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

Some of my favourite conversations in the last six months have been around inclusive hiring. Many people are doing brilliant work to support people from marginalised groups into the workforce, and I've learnt a lot from talking to employers like Timpson and organisations like The Bridge of Hope.

In this episode, we're going to explore what happens when an employer removes all screening, all background checks and all education and experience requirements from their hiring to be more inclusive. What are the advantages, the challenges, and the results?

My guest this week is Nykeba King, Global Head of Inclusion at The Body Shop. A few years ago, The Body Shop created an Open Hiring program to ensure they were being as inclusive as possible. It's a strategy that has produced some amazing results, and it is now giving them a unique competitive advantage in today's challenging talent markets.

In the interview, we discuss:

• Recruiting challenges at The Body Shop

• What is Open Hiring, and how does it work?

• No background checks, no screening, no education requirements

• How Open Hiring is helping The Body Shop in the current talent markets

• Making recruiting more purposeful with "Targeted Recruitment."

• Replacing scrutiny with trust

• Removing barriers and removing bias

• Implementation challenges

• The danger of second-guessing someone's ability to do a job

• Wrap-around support to build an inclusive workplace

• Time to hire, performance and retention

• What's next for Open Hiring

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Whether it's the Great Resignation or the Great Reset, whatever you choose to call it, it is undeniable that employers are currently finding it extremely challenging to attract and retain talent.

So which strategies should companies be exploring to improve their odds in such a difficult market? 

My guest this week is Christine Wzorek, CEO and Founder of White Label Advisors. Christine is a highly experienced HR leader and has essential advice about building holistic human capital strategies to deal with these incredibly challenging times.

In the interview, we discuss:

• What is driving the Great Resignation?

• Employer engagement, happiness and fulfilment

• Adapting to the new reality

• Why talent acquisition needs to mirror sales

• Treating candidates in a hospitality orientated way

• Transparency in reward strategies

• Scaling L&D with technology

• Levelling the playing field for diverse talent

• Gender equality

• The future of talent acquisition and HR

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I've been a keen follower of the Job Board market for several decades. It's been a market that has often been very slow to evolve, but the pace of innovation has increased considerably over the last few years. So what effect has the pandemic had on the job board industry, and what is its likely future direction?

My guest this week is Steven Rothberg, Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of College Recruiter. Steven has been in the job board industry since it started, and I could think of no better person to give us an update on the current state of the market. 

• How have job boards evolved over time

• The programmatic revolution

• Recruiting marketing budget consolidation

• How has the pandemic changed things for job boards

• Why do job boards need to reduce the friction they are causing in the candidate journey.

• Market consolidation

• What is the future of job boards?

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A full transcript will appear here shortly.

Expanding candidate pools, speeding up the recruiting process and diversity hiring are all key talent acquisition challenges in 2022. While technology is never a magic fix everything solution, it is becoming evident that as AI becomes more sophisticated, it can offer employers some of the tools needed to meet these challenges.

So what are the latest use cases for AI in talent acquisition, and how is it driving skills based decision making?

My guest this week is Andrea Shiah, Head of Talent Strategy and Transformation at Eightfold. Andrea was formerly Global Head of Talent Acquisition at American Express and has some unique insights into the development of AI in recruiting.

In the interview, we discuss:

• What it takes to be successful in the current recruiting landscape

• Modernising talent acquisition

• Speeding up recruiting using skills intelligence and automation

• The danger of leaving the strongest candidates on the table

• Using adjacent skills to broaden candidate pools

• DE&I and skills based decision making

Find out more about eightfold's Cultivate event here

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I know that many TA Leaders who listen to the podcast are currently scaling or rebuilding their talent acquisition teams. Market challenges and rapid advancements in the sophistication and availability of technology have changed the game for talent acquisition in the last 24 months. So how do you structure and scale a high performing talent acquisition team to meet the needs of 2022?

My guest this week is Alison Kaizer, Head of Talent at Lunchbox. Alison is currently scaling a talent acquisition team in a highly challenging market sector and has some practical insights on tech stacks, team structure, metrics and competitive advantage.

In the interview, we discuss:

• The difference between a good TA team and a world-class TA team

• The current market for tech talent

• Communicating culture in a remote process

• Putting technology at the centre and building a scaleable tech stack

• How to find, assess and structure a TA team

• What are the metrics that matter?

• Using mission and culture to drive competitive advantage

• What's next for talent acquisition?

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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 415: LinkedIn & Career Breaks

Ep 416: Asynchronous Working

Ep 417: Optimizing The Recruiting Process

Ep 418: A Mindful Return

Ep 419: Speeding Up Hiring

Ep 420: The Project Economy

Ep 421: The Purpose Gap

Ep 422: Digital Talent

Ep 423: Perfecting The Candidate Experience

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It's now an obvious thing to say that the pandemic has created an inflection point in the future of work. However, understanding which of the current trends we are seeing will become the long term trends that shape this future is a challenge, particularly when demographics and technology also have a big part to play. 

To help me make sense of all of this and give us a professional opinion on how things might develop, my guest this week is Katy Tynan, Principal Analyst at Forrester. Katy specialises in both the employee experience and the future of work and has a vast amount of expert insight to share.

In the interview, we discuss:

• The current state of talent markets

• Demographic shifts

• The working from anywhere trend

• Breaking down generational stereotypes

• Designing culture and working practices around employees and customers

• The importance of listening

• Values

• What does the career of the future look like

• The technology ecosystem

• The importance of collaboration 

• Managing uncertainty

• What can we expect in the near term future?

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Delivering a high-quality candidate experience isn't easy, but it has arguably never been more critical with the recruiting challenges employers are now experiencing. Over all the years that candidate experience has been an industry talking point, what has become clear to me is that it is fundamentally a strategic rather than a tactical issue.

My guest this week is Carlos Fernandez, Director of Talent Acquisition at Houston Methodist. Houston Methodist puts innovation at the heart of its corporate strategy, and its approach to candidate experience reflects this. 

In the interview, we discuss:

• Recruiting challenges in the healthcare sector

• The quality of candidate care mirroring the quality of patient care

• Standing out as an employer.

• Candidate experience strategy

• The "Know Me Experience" and voice of the customer research

• The role of technology

• Virtual chat, candidate capture and auto-scheduling

• Using technology to connect candidates with humans quickly

• Change management

• The future of talent acquisition

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So today is the international publication date for Digital Talent, the book I've spent the last couple of years writing with Mervyn Dinnen. We're incredibly excited that everyone can finally get to read it and wanted to record a special show to discuss the themes and some of the significant learnings from our research. In a disrupted and technology-enabled world of work, the ability to attract, recruit and retain people with digital skills can be the difference between business success and business failure. Our book explores how employers can do this successfully.

I am absolutely delighted that Trish McFarlane, host of the legendary HR Happy Hour podcast, has agreed to be our guest host and interview Mervyn and me for this episode. Enjoy the conversation!

In the interview, we discuss:

• Why we wrote Digital Talent

• How digital skills are critical to a company's success

• Speed, quality and humanity in Talent Acquisition

• Personalizing talent experience

• Aspiration vs Reality

• Hybrid, remote and talent intelligence

• Work Tech trends

• What are cutting edge employers doing to attract digital talent

• Total talent thinking

Listen to this podcast in Apple Podcasts.

As we all know, recruiting and retention are tough at the moment, and employers need to work harder than ever to acquire and keep the talent they need. Purpose is often talked about as a critical differentiator in employer branding, but what does that actually mean in practical terms?

New research from Cognizant has revealed just how important purpose is at work and has also highlighted a growing disconnect between employers and younger workers.

So what does purpose mean for Gen Z employees, and what should employers be doing to close the purpose gap. I'm joined this week by Eduardo Plastino, Director of The Cognizant Center for the Future of Work, to talk through the research and explore its implications.

In the interview, we discuss:

• Defining the purpose gap

• The increasing leverage of employees

• Understanding what is important to the Gen Z workforce

• Scepticism around employers' messaging on critical issues such as climate change and DE&I

• Shared values

• Implications for employers

• How to fix the purpose gap

• Aligning external employer brand communication with internal reality

• Advice to talent acquisition teams on how brand, marketing and recruiting process can demonstrate an employer is a great place to work.

Listen to this podcast in Apple Podcasts.