This week we welcome Prem Kumar to the podcast. Before co-founding Humanly, an Y Combinator-accelerated startup focused on improving the efficiency of candidate screening, scheduling, and engagement at scale, Prem spent ten tears at Microsoft, where he was responsible for delivery and operations of all software initiatives for the organization’s HR portal. He also served as Director of Product at TINYpulse, an employee survey and engagement platform.

Topics include: the meaning of “accessible for all” with regard to HR tools and tech, the prevalence of male-gendered words in job descriptions, why years of experience often isn’t predictive of an employee’s success, how technology can reduce our reliance on resumes as screening shortcuts, how an organization’s chosen mode of interviewing candidates (e.g., video, phone, chat) can introduce biases against candidates with certain personality types or communication styles, the importance of using candidate feedback to improve hiring team outreach and communication, and differing approaches to measuring employee impact or “employee lifetime value.”    

This week we welcome Lucy Williams to the podcast. Lucy's distinguished career in talent acquisition spans more than twenty years, with stints at such organizations as RP International, IBM, and most recently, Visa, where she led a team as Regional TA Director for Central Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Topics include: the similarities and differences between talent acquisition functions in US, the Middle East, and Africa, how and why hiring timelines can vary widely by market, the importance of creating a robust workforce plan for multi-national organizations, proactive vs. reacting recruiting, the necessary inputs to create a viable workforce plan, getting beyond the “cost center” mindset in talent acquisition, internal mobility as an crucial component of an effective TA strategy, the meaning of “company culture,” the difference between highlighting individual employees’ personal brands and an organization’s employer brand, and the relationship between company culture and employer brand.

This week we welcome Bas van de Haterd back to the podcast (our first repeat guest!). Bas proudly identifies as a “professional snoop” — a title that captures his more than 15 years of experience as an HR consultant, candidate assessment and experience expert, and frequent conference speaker. 

Topics include: the problems with using questionnaire-based assessments in recruiting, why game-based assessments are more accurate for testing cognitive skills and assessing personality traits, the difference between conscious and unconscious “bias” in candidate self-perceptions, how our frame of reference influences our perceptions of ourselves, how pre-screening technology can reduce bias in assessing job candidates, the parallels between assessing “chemistry” in romantic relationships vs. business relationships, the meaning and implications of application order bias, how pre-selection technologies can help reduce application order bias, the difference between true AI and “explainable” AI, the concerns about relying on AI to make “black box” recruiting decisions, and how using employee performance data to predict future-

This week we’re guest-free and begin with a recent ERE article about AI and screening bias, before unpacking an article from Bas van de Haterd about the future of digital assessments.

Topics include: biases in screening and assessments, the ways in which AI can amplify (or minimize) the biases of the human recruiters who use them, the problem of training assessment tools on employee datasets that have inherent biases, how rising employment has increased the importance of effective screening at scale, the value of “pre-screening,” how the sorting problem is different for volume vs. professional roles, the connection between the shifting educational landscape and the declining value of resumes, the difference between using assessments for hard skills vs. culture and personality “fit”, how reducing reliance on resumes and traditional educational milestones can support diversity and inclusion initiatives, and how the preference for candidates with a good stage presence introduces a bias against otherwise qualified introverts.

This week we welcome James Ellis to the podcast. A self-proclaimed employer branding "nerd", James is a leading voice in the world of talent branding, having led EB initiatives at GroupOn and Universum before assuming his latest role at Roku. He's also the author of several books, including "Talent Chooses You" and "The Employer Brand Handbook Volume 1: The Real World Guide to Working With Recruiters."

Topics include: 

The relative lack of formal education programs for employer branding in the US, what the COVID pandemic and George Floyd situation has (and hasn't) changed about the nature of employer branding, how the rise of remote work has challenged the traditional notion of company culture, why employee testimonial videos often fail to be differentiating, the ways in which employer branding is (and isn't) about people, how formal and informal rewards reveal an organization's values, the similarities between understanding an employer brand and psychotherapy, why there's no such thing as a "great" company to work for, why recruiters tend to be resistant to process changes, the difference between backward- and forward-looking recruiting metrics, why measuring quality of hire is difficult at scale, how to use the lens of "rewards" to attract candidates most likely to thrive in your organization, the importance of understanding your employer brand's competitive set, understanding recruiter bias as a kind of workflow shortcut, how generic job descriptions undermine recruiting, and the importance of salary transparency in job descriptions.

