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

Employer branding has never been a more popular discussion topic with a huge amount of content and conference time now dedicated to it. However, when you dig below the surface, there is very little that addresses the day to day concerns of employer brand practitioners, particularly those working within global organizations.

Working in partnership with my regular co-collaborator Mervyn Dinnen and in conjunction with employer brand solution provider Papirfly, this summer we did a piece of research design to restore the balance by uncovering the real issues in employer branding.

On the podcast this week I’m joined by Sara Naveda, Client Director at Papirfly, to discuss the research and its findings.

In our discussion we cover four key issues:

• How to align internal and external brand to greater effect

• Why employer brand becomes even more important in times of commercial turmoil

• How to adopt employee generated content to grow your employer brand at scale

• The importance of measuring effectiveness of your efforts, and best practice techniques for doing so

You can download the full insight report here for free

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Planning and executing a social media strategy for recruiting and employer branding is never a straight forward undertaking. However, doing this within a global organization can be particularly problematic. Complex stakeholder relationships with PR, marketing and comms are a key issues as is getting the right segmentation of channels across geographies and audiences. Local versus Global is a debate I’m often asked my opinion on.

My guest this week is Charu Malhotra. Charu has a wealth of experience working as an interim within a range of global organizations and has some unique expertise in building global social recruiting strategies. She is currently leading EVP and Employer Branding projects at Ferrero.

In the interview we discuss:

    •    The specific challenges social media presents for complex global organizations

    •    Transparency and fishing where the fish are

    •    Content types

    •    Alignment, stakeholder relations and project management

    •    Global versus Local

    •    The power of social media as a research tool

Charu also shares her thoughts on the future development of social media and tells us which emerging social channel she thinks has the most potential.

Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

Planning and executing a social media strategy for recruiting and employer branding is never a straight forward undertaking. However, doing this within a global organization can be particularly problematic. Complex stakeholder relationships with PR, marketing and comms are a key issues as is getting the right segmentation of channels across geographies and audiences. Local versus Global is a debate I’m often asked my opinion on.

My guest this week is Charu Malhotra. Charu has a wealth of experience working as an interim within a range of global organizations and has some unique expertise in building global social recruiting strategies. She is currently leading EVP and Employer Branding projects at Ferrero.

In the interview we discuss:

    •    The specific challenges social media presents for complex global organizations

    •    Transparency and fishing where the fish are

    •    Content types

    •    Alignment, stakeholder relations and project management

    •    Global versus Local

    •    The power of social media as a research tool

Charu also shares her thoughts on the future development of social media and tells us which emerging social channel she thinks has the most potential.

Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

Over the past five years there has been an investment boom in technology products aimed at the talent acquisition market. The industry is getting more complex by the day and making sense of it is a constant challenge for corporate recruiting leaders.

My guest in this episode is Jon Kestenbaum Executive Director at New York based think tank and incubator Talent Tech Labs. Talent Tech Labs have done a huge amount of work to map out and understand this technology market and has developed a taxonomy that identifies 27 different categories of product in the sourcing to onboarding journey.

 In the interview we discuss:

    •    How to make sense of the complex market by cutting through the marketing spin

    •    Disruptive solutions versus point solutions

    •    The importance of analytics

    •    The Five key trends of 2106

    •    Levels of innovation and tech adoption being seen among corporate employers and staffing companies.

Jon also tells us what has surprised him most during his two years at Talent Tech Labs and gives his view on the likely future of the talent technology space.

Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

Over the past five years there has been an investment boom in technology products aimed at the talent acquisition market. The industry is getting more complex by the day and making sense of it is a constant challenge for corporate recruiting leaders.

My guest in this episode is Jon Kestenbaum Executive Director at New York based think tank and incubator Talent Tech Labs. Talent Tech Labs have done a huge amount of work to map out and understand this technology market and has developed a taxonomy that identifies 27 different categories of product in the sourcing to onboarding journey.

 In the interview we discuss:

    •    How to make sense of the complex market by cutting through the marketing spin

    •    Disruptive solutions versus point solutions

    •    The importance of analytics

    •    The Five key trends of 2106

    •    Levels of innovation and tech adoption being seen among corporate employers and staffing companies.

Jon also tells us what has surprised him most during his two years at Talent Tech Labs and gives his view on the likely future of the talent technology space.

Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

I realized recently that in the previous 60 episodes of this podcast we’ve had hardly any discussion about Applicant Tracking Systems.  I’m very keen to rectify this. ATS systems are crucial to so many employers as a key part of the recruiting process. Many people feel that they have not kept pace with the changing nature of recruiting and the expectations of their users. This is certainly true of some systems but there have been some recent innovations in the ATS space that I wanted to get some opinion on.

My guest this week is Jess Hayes, Talent Manager and HR Lead for Lost My Name.  Jess has worked with a number of different types of ATS during her career and I wanted to get her views on the changes in the space.

In the interview we discuss:

    •    How the purpose of an ATS has developed over the last few years

    •    Expectations of the ATS and why software should adapt as user requirements develop

    •    The responsibility of the recruiter

    •    Limiting the administrative burden so recruiters can spend more face time with candidates

    •    Why integrations are so important

    •    The potential of nurturing workflows

    •    Advice for anyone changing ATS or purchasing one for the first time

Jess also tells us which of the new breed of ATS is her favourite and gives her thoughts on the features and functionality that will be needed in the future.

Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

I realized recently that in the previous 60 episodes of this podcast we’ve had hardly any discussion about Applicant Tracking Systems.  I’m very keen to rectify this. ATS systems are crucial to so many employers as a key part of the recruiting process. Many people feel that they have not kept pace with the changing nature of recruiting and the expectations of their users. This is certainly true of some systems but there have been some recent innovations in the ATS space that I wanted to get some opinion on.

My guest this week is Jess Hayes, Talent Manager and HR Lead for Lost My Name.  Jess has worked with a number of different types of ATS during her career and I wanted to get her views on the changes in the space.

In the interview we discuss:

    •    How the purpose of an ATS has developed over the last few years

    •    Expectations of the ATS and why software should adapt as user requirements develop

    •    The responsibility of the recruiter

    •    Limiting the administrative burden so recruiters can spend more face time with candidates

    •    Why integrations are so important

    •    The potential of nurturing workflows

    •    Advice for anyone changing ATS or purchasing one for the first time

Jess also tells us which of the new breed of ATS is her favourite and gives her thoughts on the features and functionality that will be needed in the future.

Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

Recognising and addressing unconscious bias in the recruitment process is one of the biggest issues HR and Recruiting professionals face.  Dealing with it can be difficult, especially in large organisations, but it certainly not something that is impossible.

My guest on the podcast this week is Jon Hull Group Head of Resourcing at Carillion. Carillion have been running diversity and inclusion initiatives that addresses issues with unconscious bias head on and they have had some seriously impressive results.


In the interview we discuss:

    •    How neuroscience helped Carillion make sense of their problem

    •    Why bottom up is better than top down

    •    Diversity and Inclusion as innovation

    •    Unconscious bias in recruitment marketing and employer branding

    •    How HR started to think differently about themselves


Jon also talks through the results Carillion have seen from these initiatives and gives his advice to employers who are looking at how to deal with similar issues.

This week’s podcast is kindly supported by Lever, where ATS meets CRM

Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

Recognising and addressing unconscious bias in the recruitment process is one of the biggest issues HR and Recruiting professionals face.  Dealing with it can be difficult, especially in large organisations, but it certainly not something that is impossible.

My guest on the podcast this week is Jon Hull Group Head of Resourcing at Carillion. Carillion have been running diversity and inclusion initiatives that addresses issues with unconscious bias head on and they have had some seriously impressive results.


In the interview we discuss:

    •    How neuroscience helped Carillion make sense of their problem

    •    Why bottom up is better than top down

    •    Diversity and Inclusion as innovation

    •    Unconscious bias in recruitment marketing and employer branding

    •    How HR started to think differently about themselves


Jon also talks through the results Carillion have seen from these initiatives and gives his advice to employers who are looking at how to deal with similar issues.

This week’s podcast is kindly supported by Lever, where ATS meets CRM

Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

We live in interesting times. Technology is evolving constantly around us and unsurprisingly everyone’s attention is often focused on what will be the next disruptive game changer for the recruitment industry. What we don’t pay enough attention to though is the experiences and frustrations of candidate who have to try and stand out in a noisy world using the tools that are completely outmoded in other aspects of life but jealously held onto by the recruitment industry.

A shiny new CRM or a brilliant assessment algorithm may make recruiters’ lives easier but they don’t really make the experience of recruitment very different for the candidate when everything still hangs round them having to use a word document CV or static LinkedIn profile to get the recruiter’s attention in the first place.

The situation is untenable in the long term and it shouldn’t come as a shock that eventually the jobseekers were going to take things into their own hands.

My guest on this week’s episode is Esther Crawford creator of a “Resumebot” which took her from frustrated jobseeker to funded entrepreneur. I want you to imagine a world where artificially intelligent chatbots match candidates and recruiters in a completely authentic and bespoke way. In the interview you will hear Esther’s story and find out how she might have taken us on the first step of the journey to a new way of recruiting

This week’s podcast is kindly supported by Lever, where ATS meets CRM

Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes