HR Interviews Playlist

Frontline hiring continues to be highly challenging with ongoing labor shortages in many countries. The business impact of understaffing is both significant and quantifiable, meaning hiring speed is a critical lever for business value and competing effectively in a competitive talent market.

So, how can employers speed up their processes while offering a great candidate experience and improving retention?

My guest this week is Joshua Secrest, VP of Client Advocacy at Paradox. During his time as a Global TA leader for McDonald's, Josh used technology to reduce frontline hiring times from 21 days to 3 days. He is continuing to help employers automate recruiting and innovate with AI at Paradox, and he has many valuable insights to share.

In the interview, we discuss:

• The current challenges in frontline hiring

• Business impacts of understaffing

• Having the ear of the C-Suite

• The critical importance of speed and moving fast at every stage of the process

• Turnoever and retention

• The power of automation

• The role of AI and the role of humans

• Delivering an excellent candidate and hiring manager experience

• The importance of simple, intuitive interfaces

• Speed of adoption in recruiting automation and advice to TA leaders

• Plugging generative AI into conversational AI

• What does talent acquisition look like in five years?

Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Earlier in the summer, I collaborated with the SmartRecruiters team to interview four fantastic practitioners who spoke on The Hiring Without Boundaries stage at RecFest in London. We recorded the conversations backstage at the event, and this is the third of three podcast episodes where I will be sharing them.

Talk about generative AI is everywhere, but most of the conversation is either inflating the hype or dealing with highly tactical short-term techniques and use cases. So, how can TA Leaders think about AI strategically to embrace current opportunities and plan effectively for the future?

My next RecFest guest is Ben Handyside, Director of Talent Acquisition EMEA at Colliers International. Colliers have recognized that ChatGPT was already being used by many people within their organization and are harnessing the advantages to boat innovation and make TA a key strategic driver of value.

In the interview, we discuss:

• Challenging barriers and boundaries to access new talent

• The forces driving change in TA

• TA as a strategic enabler

• Acknowledging AI utilization, understanding the risk, and establishing guidelines

• The risk of doing versus the risk of not doing

• Use cases and experimentation.

• Creating more time for human interactions

• Managing adoption

• Planning for the AI-driven future

• Understanding the problem you are trying to solve.

• Speed as a strategic lever

• Advice to TA Leaders

• What will the role of the recruiter be like in ten years?

Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts.

How businesses keep up with change, hiring for AI (it's not easy), and designing HR’s strategies to use advanced technology.

🎧 Tune in to the latest episode of The Inclusive AF Podcast, where we dive deep into the world of inclusive design and equity-centered practices with our special guest, Sheryl Cababa. 🌍💙

Join us as Sheryl, a former business analyst turned advocate for inclusive solutions, shares her unique insights and passion for taking things one step further to foster a more inclusive world. 🌟

From leveraging design thinking and human-centered design to integrating systems thinking into the design process, Sheryl offers invaluable knowledge on how to create impactful and sustainable solutions for complex issues. 🚀

Discover the power of broad stakeholder involvement and the importance of prioritizing user experience over cost and ease of implementation when designing software and learning management systems (LMSs). 📚

Prepare to be inspired as Sheryl sheds light on the benefits of inclusive online learning, elevating student voices, and serving historically underserved communities in education. 🎒👩‍🏫✨

With engaging anecdotes, thought-provoking insights, and a commitment to tackling equity challenges head-on, this episode will leave you motivated to design a better, more inclusive world for everyone. 🌈✊

Don't miss out on this inclusive conversation! Hit that play button now and join the movement 💪🎙️ #InclusiveAFPodcast #DesignForEquity #HumanCenteredDesign #SystemsThinking #EducationForAll #InclusiveOnlineLearning #StudentVoices #EquityMatters #InclusiveDesign #TacklingChallenges

Her book can be found here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/closing-the-loop-systems-thinking-for-designers-sheryl-cababa/19583939?ean=9781959029885

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If you ever wondered if TikTok is an effective communication channel for TA, Deanna is the creative & comic genius who cranked up LinkedIn outreach response rates from 45% to 85% with her video posts. 

As the Director of People and Talent with AltaML, an incredible start up focused on the most ethical use of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) with offices in 3 Canadian cities. Having fun is part of their EVP, Deanna is living proof.  

• Going from 40 people to 140 during the most turbulent and competitive times, means getting creative, having good tools and really listening to what’s important to your target audience. 

• Do tech assessments, take home assignments and live coding exams sound like job seeker bait or repellent?

• Danna shares her ‘do over’ list, team structure and the 3 super hero roles to have in a high function TA team.

In the past, we’ve been critical of SHRM investing money into startups. Seems like a big conflict of interest, but whatever. Since SHRM isn’t running to talk to Chad & Chelsea about it, how about the next best thing: The company SHRM gave money? That’s why we brought Jocelyn King, CEO of VirgilHR to the show. VirgilHR is an interactive technology that lets employees ask HR compliance questions in real-time. Seems like a company ripe for disruption from the likes of ChatGPT, but you’d be wrong (or at least that’s what Jocelyn says). The way that they chose their name is pretty cool too. Heck, it’s an all-around banger of an interview. Enjoy.

Employees are asking more questions about the meaning and purpose of their work.

Earlier in the summer, I collaborated with the SmartRecruiters team to interview four fantastic practitioners who spoke on The Hiring Without Boundaries stage at RecFest in London. We recorded the conversations backstage at the event, and this is the second of three podcast episodes where I will be sharing them.

It's an unprecedented time of disruption in talent acquisition. Economics, demographics, and technology are driving seismic shifts in how companies think about hiring. With the pace of change continuing to increase, the most successful TA functions will be the ones that adapt the quickest.

My second RecFest guests are Lindsey Stone, Group Head of Talent Attraction & Resourcing at Greene King, and Eric Houwen, Head of Talent Acquisition & Employer Branding at Deloitte in The Netherlands. Although they work for two very different types of business, there are a lot of interesting commonalities in Eric and Lindsey's approach to TA transformation.

In the interview, we discuss:

• The forces driving change in TA

• Employability and Social Mobility

• Shifting workforces

• Evolving talent acquisition

• What skills does a TA team now need?

• Developing a consultative approach

• Positioning TA to drive value for the business

• The role of technology

• How do you take your people with you?

• What will the role of the recruiter be in 10 years?

Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Earlier in the summer, I collaborated with the SmartRecruiters team to interview four fantastic practitioners who spoke on The Hiring Without Boundaries stage at RecFest in London. We recorded the conversations backstage at the event, and this is the first of three podcast episodes where I will be sharing them.

Hiring for frontline retail positions has always been a challenge, but since the pandemic, it is a challenge that has increased exponentially. So how does an expanding retail group fill 30,000 roles a year at pace while ensuring a high-quality candidate experience that reflects the fact that their candidates are literally their customers?

My first RecFest guest is Adam Reynolds, Head of Talent at Frasers Group. Frasers Group is a multi-brand international retail chain, and Adam and his team have used technology to transform their TA strategy to meet the needs of the business in a very tough talent market.

In the interview, we discuss:

• Recruiting challenges

• Growing hiring exponentially

• Urgency, pace, and velocity

• Getting stakeholder buy-in

• Quality communication at scale

• Automation without being robotic

• Storytelling

• The fundamental role of technology

• Ratios and data

• Talent pooling silver medallists

• How will the role of the recruiter evolve in an AI-driven future?

Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Employees love to be recognized. It’s not just promotions and big deals, however. We’re talkin' birthdays, anniversaries, adopting a cat, everything. OK, maybe not a cat adoption, but you know what we mean. That’s why we brought Aaron Rubens, cofounder and CEO at Kudoboard to the show. He runs the online workplace appreciation solution for special occasions, shout outs, and everything in between, helping to replace the card that’s passed around and signed on birthdays, holidays, and special occasions for generations. Crazy thing is, they’re crushing it. To find out why - and how - you gotta listen.