My strategy over the last few weeks has been to bring you content that focuses on the current crisis as well as content that looks ahead to the future. This episode is a hybrid of both.
My guest this week is Matt Jones, Senior Vice President Operations at Cielo. In our wide-ranging conversation, we talk about the impact Cielo is seeing the global pandemic have on the market and how employers are adapting their talent acquisition strategies in these difficult times. We also discuss the long term adoption and implications of AI and recruiting automation.
Here are some of the topics we discuss:
- What Cielo is currently seeing in the market
- How employers are using technology to adapt
- What distress technology purchases are always the best decisions
- Does technology fix or amplify bias?
- What lessons can we learn from employers who are currently using AI and Automation effectively
- Bringing point solutions into a working ecosystem
- Why do we still rely on resumes / CVs and will this ever change
- The impact of the pandemic crisis on the gig economy
- The future role of the recruiter
- The importance of putting experience first.
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
Support for this podcast comes from Meet and Engage. Meet and Engage is an award winning candidate experience technology provider with three products. A Chatbot Solution Timeline, which is an onboarding technology and a live chat messaging platform. Meet and Engage provides the tools you need to digitally engage with candidates 24. 7 in any location, on any device to deliver the best candidate experience trusted by the likes of Arup, Amazon and Diageo. Meet and Engage improves the candidate experience for clients worldwide, helping them to engage candidates throughout the recruitment journey. Find out more by visiting www.meetandengage.com and requesting an online demo today. That’s www.meetandengage.Com.
Matt Alder [00:01:13]:
Hi everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 262 of the Recruiting Future podcast. My strategy over the last few weeks has been to bring you content that focuses on the current crisis as well as content that looks ahead to the future. This episode is a hybrid of both. My guest this week is Matt Jones, Senior Vice President Operations at Cielo. In our conversation we talk about the impact Cielo is seeing the global pandemic have on the market and how employers are adapting their talent acquisition strategies in these difficult times. We also discuss the long term adoption and implications of AI and recruiting automation.
Matt Alder [00:02:01]:
Hi Matt and welcome to the podcast. Hi Matt, an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Could you just introduce yourself and tell us what you do?
Matt Jones [00:02:09]:
Yeah, likewise. Pleasure to be here. So, Matt Jones, I’m a leader in Cielo’s global operations organization which means I look at people, process and technology and how we bring those things together to provide our services for our clients and.
Matt Jones [00:02:25]:
For our broader stakeholder community. So how we deliver that great experience for candidates, hiring managers, our clients as a whole and our own people and organization.
Matt Jones [00:02:37]:
I’m 15 years plus in Cielo and approaching 20 years in the industry, so.
Matt Jones [00:02:43]:
Seen a fair few things over the years and excited to to talk to you today.
Matt Alder [00:02:48]:
Fantastic stuff.
Matt Alder [00:02:49]:
So the intersection of people and technology is what, what I kind of really want to want to talk about. But I don’t want to miss the, the opportunity to kind of ask you about the, the current situation. So obviously as an organization that works with lots of different employers in, in many different countries. Tell us about what you’re seeing in, in the market at the moment, what’s going on as we sort of navigate our way through this Crisis y.
Matt Jones [00:03:19]:
Nearly 100 countries around the world. So this is not Necessarily new to us and our client base. We obviously saw the rise of the crisis in the APAC region back in sort of January, February time. And since then, obviously the intensification across the world.
Matt Jones [00:03:37]:
So something we’ve been navigating for a little while. I think from a macro trend perspective.
Matt Jones [00:03:43]:
All of the commentary that everyone has been providing around challenges and decreased amount of hiring, the use of different schemes around the world to furlough or to release employees from employment, the rise of unemployment, all of those things obviously we see at a kind of macro level. I guess once you go below the kind of broad macro features of this crisis, there’s.
Matt Jones [00:04:13]:
There’s kind of interesting.
Matt Jones [00:04:18]:
And some additional.
Matt Jones [00:04:19]:
Kind of trends out there really.
Matt Jones [00:04:20]:
So I don’t think it’s as simple.
Matt Jones [00:04:22]:
As saying this particular region or this particular industry is affected negatively, severely negatively, or is doing okay, or actually is kind of doing well from a business.
Matt Jones [00:04:37]:
Perspective in this crisis.
Matt Jones [00:04:38]:
Obviously grocery trade, those areas in certain.
Matt Jones [00:04:41]:
Parts of the world are actually seeing.
Matt Jones [00:04:42]:
Upticks in volume sales, understandably so. Whereas if you’re in hospitality travel or tourism generally, you’re seeing pretty negative impact and pretty challenging times.
Matt Jones [00:04:56]:
The reason I say I think it’s.
Matt Jones [00:04:58]:
Hard to draw direct themes for broad.
Matt Jones [00:05:03]:
Kind of industry sectors is if you.
Matt Jones [00:05:04]:
Think about healthcare so broadly, I think everyone would guess that healthcare is continuing to fight the good fight and doing okay.
Matt Jones [00:05:14]:
Those in med devices or pharmaceuticals or.
Matt Jones [00:05:17]:
In healthcare provider world are contributing towards.
Matt Jones [00:05:21]:
Us fighting this crisis and this disease.
Matt Jones [00:05:24]:
However, if you take privately funded hospital groups in certain countries in the world, much of their revenue or funding comes.
Matt Jones [00:05:34]:
From elective surgery, which of course is.
Matt Jones [00:05:35]:
Not being undertaken at the moment. So that has a knock on effect to what we see happening from a.
Matt Jones [00:05:43]:
Hiring perspective in those organizations and in those particular sectors.
Matt Jones [00:05:47]:
So I think the first kind of.
Matt Jones [00:05:48]:
Thing to below the kind of macro.
Matt Jones [00:05:50]:
Trend or theme is that there isn’t really.
Matt Jones [00:05:55]:
Below that.
Matt Jones [00:05:55]:
There isn’t really an individual theme or trend that we should sort of talk about.
Matt Jones [00:06:00]:
What we have been spending our time doing is talking to all of our clients around the world and making sure that we are there for them in whichever way they are kind of tackling this crisis. Whether it’s pausing any hiring and focusing a little bit on preparing for the.
Matt Jones [00:06:18]:
Recovery, whether it’s pausing some hiring and.
Matt Jones [00:06:22]:
Focusing on how they can better deploy internal talent around the organization to help.
Matt Jones [00:06:29]:
Keep the business moving, and also in.
Matt Jones [00:06:31]:
Some cases contribute towards us fighting this terrible crisis, or whether that is supporting them as they close down much of.
Matt Jones [00:06:41]:
Their hiring for a period. But supporting them with their employer brand.
Matt Jones [00:06:45]:
To make sure that we keep keep.
Matt Jones [00:06:47]:
The messaging for that organization strong amid.
Matt Jones [00:06:50]:
This crisis and that actually, as we start to recover and these organizations need to bring additional talent back into their organization, they’re ready and the message has.
Matt Jones [00:07:03]:
Been there and we’ve managed that experience.
Matt Jones [00:07:05]:
Of those potential employees for the future. There’s no doubt that overall organizations are hiring less. We’ve seen extremes for organizations closing down all hir reviewing start dates and entry dates for people into the organization, whereas at the other ends, there are certainly.
Matt Jones [00:07:25]:
Some organizations that are increasing their hiring. Folks who are involved in critical infrastructure, folks who are involved in providing some.
Matt Jones [00:07:33]:
Of those healthcare services or in that supply chain. So again, I think the broad macro theme is that overall organizations are challenged and having to look critically at their.
Matt Jones [00:07:45]:
Employee base and their hiring needs and.
