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

Over the last few years, there have been parallel conversations about candidate experience and talent experience. As thinking has developed, it has become obvious that these two things aren't mutually exclusive and are in fact elements of an overall talent experience.

I recently undertook a research project in collaboration with Mervyn Dinnen and with the support of Saba Software, to explore the implications of a joined-up talent experience on talent acquisition. We spoke to several employers who are doing some exciting work in this area and have recently published our findings in a free whitepaper.

My guest in this episode is Duncan Miller from Saba Software. Duncan has some great insights to share on talent experience and how it might develop in the future.

In the interview, we discuss:

• What is talent experience and why is it so important

• How closely should candidate experience and employee experience be aligned

• What are employers doing to create world-class talent experiences

• The role of technology and its limitations

• Early onboarding

• Understanding the moments that matter most and the practicalities of personalization

Download our whitepaper

Subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts

Contact: [email protected]

Employer branding has been the hot topic for the last several years as companies vie for competitive advantage in tight talent markets. But, despite all the focus, is employer branding actually getting worse and what do companies have to do to get noticed and connect with their talent audiences?

My guest this week is Ed Nathanson from Red Pill Talent, Ed has a vast amount of experience in helping build employer brands that stand out from the crowd and has some great practical tips to share.

In the interview, we discuss:

• How employer brand is changing

• Creating something meaning and memorable

• The danger of being vanilla

• Engagement as the ultimate measurement

• Message and marketing

Ed also talks about making brands stand out and share some examples of what great looks like

Subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts

Contact: [email protected]

We talk a lot about the poor quality of job postings with many just being a cut and paste version of the internal job description. However, we should also be talking about the poor quality of job descriptions themselves, many of which are put together in haste with little thought round impact and outcome.

To give us a different perspective, my guest this week is Kate Leto, a well-known product management and transformation consultant. As well as sharing her thoughts on job descriptions, Kate also offers insights on how thinking like a product manager could help improve the talent acquisition process.

In the interview, we discuss:

• What is product management and what lessons might it have for talent acquisition

• The importance of recruiting for emotional intelligence

• Person organisational fit

• Using four simple questions to create effective job descriptions

Subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts

Contact: [email protected]

Job Boards and their likely future is a topic that we've not really covered in-depth on the podcast. Despite the decade long predictions of their demise, Job Boards still play a crucial role in many talent acquisition strategies. They are evolving quickly, and some of the new generation talent marketplaces are attracting enormous venture capital investment.

My guest this week is Martin Lenz. Martin is CEO of innovative job board software provider Jobiqo and is therefore ideally placed to get us up to speed on the current state and future potential of job boards.

In the interview, we discuss:

• What role are job boards currently playing in talent acquisition and how could they be better at it

• Creating value in niches

• Leveraging increasing amounts of data

• Improving the candidate experience

• What factors are driving change in the job board market and who are going to be the winners and losers.

• What functionality should talent acquisition professionals be demanding from job boards both not and in the future

Subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts

Follow the show on Instagram

Contact: [email protected]

Employer Brand storytelling is a crucial topic for me, and it has been great to see an increase in the number of employers using the power of stories over the last 18 months.

However realising the true potential of storytelling is only possible by understanding the science behind it and having proper strategies in place for audience segmentation, messaging, medium, format and distribution.

My guest this week is someone who will genuinely accelerate your understanding of how to get results using stories. Miki Johnson is the co-founder of Job Portraits, a San Francisco based employer branding studio focused on helping high growth startups hire more effectively through storytelling.

In the interview, we discuss:

• The evolution of employer branding

• Deep dive storytelling

• A strategic approach to content using UX research tools

• Evidencing EVP through stories

• Tailoring the message to different audience segments

• Medium, Format and Distribution

• When to use video and when not to

Miki also discusses the role of employees as creators and distributors and highlights some great examples of companies producing great content.

If you are interested in getting started with or improving your storytelling, Job Portraits have an Employer Value Proposition Worksheet that can help. Please email [email protected] to get your copy.

Subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts

A couple of weeks back, I had the great pleasure of attending the TA Tech North America event in Austin, Texas. There were some great content and discussions which explored the current and future state of talent acquisition technology.

In this week's show, I have four interviews to give you a flavour of the key topics at the event.

Firstly I interview:

• Terry Baker from Pandologic about the TA Tech Stack research and the disconnect between employers and vendors.

• George Larocque from HRWins about the amount of investment in talent acquisition technology in 2019

• Jessica Miller-Merrell from Workology about recruitment marketing and the user implications of job boards buying and selling traffic.

I then got the opportunity to get on the main stage and host a fireside chat with Shannon Offord, VP Strategic Partnerships and Alliance at DirectEmployers Association.

In our interview, we discuss:

• The aims and objectives of DirectEmployers Association

• The biggest challenges employers are currently facing.

• Flexible working and Diversity

• Accessibility in recruitment technology

• The future of the industry

Subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts

Contact - [email protected]

Work is changing. Jobs are changing. Is recruiting changing quickly enough to keep up? The demand for new mixes of skills and ever-shortening tenure means that recruiting needs to be extremely flexible and work faster than it ever has before.

My guest this week is Nikos Moraitakis, CEO of Workable. Workable work with 20,000 companies across 100 countries which means Nikos has some fascinating insights to share on the current and future state of recruiting.

In the interview, we discuss:

• How work and jobs are changing and the implications for talent acquisition

• The broadening fit between skills and jobs and why this makes matching more difficult

• Ever higher candidate expectations

• Recruiting automation

• The changing nature of screening and assessment

• Providing hiring managers with tools they don't hate

Nikos also talks about the role of recruiting technology and shares his thoughts on what recruiting will look like in 5 to 10 years.

Subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts

Building a workplace that is inclusive for neurodivergent people is something every employer should be doing. However, there is still widespread ignorance about neurodiversity and relatively little discussion about it in our industry.

My guest this week is Theo Smith, recruitment manager at The National Institute for Healthcare Excellence. Theo draws on personal experience and some in-depth research to share his insights into how and why companies should attract, include and retain a more neurodivergent workforce.

In the interview, we discuss:

• What is neurodiversity and how is it misunderstood

• The challenges neurodivergent people face in the workplace

• Empowering superhuman abilities

• The importance of sharing stories.

Theo also talks about the companies who are getting this right and shares his advice on the steps companies can take to improve the employee experience for neurodivergent people.

Subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts

Contact: [email protected]

Talent acquisition transformation projects seem to be everywhere at the moment as employers look to adapt to changing markets, shifting business priorities and new technologies.

I always tell my clients that transformation is impossible without evaluation and strategy, but how do you build and measure an effective strategy in talent acquisition.

My guest this week is Rebecca Carr, SVP of Global Success, Consulting and Strategy for SmartRecruiters. Rebecca talks in detail about the Hiring Success methodology and how it can help employers understand where they are now and where they need to be in the future.

In the interview, we discuss:

• Why the Hiring Success model was developed

• How do you measure talent acquisition effectiveness

• Reinventing legacy metrics

• Key pillars and the 4 level maturity model

• Strategic steps for transformation and improvement

Rebecca also shares her thoughts on who is doing this well and what's next for talent acquisition.

SmartRecruiters Hiring Success Podcast

Subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts

In recent times there has been an explosion in the number of conferences, webinars and indeed podcasts aimed at the talent acquisition audience. The kind of peer to peer learning these platforms are driving is incredibly useful and therefore, extremely popular. However, this only all works if there a steady flow of practitioners who are prepared to step up and share their story and I know this is something that many people find challenging.

My guests this week are Audra Knight, senior manager of employer branding at Foundation Medicine and Katrina Kibben the founder and CEO of Three Ears Media.

Audra and Katrina are both fantastic speakers who have some brilliant advice to share with anyone who either wants to get started or be better at speaking.

In the interview, we discuss:

• Why a talent acquisition professional would want to get involved with speaking

• How to get started

• How to find speaking opportunities

• How to pitch to speak

• Should speakers be paid?

• How to prepare

• Dealing with nerves

• Most common speaking mistakes

• The importance of preparation

Audra and Katrina also talk about the favourite presentations they have given.

Subscribe in Apple Podcasts