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

I realized recently that in the previous 60 episodes of this podcast we’ve had hardly any discussion about Applicant Tracking Systems.  I’m very keen to rectify this. ATS systems are crucial to so many employers as a key part of the recruiting process. Many people feel that they have not kept pace with the changing nature of recruiting and the expectations of their users. This is certainly true of some systems but there have been some recent innovations in the ATS space that I wanted to get some opinion on. My guest this week is Jess Hayes, Talent Manager and HR Lead for Lost My Name.  Jess has worked with a number of different types of ATS during her career and I wanted to get her views on the changes in the space. In the interview we discuss:     •    How the purpose of an ATS has developed over the last few years     •    Expectations of the ATS and why software should adapt as user requirements develop     •    The responsibility of the recruiter     •    Limiting the administrative burden so recruiters can spend more face time with candidates     •    Why integrations are so important     •    The potential of nurturing workflows     •    Advice for anyone changing ATS or purchasing one for the first time Jess also tells us which of the new breed of ATS is her favourite and gives her thoughts on the features and functionality that will be needed in the future. Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

Recognising and addressing unconscious bias in the recruitment process is one of the biggest issues HR and Recruiting professionals face.  Dealing with it can be difficult, especially in large organisations, but it certainly not something that is impossible. My guest on the podcast this week is Jon Hull Group Head of Resourcing at Carillion. Carillion have been running diversity and inclusion initiatives that addresses issues with unconscious bias head on and they have had some seriously impressive results. In the interview we discuss:     •    How neuroscience helped Carillion make sense of their problem     •    Why bottom up is better than top down     •    Diversity and Inclusion as innovation     •    Unconscious bias in recruitment marketing and employer branding     •    How HR started to think differently about themselves Jon also talks through the results Carillion have seen from these initiatives and gives his advice to employers who are looking at how to deal with similar issues. This week’s podcast is kindly supported by Lever, where ATS meets CRM Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

We live in interesting times. Technology is evolving constantly around us and unsurprisingly everyone’s attention is often focused on what will be the next disruptive game changer for the recruitment industry. What we don’t pay enough attention to though is the experiences and frustrations of candidate who have to try and stand out in a noisy world using the tools that are completely outmoded in other aspects of life but jealously held onto by the recruitment industry. A shiny new CRM or a brilliant assessment algorithm may make recruiters’ lives easier but they don’t really make the experience of recruitment very different for the candidate when everything still hangs round them having to use a word document CV or static LinkedIn profile to get the recruiter’s attention in the first place. The situation is untenable in the long term and it shouldn’t come as a shock that eventually the jobseekers were going to take things into their own hands. My guest on this week’s episode is Esther Crawford creator of a “Resumebot” which took her from frustrated jobseeker to funded entrepreneur. I want you to imagine a world where artificially intelligent chatbots match candidates and recruiters in a completely authentic and bespoke way. In the interview you will hear Esther’s story and find out how she might have taken us on the first step of the journey to a new way of recruiting This week’s podcast is kindly supported by Lever, where ATS meets CRM Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

Ep 58: How To Nurture Passive Talent One of the biggest issues I’m seeing Resourcing leaders face this year is the challenge of introducing digital marketing methodologies and behaviours into their strategies. There are some great tech tools out there if they are not utilized in the right way then failure is assured, especially when working with passive talent. There are a number of organizations who are adapting brilliantly to the new recruiting reality and using digital marketing tools extremely effectively to help them achieve their resourcing objectives. One such company is Salesforce and my guest this week is Jennifer Johnston who is their Head of Global Employer Branding and Recruitment Marketing. In the interview we discuss:     •    The challenges of recruiting 7000 people a year in the toughest geographies and talent segments     •    The importance of reputation and how to actively manage it     •    How to qualify talent pipelines to avoid wasting people’s time     •    Nurturing passive candidates using pre-tested, optimized content     •    Using data to quantify addressable markets of talent      Jennifer also shares her strategy for educating line managers to improve the candidate experience and gives us an insight into her vision for the future of recruitment marketing. This podcast is kindly supported by Lever, where ATS meets CRM Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

We live in an age of digital noise and distraction. How can you be sure you are getting the attention necessary to persuade the right people to join your company? Over the last few weeks I’ve been doing a number of presentations and webinars on the concept of “Talent Attention” as I’m finding it is becoming more and more of an issue for employers all over the world. This week’s episode is a recording of a webinar I did last week and in the presentation I talk about:     •    The Talent Attention problem and why it is getting worse     •    Why it is easy to blame the tools but actually we need to think about Talent Acquisition in a different way     •    A metaphor to illustrate what recruiters often get wrong when attempting to get the attention of potential hires     •    The complexity problem     •    A simple model that can help you radically improve your strategy and ensure you get the attention of the right talent I hope you enjoy this departure from the normal podcast style, next week’s episode will revert back to the normal interview format. Please follow this link to contact me Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