Matt Jones [00:07:47]:
How they better use the resources they’ve got, how they manage the resources they don’t need in today’s environment. Below that, I think you have to look at each individual client, each individual.
Matt Jones [00:08:01]:
Organization, individual country, different because differently because.
Matt Jones [00:08:04]:
There are different circumstances that affect, I guess one other theme is that there is this kind of geographical or locational challenge as well. So there are some organizations who, for example, have manufacturing in some of the real epicenters of this outbreak. And unfortunately, it’s likely that will change and continue as we see the crisis.
Matt Jones [00:08:31]:
Change its shape over the coming weeks and months.
Matt Jones [00:08:34]:
So there are some organizations that are unable to progress their manufacturing or their business focus purely because of, you know, the specific specifics of the geographical issue for them.
Matt Jones [00:08:49]:
So it isn’t about funding, it isn’t about the need for their products, it isn’t about the health of their business.
Matt Jones [00:08:53]:
It’s purely about where they’ve located manufacturing.
Matt Jones [00:08:56]:
Or distribution or where their workforce is located.
Matt Jones [00:08:59]:
So I think those are the themes we’re seeing in businesses that we speak to, businesses we support and organizations around the world.
Matt Alder [00:09:08]:
So, I mean, you know, lots going on and what you’re saying about employer branding makes perfect sense. And also the uncertainty of where this is, where this is all going. But just to focus on the employers who are still recruiting, how are they adapting and how is technology helping them to adapt?
Matt Jones [00:09:29]:
Yeah, sure. So clearly they’ve been forced to adapt. I think some organizations that are increasing.
Matt Jones [00:09:38]:
Their hiring or continuing their hiring are.
Matt Jones [00:09:40]:
Used to working in a kind of distributed fashion. Many of the tech organizations, tech infrastructure organizations, are used to working in a.
Matt Jones [00:09:48]:
More distributed fashion, are used to leveraging technology such as video interviewing, virtual events, and virtual onboarding.
Matt Jones [00:09:56]:
A lot more than some other organizations.
Matt Jones [00:09:59]:
So I think the first thing that’s.
Matt Jones [00:10:01]:
Happening is we’re seeing the need for more organizations to kind of enable themselves.
Matt Jones [00:10:10]:
Greater from a technology perspective.
Matt Jones [00:10:12]:
So again, much talk about the need for video interviewing as part of a process. And many organizations have not deployed that for many, many, many reasons. Although we have known for a long time in our industry and all of our collective profession that way of working that technology, that platform is as valid, if not more valid, than some of.
Matt Jones [00:10:38]:
The other methods that we use in a more traditional recruiting sense.
Matt Jones [00:10:41]:
So first and foremost, I think some organizations are being kind of fast forwarded into a more tech enabled position. Not everyone is ready for that. And I think we’re seeing some interesting behaviors. If I think about the broader market.
Matt Jones [00:10:54]:
Not just the clients and organizations that Cielo supports, but the broader market, we’re.
Matt Jones [00:10:58]:
Seeing some distressed purchases around the platforms that organizations want to use and perhaps if they’re not used to leveraging things like video interviewing, that they may not be making the best and right decisions there. One of the things that we’ve been working with clients on is to say, hey you guys, you probably have two or three video platforms already native to your organization. Most of us today have GoToMeeting or Zoom or Microsoft Teams or one of those versions. Often that’s already in your organization, often that’s already security checked by your IT and compliance teams. And it’s often a core platform that many people in the external universe are used to using. So please, please don’t necessarily go out.
Matt Jones [00:11:46]:
And buy something brand new for this use case.
Matt Jones [00:11:48]:
Think about what you already have in your organization.
Matt Jones [00:11:52]:
I think organizations are less used to.
Matt Jones [00:11:55]:
Using virtual events and virtual open houses. So some education and some support around those available products and that way of working, I think is needed in the.
Matt Jones [00:12:07]:
Market at the moment and is key.
Matt Jones [00:12:09]:
And likewise for kind of virtual onboarding, making sure we give that that kind of great experience. I think those are the three kind of key areas really. If you think about attracting and engaging your potential workforce, then some kind of virtual event and activity to bring candidates together to understand what you’re trying to achieve, the type of organization you are, and right now, what the specific challenges are in this crisis. Because what you hire for in a normal circumstance might be the type of role and the type of work might be slightly different in today’s abnormal world. You think about retail, for example, the typical kind of retail assistance role has changed a great deal under this circumstance. We’re starting to really value that role a lot more in the grocery sector, but today the skills required to operate and work in a grocery store that.
Matt Jones [00:13:04]:
Are a little bit different to what.
Matt Jones [00:13:05]:
They were perhaps before this crisis. You need to be there to safeguard people’s safety. You need to be there to enforce.
Matt Jones [00:13:13]:
What are slightly more stringent rules than perhaps you had to in the past.
Matt Jones [00:13:17]:
Rather than just focusing on the customer.
Matt Jones [00:13:19]:
Is always right and customer experience, today.
Matt Jones [00:13:21]:
You’Re focusing on safeguarding well being, protecting the masses, rather than just focusing on.
Matt Jones [00:13:29]:
Individual kind of customer experience.
Matt Jones [00:13:31]:
So I think those virtual events, those.
Matt Jones [00:13:33]:
Virtual activities will allow organizations to engage better, but also to allow organizations to describe the different challenges of coming to work for a grocery store, a infrastructure organization during the current world. So then video interviewing we talked about, I think key to giving good experiences, and I know you’ve talked to many people in your previous shows around how to prepare for those, both on the organizational side and on the candidate side, how to make sure that you get good experiences there.
Matt Jones [00:14:07]:
So there’s lots of resources out there to help with that.
Matt Jones [00:14:09]:
And then the virtual onboarding piece I.
Matt Jones [00:14:10]:
Think is critical as well.
Matt Jones [00:14:12]:
So, you know, giving a good experience, helping people on board, if we are going to be part of a virtual workforce and maybe have not been used.
Matt Jones [00:14:20]:
To working remotely in the past, is critical.
Matt Jones [00:14:23]:
And there’s some good tools out there.
Matt Jones [00:14:25]:
To help with that approach.
Matt Alder [00:14:27]:
Broadening the conversation out slightly, but sticking with something that I think remains incredibly relevant to the here and now, particularly where employers are using more technology in the recruitment process when they’re recruiting processes virtual. And also they’re looking for skills that they might not have even thought about looking for before. And that issue is one of bias in the, in the recruitment process. And we’ve had lots of conversations on the show about what biases exist in recruitment, how much of that is conscious, how much of that is unconscious, and whether technology helps to fix that or just helps to amplify that. What’s your take on this issue?
Matt Jones [00:15:09]:
Yeah, I, it can do either is.
Matt Jones [00:15:12]:
The very short and not very exciting answer to that question.
Matt Jones [00:15:17]:
So to expand on that a little bit, I think until we get to.
Matt Jones [00:15:22]:
Genuine deployment of artificial general intelligence just.
Matt Jones [00:15:27]:
In our general world, not just in.
Matt Jones [00:15:28]:
Our recruiting world, we’re relying on the AI learning from and amplifying, as you say, or speeding up the human decision making process. So whether we’re talking about candidate matching, which is where most of, I think the conversation goes when we talk about bias in technology and recruiting, or maybe augmented advertising, advertising writing or job description writing, which is an area where bias can creep in as well.
Matt Jones [00:16:04]:
So using natural language to write better.
Matt Jones [00:16:06]:
Job ads or job descriptions or actually whether we’re talking about chatbots and virtual.
Matt Jones [00:16:12]:
Assistants and the personalization element of those.
Matt Jones [00:16:15]:
Tools, I think they’re all areas where we can either see some elimination of bias or amplification if we don’t think about it correctly.
Matt Jones [00:16:27]:
We obviously got the most much publicized. I won’t mention the organization, but we.
Matt Jones [00:16:32]:
All know the online organization who had a much publicized challenge with bias when trying to deploy matching and sourcing tools. So I think we need to be careful and make sure that we really.
Matt Jones [00:16:47]:
Understand that what we’re doing is making.
Matt Jones [00:16:49]:
Human decisions faster and more efficient through.
Matt Jones [00:16:54]:
These tools today because the machines are.
Matt Jones [00:16:56]:
Not thinking for themselves yet.
Matt Jones [00:16:57]:
I think there’s a couple of areas.
Matt Jones [00:16:59]:
Where we can, we can be deliberate about that. So I think firstly, I would encourage all organizations when they think about deploying, whether it’s machine learning or other forms of AI, is to broaden the scope.
Matt Jones [00:17:15]:
Of the conversation outside of just recruitment and hr. So bring in some professionals or some.
Matt Jones [00:17:19]:
Experts who have done this in the consumer world or have done this in the world of marketing or other areas. So let’s not, not retread the same challenges that our colleagues in marketing or.
Matt Jones [00:17:31]:
Our consumer parts of our organization have.
Matt Jones [00:17:34]:
Faced when it comes to thinking about how we build the algorithms and how we communicate with people and candidates. So that would be my first kind of recommendation is that let’s make sure we take it outside of there to try and eliminate some of the challenges we see when we’re talking about the.
Matt Jones [00:17:55]:
Data sets that we want to look at.
Matt Jones [00:17:56]:
The other thing is, I think if we’re thinking about any area of bias.
Matt Jones [00:18:01]:
If it’s a pillar of diversity, or if it’s just a kind of background in terms of type of organization folks are coming from, or whatever.
Matt Jones [00:18:12]:
So not necessarily directly linked to a.
Matt Jones [00:18:14]:
Pillar of diversity, but linked to a sort of diversity element when it comes.
Matt Jones [00:18:18]:
To skills and knowledge in your organization.
Matt Jones [00:18:22]:
I think we need to, as we.
Matt Jones [00:18:24]:
Build these processes, as organizations build these.
Matt Jones [00:18:26]:
Processes, actually be very aware of what we could be exacerbating when it comes to using the technology. So again, like you said, if the natural bias exists for certain backgrounds or certain demographics and we’re not aware of that, then we run the risk of amplifying that as we build, as we build faster decision making engines and as we automate that process to a greater degree. So I think the first thing when you’re designing this is being aware of that and having that Front and center. As we think about the algorithms we’re.
Matt Jones [00:19:03]:
Looking to design in order to do.
Matt Jones [00:19:05]:
Matching or to, in the personalization layer.
Matt Jones [00:19:08]:
Or the other layers, basically just to.
Matt Alder [00:19:11]:
Dig a little bit deeper into that. So we’re talking about chatbots and video interviewing and automated matching, all things that are being used extensively now. And as we move forward and organizations are retooling their approach to talent acquisition, moving quicker, trying to do more with less, you know, whatever, whatever the future looks like, it’s kind of highly likely that these are the technologies that, that will form the heart of that.
Matt Alder [00:19:36]:
We’ve talked about an employer who didn’t.
Matt Alder [00:19:37]:
Do this very well. Are you seeing any employers who are already good at this and what lessons can we learn from them?
Matt Jones [00:19:46]:
Yeah, I think we’re still relatively early into this journey. It feels like much of what we’re talking about has been around forever.
Matt Jones [00:19:55]:
And as you rightly said, there’s a lot of different point solutions out there.
Matt Jones [00:19:58]:
That are supporting organizations today.
Matt Jones [00:20:04]:
I think just taking a step back.
Matt Jones [00:20:05]:
For a moment, what I don’t think we see a lot of success in the broader world at the moment is where organizations can bring those point solutions together into a ecosystem or a platform, more a way of managing and running a recruiting, talent acquisition, engagement process that brings all of these components together. So I think there’s some good examples of where folks are using matching technology today in order to move quickly through mass hiring. So I think if we think about retail, highly distributed but high volume retail use cases, so your quick service restaurant.
Matt Jones [00:20:50]:
Organizations, you know, several thousand or tens.
Matt Jones [00:20:52]:
Of thousands of employment locations around the.
Matt Jones [00:20:56]:
US or in other countries in the.
Matt Jones [00:20:58]:
World, I think we can see some good use cases there where the mobile enabled, quick apply, quick match and then quick request and schedule for some kind of interview process is working well. And I think we can say that that case is good. However, that’s in a sector and segment where actually folks are used to walking in, making an application and having an interview, or choosing to go and talk.
Matt Jones [00:21:33]:
To three or four different employers at.
Matt Jones [00:21:35]:
One time about an hourly paid role.
Matt Jones [00:21:37]:
To supplement income while studying or wherever else.
Matt Jones [00:21:40]:
So the use case is specific to both the market and industry and to a kind of candidate demographic. So I don’t think we yet see.
Matt Jones [00:21:49]:
Many organizations who are taking all of.
Matt Jones [00:21:51]:
Those point solutions, really leveraging them to the greatest of their ability and using it across different use cases in their own organization. So taking that retail example or that quick service restaurant example, you probably wouldn’t.
Matt Jones [00:22:06]:
Want to deploy the same hiring process.
Matt Jones [00:22:09]:
And Same speed of process and same matching and humanless approach.
Matt Jones [00:22:15]:
If you’re hiring a marketing executive into your headquarters, club headquarters, or if you’re.
Matt Jones [00:22:20]:
Hiring a finance qualified finance professional to.
Matt Jones [00:22:24]:
Be in one of your regional finance centers.
Matt Jones [00:22:26]:
So I don’t yet see many organizations doing putting it all together and achieving it. Well, I think it’s incumbent on providers like Cielo, incumbent on technology organizations and others in the world to sort of help organizations piece this together. I think well publicized, there was $6 billion invested in HR tech over the last year or so from venture capital and private equity. I think that possibly serves to make it a more confusing place for HR professionals and talent acquisition teams. I think our role as a partner and others roles as partners is to help organizations understand how they can bring all of those things together to actually give a good experience and how they can segment that experience depending on the workforce, the use case, the type of role, organization, where they are in the world, those, those pieces, absolutely.
Matt Alder [00:23:24]:
I couldn’t agree with you more there. It makes perfect sense. And we are very, very much still at the beginning of this journey, I suppose. Talking about journeys, I look back through my blog archives the other day and in 2008 I wrote a blog post about the imminent death of the CV. Here we are in 2020, we’ve got all of this, all of this technology, all these different ways of working. Yet still around the world recruiting seems to be centered around the cv, which people almost universally agree is not a tool. That’s very, that’s very useful. Why is that and is this ever going to change?
Matt Jones [00:24:07]:
Yeah, not a very scientific answer, but I think we need somebody or a.
Matt Jones [00:24:15]:
Group of employers to really break rank first.
Matt Jones [00:24:18]:
Right.
Matt Jones [00:24:19]:
Some landmark organizations and say we’re not.
Matt Jones [00:24:22]:
Interested in the cv, the resume anymore.
Matt Jones [00:24:24]:
We’Re interested in some version of a profile so that we get enough information.
Matt Jones [00:24:28]:
To engage properly with individuals.
Matt Jones [00:24:30]:
And that’s fine. The document is dead. When we look around the world, there’s many different formalities to how organizations and people do business.
Matt Jones [00:24:39]:
So not just do hiring, but do business in general. You look at the Middle east versus parts of Asia versus the UK and.
Matt Jones [00:24:46]:
The US where we would say probably.
Matt Jones [00:24:49]:
Have the first chance to talk about.
Matt Jones [00:24:51]:
This kind of CV less or resume less approach. So you know, I think what’s it going to take? It’s going to take a few organizations, few employers to start saying we’re not interested in that, that document anymore, we’re interested in something different.
Matt Jones [00:25:05]:
I think the shift to mobile, which.
Matt Jones [00:25:07]:
We obviously, I mean, I think it was four or five years ago that we saw, or even further ago that we saw more applications via mobile than we did or mobile device than we did via traditional Internet connection.
Matt Jones [00:25:20]:
So I think the shift to mobile.
Matt Jones [00:25:21]:
Will enable that a little bit, but I think it comes from the employer. It takes the employer to say we’re not interested anymore because that’ll flow down through providers and partners like ourselves, but.
Matt Jones [00:25:34]:
Also all the way down through to.
Matt Jones [00:25:36]:
The platforms where folks are putting their CVS resumes today. So I wish I had a slightly better technical answer for you there Matt, or a slightly better prediction in terms of time. I suggest that this is probably not going to happen in the next zero to three years. I think if we took a five year outlook, we might say by that point we might see the whole, on the whole, the kind of less use of CV and resume.
Matt Jones [00:26:11]:
Now I do think the gig worker.
Matt Jones [00:26:13]:
Piece is going to potentially contribute to that. Although one of the interesting things that I’ve been looking at at the moment is the impact of the current crisis on gig workers because clearly, or the gig economy, because clearly a lot of those workers are impacted pretty significantly as part of this crisis. But it also may shape the growth of kind of gig workers and of the kind of organizational mix of FTE versus contingent versus gig. It may slow that down slightly for.
Matt Jones [00:26:46]:
A period of time.
Matt Jones [00:26:47]:
So I think that also contributes to.
Matt Jones [00:26:50]:
This kind of notion of this CV.
Matt Jones [00:26:52]:
Document because as soon as we, as soon as the mix of labor in your organization changes, that’ll contribute towards the lack of needing this kind of rather archaic document as well.
Matt Alder [00:27:06]:
So, final question. Making predictions about the future is always difficult, as my inaccurate prediction about the death of the CV 12 years ago proves. Making predictions about what the future’s gonna look like at the moment is probably even more tricky. But give us your perspective on what talent acquisition might look like. Sort of 12, 18 months time.
Matt Jones [00:27:29]:
Yeah, none of us can really predict.
Matt Jones [00:27:34]:
What the recovery in air quotes is.
Matt Jones [00:27:37]:
Going to look like, right?
Matt Jones [00:27:38]:
Is it a U?
Matt Jones [00:27:38]:
Is it a V, is it a Nike swoosh?
Matt Jones [00:27:41]:
We don’t know. What I do think is once we cycle past this, there’s some components that may have been fast tracked as far.
Matt Jones [00:27:49]:
As talent acquisition is concerned.
Matt Jones [00:27:51]:
I think many organizations that felt they.
Matt Jones [00:27:53]:
Needed to have a large, centralized, wholly.
Matt Jones [00:27:56]:
Owned talent acquisition organization are starting to realize that this kind of distributed tech enabled, perhaps not entirely directly employed way of thinking about your talent acquisition organization can work.
Matt Jones [00:28:13]:
So we’re all being forced to realize.
Matt Jones [00:28:16]:
That that distributed way of working can work. The technology tools we’ve already talked about.
Matt Jones [00:28:22]:
More organizations are using those, and I.
Matt Jones [00:28:24]:
Think that the smart organizations, and there’s certainly a few out there, are realizing how they start to bring those technologies together to form an actual platform or an ecosystem still relatively early in that journey. But I think that’s where we’ll start.
Matt Jones [00:28:37]:
To see the rise of the platform in the next 12 to 18 months.