This week we welcome Ed Pedini to the podcast. Ed has worn numerous hats in the HR space, from practice director at an RPO helping start-ups scale their workforces, to Co-Founder of All2.io, an employee experience solution, to his current role as Director of Customer Success at Seekout, an AI-powered sourcing tool for recruiters. 

Topics include: how establishing recruiting processes is different for start-ups than for established organizations, the "oil tanker effect" larger companies face, the value of data and analytics, why candidate experience remains low priority for many organizations, the importance of seeing the emotional dimension of job applications from the candidate's POV, how to provide great candidate experiences even for applicants who are not offered a job, how to move past the "cost-center" mindset surrounding recruiting, the ways in which job boards have become victims of their own successes, the distinction between EVP's that "repel" talent vs. encourage talent to "self-select" into an organization, how legacy ATS's have failed to adapt to modern recruiting practices, and why pre-hire technology often fails to understand the workflows of its core users.

This week we welcome Adam Gordon to the podcast. Adam's career in talent acquisition spans more than twenty years, from his early days sourcing accountants as a frontline recruiter, to a stint at PWC as a consultant in the organisation's HR practice, to his current role as Co-Founder and CEO of Candidate.ID. 

Topics include: the meaning of candidate nurturing, how to apply the marketing concept of "total addressable market" to recruitment, why cold sourcing talent is generally inefficient, the similarities and differences between consumer purchases with long purchase cycles and job searches, considerations when balancing the "long-tail" of candidate nurturing against the immediate needs of filling open roles, how to find bandwidth on TA teams to reallocate to candidate nurturing activities, why toddlers are prone to interrupting podcasts, how to set realistic expectations for ROI on nurturing tools and campaigns, why recruitment CRM's often fail to deliver value for candidates and TA teams alike, and the redundancies that exist between ATS's and CRM's.

This week we discuss Google’s announcement of its plans to disrupt the higher education market by offering skill-focused certifications for as little as $49/month. We also announce our new initiative, EqualOpportunityHires.com, for bringing equal opportunity jobs to underrepresented talent where they already “live” online.

Topics include: the fundamental issues facing American higher ed, the stigma attached to online education, how traditional degrees may (or may not) retain their value in the job marketplace, the inherent recruiter bias against non-degree candidates, the current state and limitations of diversity job boards, the gaps left by creating job boards as destinations, the meaning of “candidate-centric” when it comes to diversity hiring, how to bridge the gap between equal opportunity employers and community organizations, the connection between “inclusion” and employee upskilling, and how providing career paths that lead outside your organization can help create a compelling EVP.

This week we welcome Bas van de Haterd to the podcast. Bas proudly identifies as a “professional snoop” — a title that captures his more than 15 years of experience as an HR consultant, candidate assessment and experience expert, and frequent conference speaker. 

Topics include: the myriad dimensions of candidate experience, how optimized career sites boost candidate conversion rates, the disconnect between organizational D&I goals and the employee experience portrayed on career sites, the issues raised by having marketing or IT “own” your corporate career site, why career sites are “multipliers” for candidate flow, the distinction between having analytic skills and an analytic mindset, why résumés make poor predictors of employee success, alternative approaches to cognitive and personality assessments, and strategies for removing unwanted bias from candidate screening and assessments. 

This week we welcome Jody Ordioni to the podcast. Jody is Chief Brand Officer of Brandemix, founder of Achieve Engagement, and author of The Talent Brand, and award-winning book on structured approaches to brand building.

Topics include: the value of viewing consumer and talent brands holistically, the limitations of content-first approaches to talent branding, the distinction between “employer” brand and “talent” brand, how strong talent brands build equity for their consumer counterparts, the importance of getting beyond internal “hunches” when defining an talent brand, why employee surveys are foundational to structured talent brand initiatives, how good surveys support employee engagement, the key characteristics of a strong talent brand, why HR (and talent brand) has historically been viewed as a cost center, how to measure ROI of talent brand with “business” metrics, the connection between recruiter performance metrics and talent brand health, and the connection between diversity and inclusion efforts and talent branding.

Connect with Jody Ordioni

LinkedIn
Website: Brandemix
Book: The Talent Brand
Achieve Engagement