tackles the ongoing challenge business owners face in attracting and hiring top talent, even for high-profile companies like Ramsey Solutions. John Felkins interviews Armando Lopez, who oversees all HR at Ramsey, to unpack the strategies that have evolved over recent years and are crucial for generating a flow of high-quality applicants in today’s competitive market.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Changing Recruitment Landscape

• Even companies with broad reach (24,000 applicants YTD at Ramsey) struggle to find the right candidates for each role.
  • “We have some positions with zero applicants and we have to go generate applicants. So, we go to market and we find people.” (Armando, 01:51)
• Traditional approaches—simply posting jobs and hoping for applicants—are no longer sufficient.
  • “I'm going to post everywhere and do some active things... that has gone by the wayside. That is no longer the way that business operates.” (Armando, 08:41)

2. Creative Strategies for Generating Applicants

a. Leveraging Everyday Touchpoints

• Encourage employees to wear branded “Now Hiring” T-shirts when attending local events (e.g., fairs, car shows).
  • “What would it cost you to give all your team members T-shirts that say ‘now hiring’ on them?” (Armando, 02:46)
• Use business materials—back of business cards, invoices—with QR codes or prompts to “Join our team.”
  • “Every invoice that we send out should have something...say, come work here. Join our team.” (Armando, 03:10)

b. Marketing Mindset in Recruiting

• Think like a marketer to promote open roles: sponsor local events your target applicants attend, and advertise your company as a great place to work.
  • “If that's my audience and I know that's what they're doing... why wouldn't I sponsor it? And then also have my ‘great place to work’ or ‘now hiring’ or ‘join our team’ or something?” (Armando, 09:07/09:14)

c. Employee Referral Programs

• Referrals are the strongest source of quality candidates—Ramsey pays $500 per referral/$2,000 for in-demand roles like tech when referrals stay 90 days.
  • “If you're my friend, I'm going to tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly about where I work... referrals tend to be the first and best source of hire.” (Armando, 05:49)
• Publicly recognize and award bonuses to staff at team meetings to reinforce referral culture.
  • “We stand up from stage... and we literally count it out to the entire team. It's a reminder... Oh, I can get that too if I refer people and they make it 90 days.” (Armando, 06:55)

3. The Importance of Choice in Hiring

• Having a choice among multiple qualified candidates is the only way to make the best hire.
  • “The only way you're going to end up with the right hire or the best hire is if you have a choice between candidates.” (Armando, 04:42)
  • “If all I have is below what I need, then I'm just picking the best of someone that one day I'm going to need to let go. And that's not good.” (Armando, 03:34)

4. Candidate Experience: Pre-Boarding and Impression

• The candidate experience doesn’t stop at offer acceptance—personal calls, team texts, and proactive engagement before Day 1 help reduce new hire dropout and elevate your company's reputation.
  • “There should be a phone call...just say, ‘Welcome to the team, I'm so looking forward to seeing you Monday.’” (Armando, 09:46)
• Treat every interview as an opportunity for positive word-of-mouth, knowing each applicant will recount their experience to friends/family.
  • “All of us have someone that's going to ask us at the end of the day, ‘How did that go?’...you want that to be, ‘It was better than I thought. It was better than I expected.’” (Armando, 10:25/11:23)

