Talent Intelligence Collective Podcast

Welcome to the 14th episode of the Talent Intelligence Collective Podcast!

Before I jump into this episode - I wanted to let you know about an extra special offer our sponsors Stratigens are offering to all our listeners.

If you go to Stratigens.com, book a demo, and enter the promotional code "TIC2021", you'll get a discount and a free proof of concept. How wonderful!

It's been a while, but the group is finally back together. And we've all been pretty excited. Because in this episode, Alison, Toby, Nick and I were joined by a big hitter - Elke Manjet from SAP.

One of the most interesting articles that Toby saw this month was about women in the workforce. The Financial Times article quoted, "The biggest trend we will see over the coming years is women dominating and redefining much of the labour market."

It's a cultural change that is allowing this shift to happen. And the ramifications of this shift are likely going to affect a lot of departments outside of Talent Intelligence. Workforce planning, for example.

On the topic of the workforce, there are ample pockets of people that historically, companies have been terrible at engaging with. With over 790 thousand people aged between 50 and 64 years either actively seeking work or are inactive but willing to work, this is undoubtedly a gap that companies shouldn't be overlooking?

However, digital transformation is ever-changing and with time out of the workplace, you can risk being left behind. So when looking at this gap as an opportunity, we also need to consider returnships. How do we re-introduce this workforce? How do we bring them up to speed?

Maybe you could tell, but as we were all quite eager to find out more about our fantastic guest, I figuratively passed the mic onto our hard-hitting resident interviewers extraordinaire, Alison and Nick.

Alison, in particular, was extremely excited to hear about Elke's thoughts on the rise of Talent Intelligence. From someone who is not a leader in Talent Intelligence but has spent years within the tech transformation industry, working for one of the biggest global tech industries.

As always, we hope you enjoy the episode. A review or a share on social really does go a long way in helping us reach as many ears as possible.

Till the next one – stay intelligent!

Don't forget to say hi to our wonderful sponsors → Stratigens from @Talent Intuition.

Welcome to the 13th episode of the Talent Intelligence Collective Podcast!

In this episode, apart from being joined by my amazing co-hosts Toby Culshaw and Nick Brooks, we welcomed the incredible Andrew Gadomski from Aspen Analytics.

We started off the episode in our typical fashion, with Toby updating us on the happenings within the world of Talent Intelligence. Specifically with a topic that has caused quite a stir - Google considering cutting pay off those work from home.

Toby Culshaw

Andrew Gadomski

However, when viewing this topic from a different perspective, surely employees should be paid on the outcome of their roles, regardless of where and how it is completed?

Nick Brooks

Clearly, there are definitely a lot of factors. It's not just a clean-cut solution. And most of us are still in experiment mode.

Moving on to a completely new topic, we discussed the often seen parallels between Talent Intelligence and Competitive Intelligence, highlighted with a PhD paper by Luis Madureira.

Which, of course, fuelled me to ask Andrew the essential question for our podcast guests - What is his definition of Talent Intelligence?

Andrew Gadomski

It's definitely murky waters. With many cross overs between competitive, sourcing and talent intelligence. So much so that Toby shared his idea of renaming Talent Intelligence to Labour Market Intelligence.

Already way past our halfway point; it was definitely time for us to find out more about our amazing guest, Andrew. And as Alison was away enjoying some much-needed sunshine on holiday, it was up to Nick to ask those hard-hitting questions.

We discussed the challenges of bringing together internal and external data sources and deriving meaningful insights from them. As well as the importance of data hygiene.

I may be a bit bias when I say this, but I really do think this was such an interesting episode. Especially when Andrew discussed his definition of Talent Intelligence and how he believes it will change over the coming years.

As always, we would love to hear your feedback! So please leave us a review. Let us know what works, what doesn’t...

And if you can, help us spread the word, your support is very much appreciated.

Till the next one – stay intelligent!

Don't forget to say hi to our wonderful sponsors → Stratigens from @Talent Intuition.

Welcome to the 12th episode of the Talent Intelligence Collective Podcast!

Before I jump into this episode - I wanted to let you know about an extra special offer our sponsors Stratigens are offering to all our listeners.

If you go to Stratigens.com, book a demo, and enter the promotional code "TIC2021", you'll get a discount and a free proof of concept! How wonderful! And, just as a warning, Nick's audio broke down halfway through the episode. So he asked his questions through me, via chat. Which was odd.

In this episode me - Alan Walker - Alison Ettridge and Nick Brooks co-hosted an incredibly insightful conversation with Eric Moskowitz Head of Talent Intelligence and Analytics at Modern Executive Solutions.

In Toby's absence, the role of leading us through the news section - highlighting the compelling and thought-inducing hot topics around Talent Intelligence - fell upon me.

So bare with me as we work out way through Toby's list, which luckily he managed to collate and pull together for me.

The first interesting piece that I was eager to talk about revolved around the increase in US Workforce volatility. With the unemployment rate down nearly 50% year-over-year, almost every job category showed a significant volatility increase in Q2.

With many of us reprioritising what is important, the lure of truly flexible working is causing a massive shift in the corporate world. With many employees shifting industries and sectors on the hunt for that flexibility and possibility higher quality of life.

Transitioning our conversation smoothly onto our final piece of worldly news from the Future of Education, we discussed the fundamental disconnect between the UK's modern education system and the job market requirements.

At this point, I felt like we had heard everyone's opinion about the world and its news, and we were eager to find out more about our guest, Eric. About his world and his background. So I virtually passed the mic onto our resident hard-hitting interview extraordinaires - Alison and Nick (while I took a see back and put my feet up).

As ex-reporter for Bloomberg, Alison and Nick were curious to know how Eric had transitioned into Talent Intelligence and his learnings from journalism into his role today.

We then discussed what are some of the best primary or human intelligence-gathering practices out there. What type of success could you experience with consistent collection practices. And how to help a client diagnose internal business opportunities versus external business landscapes and competition.

As always, we hope you enjoy the episode. Till the next one – stay intelligent!

Welcome to the 11th episode of the Talent Intelligence Collective Podcast!

Where we, meaning me and my far more talented co-hosts Alison Ettridge and Toby Culshaw, and Nick Brooks the wonderful Gerrit Schimmelpenninck from Philips.

After our usual pleasantries, Toby dived straight in with his update on the happening within the world of Talent Intelligence.

We started by discussing a recently released article by Indeed, Employer Use of Hiring Incentives Grows. The article states that job searches for hiring incentives, such as signing bonuses, retention bonuses, and cash incentives, have jumped 134% since the beginning of the year.

Toby continued with his worldly updates pivoting our chat to something that many may not have thought about. As we begin to see many companies returning to office-based work, could this be the end of the baby boomer workforce? As many will likely be debating if there is worth in re-joining the commuting rat race. Will we see a much larger than usual surge of retirements during the rest of this year? And will that mean to the labour market?

The final piece of news for this episode that Toby shared was around a quote from the International Labour Organisation’s Director-General, Guy Ryder. He underlined that unless deliberate action is taken to protect the labour market, the world of work will become even more unjust, less inclusive and ultimately less sustainable.

At which point I felt like we had heard everyone’s opinion about the world and its news, but we were eager to find out more about our guest, Gerrit. His world, his background. So I virtually passed the mic onto our resident hard-hitting interviewer extraordinaires – Alison and Nick (through me, via chat).

We find out about Gerrit’s university degree in history and how it may or may not have helped his Talent Intelligence career. And where Gerrit feels that his role as Senior Talent Intelligence Manager at Philips sits. In analytics, or a commercial role, or a broader role. And the type of projects that his team would get involved in.

As always, we hope you enjoy the episode. All we ask in return is your help in telling the world. This podcast needs your support to reach as many ears as possible. A review or rating on your favourite podcast listening app does go a long way. And of course, if there’s anything we can do better – drop us a line. You can do this via email or reach out to us on our LinkedIn page or Facebook Group.

Till the next one – stay intelligent!

Welcome to the 10th episode of the Talent Intelligence Collective Podcast! Our first ever episode in double figures!!

In this episode, Alison Ettridge, Nick Brooks, and Toby Culshaw co-hosted a cracking discussion with the wonderful Meta McKinney.

She currently works for Stryker as their Associate Talent Intelligence Manager, but before that, she worked for AllState. The same place as our past guest – Lesley Rood (episode 8).

Starting off the episode in our typical fashion, with Toby updating us on the happenings within the world of Talent Intelligence, we started with a topic that will come as no surprise – flexible working.

With many companies announcing their future working strategies, flexible working is definitely not something that will be going away soon.

Our conversation then moved on to a recent paper from Indeed announcing the projected loss of over 36million jobs.

Could this shift from job titles and job functions to transferable skills and opportunity mean the end of the CV?

Moving on to a completely new topic that we have definitely never addressed previously on this podcast, we discussed what Talent Intelligence is. And how it is being used within the industry.

After this very heated discussion, I think it was time for us to find out more about our amazing guest, Meta. Finding out how Meta’s background in library services helped influence her transition into Talent Intelligence. While her creative background comes in handy when storytelling to the stakeholders.

Within Striker, Meta is a one-woman team, taking on multiple projects for the entire 40thousand plus company, so naturally, we were curious about the type of skills she would be looking for when hiring her next teammate and if she could share any tips about building a Talent Intelligence team from the ground up.

As always, we hope you enjoy the episode. We’re now in double digits, and we just can’t believe it! It’s flown by for us, but we would love to hear what you thought! What worked, what hasn’t, and what we should do differently for the next 10 episodes!

You can do this via our email or reach out to us on our LinkedIn page or Facebook Group.

Stay intelligent!

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Don’t forget to say hi to our wonderful sponsors → Stratigens from @Talent Intuition

Welcome to 9th episode of the Talent Intelligence Collective Podcast!

Where we, meaning me and my far more talented co-hosts Alison Ettridge and Toby Culshaw, stayed up late to welcome Chris Long from Preacta. Based all they on the other side of the world - Australia.

After our usual pleasantries, Toby dived straight in with his update on the happening within the world of Talent Intelligence.

We started by discussing a recently released article by Pawel Adrjan from Indeed, titled “The Office is not dead”. The article states that 60% of remote jobs posted by employers were marked as ‘temporarily remote’. Suggesting that many employers expect their workforce to return to the office post-pandemic.

“I find this really interesting. We aren’t seeing that massive spike in remote roles that we all expected and I think that’s because Zoom Fatigue is not being factored in when we talk about permanent work-from-home strategies” - Toby Culshaw

“I was actually back in the office in June. Working 4 days in the office and working Thursday from home. And I just don’t feel that fully remote is really going to be a model going forward.” - Chris Long

Toby continued with his worldly updates pivoting our chat to something that we already discussed on Ep. 5 with Lyndon Llanes - the mandate by the SEC. But now we are starting to see the data trickling in.

Even though, currently, it's not delivering a huge amount of value. It’s disjointed and from a varied amount of data sets.

Will this type of publicly available data give a company competitor advantage? And will it allow potential candidates to assess the company and decided if there would enjoy working there?

Alison pointed out that Australia was actually one of the first countries to mandate a quota for gender diversity - we were eager to hear Chris opinion.

“Gender diversity is the target for many big organisations, but there are also talks about other diversity mandates that we will likely see in the future-focused more on the internal workforce.” - Chris Long

Reaching the virtual halfway point and clearly, we were eager to find out more about our amazing guest, I figuratively passed the mic onto our resident hard-hitting interviewer extraordinaire - Alison.

We find out Chris’s definition of Talent Intelligence. Examples of how to use external data to influence the business strategy. And a bit more about Preacta, their typical client base and how they integrate Talent Intelligence.

“For me Talent Intelligence is fundamental. We can inform the whole organisation because we dissect such a varied amount of information. We don’t just use location, job title or the usual data points. But also external data to inform what we do internally” - Chris Long

Toby agreed, saying that the Talent Intelligence function wears multiple hats. It can influence the ‘here and now’ immediate decisions. But also the overall business strategy and where to source talent.

As always we hope you enjoy the episode. All we ask in return is your help in telling the world.

This podcast needs your support to reach as many ears as possible. A review or rating on your favourite podcast listening app does go a long way.

Till the next one – stay intelligent!

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Don’t forget to say hi to our wonderful sponsors → Stratigens from @Talent Intuition

Welcome to the 8th episode of the Talent Intelligence Collective Podcast!

We’ve decided to change things up. We are doing things a little different this time.

So many of you, our listeners, requested to hear more from Nick and Toby, so this time they joined the episode not as co-hosts but as guests.

Furthermore, for this episode, we also flipped our usual flow and started with the interview bit first. With Alison being the sole bad cop interviewer and myself pipping up every so often with a comment.

Kickstarting the round of questions, with a seemingly easy one, Alison asked – What is the difference between Talent Acquisition and Talent Intelligence?

Nick believed that there is a type of synergy between the two functions. Talent Acquisition has ‘boots on the ground’. It goes into market, it listens, it collects information that then can be levelled up by Talent Intelligence for competitive advantage or operational efficiencies like how to enter a new location.

Alison, picking up on the terminology that both Toby and Nick used, asked whether terms like strategic, tactical should be used when talking about Talent Intelligence? Or were there any better ones?

On the topic of talent, Alison asked what role do Toby and Nick believe sourcing plays within Talent Intelligence. And what are the top two things organisations can do to breed a culture of intelligence?

One of the biggest obstacles many Talent Intelligence teams face is convincing management to implement their findings. Which lead Alison to ask whether Toby or Nick have ever experienced this situation and what advice would they offer to overcome it.

“Make sure you have a deep enough understanding of the business context. This will help you ascertain what any possible blockers could be.” – Nick Brooks

Another obstacle that many organisations face is thinking they are too small to start using Talent Intelligence.

“I would argue the smaller you are the more important talent intelligence is” – Toby Culshaw

“And at that level, your insight and information can have a bigger influence.” – Nick Brooks

We then discussed what skillsets are required to form a Talent Intelligence team and for our guests to share some top tips for setting up a Talent intelligence function from scratch.

As always we hope you enjoy the episode. We’ve done things quite differently this time to our past episodes and we would love to hear what you thought.

Leave us a review or send us an email, your support really does mean the world to us and it is all we need to ensure this podcast continues to grow.

Till the next one – stay intelligent!

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Don’t forget to say hi to our wonderful sponsors → Stratigens from @Talent Intuition

Welcome to 7th episode of the Talent Intelligence Collective Podcast!

Unfortunately for this one, Toby wasn’t able to join us so it was just myself (Alan Walker), Alison Ettridge and Nick Brooks welcoming the wonderful Lesley Rood, Senior Research Consultant for Talent Analytics at Allstate.

Albeit one man down, we powered through with our usual format starting off with some news, views, and worldly insights.

Starting off with a discussion from the Talent Intelligence Collective Facebook Group (join the group). Or in particular a comment from a member: “One major issue is the credibility of those producing the research. For example, are they even senior enough for the executive audiences to view them as peers and reasons to believe, rely upon, or otherwise trust them?“.

To which our podcast guest Lesley, rightfully pointed out:

Which then led us onto a whole bigger conversation about ‘The language of the business’. Understanding what problems your business is facing and thinking about how to solve them. Rather than simply presenting data reports.

A quote from the CEO of ThoughtSpot, around future data skills, led us to discuss - Are companies going to expect candidates to be able to both understand and speak data?

Lesley believed that the simple knowledge and understanding of data, wouldn’t be enough. Since it’s the skill of critical thinking that enables individuals to consult, lead and drive conclusions through data.

Believed that to be enough news and insights - as informative as it was - Alison was eager to start questioning to our guest Lesley. With questions like: “Both our previous podcast guests, Vibhu Ganesan and Lyndon Llanes, mentioned that their companies are building a taxonomy. Is this something that Allstate are considering?”

As always we hope you enjoy the episode. Please do leave a review and a rating for the podcast (if you liked it). Your support really does mean the world to us and it is all we need to ensure this podcast continues to grow.

Stay Intelligent!

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Don’t forget to say hi to our wonderful sponsors → Stratigens from @Talent Intuition

Welcome to 6th episode of the Talent Intelligence Collective Podcast!

Happy New Year to you all!

We’ve got the whole crew together again for this one. By which I mean myself – Alan Walker, Toby Culshaw, Alison Ettridge and Nick Brooks.

