Up Next @ Work

High-quality, accurate candidate-matching software is considered the "silver bullet" of the HR Tech world. Bridging the gap between the language of the recruiter and the language of the applicant to build the best possible candidate pool has been a puzzle the industry has been trying to crack since the mid-90s. Still, solutions are falling short of expectations. Our guest this week, Bennett Sung, draws on his nearly two decades of experience as a Product Marketing Manager and CMO in the HR/Recruiting Tech industry to discuss how solutions providers can make their products more effective for the end user. Bennett and Kate discuss a wide range of topics, including:

Learn more about the state of the candidate matching software landscape by listening to our conversation with Bennett. Thanks for sharing Up Next @ Work with your community.

Old-school go-to-market tactics simply don’t work anymore, says our guest, Josh Schwede of Aventura Growth Labs. In this episode of Up Next @ Work, he talks about why bombarding prospects with unwanted emails, day in and day out, won’t result in a sales order. Given the extreme pressures on CEOs and founders, he recommends abandoning the harsh “grow or die” mentality and redirecting sales and marketing energy towards building loyal followings. This community-building GTM approach generates better engagement and brand awareness. Jeanne and Josh discuss:

Learn more by listening to our conversation with Josh. Thanks for sharing Up Next @ Work with your community.

This week on Up Next @ Work, Jeanne Achille meets the future of venture capital and HR tech as she welcomes Acadian Ventures founder and general partner Jason Corsello and his summer intern Jackson Malary. Jeanne and Jason discuss the importance of building strong connections early in your career and how he draws on his network to find exciting investment opportunities for his firm. Jackson also shares how valuable his experience interning at a smaller VC and working directly with its principals has been compared to his colleagues' internships at much larger firms. Jason also shares what trends he sees emerging in the future of HR Tech as the industry begins shifting towards a full embrace of AI.

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At a time when organizations are trying to "do more with less," how can HR and talent teams make the most of their technology investments? In this episode, Kate Achille talks to Evelyn McMullen, Research Manager, and Trevor White, Vice President, Advisory and Consulting at Nucleus Research, about the return on investment for HR tech. From the basic equation needed to determine ROI to making the business case with finance and procurement, Evelyn and Trevor share what HR professionals need to know about the changing nature of this market and how to ensure they're getting the most out of their existing solutions.

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How does Tim Sackett, SPHR, SCP get up every morning and get the job done? By his own admission, talent acquisition has never been harder. While it’s easier to find talent – thanks to technology – it’s getting tougher to cut through the noise and forge personal connections that matter. He shares his own career journey with us, which includes staffing, corporate and blogging stints. Today, he’s a successful entrepreneur running HRU Technical Resources, a $40M IT and Engineering contract staffing firm and RPO. Every conversation with Tim is educational. Listen in to learn from this talent acquisition master.

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Pay Equity That Works With Heather Bussing and Kent Plunkett

It sounds simple, but pay is far more than money. Our compensation feels like a reflection of our worth, our status, and our power. In this spirited discussion, the authors of “Get Pay Right,” employment attorney Heather Bussing and Salary.com CEO Kent Plunkett, demystify pay equity and offer a practical framework to put pay at the core of the employee experience. Not only can you order their book on Amazon, but they’ve also generously shared their recent presentation from the SHRM Conference on this same topic. Thanks for listening to and liking Up Next @ Work.

In this episode, Up Next @ Work host Kate Achille sits down with Dylan Teggart, Principal Analyst at 3Sixty Insights, to discuss the state of the employee experience in 2024. Taking a socio-political lens to what's most often seen as an HR issue, Kate and Dylan consider what factors most influence engagement rates in today's workplaces and what employers can do to understand and improve the connection to their workforce. This conversation also serves as a preview of Dylan's forthcoming research on building the employee experience from a workforce management perspective.

Jeanne Achille hosts Kathy Claytor, GPHR, SPHR, CHRO of Delta Dental. 

On this episode of Up Next @ Work, Jeanne Achille and Kate Achille of The Devon Group sit down with industry legend Gerry Crispin of CareerXroads to talk about transparency. Gerry believes that there's a growing need for transparency in HR Tech, a space that's become increasingly blurry over the years. Which analyst is working with which company? Which influencer is promoting which product? Is anyone objective anymore? Gerry offers his thoughts on why transparency matters as the three work to find a clear-cut answer to the matter of disclosure.

For episode two of Up Next @ Work, Jeanne Achille and Kate Achille of The Devon Group talk to Laura Mazzullo of East Side Staffing about the hiring landscape in 2024. What's happening? Can anyone make it make sense? And more than that, can anyone help out these poor recruiting teams? They need more support, access to resources, better training, or a hug, at least. No doubt it is rough out there this year, but together, Jeanne, Kate and Laura envision a few different paths forward.