Steven J Smith

Steven J Smith is SHRM-CP & PHR certified, and will be the first to tell you that recruiting is marketing. He earned a BS in Finance at Brigham Young University and started his career in recruiting in Feb 2005. In 2008, he took a risk during a recession to help with starting a new company with Ryan Kohler, called ApplicantPro, designed to provide applicant tracking software for small to mid-sized businesses. 10,000 clients and 300 employees later, ApplicantPro has been on the Inc 5000 list 10 years in a row, something that very few companies have achieved. Steve currently serves as the Utah SHRM State Director, and he loves to volunteer with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Shortly after COVID-19 hit, Steven began to travel the country, speaking at annual state SHRM conferences, and other Human Resource conferences, to help employers understand the market shift in finding and retaining qualified talent. During one of his presentations, one of the SHRM Directors challenged Steven to create a book to share these principles and concepts to educate companies on how to effectively manage the different branches or sources of applicants. This included the use of technology to leverage an employer's approach to attracting the right types of job seekers to their job ads. After a lengthy conversation with his friend, Farmer Pyne, the concept of the Hiring Tree was born in an apple orchard in Santaquin, Utah. Fast forward one year, and now Steven's book, The Hiring Tree: Laws of Applicant Attraction, has helped thousands of organizations across the country rethink the way they approach hiring, connecting the hiring process to the roots of marketing, where recruiting started. Understanding the job seeker and the search engine technology used to aid them in their search, Steven truly is a Chief Hiring Expert.