Using Employee generated content for employer brand communication is a topic we’ve covered a couple of times on the podcast now. In this episode I want to take things to the next level and talk about using employees as brand ambassadors to strategically distribute and amplify brand content as a way of reaching targeted networks of talent. I’ve always considered this to be the key to social recruiting success and my guest this week, Craig Fisher the Head of Employer Branding at CA Technologies, is certainly someone who shares this view. I’ve known Craig for a long time now and he has always been a practitioner who operates at the cutting edge of social media, experimenting with different tools and techniques to get tangible recruiting results. In the interview we discuss:     •    Why EVP should be “inside out” with the employees themselves communicating and carrying the brand     •    Using employee advocacy platform technologies     •    The 5-1 “give to ask” ratio and why it is vital to success     •    How CA Technologies identified 80 internal brand champions and the results they have seen after the first five months of the advocacy program.     •    The best tools for curating relevant job seeker content Craig also gives some great practical advice on how to start a employee advocacy program and share his thoughts on emerging recruiting technologies Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

In my work as a consultant, I’m constantly seeing examples of employers whose recruitment marketing and employer brand activity is ineffectual because they are lacking content from their employees that illustrates what working for them is really like. Generating, managing and optimizing this kind of content is hard and can potentially take up huge amounts of resource. Unsurprisingly then we are now seeing a growing number technology companies providing products and services to help employer brand managers in this area. My guest on this episode of the podcast is Phil Strazzulla the Founder and CEO of LifeGuides, a company that is helping employers capture and tell their employees stories. In the interview we discuss:     •    The advantages of using “Employee Authored Content”     •    Some of the reasons employers struggle in this area     •    What makes great employee content and the vital importance of authenticity     •    The problem with “Frankenstein” job descriptions     •    How data insights can help Phil also gives us examples of companies who are doing this well and offers his advice on how to get started. Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

Predicting the future of work is not an exact science, however one prediction that most people seem to agree with is that there will be a significant rise in freelance and contract working. This trend is already here; recent years have seen both a significant rise in the contingent workforce and the advert of talent marketplaces shaping the “gig economy”. My guest this week is Connor Heaney, Managing Director of CXC Corporate Services. I first met Connor last year when I spoke at CXC’s future of work summit in Dublin. Since then Connor has been running future of work think tanks all over the world and has some important perspectives on how companies should be preparing themselves for the future of work. In the interview with discuss:     •    The positives and negatives of the rise of the gig economy     •    The lack of government readiness to understand the changes and give the new workforce the support they need     •    Predicted growth rates for the contingent workforce and its implications for traditional companies     •    How ready companies are for the legal and tax implications of larger contingent workforces     •    The evolution in Employer Branding that is needed make sure companies are attracting the right contingent talent.     •    Recruiters versus algorithms Connor also talks the most interesting technology innovations he is seeing in the space and gives us his view on the future Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

People Analytics is one of the hottest topics there is in HR at the moment. A data revolution is starting to make companies radically rethink their approaches to attracting, retaining and developing talent. Technology is transforming the kind of qualitative research that underpins employer branding and employee engagement strategies, providing the ability to generate instant insights that would have previously taken months of work to produce. My guest this week is Andrew Marritt from Organization View. Andrew is a pioneer in the field of text analytics for HR and has some fascinating insights into the potential for data in the talent space.     •    In the interview we discuss:     •    The relevance of Big Data for HR     •    The power of using technology to bring meaning to the free text data found in performance reviews and employee surveys on a massive scale     •    How free text analytics can help to develop subtle differences in employer brand messaging to give maximum appeal across multiple target audiences     •    The potential for real time analysis of job applications to generate automated smart follow up questions, particularly in the graduate recruitment space Andrew also share his thoughts on the application of text analytics to email and workplace collaborations systems to spot conversational trends within organizations Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

The popularity of moving recruitment in house continues to grow and is now something that is happening across all types of businesses whether they are large corporates, SMEs or high growth start ups. Setting up a in house recruitment function can be a learning experience both for the company and for the recruiters involved as the reality is often much more complex than the theory. My guest this week is Nick Yockney Head of People for Property Partner, a property crowdfunding platform. Nick has set up two new in house recruiting functions since making the transition from agency recruiter to in house recruiter and is very open and honest about his experiences. In the interview we discuss:     •    The Difficulties for recruiters when moving from agency to in house     •    The motivations businesses might have for bringing recruitment in house     •    The importance of understand the rhythm of the business and the value an in house function can add if it does this     •    The dangers of over-promising     •    Thinking strategically while realistically assessing the tools you have     •    Function over fashion in recruitment technologies. Nick also tells us what has surprised him most about moving in house, the tools he finds most useful and his views on the future. Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes