Recruiting Future with Matt Alder - What's Next For Talent Acquisition, HR & Hiring?

Regular listeners will know just how essential I believe it is for talent acquisition to learn the art and science of storytelling. Being able to craft stories that resonate isn't just part of effective recruitment marketing; it is vital to building internal stakeholder engagement and developing more influence to move TA up the corporate strategic value chain.So why is effective storytelling so powerful, and how can we all build our skills in this area?My guest this week is Karen Eber, CEO of the Eber Leadership Group and author of a new book called The Perfect Story: How to Tell Stories That Inform, Influence and Inspire. The book deals with the science and structure of good storytelling in business and is full of advice that can help everyone tell more powerful and engaging stories.In the interview, we discuss:What happens to your brain when you listen to stories?Being memorable and engagingWhy business storytelling is so importantUnderstanding your audienceConflict as fuel to drive the narrativeTelling stories with dataContext, Conflict, Outcome and TakeawayHow do you know if your story is resonating?AI and storytellingListen to this podcast in Apple Podcasts.

The talent acquisition landscape is changing rapidly. 2024 has been difficult for many people in the profession, with many layoffs and an incredibly tough job market for recruiters. At the same time, advances in AI and automation technologies are driving types of change that we couldn't have imagined a few years ago, and post-pandemic labour shortages are still a reality in many talent markets.All this disruption is forcing employers to think differently about jobs, work, skills and recruiting, creating an incredible opportunity for talent acquisition to illustrate its long-term value to the business. So what role does TA play in the future, and how can TA leaders prove its strategic value when many of their teams are being downsized?My guest this week is Jessica Zwaan, COO at Whereby. Jessica is a cutting-edge HR thinker and has written a book detailing how People Ops should be run using product management principles. In our conversation, we talk about the future role of TA, and Jessica offers practical advice on how TA leaders can prove their strategic value.In the interview, we discuss:Talent market challengesBuilding a people team like a product teamWork as a subscription modelOutput metrics and funnel thinkingWhy businesses cutting TA teams are getting it wrongBuilding tools and products for the employee subscription lifecycleThe shortcoming of working in silosClosing the gaps between TA and People OpsCan existing HR functions evolve towards this model?A COO's advice to TA Leaders on proving their strategic valueWhat TA can learn from marketingThe impact of AI and what the future might look likeListen to this podcast in Apple Podcasts.

If you have been listening to the recent episodes of the show, you'll have noticed the considerable amount of innovation currently happening in high-volume hiring. Driven by skill shortages and automation technology, high volume is the area that has given us an insight into what the future might be like for talent acquisition.In episodes 551 and 552, I'm diving deeper into automation and AI in high-volume hiring by speaking to technology CEOs with products that are helping to shape the future. My second guest in this mini-series is Max Armbruster, CEO at Talkpush. Max does extensive work around high-volume hiring in Latin America and Asia. Technology is driving innovation for different reasons in these markets than in the US and Europe, and Max has some deep insights into how hiring is developing and where things are heading.In the interview, we discuss:The hiring market beyond the US and EuropeAutomation to reduce recruiter numbers and broaden talent poolsEmerging markets and future economic powerhousesCost per hireHow AI improves the quality of hireThe impact of the accessibility and affordability of AICommunication channels and candidate experienceDeveloping local toolkitsAdvice to employers hiring remotely in these marketsWhat's the future for recruiters?Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts.

If you have been listening to the recent episodes of the show, you'll have noticed the considerable amount of innovation currently happening in high-volume hiring. Driven by skill shortages and automation technology, high volume is the area that has given us an insight into what the future might be like for talent acquisition.Over the next two episodes, I will dive deeper into automation and AI in high-volume hiring by speaking to technology CEOs with products that are helping to shape the future. My first guest is Stephane Rivard, CEO and Co-Founder of Hiring Branch. Several Hiring Branch's customers have used technology to move away from human interviews completely. Stephane talks us through the results they are getting and the implications for the future of talent acquisition.In the interview, we discuss:Is recruiting automation gaining traction?Predicting job performance via scenario-driven assessmentPreviewing the work and showcasing skillsRemoving biasWill this approach spread beyond high volume?Hiring within 24 hoursSelling the role and organizationImproving the quality of hireResources, efficiencies, budgets, legislation and regulationRecruiter career prospects and advice to TA leadersListen to this podcast in Apple Podcasts.

Attitudes to work are more complex and varied than ever, making identifying trends and patterns harder. There are currently critical questions around retention and productivity that employers need to understand. So, how can we make sense of our ever more complex motivational drivers and attitudes to work?ADP have access to massive human capital management datasets, and by combining this data with qualitative research, the ADP Research Institute is helping to shine a light on complex questions about work.ADP Research Institute has recently launched a new quarterly workforce report called Today At Work, and my guest this week is Ben Hanowell, their Director of People Analytics Research. As well as looking at patterns in worker sentiment, the report has revealed a surprising inverse relationship between promotion and retention.In the interview, we discuss:Using data to make sense of the labor marketThe vital importance of retentionThe Employee Motivation and Commitment IndexThe impact of promotion on retentionImplications for talent acquisitionWhy having a good bench is importantIndividual contributors vs. managerWhy career development doesn't end with promotionMotivation and commitment are a state, not a trait.Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcast.

The way we describe work and jobs is mostly by long-standing assumptions that have been in place since the Industrial Revolution. The world is now a very different place, and the employers breaking free of our ingrained mindsets around jobs and recruiting are giving themselves considerable talent market advantage.My guest this week is one of my favourite thinkers around the reinvention of work. Dart Lindsley is Strategic Advisor for People Experience at Google. Dart believes that rather than being seen as resources or units of production, employees are actually customers of a product we call work. There are some vast implications for talent acquisition here, and this is a must-listen for anyone developing a strategic plan for the future.In the interview, we discuss:How we should be looking at workThe legacies of the industrial ageA multi-sided businessBusiness architectureEmployees as customers, not as units of productionThe implications for HRBringing marketing thinking to HRMarket research, product market fit and route to marketWork as a subscription modelA land and expand sales motionJob to be done theoryHow do recruitment marketing and employer branding need to evolveA different data model for describing workThe implications of AIWhat does the future look like?Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts.

We've featured several employers on the show with recruiting strategies focusing on hiring people with criminal histories. All of these employers have spoken about the benefits for the people they hire, the benefits they get from reaching new talent pools, and the benefits for society as a whole. Despite this growing list of case studies, several misconceptions about hiring people who have been involved with the criminal justice system are holding many employers back.My guest this week is Shawn Bushway, a professor at the University at Albany and a researcher at RAND Corporation. Shawn has built a body of research on the impact of criminal background checks on employment, and his work informed the current standards of the EEOC. He now helps employers revise their background check policies to better reflect the science about re-offending and become compliant with EEOC guidance.In the interview, we discuss:How background checks have evolvedBan the boxHow the tightness of the labor market dictates employers' attitudesCommon misconceptionsThe myth around recidivismOverestimating the level of riskWhy crime type is irrelevantMaking factually informed decisionsAvoiding false positivesAge, time, and numberThe role of government in creating practical, useable incentives to hire people with criminal historiesListen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts

It has been an extraordinary year for technology. We can all broadly agree that the effect of generative AI will be transformational for talent acquisition, but how can we separate the hype from the reality to know where to focus in the short term and how to plan for a much-changed future?With so much noise and minimal signal in the discussion about AI, I thought the best way to get a grip on everything was to talk to a genuine AI thought leader.My guest this week is Jon Krohn, host of the SuperDataScience Podcast, Best Selling Author, and Chief Data Scientist at TA start-up Nebula. Jon was on the show back in 2019 and gave us a primer on AI that was so good people are still listening to now. This time, he is doing a deep dive into generative AI, giving us some history, explaining the current reality, and outlining the radical potential for the future.This conversation was eye-opening for me, and it is a compulsory listen for everyone working in Talent Acquisition.In the interview, we discuss:Developments in AI over the last three yearsHype v ImpactThe development of the transformer architecture that facilitates ChatGPTWhy the jump from ChatGPT 3.5 to ChatGPT 4 was incredibly significantIs artificial general intelligence possible in our lifetimes?Other notable examples of Large Language ModelsThe immediate implications for Talent AcquisitionHow LLMs will supercharge vendor innovationThe importance of TA Leaders embracing AIAre we heading towards a utopia or a dystopia?Listen to this podcast in Apple Podcasts.A full transcript will appear here shortly.

Round up is the monthly show on The Recruiting Future Podcast channel that highlights episodes you may have missed and gives you my take on some of the key learnings from the guests.This Round Up episode also features a short interview with Clive Meyers, Director of Public Sector Strategy at Indeed, talking about some up coming events to support refugees across EuropeEpisode mentioned in this Round Up:Ep 537: Strategic Workforce PlanningEp 538: The Rise Of Short-Form VideoEp 539: Building TA Technology StrategiesEp 540: AI & Recruitment MarketingEp 541: The Skills-Based RevolutionEp 542: Building A Global TA StrategyEp 543: Hiring At Speed And ScaleEp 544: Transforming TA TeamsEp 545: Using AI StrategicallyEp 546: Transforming Frontline HiringListen to this podcast in Apple Podcasts

Earlier in the summer, I collaborated with the SmartRecruiters team to interview four fantastic practitioners who spoke on The Hiring Without Boundaries stage at RecFest in London. We recorded the conversations backstage at the event, and this is the third of three podcast episodes where I will be sharing them.Talk about generative AI is everywhere, but most of the conversation is either inflating the hype or dealing with highly tactical short-term techniques and use cases. So, how can TA Leaders think about AI strategically to embrace current opportunities and plan effectively for the future?My next RecFest guest is Ben Handyside, Director of Talent Acquisition EMEA at Colliers International. Colliers have recognized that ChatGPT was already being used by many people within their organization and are harnessing the advantages to boat innovation and make TA a key strategic driver of value.In the interview, we discuss:Challenging barriers and boundaries to access new talentThe forces driving change in TATA as a strategic enablerAcknowledging AI utilization, understanding the risk, and establishing guidelinesThe risk of doing versus the risk of not doingUse cases and experimentation.Creating more time for human interactionsManaging adoptionPlanning for the AI-driven futureUnderstanding the problem you are trying to solve.Speed as a strategic leverAdvice to TA LeadersWhat will the role of the recruiter be like in ten years?Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts.