Shally's Alley

Most recruiters are operating with blinders on, managing only full-time employees while ignoring 50% of their actual workforce. Jeff Mike, former head of human capital research at Deloitte, reveals how the "extended workforce" encompasses everything from contractors and gig workers to statement-of-work consultants, volunteers, and even AI agents. This isn't just about temps anymore - it's about completely reimagining how we deliver on work outcomes instead of just filling requisitions.

In this episode we talk about the massive blind spot in talent acquisition that's costing companies millions in missed productivity and flawed analytics. Jeff breaks down the legal risks of co-employment and misclassification, explains why procurement has been running this show instead of HR, and reveals how smart recruiters can future-proof their careers by becoming true talent partners who deliver solutions, not just hires.

Key Takeaways

➡ Extended workforce includes contractors, temps, gig workers, SOW consultants, volunteers, interns, and even AI agents - potentially 50% of your actual workforce

➡ Most companies track extended workforce spend through procurement, not HR, creating massive visibility gaps in people analytics

➡ Co-employment risk = treating contractors like employees; misclassification = putting workers in wrong tax categories

➡ Vendor Management Systems (VMS) like Beeline and Fieldglass were built as procurement tools, not people tools

➡ California's ABC classification test is the fastest way to educate yourself on contractor vs employee distinctions

➡ Statement-of-work resources from consulting firms often mask staff augmentation when direct hiring fails

➡ Future-proofed recruiters think "delivering on work outcomes" instead of "filling requisitions"

➡ People analytics is incomplete without extended workforce data - you're measuring half your actual productivity

➡ Business volatility and talent shortages are driving 60% of companies toward more flexible workforce models

Chapters

Sound Bites

"You can't measure what you can't manage, but that doesn't mean don't manage it if there's not a measure developed yet."

"If the contingent workforce is not in your people analytics, your people analytics is incomplete."

"It's really about broadening your perspectives on what's the outcome and then what's the best category to get you to that outcome."

Guest Name: Jeff Mike
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-mike/
Expertise: Extended workforce strategy expert and former head of human capital research at Deloitte, specializing in workforce analytics and talent acquisition optimization

About Shally: srcn.co/me

Rusty Rueff, former CHRO at Electronic Arts and CEO of music startup Snowcap, reveals the hidden psychology behind managing elite creative talent and why most companies completely misunderstand what drives creators. From leading HR at one of the world's most innovative gaming companies to his dramatic career pivot into the CEO seat, Rusty shares hard-won insights about balancing commercial deadlines with creative freedom.

Guest Name: Rusty Rueff

LinkedIn: Former CHRO at Electronic Arts, Former CEO of Snowcap

Expertise: Creative leadership, career reinvention, boardroom governance, and the intersection of faith and work

SUMMARY

In this episode we explore the intersection of creativity and commerce, the loneliness of executive leadership, and why treating recruiting as a strategic craft can literally change lives. Rusty breaks down the myth of the perfect candidate and shares his philosophy on building platforms of faith that can withstand career turbulence.

Key Takeaways

Chapters

08:13 – Managing Elite Creative Talent at Electronic Arts

18:05 – The Chef vs. Short-Order Cook Philosophy in Recruiting

21:15 – The Creative Burden: Writing, Art, and Releasing Inner Demons

26:05 – The Board's Ultimate Job: Hiring the Right CEO

29:57 – Career Reinvention as Strategy, Not Risk

31:38 – The Left Turn: From CHRO to CEO at Snowcap

40:08 – Why People Leave Talent Acquisition Too Early

42:29 – The Profound Impact of Good vs. Bad Hires

52:33 – The Myth of the Perfect Candidate

57:07 – The Faith Code: Building Life Platforms vs. Apps

Sound Bites

"Creative people have a burden to express their creativity - it's not passion, it's not choice, it's a burden." - Rusty Rueff

"You can be two kinds of talent folks - a short order cook who fills orders, or a chef who creates experiences." - Rusty Rueff

About Shally: srcn.co/me

Guest Steve Bartel, co-founder and CEO of GEM, reveals why traditional recruiting tools are fundamentally broken and how AI-native platforms can revolutionize candidate relationships. From his engineering days at Facebook, Blizzard, and Dropbox to building one of the most innovative recruiting platforms, Steve shares the hard truths about why ATSs track requisitions instead of people and why bolt-on AI solutions miss the mark entirely.

Summary

In this episode we dive deep into the evolution from transactional hiring to relationship-driven recruiting, the ethics of AI decision-making in talent acquisition, and why every candidate deserves immediate, constructive feedback. Steve breaks down the massive blind spots most founders have about candidate experience and explains why treating recruiting like a product function isn't just smart business - it's the future of competitive hiring.

Intro

In this episode we talk about AI-native recruiting platforms, candidate experience optimization, recruiting CRM evolution, and decision support automation. Steve Bartel shares his journey from MIT engineer to recruiting tech innovator, explaining why traditional applicant tracking systems fundamentally fail at relationship management and how proper AI integration can transform both recruiter efficiency and candidate experience without replacing human judgment.

Key Takeaways

➡ 70% of enterprise hires are already in their recruiting database - but companies can't unlock this talent goldmine because their systems suffer from institutional amnesia

➡ Recruiters now manage 55% more requisitions than three years ago while facing 3x higher application volumes, creating an impossible workload without AI assistance

➡ AI should elevate and rank candidates, never reject them - the moment AI makes hiring decisions, you cross an ethical line that undermines fair candidate treatment

➡ Traditional ATSs track requisitions, not people - they were built for compliance, not relationship management, which is why recruiting CRMs require completely different data models

➡ 30-50% of smaller company hires come from previous touchpoints in their database, proving that relationship nurturing beats constant new sourcing

➡ The hard part of AI isn't the algorithm anymore - it's having sufficient data context to make intelligent recommendations, which requires native integration

➡ Every applicant deserves timely feedback about their status - this should be table stakes, not a nice-to-have feature that most companies ignore

➡ Data science recruiting in 2012-2013 was chaos - the field was so nascent that role definitions didn't exist and sourcing was nearly impossible

➡ Regulatory amnesia is sometimes mandated - GDPR and data retention laws force some recruiting memory loss, but smart systems can retain limited context legally

➡ Recruiting requires evergreen personal contact information - unlike sales CRMs that focus on work emails, recruiting success depends on tracking people across career moves

➡ AI can provide basic qualification matching at scale - but humans must handle nuanced decisions like citizenship requirements to avoid discrimination

➡ Immediate feedback is crucial for candidate experience - three months later, constructive criticism becomes meaningless noise

Chapters

00:31 – Welcome & AI-Generated Theme Music Demo

Sound Bites

Guest Info

Name: Steve Bartel

LinkedIn: Connect with Steve

Expertise: Co-founder & CEO of GEM, transforming recruiting through AI-native platform design and candidate relationship management

Connect with Shally:

Steve Bartel reveals why traditional recruiting tools are fundamentally broken and how AI-native platforms can revolutionize candidate relationships. From his engineering days at Facebook, Blizzard, and Dropbox to building one of the most innovative recruiting platforms, Steve shares the hard truths about why ATSs track requisitions instead of people and why bolt-on AI solutions miss the mark entirely.

Guest: Steve Bartel, co-founder and CEO of GEM

Website: GEM Platform

LinkedIn: Connect with Steve

Expertise: transforming recruiting through AI-native platform design and candidate relationship management

SUMMARY

In this episode we dive deep into the evolution from transactional hiring to relationship-driven recruiting, the ethics of AI decision-making in talent acquisition, and why every candidate deserves immediate, constructive feedback. Steve breaks down the massive blind spots most founders have about candidate experience and explains why treating recruiting like a product function isn't just smart business - it's the future of competitive hiring.

Key Takeaways

Chapters

00:31 – Welcome & AI-Generated Theme Music Demo

03:23 – Steve's Background: From MIT Engineer to Recruiting Tech Founder

08:42 – The Dropbox Recruiting Experience That Changed Everything

12:17 – Why Traditional ATSs Are Fundamentally Broken

18:43 – The Birth of Recruiting CRMs and Salesforce Experiments

24:55 – AI Augmentation vs. Automation: Drawing the Line

31:57 – Ethics in AI Recruiting: Where Human Judgment Must Prevail

37:21 – Regulatory Challenges: GDPR vs. Trade Secrets

42:15 – Founder Blind Spots in Candidate Experience

48:13 – AI-Powered Qualification Matching at Scale

52:27 – Success Story: Enterprise AI Feedback Implementation

Sound Bites

"Any of us who got into recruiting, we're people people. We do it because we care about candidates and bringing in the right people. That's life-changing." - Steve Bartel

"If I had a time machine, the first thing I'd do is abort the ATS. It literally exists only to mitigate risk and tracks requisitions, not applicants." - Shally Steckerl

About Shally: ⁠srcn.co/me⁠

🎙️ Meet Bill Malcolm: AI Strategist. TA Transformer. Human Capital Futurist.William doesn't talk about the future of AI in recruiting. He's built it.

He cut onboarding time by 58%, saved $12M in labor costs, and built GPT-powered tools that changed how HR works from the inside out at one of the largest cancer centers.

From resume screeners and onboarding bots to ethical AI use in healthcare hiring, this conversation hits hard and goes deep.