Matt Jones [00:28:41]:
And I don’t mean a different version.
Matt Jones [00:28:43]:
Of a CRRM or an ATS.
Matt Jones [00:28:44]:
I genuinely mean an ecosystem where the technologies work together, complement each other, and talent acquisition teams can distribute work seamlessly between between each other and organizations they support, whether it’s an outsourced arrangement or.
Matt Jones [00:29:03]:
A wholly owned arrangement.
Matt Jones [00:29:05]:
I think the role of the recruiter, much like your death of the cv, I think we’ve talked about the death of the recruiter in its truest sense.
Matt Jones [00:29:14]:
For many years as well.
Matt Jones [00:29:16]:
I still don’t see that. I think what we’re probably looking at is Recruiter 3.0 or Recruiter X in the future if we think a little bit about and I’ll use a terrible Marvel analogy now, so I apologize to anyone who is a real Marvel or Avengers fan, but Iron man and his Jarvis suit, which is largely about the human being but is enabled by this kind of exoskeleton with all these capabilities and abilities to go faster and be.
Matt Jones [00:29:48]:
Stronger and process more information and data.
Matt Jones [00:29:51]:
I think that’s where our recruiter roles will start to go. And again, small numbers, but those leading organizations will start to think about that. So automating more of the non human.
Matt Jones [00:30:02]:
Tasks, taking them away from the humans.
Matt Jones [00:30:05]:
To allow the humans to concentrate on the human and valuable tasks from an experience perspective.
Matt Jones [00:30:12]:
I think the final thing is we.
Matt Jones [00:30:15]:
At Cielo and I think organizations are starting to realize in this crisis, those that didn’t, we put experience first. So whatever we’re doing as far as.
Matt Jones [00:30:23]:
Automation, as far as technology goes, the.
Matt Jones [00:30:27]:
First E in our conversation is experience. And I think that over the years in ta, we’ve lost that a little bit. So we’ve thought about how we do things faster, how we get cost out of talent acquisition, how we automate to be better at moving more candidates through more processes and gosh, our application process takes a nanosecond now while in some circumstances people want to do a 10.
Matt Jones [00:30:54]:
Minute application process, not a two minute.
Matt Jones [00:30:55]:
Application process because it’s relevant for the.
Matt Jones [00:30:58]:
Type of role or the experience.
Matt Jones [00:30:59]:
So I think what this crisis is.
Matt Jones [00:31:01]:
Doing and also the direction of travel is to bring experience really back to the front of talent acquisition. Now that isn’t at the expense of effectiveness and efficiency. I think we gain those things, but also making sure that when we think about technology, automation, put experience at the front of it, make sure that we know what the experience for the candidate is like, the hiring manager is like, and actually our recruiters and our people.
Matt Jones [00:31:30]:
That are powering talent acquisition. What’s the experience like for those three?
Matt Jones [00:31:34]:
If we get it right for those three through using technology and developing the right ways of working for the right use cases, I think that that will.
Matt Jones [00:31:44]:
Accelerate the position of talent acquisition as well.
Matt Jones [00:31:47]:
So that’s where I think we’ll go over the next 12 to 18 months. I hope that organizations recover quickly and successfully and they can bring we’re all tasked with bringing more people back to work and bringing those folks who are now displaced back to work and getting back on track from a kind of economic perspective as well.
Matt Alder [00:32:10]:
Matt, thank you very much for talking to me.
Matt Jones [00:32:12]:
Appreciate it.
Matt Jones [00:32:12]:
Thank you, Matt.
Matt Alder [00:32:14]:
My thanks to Matt Jones. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts or via your podcasting app of choice. Please also follow us on Instagram. You can find the show by searching for Recruiting Future. You can also listen and subscribe to the show on Spotify. You can find all the past episodes@www.on that site. You can subscribe to the mailing list and find out more about working with me. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
