This week Guest Co-host Kim Wilkinson is joining Serge while Shelley is off having a grand time in Europe, probably sending some questionable pics.

In The News:

• VanHack just announced a whopping $3 million in new funding. Big congrats to Ilya and the team for their continued growth. It's fantastic to see!

• Calgary based KIBBI Technologies, a job-finding app created by a fellow newcomer, raised a cool $1.1 million CAD. It's always inspiring to see such initiatives supporting those who are starting a new chapter in their lives.

• Canada's Minister for Immigration, Sean Fraser, has announced the country's first-ever Tech Talent strategy. The buzz surrounding it is simply overwhelming. Exciting times ahead for the tech industry in Canada!

Tip of the Week:

Brought to you by Kim. She shares her secret to running a successful recruitment firm: pick your clients very carefully. It's all about finding the right fit and working with clients who align with your values and goals.

Recruiting Insights:

• It seems like employees are deciding to stay put for now, what we like to call "The Big Stay." With all the uncertainties and changes happening in the job market, many folks are opting to stick with their current roles. It's a trend worth exploring further.

• According to the latest data from LinkedIn, job posts that feature talent tend to attract more applicants. So, if you want to increase your candidate pool, make sure to highlight the skills you're looking for.

• We have a surprising benefit for you—granternity leave! It's the kind of leave you didn't know you needed until now.

We first met Steph and the Hiring Branch at the Unleash America in Las Vegas. They hosted a bunch of HR podcasters from every corner of the globe, right in the heart of the iconic High Roller!

• A pioneering force in the Canadian HR tech landscape, they took note of a simple yet significant truth: people don't like interviews. This realization sparked a desire to challenge the status quo and to reimagine the conventional hiring process.

• Tracing their roots back to training for soft skills in call centres, the evolution of Hiring Branch was organic. Their expertise naturally extended to evaluating these same soft skills in a hiring context, thus creating a unique niche in the industry.

• In a world where a single company can receive a staggering 300,000 applicants annually, one can't help but wonder: how do you sift through this multitude to identify who possesses the crucial soft skills, such as a knack for sales?

• Comparing the soft skills of applicants against those of model employees, enabling them to evaluate the presence of mirrored skills among job seekers. This novel approach has proved to be an efficient way to uncover potential talent in the vast sea of candidates.

This week on The Recruitment Flex

In the News:

Tip of the Week:

• Tips on how to get promoted: Valuable advice on strategies and actions to increase chances of career advancement.

Recruiting Insights:

This week we welcome Maury Hanigan of SparcStart

Long before anyone was connecting the dots between traditional marketing and recruitment, Maury saw the enormous potential of bring boring job descriptions to life using video.

We Cover:

• The secret sauce was making it easy, fast and fun. 

• Conversion increases by 60%

• Quality of applicants, people who are interested and qualified (you had me at qualified)

• Real people want to find their tribe - being authentic and not over produced

• AI can't express emotion like a human, recruitment can rest easy.

This week on TRF

• Graduation day and Serge is worried all the well educated women will have a shallow gene pool to select from

• Shelley is off to celebrate her son’s graduation - who will be a positive contribution to the gene pool!

• ‘Remember when’ is the lowest form of conversation - Tony Soprano. Remember when we didn't have cell phones?

In the news

• Digging deeper into the express entry for trades and the French language requirement - makes more sense when you see the number of vacant positions broken down by province

• Inflation is dragging people over 60 back to work.

Tip of the Week

Recruiting Insights

• Offer letters that feel like a baseball bat to the face. After a pleasant recruiting experience, the offer is supposed to be the best part not a 10 page legal contract.

• New research proves that simply changing gender troubling words in your job ad does go far enough to have a measurable impact. 

• DEI needs to up the game on collecting data. Why would a job seeker trust the company to NOT discriminate if I self-identify?

• IBM vs Accenture - polarising decisions on how generative AI will impact the world of work

Since Shelley’s HR celebrity crush was not available we had to go with her 2nd favourite dutchman. 

For the last 17 years Bas has run the Best Corporate Career site competition in the Netherlands. He knows a thing or two about what a great career site needs to have. 

In this episode Bas shares his vast experience.

• Corporate career sites are a conversion tool not a destination.

• Only 5% of career site in the Netherland force a candidate to register to apply!

• From the home page to the listing of jobs, Bas gave us his 2 favourite sites.

• Job descriptions are essential and the easiest place to start

• The 3 features of the top career site

This week on TRF A green lawn and perfectly manicured yard is a sign of a healthy marriage. Diana takes first prize!

Thank you to our loyal listeners for your positive feedback on TRF’s new logo and branding. 

No FOMO on SHRM, let’s talk about why we don't fit in there.

In the News

• Young women in Canada are the hardest hit for finding work. 

• Meanwhile, in the US women are returning to the workplace at the highest rate since 2007!!

• LinkedIn is testing the waters of charging job seekers for their Top Choice Jobs. We are throwing shade on this horrible idea.

• Indeed backing down on pay transparency?

Tip of the Week

• 3 great questions to ask when you are being interviewed 

Recruiting Insights

• You ‘register to apply’ created a monster! These apps will auto-fill thousands of applications that can be sent in a single day.  Good luck sorting through them all.  

• The top 100 European companies who set the pace for what great career sites should be

Dedicating a career to helping job boards and businesses increase traffic, Mark, formerly the Performance Marketing brains behind Snag-a-job, set out to optimize SEO solutions for job sites on Job Hub Central.

Mark's knowledge of this space is impressive, here's what we covered:

• Google Job Ads optimization and a fore-telling of the Alpha testing going on right now in the US

• Clean up of Google for Jobs to increase trustworthiness

• The transformation of search from Yahoo to ChatGPT

• Take the best from consumer marketing

• Know your drop rate by source so you will know where to fit the leaking bucket

• HR and AI will solve the problems of the mundane, if you let AI come up with new ideas

New branding, same show. We’d love to hear feedback on our new podcast cover and website, unless you don't like it…then you can keep your comments to yourself. 

Sincere thanks to our show sponsor, VanHack and Ilya, we are proud to be working with you.

Testing the limits of how much Serge would be willing to spend on the Apple Vision Pro? Shelley predicts its a matter of time before he breaks open the piggy bank and buys them.

Fighting wildfires, what do firefighters get paid in Canada and US. PLUS a public shaming of KL Farms Fire LLC.

In the News

• US job openings hit 10.1 million  - demand for workers remains hight

• Immigration Canada gets it right with a new system to align newcomers to Canada & the labour market

Tip of the Week

• Free - 10 Google courses designed to help you understand generative AI

Recruiting Insights

• Nobody likes a job hopper, the TikTok post goes viral - let’s all calm down and put some context around this

• No recruiters required - surprise McHire does 1 Million hires a year

• 4 possible scenarios for what recruitment will look like in the year 2028

This week we welcome Ben Eubanks w Lighthouse Research & Advisory

After an awesome conversation at Unleash.ai, we were so pleased to have Ben talk more about his new book “Talent Scarcity: Retain and Engage in a Shrinking Workforce”

The self proclaimed professional nerd, Ben is uniquely qualified in the TA world. As the founder of an HR research and advisory firm, Lighthouse Research, he has collaborated with numerous organizations to develop innovative talent strategies, making him a trusted authority in the field and a go-to resource for organizations seeking to navigate the evolving landscape of talent scarcity.

Mic drop moments

• The simple and cost effective way to stop candidate ghosting 

• A shocking truth of how candidates define a flexible work environment

• The Parent Shift

• When is it cool to use Ai in your hiring process.