- How he built a “Cleared-to-Hire” system that slashed delays

- What AI can’t do and why that matters even more-

How to blend recruiter experience with machine learning without losing your value

- The red line: where not to let AI make the call

🎙️ Meet Rob Beck, trusted friend of 20+ years and among the sharpest sourcing minds I’ve ever worked with.Rob’s journey has taken him from building client teams at Grep Staff (yes, he founded it!) to solving complex data and measurement hiring challenges at Ibotta, where he now leads as a Staff Technical Sourcer.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/grep4robbeck/⁠

If you’re in product, data science, or measurement at the edge of consumer engagement, Rob’s your guy.

We’ve got a lot to talk about, and if you’re a TA leader, you’ll want in on this:

- Why “data-driven” hiring is broken—and how to fix it

- What it really takes to build a sourcing engine that scales without burning out your team

- How to blend relationship recruiting with automation (without losing your soul)

His roots go deep. From full-cycle recruiting to talent strategy, he knows how to find the needle and fix the haystack.Cheers, Rob. Honored to know you, proud to share the stage with you again bro!#TechRecruiting

#SourcingExcellence #Ibotta #DataScienceJobs #ShallysAlley #TalentAcquisition

🎙️ Meet Nicole Roberts, the HR whisperer for founders, investors, and execs who actually want their people strategy to work.

She builds. She coaches. She challenges assumptions. And she’s bringing 🔥 insight for anyone trying to lead through complexity.

Shally Steckerl sits down with fellow sourcing pioneer Jim Stroud for a no-BS conversation about the real impact of AI on recruiting, the economic forces reshaping talent acquisition, and why personal branding trumps any technology. This isn't your typical AI-will-save-us-all discussion. Instead, two industry veterans who've weathered every tech revolution share hard truths about what's actually happening in the market right now.

In this episode we talk about the inevitable collapse of generative AI models, why LinkedIn response rates have plummeted from 85% to 15%, the surprising unemployment surge among computer engineers, and the real reason companies are forcing return-to-office mandates. Jim and Shally dissect everything from wind turbine technician demand to the psychology of personal branding, delivering actionable insights for both recruiters struggling with over-automation and job seekers trapped in the application black hole.

Guest Name: Jim Stroud

KEY TAKEAWAYS

CHAPTERS

00:37 - Intro & Jim Stroud Introduction

2:15 - The Creativity Behind Sourcing

3:11 - AI Taking Over Job Descriptions

6:01 - The Problem with Template-Based Hiring

8:45 - When AI Should Handle Interviews (And When It Shouldn't)

12:30 - The Inevitable Collapse of Generative AI

17:08 - Why Technology Never Actually Replaces Jobs

21:57 - Tech Layoffs and Economic Reality Check

28:06 - Job Market Growth Areas: Wind Turbines to Data Science

29:10 - From Job Hunting to Job Attracting

34:51 - Remote Work Economics and Return-to-Office Reality

39:40 - Boolean Survival: Old School vs New School

43:49 - The Death of LinkedIn and What Comes Next

51:60 - Personal Branding as Career Currency

Jim Stroud: "The more you integrate technology, you sort of lose a little bit of yourself. If you don't put your own special sauce on it, what's really the carrot to attract somebody to your job?"

Shally Steckerl: "LinkedIn response rates crashed from 85% to 15%. LinkedIn is gonna die - there's no tool that has been there forever, and LinkedIn is not going to be that one either."

Jim Stroud: "Change your mindset from looking for a job to attracting a job. Write content about something you're passionate about, speak at meetups, showcase your expertise - make people reach out to you."

🎙️ Meet CoSandra Dent a respected corporate Talent Acquisition leader who transitioned from shaping TA at major corporations to building something of her own with CoCreate Solutions.

She was my boss at Fiserv for five years, so I’ve seen firsthand how she balances sharp leadership with genuine connection (and a great sense of humor). CoSandra has spent years leading large-scale TA functions, navigating corporate complexities, and now she’s helping companies rethink their talent strategies on her own terms.

🔥 In this episode, we’re covering:

- The reality of leading TA at major corporations (the good, the bad, and the absurd)

- Why she made the leap to solopreneurship and what she’s learned along the way

- What corporate TA leaders misunderstand about working independently

Join us for a conversation packed with real talk, sharp insights, and maybe a few “I probably shouldn’t say this out loud” moments.

🎙️ Meet Ryan Englin the blue-collar hiring whisperer behind Core Matters. corematters.com/podcasts/

If you think the skilled trades talent shortage is just a pipeline problem, Ryan will challenge that fast. He’s helped hundreds of business owners ditch job boards and outdated tactics in favor of recruitment marketing that actually works — especially for essential, boots-on-the-ground roles.

With Ryan, hiring isn’t HR’s job. It’s everyone’s job — and your culture is your magnet.

Join us on Shally’s Alley as we unpack:

- Why “post and pray” is dead

- How to attract top-tier hourly talent — without raising wages

- What most companies miss when recruiting in trades, logistics, and field ops

- How to turn employees into recruiters and candidates into believers