Recruiting Future with Matt Alder - What's Next For Talent Acquisition, HR & Hiring?

AI has dominated the discussion for months now, and if recent conversations are anything to go by, this shows no sign of letting up. However, the initial hysteria is fading, and the hype is slowly turning into meaningful discussions about what the AI-driven future will look like.

So what is the potential of AI in TA and HR, what are the current benefits, and perhaps most importantly, what are the risks? I was keen to get the perspectives of a Chief People Officer on all of this, so I'm delighted that my guest this week is Geri Morgan, Chief People Officer at Intellum. Gerri has some excellent advice to share and even got ChatGPT to actively participate in our conversation!

In the interview, we discuss:

• What aspects of employer engagement will benefit from AI?

• Personalization

• The opportunities AI offers HR

• Tech for tasks - AI as our new co-worker

• What are the current use cases?

• Compliance, ethics, and legislation

• Keeping the momentum of innovation going

• Mitigating risk

• Building out AI-enabled processes

• What does the future look like for HR?

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A full transcript will appear here shortly.

 I'm on holiday at the moment, but I want to make sure you've got plenty of Recruiting Future content to listen to until I'm back. So for the next two weeks, I'm going to supplement the new interviews being published in July by republishing some of my favourite episodes with conversations you may have missed the first time around.

With the debates about hybrid work continuing to rage and many companies forcibly ordering people to return to the office, this week's replay of my interview with author Julia Hobsbawm from last year takes the long-term perspective on the future work the debate badly needs. 

In the interview, we discuss:

• Reimagining and reframing how we work

• The four phases of work since 1945

• How the pandemic has accelerated trends that were already there

• The complexity of hybrid

• The real challenges with developing the next phase of work

• Undoing assumptions and old norms

• The challenge for talent acquisition

• Autonomy, flexibility, and networks

• Thinking strategically to improve wellness and mental health.

A full transcript will appear here shortly.

Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts.

I'm on holiday at the moment, but I want to make sure you've got plenty of Recruiting Future content to listen to until I'm back. So for the next two weeks, I'm going to supplement the new interviews being published in July by republishing some of my favourite episodes with conversations you may have missed the first time around.

This week's replay is my conversation from earlier in the year with Jess Jones, now Head of People at Coolr. I know it's a difficult and confusing time for many people with so much change going on, so this seems like the perfect moment to revisit this discussion on confidence and resilience.

In the interview, we discuss:

• Confidence in the workplace

• Tackling imposter syndrome

• “Owning it”

• Empowering people to be more confident

• The snakes and ladders of work in 2023

• The five-second rule

• Does social media make things more complicated?

• The myth of perfection and the importance of being vulnerable

• Curiosity

• Showing up and leading by example

• AI & TA

• Internal mobility

• Using creators and influences to target specific pools of talent

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Hiring has changed. Over the last three years, candidate expectations have evolved dramatically, and many hiring teams are not keeping pace with this disruptive rate of change.

So what can employers do to ensure they properly engage with the talent they need, and how can technology support this process?

My guest this week is Gavin Speirs, CEO of Solutions Driven. Solutions Driven have done a huge amount of research to ensure they have the right strategies to help their clients thrive in the current hiring market. In our conversation, Gavin discusses their Hiring Enablement methodology and shares valuable advice to help TA leaders with their recruitment agency relationships.

In the interview, we discuss:

• The current state of the hiring market

• Changing candidate behaviour

• The three phases of candidate engagement

• Fit, Freedom, Fulfilment, Family, Fortune, and Future

• Educating hiring managers

• Hiring Insanity, Hiring Execution, and Hiring Inequality

• Are recruitment agencies evolving quickly enough?

• What questions should TA leaders be asking the agencies they work with?

• What is technology enabling?

• What will recruiting look like in the future?

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The potential impact of AI on Talent Acquisition is 2023's biggest talking point, but what impact will these new technologies have on relationship-driven hiring at the top of organizations? 

Will AI disrupt executive search or just provide a better toolset? At the same time, how are the next generation of leaders thinking about their careers as we move further into an AI-driven future?

My guest this week is Bill Hogenauer, a Partner at JM Search. Bill specializes in placing C-Level Technology executives, and it was great to get his insights into the current state and likely future direction of Executive Search.

In the interview, we discuss:

• The current market for tech talent

• How market conditions are fueling innovation

• How has Executive Search evolved since the pandemic?

• The importance of hyperspecialization

• Using technology to develop relationships

• Partnerships, not transactions

• The impact of AI

• Automating and streamlining

• How do you identify value creation and impact potential?

• How is the next generation of leaders approaching their careers

• What will the balance between humans and machines look like in recruiting

Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts.

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.

Episode mentioned in this Round Up:

Ep 527: Culture As A Hiring Differentiator

Ep 528: Social Mobility Via Talent Engagement

Ep 529: Developing Digital Skills

Ep 530: Workforce Resilience

Ep 531: Kindness, Data & The Candidate Experience

Ep 532: Data-Driven Talent Acquisition

Ep 533: Engaging With Top Talent

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Despite months of layoffs and challenging economic news, engaging with top talent is still very hard. It's even harder if you are hiring for an employer with very little profile or brand awareness in your target talent markets.

So what strategies are employers using to engage with top talent, and what lessons can large enterprises learn from small and agile start-ups when it comes to storytelling and the effective use of tech stacks?

My guest this week is George Morriss, Head of Talent Acquisition at Lindus Health. George has vast experience in building hiring strategies for high-growth start-ups and has practical advice to share on how TA Leaders should respond to the disruption we see in the market.

In the interview, we discuss:

• Market recalibration

• Why engaging with top talent is still so difficult

• Recruiting with no employer brand

• Consistency of storytelling

• The balance between resonance and hyperbole

• Transparency in the hiring process

• Candidate experience as a point of difference

• How to deal with an overwhelming choice of technology

• Building a tech stack with tools to solve specific challenges

• Interview training

• Minimizing the administrative burden on recruiters

• Lessons from start-ups

• How should TA leaders prepare themselves for the future?

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Employers have never had so much data to inform, innovate and optimize their talent strategies. However, understanding and extracting value from this data is something many organizations are still struggling with.

So how should employers be thinking about data, implementing data-driven talent strategies, and planning for a future of data-based decision-making?

My guest this week is Grant Telfer, Business Development Director at Textkernel. Textkernel has long specialized in bringing machine learning, AI, and data-driven intelligence to talent acquisition, and Grant has some great advice, use cases, and future insights to share.

In the interview, we discuss:

• The current state of talent markets

• Magnified skill shortages

• Extracting value from data

• What are the most important data sets employers have access to

• Skills taxonomies and internal mobility

• Upskilling and succession planning

• Data & APIs

• The dangers of not using data to its full potential

• The role of AI

• Example use cases and outcomes

• What does the future look like, and how should we plan for it

This episode is supported by Textkernel:

Textkernel is a global leader in AI-powered recruitment solutions, delivering multilingual parsing, semantic search and match, and labor market intelligence solutions to over 2,500 corporate and staffing organizations worldwide. Our innovative technologies help companies better connect people and jobs.

See how you can connect people and jobs better, request a demo: https://hubs.ly/Q01VLGr40 

Visit our website to learn more about our solutions: https://hubs.ly/Q01VLFnW0

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Many aspects of recruiting have changed significantly over the last two decades, with technology continuing to drive rapid leaps forward in innovation and efficiency. The candidate experience continues to be a conundrum, however, as it hasn't improved or developed at the same pace as other areas of talent acquisition.

So why is this, and how can new and compelling business cases be made to drive a better candidate experience?

My guest this week is Amy Oviedo, Founder and CEO of Recruiting Experiences. Recruiting Experiences provides fractional recruiting support to employers and training for talent acquisition professionals. Amy is a passionate advocate for the candidate experience and the importance of kindness in the recruiting process.

In the interview, we discuss:

• Candidate experience as the backbone of effective recruiting 

• Recruiting fundamentals and the importance of focusing on process

• Automation and simplification

• AI and the future of candidate experience

• Kindness in the context of recruiting

• Building business cases

• The perfect mix between people and technology

• Why a high volume of applications isn't an excuse for a poor candidate experience

• What skills with talent acquisition professionals need in the future

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Despite the current economic issues, many businesses face a talent crisis. Skill shortages are part of the picture, but perhaps most worrying for business leaders are low levels of engagement and retention as expectations of the employment experience continue to evolve rapidly.

So what can employers do to build workforce resilience and get the competitive talent advantage essential to drive long-term value?

My guest this week is Tammy Browning, President at KellyOCG. KellyOCG has recently published a comprehensive piece of research looking at workforce resilience. In our conversation, Tammy shares the findings and talks us through the three strategic pillars that are helping employers to build a resilient workforce.

In the interview, we discuss:

• The methodology behind the report

• Low levels of employee engagement and severe retention issues

• Have things gone backwards since the pandemic?

• A lack of action on DE&I

• Mental health, career pathways, and purpose

• Aligning talent acquisition, talent sustainability, and organizational resilience

• Do leaders understand the issues?

• The critical elements of workforce resilience 

• Purpose and capability

• The impact of AI

• What will the future look like?

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