Since we’ve all been together for 6 months now (I guess you could say we’re official) I skimmed past the intros and moved straight to welcoming our legendary guest for this episode: Vibhu Ganesan, Global Talent Intelligence Lead at Intel.

The first topic of discussion was the POWER of video and how will it change the world of Talent Intelligence.

A really fascinating topic, which sprouted us all to discuss it’s future potential. While our guest Vibhu actually highlighted how video interviews could have an immediate benefit to organisations.

For example. If you were to conduct two interviews between two very different candidates, you later could use the recording of the hired candidate to build out your ideal candidate persona. As well as using the recording for reference later down the line when a similar position appears.

While Nick believed that this advancement should focus on how we make human interaction quantifiable.

How are our hiring managers conducting these types of interviews? Are they doing it equitably? Are they staying true to their diverse and inclusive values throughout?

We then moved on to a topic that I think will constantly be resurfaced many more times as it seems to be constantly evolving – the meaning behind the phrase ‘Talent Intelligence’.

Vibhu highlighted that it really comes down to how we use the word ‘intelligence’.  While some organisations (like Intel) will use it to describe knowledge about competitors and the wider market, other organisations will associate it with the information available about candidates and their profiles.

If this were the case, where should Talent Intelligence sit within an organisation?

As we were eager to find out more about our amazing guest, I figuratively passed the mic onto our resident hard-hitting interviewer extraordinaires. 

Very excitedly Alison mentioned that she would go first, referring back to what Vibhu mentioned at the start of the podcast, she asked. How does Intel set themselves apart?

Questions about the future of Intel, the importance of combining internal and external data and what learnings does Vibhu take from past roles, then followed.

One of the final questions that Alison asked is: What is the one thing you wished you had learned earlier?

“Looking for more people within the organisation with whom we partner with. It just goes back to what we were saying earlier about joining the dots between all the different departments and teams.”

Even though it’s a new year, I am not going to ever stop saying thank you to all of you. Our regular listeners. You lot are amazing.

See you in the next episode.

Stay intelligent!

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Don’t forget to say hi to our wonderful sponsors → Stratigens from @Talent Intuition

Welcome back to 5th episode of the Talent Intelligence Collective Podcast!

Since we’ve gathered quite a few new listeners (Hey! Hi! Welcome!) let me start with a round of introductions.

Co-hosting we have me (Alan Walker) from Udder, Toby Culshaw from Amazon, Alison Ettridge from Talent Intuition and Nick Brooks from Microsoft.  And joining us for this episode we have the amazing by Lyndon Llanes of Verizon.

As usual, Toby kicked us off with a refresh on the happenings of the world of Talent Intelligence.

His first update revolved around a recent report by Deutsche Bank. Their research suggested working from home should be taxed to help support workers whose jobs are under threat.

Obviously, the report was met with some very mixed reviews, in general leaning towards the negative. With Lyndon correctly pointing out that there are no set of rules that decide who gets to work from home and who doesn’t. And how there are clear cost benefits regarding working from home, for both sides. While an employee doesn’t have to pay to commute, the company also does not have to pay for the upkeep of office space. So perhaps the tax should be split? Not just imposed on the employee?

A new mandate by the SEC, around human capital disclosure, sprouted the discussion – Are we going to see more investment from the company in Talent Intelligence? Due to business wanting to provide the SEC with numbers that are healthy and good?

While Lyndon and Nick both agreed the change that was long overdue, clean and usable data is still a very long way off. But I think Alison really highlighted the positive of this change:

Toby continued with his worldly updates pivoting our discussion to the new Tesla Gigafactory (what a fun word!) and the NewYorkTimes opinion piece – The Human Experience Will Not Be Quantified.

I then opened the floor to our resident hard-hitting interviewer extraordinaires – Toby and Alison. Who were very much prepared with questions like: ‘How does Talent Intelligence and People Analytics blend?’ and ‘Do you have any words of advice for companies who are just starting out in the world of Talent Intelligence’.

As always we hope you enjoy the episode. Please do leave a review and a rating for the podcast (if you liked it). Your support really does mean the world to us and it is all we need to ensure this podcast continues to grow.

Stay intelligent!

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Don’t forget to say hi to our wonderful sponsors → Stratigens from @Talent Intuition