Shally's Alley

Adam Godson brings a rare combination to the recruiting world: a poetry background, entertainment industry experience, and deep expertise in design thinking and digital transformation. Working at Recruiting Advisors, he challenges assumptions about how we build and buy recruiting technology. This conversation rips apart the broken procurement process that gives us systems nobody wants to use, and offers a pragmatic path forward using design principles that actually work.

In this episode we talk about why most ATSs fail their users, how to apply design thinking to recruiting operations, the critical difference between user experience and candidate experience, and why sometimes making things harder to use actually improves outcomes. Adam shares real examples from his work at Viacom/Paramount and explains how asking better questions upfront prevents expensive tech disasters down the road.

Key Takeaways:

➡ Turning off LinkedIn Easy Apply reduced applications by 86% (from 14,000 to 2,000 per month) but dramatically increased pass-through rates and candidate quality.

➡ Most ATS implementations fail because companies select technology before defining actual user requirements and workflows.

➡ Design thinking isn't about making everything easy. Sometimes friction is intentional. The goal is making things intuitive for your intended user.

➡ Your target user might not be everyone. Good design can deliberately exclude the wrong people (like unqualified mass applicants).

➡ The best time to apply design principles is before you buy the system, not after when you're trying to fix what's broken.

➡ User experience (recruiter-facing) and candidate experience (applicant-facing) are different problems requiring different solutions.

➡ Poetry and recruiting have more in common than you'd think. Both require telling compelling stories with as few words as possible.

➡ Most technical requirement checklists are backwards. They focus on features the vendor offers rather than problems the business needs to solve.

Chapters:

00:00 – Intro and Meet Adam Godson

Sound Bites:

"I don't like saying that I'm a thought leader. It just irks me. I like to say that I'm a thought provoker."

"We went from 14,000 applications per month, half of which were duplicates, to less than 2,000 applications per month. The pass-through rates went up and the number of qualified candidates went up."

"Your user base or your target user may not be everyone. If you want certain people not to interact, you want to limit the scope of who's coming in as opposed to broadening it."

Guest Info:

Name: Adam Godson
Company: Recruiting Advisors
LinkedIn: [Connect with Adam]
Expertise: Digital transformation consultant specializing in design thinking, recruiting operations, and systems optimization. Former Viacom/CBS/Paramount talent leader with a unique background in poetry and screenwriting.

This episode separates order-taking recruiters from true business partners. Alan Floor brings 20+ years of agency and corporate experience, including his role as the only recruiter at a major commercial construction firm where he trains non-recruiters to source. The conversation gets into the real work: understanding the business deeply enough to challenge hiring decisions, spot red flags other recruiters miss, and build credibility that gets you emergency calls at 7pm on Friday.

In this episode we talk about the difference between agency and corporate recruiting cultures, why learning your industry matters more than perfecting Boolean strings, and how Alan placed a candidate at 2:30am on Saturday to fix a security disaster another recruiter created. You'll hear why he advocates for candidates he believes in, warns clients about sketchy candidates (even with perfect resumes), and how he convinced a VP to hire a "den mother" over technically stronger candidates because he understood what the team needed.

Key Takeaways:

➡ Alan is the only recruiter at W.E. O'Neill Construction (6 years) and trains non-recruiters in other offices how to source and build candidate relationships.

➡ He co-founded The Talent Collective with Brett Fieg during COVID, a weekly Thursday meetup (1pm PT) where 25-30 unemployed recruiters helped each other get hired.

➡ Agency recruiting teaches hustle and deep market knowledge. Corporate recruiting rewards consistency and process adherence.

➡ When non-recruiters do recruiting work, they panic over normal candidate behavior (negotiating offers, backing out). Teaching them builds empathy.

➡ Alan rejected a candidate with a "big red mark" because something felt off. Client hired them anyway. Two months later, that hire was a hacker who compromised trading systems. Alan got the 7pm Friday emergency call to find a replacement who started at 2:30am Saturday.

➡ Real credibility comes from saying "I can't put my finger on it, but something's not right" and being proven right.

➡ Sometimes your job is providing a second candidate so hiring managers have a choice, even if yours doesn't get hired.

➡ Alan convinced a VP to hire "Linda" as help desk leader not for technical skills, but because the team (three conflicting company cultures) needed a "den mother" who could communicate and collaborate.

Chapters:

00:00 - Intro and Alan Floor's Background

Guest Info:

Name: Alan Floor
Company: W.E. O'Neill Construction
Title: Talent Executive Manager
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanfluhrer/
Expertise: Agency-to-corporate recruiting transitions, training non-recruiters, commercial construction talent strategy, and building recruiting credibility through business acumen.

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