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

An area that has been of genuine interest to me recently has been company culture and how some of the core ways we used to think about it are being disrupted. Remote working has meant companies are having to think much harder about how they work and showcasing their culture during the recruiting process has become a real challenge. Another significant area of debate has been the use of culture fit as an assessment criteria and whether culture fit even exists.

My guest this week is Bret Putter, CEO of Culture Gene and author of several books on company culture. Brett spends a significant amount of his time researching corporate cultures with a strong recent focus on companies that were already working remotely before the pandemic. He has some very valuable insights to share on what company culture now means in our much disrupted times.

In the interview, we discuss:

   ▪   The definition of culture

   ▪   The culture challenges of remote working

   ▪   Best practices of remote-first organisations

   ▪   Asynchronous communication

   ▪   Why there is no such thing as culture fit

   ▪   How can employers leverage culture in a virtual recruitment process?

   ▪   What long time changes are we likely to see post-pandemic

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Candidate Experience has been a regular topic on this podcast as long as this podcast has existed. People often get frustrated that we keep having to talk about it as poor candidate experiences still persist for many. However, improving the candidate experience isn't a single time-limited problem; it is an ongoing process that evolves in line with expectations and technology. With that in mind, talent acquisition teams must treat candidate experience strategically as a science rather than as a one-off project.

My guest this week is Kevin Grossman, President of The Talent Board, the organisers of the Candidate Experience Awards. The Candidate Experience Awards have been running for ten years now, and Kevin has a massive amount of valuable data-based insights to share on how the candidate experience challenge has been evolving.

In the interview, we discuss:

   ▪   The methodology and data behind The Candidate Experience Awards

   ▪   Candidate Experience as an ongoing challenge, not a single problem

   ▪   Transparency and feedback

   ▪   The challenge of sustaining a high-quality experience

   ▪   How the pandemic has increased transparency

   ▪   The rise of recruiting automation and how it is improving the candidate experience

   ▪   Taking a more scientific approach

   ▪   How chatbots are filling the communication gap

   ▪   Technology doesn't fix flawed processes.

   ▪   What might the future look like

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Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are critically important. However, despite much discussion and debate, many employers are still failing to improve their hiring diversity. Those employers that are moving the needle are those that have actionable strategies and leadership accountability.

My guest this week is Rachel Hirsch, who is a Recruiter at Frame.io. Frame.io have a genuine focus on diversity equity and inclusion and have tangible results to show for it. In our conversation, Rachel shares the strategy and identifies the key elements that have driven their success.

In the interview, we discuss:

   ▪   The key recruiting challenges at Frame.io

   ▪   How unconscious bias affects diversity in sales leadership

   ▪   Narrowing requirements to the things that matter most

   ▪   The complications of the pandemic

   ▪   Building trust with candidates

   ▪   The critical importance of allyship and leadership accountability

   ▪   The results have Frame.io seen from its strategy

   ▪   What does the future look like

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It's fair to say that trends in recruiting technology are moving quickly. The events of the last 12 months have turbo boasted some aspects of the market and radically disrupted others. So what's changed, what's accelerating and what does the future look like?

My guest this week is the perfect person to ask and was the most requested guest in the audience survey that I ran earlier in the year. Hung Lee is the Editor of the leading industry newsletter Recruiting Brainfood and a keen observer of recruiting technology.

In the interview, we discuss:

   ▪   Changing trends

   ▪   The rise of assessment tech

   ▪   Interview analytics

   ▪   The future of automation

   ▪   Ethics

   ▪   What happens after the pandemic

   ▪   How the way the industry educates itself on technology has changed

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Interviews have always been the central tenant of the hiring process and the one area where it has been most challenging to collect meaningful data. The mass move to video interviewing in the last 12 months has potentially changed everything. So, what data can we now gather, and how can it be analysed to drive actionable improvement in the interview process.

My guest this week is Siadhal Magos, the Co-Founder and CEO of Metaview. Metaview is a technology start-up that is helping some well know employers gather data and act on interview intelligence in new and innovative ways.

In the interview, we discuss:

   ▪   Using data to make sense of interviews at scale

   ▪   Two techniques to improve interviews

   ▪   Will technology replace traditional interviews?

