Round up is the monthly show on The Recruiting Future Podcast channel that highlights episodes you may have missed and gives you my take on some of the key learnings from the guests.
Episodes mentioned in this Round Up:
Ep 584: Talent-Centered Design
Ep 585: Embracing Automation
Ep 586: Removing Silos to Improve Hiring and Retention
Ep 587: Getting The Basics Right
Ep 588: AI, Background Checks and Quality of Hire
Ep 589: Talent Acquisition As A Competitive Advantage
Ep 590: The Road To 2030
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Transcript:
Matt: Support for this podcast comes from Plum. Plum believes that when people flourish, business thrives. With its unmatched scalability, this powerful talent assessment tool uses science-backed insights to measure and match human potential to job needs, enhancing talent decisions across the employee journey from hire to retire. To learn more, visit their website at plum.io, that’s plum.io.
[Recruiting Future theme]
Hi there, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to the January Round Up episode of the Recruiting Future podcast. If you’ve not listened to Round Up before, it’s a short review of the episodes that I’ve published in the last month to make sure that you don’t miss out on the valuable insights my guests are sharing. A huge thank you to plum.io for their support of these Round Up episodes. Please go and take a look at their website and all of the fantastic work that they’re doing.
So, January is now done, and 2024 is very much up and running, and it really does feel like we’re on the cusp of some massive changes in talent acquisition. The hysterical hype around AI seems to be transforming into more pragmatic discussions about implementation and implications, and the industry conversations about skills-based thinking are getting ever more louder.
This is going to be a very interesting year. January’s guests were a fascinating cross section of practitioners and thought leaders, all with different perspectives on the changes ahead. I think all six interviews really help set the tone for the next 12 months on recruiting future.
If AI and skills-based hiring are the main catalysts for change, it’s important to take a step back and understand the forces driving this potential TA revolution. And this is exactly what I did with my guest on Episode 584, Jason Cerrato, VP of Market Strategy at Eightfold.
Work is changing fast, skills have an ever-shortening shelf life, and talent is still in short supply in many markets. Companies need to think differently about talent to grow and deliver value, and this is the driving force that will use skills-based thinking and AI to reengineer the corporate talent function. So, what are the practicalities around this? And what kind of mindset does TA need to adopt to help drive rather than resist the change? Jason has been a director of talent acquisition and an industry analyst, and in our conversation, he’d drawn all of his experience to explain why he believes talent-centered design is a critical foundation to the future of talent acquisition. We also discussed the concept of building around talent rather than around jobs, the redefinition of talent management, and the future role of recruiters. I also asked him how much of this change was likely to happen during 2024.
As I’ve said before, automation is inevitable in talent acquisition. Automation can bring essential efficiencies and a vastly improved and personalized experience for everyone when it’s done correctly. The question shouldn’t be do we automate? Instead, TA and HR leaders need to ask what we automate and how we do it. My guest on Episode 585, was Brigette McInnis-Day, CPO at UiPath. UiPath has been at the vanguard of robotic process automation for several years, helping companies automate systems and processes across different parts of the enterprise. Brigette has deep expertise in automation and HR tech and she highlighted some critical areas that TA leaders should be paying attention to. The first is using an enterprise automation platform to bring data, processes and quality of experience together across the entire organization. There’s an assumption that TA tools will drive recruiting automation, and it’s essential to understand that integrated, companywide automation strategies may actually dictate the pace of change. Brigette also highlighted some excellent use cases, including how UiPath has automated onboarding to offer a quicker and more personalized experience.
The ever-shortening shelf life of skills, fast-changing business priorities, aging populations and changing attitudes to work mean that retaining the right talent is not only more difficult than ever, it’s also likely to remain so for years to come. It’s not surprising, then, that talent leaders are starting to think differently about the structure of their function to remove silos and foster collaboration between talent acquisition, talent management, L&D, and other vital people functions. So, what kind of overarching vision is needed to drive effective cross functional thinking? And what strategic role should TA play internally within the organization? On episode 586, I spoke to Hélène Loine, VP of Human Resources at Ekkiden. Hélène has a background in recruiting, working at rapidly scaling companies. Her focus at Ekkiden is building a shared vision of employee experience to connect HR silos to improve hiring and retention. We also talked about TA using data and insights to contribute strategically inside the business, automation, personalization, and different ways of thinking about talent.
With so much focus on potential AI driven disruptive change, it’s sometimes easy to forget that many employers are still struggling to develop and leverage their culture, and some still lack basic standardization processes for talent acquisition and other aspects of a people function. Looking at what’s happening in startups and scale-up businesses is always interesting. They build business functions from a blank sheet of paper and often develop interesting new ways of thinking and working. My guest on Episode 587 was Roza Szafranek, Founder and CEO at HR Hints. HR Hints acts as an external HR team to over 100 scaling companies, and Roza has used this experience to develop the Culturivy method of building organizational cultures and processes. Roza believes employers should address some longstanding issues in TA, such as candidate experience and biased hiring processes. She also has a counterpoint view on the current efficacy of AI in hiring.
Background checking is an area that we’ve never really covered on the podcast. In the past, it’s felt like a necessary and very functional part of the hiring process. However, with the explosion in our digital footprints and the power of AI, that has now changed. So, how can background checks not only prevent workplace misconduct, but also improve quality of hire? Where does AI fit in? And how can we ensure that everything is legal and ethical? My guest on Episode 588 was Ben Mones, CEO and Founder at Fama, an online screening technology company that works with employers worldwide. If you haven’t looked at what’s happening in background screening for a while, this conversation with Ben will help you get up to date with what’s possible. We talked about the evolution of background screening, the role that AI can play in unlocking the signal from the noise in the Cambrian explosion of digital information that we’ve seen in the last decade, but also the importance of applying human expertise and judgment.
As the debates about the future of talent acquisition rumble on, it’s important not to lose focus on the critical value effective hiring brings to the organization. Talent remains a key differentiator that drives competitive advantage for a company, and this will be even more true in the future. On Episode 589, I spoke to Simon Taylor, head of organizational effectiveness at Gap, who’s authored a forthcoming book called Build Smart, a blueprint for building a high-performing organization. Simon has a TA background, and in the book outlines just how critical hiring is for companies. In our conversation, he shared his insights into what makes great hiring and its role in high performing organizations. He also had some valuable insights to share on how TA can get buy in across the organization by leveraging data to illustrate opportunities, challenges, and threats.
The last few years have taught us that no one can predict the future. However, you can develop the insights necessary to make accurate forecasts with the right combination of trends analysis and strategic thinking. As I said at the start of this Round Up, we’re on the cusp of a period of accelerated change in talent acquisition, and it’s essential to understand the direction of travel even if we can’t predict the final destination, we must anticipate the skills that will be required in the future, how we can recruit them, and how talent acquisition must change to be fit for this new purpose. My guest on episode 590 was Russell Beck, Director of Inspiration at ImagineThinkDo, an author of a new book called The World of Work to 2030. The book looks at the megatrends shaping the future, and Russell’s background and experience in RPO means he can provide some relatable insights into the likely future of talent acquisition. We also talked about the move from STEM skills to STEAM skills in a world where AI threatens to take away our uniqueness at work and also just what we need to be doing right now to future proof all of our careers.
So onwards into February, where interview topics are going to include internal mobility, TA’s role in strategic workforce planning, and strategies for TA leaders to prove their function strategic value to their businesses, so don’t miss out. Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. There’s also a lot of new initiatives coming to Recruiting Future over the next few months, so make sure you keep up to date with how we can help you by subscribing to our monthly newsletter, Recruiting Future Feast. You can sign up by going to recruitingfuturefeast.com.
Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
