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

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

Gartner Research predicts that by 2020 75% of business will be a digital business or preparing to become one. Digital Transformation is the number one priority for many CEOs and I think it is crucial that HR and Recruiting positions themselves to be key drivers in this business revolution. The companies who can attract and retain the right talent at the right time in the right way are going to be the ones who win the raceGovernments tend to have terrible track records when it comes to technology and the UK government is no exception. However in recent years The Government Digital Service has managed to break the mould and make some fantastic progress with the digital transformation of many core UK Government services. My guest this week is Zeshaan Shamsi who is now Head of Talent Acquisition at background check company Onfido. Previous to this he was Head of Recruitment for the Government Digital Service and his experience there is the main focus of our conversation.In the interview we discuss:    •    The background to the Government Digital Service, how it came about and what it is tasked with doing    •    The benefits of challenging the status quo and questioning everything especially entrenched recruiting processes    •    Honest open communication and why it is so important in driving change    •    The importance of data driven approaches to recruitment    •    Cool tools and silver bulletsZeshaan also tells us why he can’t predict the future and shares his frank opinions on “celebrity” recruitment gurus!Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

Employer Branding continues to be as hot a topic as ever and we’ve covered it from a few angles different angles on previous podcasts. One aspect I’ve been doing a lot of research into this year is how large companies deal with the issue of EVP and employer brand consistency across different countries and different job types. My guest this week is John Wilson the CEO and Founder of RPO WilsonHCG.  WilsonHCG have offices all over the world and work with many clients on a global basis.In the interview we discuss:    •    How companies can make their employer brands globally consistently but also make sure that they resonate locally    •    Which companies do this well    •    Dealing with social media in multiple languages    •    The difference between C-Suite perceptions and EVP reality    •    The role of employee generated content in employer brand engagement    •    The global impact of employee review sitesJohn also gives us his thoughts about the future and the commercial implications of a poor employer brandSubscribe to this podcast in iTunes

When industry commentators write and speak about talent acquisition, there is a tendency towards generalized truisms that seemingly apply to all employers. The actual truth is much more nuanced and there are distinct differences in the reality of talent acquisition both between industries and between SMEs and large enterprises.My guest for this episode is David Mason. David has worked at a senior level driving talent acquisition innovation at a number of very large corporates in some progressive industry sectors.In the interview we discuss:    •    Three key things that have changed in Talent Acquisition over the last five years    •    Which industries are driving innovation and why    •    The problems large corporates have with embracing new technology    •    Where Talent Acquisition leaders should focus in order to drive changeDavid also gives us his views on the future and the role he sees being played by “Applied Artificial Intelligence” in recruiting.Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes

Sometimes if you want to be innovative you need to challenge the status quo by taking the tried and tested ways of working and turning them on their head. Often you’ll find they are tried and tested for a reason but sometimes subverting the norm will bring results that make everyone think differently.On the show last year I talked to Neil Morrison the Group HRD of Penguin Random House about an experimental entry level recruitment programme his team were running know as The Scheme. One year on The Scheme has been so successful Penguin Random House are running it again and I was keen to catch up with Neil to find out what they had learned.In the interview we discuss:    •    What it is like to run a recruitment process with no CVs or insight into the background of the candidates    •    Why Penguin Random House have now dropped the requirement to have a degree from all of their roles    •    Things they learned from the Scheme last year and what they are doing differently in 2016     •    How they are using Snap Chat as a platform to promote this year’s programme.Neil also gives us his thoughts on the future of graduate recruitment and some advice for any employers thinking of having their own version of The Scheme.Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

This week sees the return of one most popular guests I’ve had in the 47 episode history of The Recruiting Future Podcast.Matt Buckland joined me for Episode 11 of the show last year when he was working for Forward Partners and shared his thoughts recruiting tech talent. It’s almost a year on and Matt is now Head of Talent and Fashion Tech company Lyst. He also recently appeared as the resident recruitment expert on  “Who’s The Boss” the BBC TV series which experimented with the concept of “collaborative hiring” In the interview we discuss:    •    The likely future of recruitment    •    The advantages and pitfalls of collaborative hiring    •    Why recruitment technology can be a bad thing    •    Snapchat and its relevance to recruiting    •    The role of LinkedIn and Job Boards    •    Recruiters v MarketeersMatt also shares what he considers to be the most important skills a good in house recruiter needs and tells us about the book he is currently reading….Links to things we talk about:Matt’s previous podcast interviewBBC2’s Here Comes the BossThe Lyst recruiting analytics podcast episode Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes

Data Analytics is something that has been growing in importance within Talent Acquisition for the last few years. Most companies are just starting out on their journey with data but there are some who are now sophisticated enough to benefit from a more predictive and data-driven talent acquisition mindset.One of these pioneers in this area is Cisco and my guest this week is Ian Bailie their Global Head of Talent Acquisition Operations.In the interview we discuss:    •    How Cisco and built and scaled an in house talent trends division    •    The key performance metrics they measure and how this is evolving    •    What they have learnt from the data and what has surprised them    •    The move towards to predictive analytics and how Talent Acquisition is able to influence higher level decisions in the wider businessIan also talks about the plans for the future and gives his tips on how to get started with talent analyticsThanks to HR Tech World for helping to organize the interviewSubscribe to this podcast on iTunes

Based on what I see during my work as a consultant it is fair to say that most employers are still struggling to use social media effectively for recruiting. Even the concept of using it as a key platform for Employer Branding and Employee Engagement seems like an impossible dream to many. However as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn embed themselves further into everyone’s lives all companies will have to think differently about the methods they use to attract, recruit and retain talent.My guest this week is someone who is a genuine pioneer round social engagement in the talent space. Chris Ebbeler is Director of Workplace Community for Chili’s, a company who are embracing social media in a way that is just brilliant.In the interview we discuss:    •    How Chris got both his job and buy in from his leadership team to do what he does    •    How Chili’s have used social media to shift deeply held brand perceptions and are now considered a great place to work    •    Why their employees are at the heart of what they do on social and the great ways they have driven authentic user generated content from their global work force of 80,000 people    •    A completely different way of thinking about the role of corporate Careers Sites    •    The importance of Instagram in their social strategyChris also talks about the way they measure results, the importance of a selfie with the COO and how he sees their approach to social media developing over the next 18 monthsSubscribe to this podcast in iTunes

When it comes to innovation in recruitment marketing and the candidate experience it is very important to never believe the hype. Once you cut through the buzzwords and considerable self-interest promoting spin it becomes clear that driving change and embracing new technologies is something a lot employers find very difficult.My research has shown me that one of keys to success when it comes to innovation lies in experimentation, testing and iteration. My guest for this episode of the podcast is someone who successful uses this approach to drive change. Heather Tinguely is Senior Program Manager of Innovation Incubation and Candidate Experience at Microsoft.In the interview we discuss:    •    How beta testing ideas can engage stakeholders and win budgets    •    Why the candidate experience is so important to Microsoft    •    Innovations for the “day of interview”    •    The evolution of the careers site and the relationship between content and candidate experience    •    The critical importance of being mobile first to avoid the big problem with responsive design    •    Personalisation based on candidate profilesHeather also tells us what she has her eye on in terms of future trends and technologiesSubscribe to this podcast in iTunes

Digital Transformation is a key issue that all businesses will need to address in the next few years. It is likely to have a fundamental effect on HR and Recruiting and I really surprised that there are still such low levels of awareness round the concept among HR and Recruiting professionals.My guest for this episode is Douglas Shirlaw Chief Digital Officer of The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities or (COSLA). Douglas has many years of front line experience in digital transformation and leads COSLA’s initiatives to digitise public sector recruitment in Scotland.COSLA’s award winning jobs platform myjobscotland is hugely successful and continues to develop to keep pace with evolving technologies and increasing user expectations.    •    In the interview we discuss:    •    The challenges involved in developing myjobscotland    •    The implications of having over 50% of the site’s audience accessing from mobiles and tablets    •    The rise and importance of “customer experience first” thinking    •    The ongoing clash between user expectations and current recruitment process realities    •    The benefits of digital transformation and a workable model to implement itDouglas also talks about changing attitudes to privacy and gives us his vision for the future of recruitment platformsSubscribe to this podcast in iTunes