5. Active vs. Passive Recruiting

• Active: Go out into the market, network, approach people, attend local events, personally recruit.
• Passive: Job postings, signage, branded trucks—anything requiring the applicant to make the first move.
  • “There's active sourcing and then there's passive sourcing, which is you just post and pray.” (Armando, 11:52)
  • “Those days [of just posting help wanted] are long gone... Best outcome is when we do a combination of both.” (Armando, 12:19/12:40)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On choice:
  • “The only way you're going to end up with the right hire or the best hire is if you have a choice between candidates.” (Armando, 04:42)
• On marketing recruitment:
  • “Everything we do is generating an applicant... Every business card on the back of it should have a QR code... Every invoice should have something like that.” (Armando, 02:47/03:10)
• On referral programs:
  • “Referrals tend to be the first and best source of hire.” (Armando, 05:49)
  • “We stand up from stage... And to that end, it makes all the other people cognizant and aware. It's a reminder...” (Armando, 06:55)
• On candidate experience:
  • “All of us have someone that's going to ask us at the end of the day, how did that go? ...You want that to be, ‘It was better than I expected.’” (Armando, 10:25/11:23)
• On passive vs. active:
  • “There's active sourcing and then there's passive sourcing, which is you just post and pray.” (Armando, 11:52)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:04–01:43 – The challenge of finding top talent, even at Ramsey; market changes
• 02:30–03:16 – Creative grassroots recruitment ideas (T-shirts, business cards, invoices, vans)
• 04:34–05:57 – The necessity of choice; risks of desperation hiring; referral program fundamentals
• 06:55–07:28 – Referral recognition and its impact
• 08:41–09:26 – Modern recruitment is active/marketing-driven, not passive
• 09:35–10:04 – The critical role of pre-boarding communication
• 10:13–11:23 – Treating candidates as future word-of-mouth ambassadors
• 11:37–12:40 – Active vs. passive recruiting strategies and their complementarity

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Takeaways for Leaders

• Recruiting today requires creativity, active marketing, and a focus on candidate experience.
• Build applicant flow through integrated marketing, referral programs, and community engagement.
• Recognize, reward, and publicize referral successes to perpetuate quality candidate pipelines.
• Make every candidate touchpoint memorable—because every applicant will share their story.

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For more on actionable hiring and leadership strategies, subscribe to The EntreLeadership Podcast.

Transcript

[A]

One of the biggest challenges we hear from business owners is how do I find good people to work for me, it's tough to attract great talent these days, and even here at Ramsey, we've had to rethink how we do it. On this episode, Entree Leadership's John Felkins sits down with Ramsey's senior executive director of hr, Armando Lopez, to talk about what's changed in our hiring process and, and how to find and attract the right people for your team. Let's jump in.

[B]

Hey, everybody. I'm here with Armando Lopez. Armando, you lead all of HR for Ramsey, isn't that right?

[C]

That's right.

[B]

You know, one of the biggest challenges we hear from our customers is how do I find good people? It's really tough to get good folks.

[C]

It is. It is actually one of the more common questions I get when I attend entree events or in Q and A panels.

[B]

Is everybody's face with it?

[C]

Yeah, it's a hard thing to, to think about. Right. Because how do you find great people? Starts with, well, how do I get great people to apply?

[B]

Right.

[C]

Otherwise you just have a choice of whoever applied, right? So not everyone, John, has the benefit of having a radio show with 15 million listeners. And not everyone has the benefit of being a public facing company. And so I brought some stats not because I want to make people jealous, right. But because I want you to understand how the market has changed and that even a company like us that has the benefit of a ton of applicants has had to change in how we go about generating applications. So we're not doing the same things we did five years ago. Yeah.

[B]

These numbers are crazy.

[C]

They are so year to date. So far, we've had 24,000 people apply.

[B]

That's a ton.

[C]

That is a ton. And so you may say, well, you have no problem finding people, right? Well, we don't have 24,000 applicants that fit every position. We have some positions have zero applicants and we have to go generate applicants. And so we, we go to market and we find people. And so for. For our entree clients who are listening and who are saying, okay, but how do I go about doing it? Right? I placed an ad, I put now hiring on my windows. I put it on my vans that are driving around town. How do I. I've done everything I know how to do. And so the first thing I would say is, ask your team members what they do for fun.

[B]

Okay?

[C]

Ask your team members what they do for fun. Right? Do they go to the fair? Do they go to the car show? That's happening downtown, wherever it is that they go and participate in. Fun. What would it cost you to give all of your team members T shirts that say now hiring on them?

[B]

Okay.

[C]

What would it cost if you said, hey, we're a great place to work? What if it's top wages? What if it's whatever it is, right? I'm not the marketing person, right? But what I am is I'm trying to figure out a way that everything we do is generating an applicant, right? So every business card on the back of it should have a QR code or something, say, come work here. You know, join our team. Yeah, right. Every invoice that we send out should have something like that.

[B]

You're saying that you're not a marketing person, but that's totally a marketing strategy for getting applicants.

[C]

Because I am a recruiter and I know that I need to do everything in my power to be able to generate applicants. And so I know that the best hire comes when I have a choice. I will arrive at the perfect hire, the one that fits our culture, the one that is humble, hungry, smart, the one that has the right skillset. I will arrive at a non compromised hire when I have a choice. I pick the best of what I have. But if all I have is below what I need, then I'm just picking the best of someone that one day I'm going to need to let go. And that's not good. So everything in our power to generate the right candidate is what's important. And generating applicant flow means that we take some active steps, right? We reach out to people and we take some passive steps. That is, we advertise, we promote, we put our name, we let people know we're hiring everywhere we can. Now, in this economy, John, the reason we have such high applicants so far is because the economy is softening a little bit. Not a lot of companies are hiring as fast as we are here at Ramsey. And so a lot of people are out in the marketplace and they're applying for positions, but it doesn't mean they're qualified. If you generate the right applicant flow and you have a choice, then you've got to know the steps you're going to put people through in order to end up with the right hire at the end.

[B]

Can you say that line again? I want you to keep going, but about choice and the best hire, I think everybody needs to really lock that in.

[C]

The only way you're going to end up with the right hire or the best hire is if you have a

[B]

choice between Candidates, Right?

[C]

That's right.

[B]

You're choosing from everybody that's applied and you're picking the best one.

[C]

Correct. If you have two and only one of them is available to work the hours you need, now you have one. And so you're going to interview that person with a goal that says, I really need someone. I hope this works out. Yeah. So you're already biased towards making it work. Instead of really being selective and saying, is this the right person?

[B]

Do you think that's the situation people are. I mean, is that a common thing where they're kind of desperate and they're not really making a choice?

[C]

They're just more times than not. Yes, more times than not. That's what happens. The first thing that I say to people when they have no applicant flows, do you have some kind of a team member referral, employee referral program? And if you don't, that's an easy place to start because these are people that are already working for you. They know the company. The people they refer are going to have a higher likelihood of staying. Because if you're my friend, I'm going to tell you the good, the bad and the ugly about where I work. I don't want to look at you in the hallway and say, you got me into this. Right.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So I want you to be here knowing who we are and knowing what we do. And so referrals tend to be the first and best source of hire.

[B]

We've done that for a long time.

[C]

We've done that for a long time. In fact, we pay for referrals. Right. We give $500 to anybody that refers, any team member. And technology is so hard to find sometimes and so competitive that we do $2,000 referral bills. You don't have to do $2,000. If you're an H vac company, a restaurant company, a small plumbing company, you don't have to do that amount. But what would it mean to you if you could actually find someone that stayed past 90 days? The highest turnover period of any company is this first 90 days. What would you be willing to give for that person to find that person? You don't have to do any advertising. You don't have to buy those T shirts we talked about. You don't have to do any of those other things. And then I would assess a price to that and I would give that to the person who referred them.

[B]

That's such an important thing. There's a certain way that we do that. Dave doesn't just come to your desk and do that on the side, right? In private, how does he actually give that money out? I think that's interesting too.

[C]

Well, John, you know, we make a big deal out of referrals, as you well know. And so we stand up from stage. We have the team members and staff meetings stand up who are receiving it. And we literally counted out the entire team. And to that end, it makes all the other people cognizant and aware. It's a reminder, right? To go, oh, I can get that too. If I refer people and they make it 90 days. And when you have to count to 2,000, it stretches out the time. Those are programs that I think if people aren't thinking about it, they should. Right.

[B]

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[C]

For a long time, companies relied on. I'm going to post an ad. People are going to apply, I'm going to interview them. They need to prove to me why they should work here. And that has gone by the wayside. That is no longer the way that business operates. I'm going to post everywhere and I'm going to do some active things. For recruiting, I may sponsor the tractor pool in Colombia.

[B]

You know, now you're talking.

[C]

I may do something. If that's my audience and I know that's what they're doing, right, why wouldn't I do that?

[B]

That's where the eyes are.

[C]

Exactly. And why wouldn't I sponsor it? And then also have my great place to work or now hiring or join our team or something. Right. Because that's, that's where the people that I want are. That's where they're having fun.

[B]

Yeah. So you, so you do those things. You get a lot of applications. Right. Or at least you get more than you've been getting. What would you say? What's the next thing, what would you say to folks?

[C]

Well, the next thing is make sure that you treat them well. Once you extend the offer to this person to start, what happens after that? Let's say it's a Wednesday and you're starting them on Monday.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Right. Let's just pretend it's not. It's only those few days. Is there any interaction with you or your team? There should be. There should be. There should be a phone call. Hey, welcome aboard. You know, I know that John just extended the offer to you. I wanted to call personally and just say, welcome to the team. I'm so looking forward to seeing you Monday.

[B]

Right.

[C]

You could give it to your entire team and say, hey, for those of you that want to text them, here's the phone number. Just welcome them to the team, say you're excited to see them on Monday.

[B]

You said something once that I'll never forget and that is that you know that person, when they leave that day, they leave that interview, they leave that conversation to they are calling somebody.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Talk a little bit about that.

[C]

So all of us have someone that's going to ask us at the end of the day, how did that go? Right. How did that interview go? So every one of us, if you approach the interview with an attitude that says, I want the answer to be positive and I want it to be like almost over the top, it's the best interview I've ever had. I don't think I'm going to get the job, but it was the best interview I've ever had. They were truthful, they were candid, they related to me, they said, this is who we are. They allowed me a choice in saying, I don't think I fit that. Now that I understand the role more, I don't think that's for me. But no one else has done that. And so you someone, all of us, all of us have someone at the end of day one, all of us have someone in the interview process that is saying, hey, how did it go? I know you were doing interviews. How did those go? I know you were on the final on site interview with Ramsey. Tell me about that. All of us have someone that's going to ask us, and we want that to be. It was better than I thought. It was better than I expected.

[B]

Yeah. That intentionality is so cool. I know you've got decades of experience in ushering and optimizing a process for candidates to flow through. What would you say, just kind of as a parting shot, you would want people to know.

[C]

Yeah, I think the main thing I'd want people to know is you cannot rely strictly on passive ways to generate applicant flow. If you want to have a choice, you want to be able to do some active things and some passive things. Talk a little bit. Yeah.

[B]

What's the difference between those things?

[C]

Meaning you're going to go source candidates, you're going to look on websites where these people hang out, and you're going to try to create interaction to say, I'm hiring. You're going to go to the tractor pool and maybe they see your T shirt and you're going to talk to them right there about, well, what are you looking for? Well, let me tell you about my company, right? There's active sourcing and then there's passive sourcing, which is you just post and pray.

[B]

Just put the help wanted sign on the front of the building and hope people show up. Those days are over.

[C]

Those days are long gone. And even some people think they're really creative by posting it on every one of their trucks that go out. And that's okay. That's another step. Right. But it's still passive. Someone else has to take the action versus me meeting them where they are, me coming to them where they are. And so best election, best candidate, best outcome is when we do a combination of both.

[B]

Awesome. Thank you, Armando.

[C]

Yeah, thank you.

[A]

Thanks, guys. Hiring great people takes work, but it's one of the most important things you'll ever do as a leader. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to, like, share and subscribe for more great leadership content. I'm your host, Dave Ramsey, and this is Entree Leadership.