   ▪   What are the critical interview data points?

   ▪   The correlation between hiring funnel efficiency and interview rigour

   ▪   Bias and inclusivity

   ▪   Addressing privacy concerns

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The future of jobs in an age of AI and automation has been a popular topic on this show. We've tended to talk in quite theoretical terms and never truly considered what practical solutions there might be to the inevitable job displacement. Millions of jobs have already been lost in the pandemic, and the World Economic Forum predicts that an additional 85 million jobs with be lost to automation by 2025. So what type of jobs will disappear, and how do we upskill and transition the large proportion of the workforce who will be affected?

My guests this week are Madeleine Gabriel and Karlis Kanders from Nesta, the UK's innovation agency for social good. Nesta has just completed a significant piece of research called Mapping Careers Causeways, which is intended to support job transitions and inform skills policy in a labour market that AI and Automation will forever change.

In the interview, we discuss:

   ▪   The uncertain future of work

   ▪   Which jobs are at risk of automation

   ▪   Identifying pathways from high-risk occupations to safer ones

   ▪   Why women are twice as likely to be displaced than men

   ▪   The three types of core skills that will help people transition

   ▪   The critical importance of training

   ▪   The role of talent acquisition

   ▪   Thinking differently about hiring

   ▪   Why the best way to predict the future is to create it

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Back in 2019, I interviewed Theo Smith about Neurodiversity at work. At the time, I didn't have much of an understanding of Neurodiversity, and it was great to learn from Theo about the challenges neurodivergent people face in the workplace, what employers can do to support them and the enormous benefits this support would bring to everyone.

Theo has since teamed up with Professor Amanda Kirby, and they are about to publish a book on Neurodiversity at Work. A couple of weeks ago, I caught up with them to find out more about the book and what talent acquisition professionals can be doing to be more inclusive in recruiting and assessment.

In the interview, we discuss:

   ▪   What is Neurodiversity

   ▪   How do we get the best out of everyone at work?

   ▪   Cognitive strengths and cognitive struggles

   ▪   Spiky profiles

   ▪   Unrealistic job descriptions

   ▪   Focusing on what people can do rather than what they can't do

   ▪   Making interviews and assessment more inclusive

   ▪   How will work change post-pandemic

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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 328: Authentic Hiring

Ep 331: Transforming Recruitment Marketing

Ep 333: Automation, Simplicity and Experience

Ep 332: Careers Site Systems

Ep 329: Assessment Lessons From Elite Sport

Ep 334: Fair AI

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The number of talent acquisition technology solutions offering AI continues to grow exponentially. However, we must look at AI's role in recruiting through a critical lens to ensure transparency and that technologies are fair and ethical. If AI is being used to improve the candidate experience and remove bias, how do we make sure it isn't actually making things worse.

My guest this week is Barb Hyman, CEO of Predictive Hire, an AI based interviewing solution. Predictive Hire has recently published a paper on Fair AI in recruiting intended to provoke debate and help Talent Acquisition leaders ask the right questions when they are buying a solution. Barb has an HR leadership background which gives her a unique perspective on the dangers and opportunities of the AI revolution.

In the interview, we discuss:

   ▪   Fair AI in Recruiting

   ▪   The importance of vendor self regulation

   ▪   Why AI should be unbiased, inclusive, valid and explainable

   ▪   Building trust with talent acquisition leaders and candidates

   ▪   When AI isn't AI

   ▪   Why a human candidate experience is critical

Download “Fair AI In Recruitment”

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As regular listeners will know, I often collaborate with HR Technology Analyst Mervyn Dinnen to produce research reports on various aspects of talent technology.

Our latest report was published a few weeks ago with support from the learning and performance management platform Bridge. I wanted to bring some of the highlights of our findings to the podcast, so keep listening to hear what we discovered about how the landscape for learning and performance management has been changing during the pandemic.

In the episode, we discuss:

   ▪   Critical skills gaps

   ▪   The challenges of talent mobility

   ▪   The importance of specialist and fit for purpose technology

   ▪   Training to support remote management

   ▪   The employees perspective

   ▪   Peer to peer interaction

Download the Learning and Performance Management report

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