The Recruiting Future Podcast - Innovation In Hr And Recruitment

The first digital project I ever worked on was building a career website for German engineering giant Siemens. Since then I’ve been fascinated by the evolution of corporate career sites and I am currently working with a number of my clients to help them optimize this area of their talent acquisition strategy. My guest this week is someone who shares my obsession with career sites. Bas Van De Haterd is an independent consultant and entrepreneur based in The Netherlands. For the last 10 years Bas has run a major piece of research which audits the career sites of the largest 500 Dutch employers and he has a huge amount of insight to share. In the interview we discuss:     •    How to audit a career site     •    The single simple thing employers could do which would improve their response rates by 25%     •    Three areas which can be improved to give a better candidate experience     •    How to optimise a legacy ATS system to improve the application process     •    The balance between jobs, conversion

In last week’s episode I featured interviews with nine people who were searching for innovation at the HR Tech Conference in Chicago. This week I wanted to continue the same theme but with more of a focus on specific trends in recruiting. My guest this week is Andy McIlvaine who is conference chair for The Talent Acquisition Technology Conference and The Recruiting Trends Conference both of which are organized by Human Resource Executive (the company behind HR Tech) and take place in Austin Texas in November. In the interview we discuss:     •    The changing role of video in the talent acquisition process     •    Candidate Relationship Management and Candidate Experience     •    The latest social media methods and Recruitment Marketing Platforms     •    Whether talent shortages are genuine and what employers can do to solve the problem     •    Unconscious bias in recruiting     •    Predictive Analytics and Artificial Intelligence Andy also gives us a taster of the case studies that will be pres

Innovation and disruption are words that are used so often these days it is sometimes difficult to spot technologies that are genuinely innovative and genuinely disruptive. This seems to be a particular problem in the HR and Recruiting space. Last week I was one of the several thousand attendees at the HR Tech conference in Chicago trying to find clues about where our industry is heading. In this special HR Tech episode of the show you’ll hear from a number of people I met on my quest to discover HR innovation nirvana. My guests are: Gareth Jones from Chemistry Labs Bill Boorman from Recruiting Daily Kirstie Kelly from Launchpad Robert Newry from Artic Shores David Green from IBM Al Ademsen from The Talent Strategy Institute Chris Broderick from B .near Global Manish Goel from Trustsphere Neil Morrison from Penguin Random House We discuss everything from People Analytics to fake Artificial Intelligence and attempt to make some sense of the diverse HR technology landscape. Subscribe to this podcast in iTu

One of the topics we’ve never really covered in much detail on the podcast is the role of sourcing in corporate recruiting. It is obviously something that is absolutely critical to many organizations particularly those who are recruiting in market segments that are suffering skill shortages. My guest this week is Chris Shaw Director of Talent at Meteor. Chris has previously been part of the recruiting team at Google and was part of the team who recruited 300 hires in 11 months at Twitter. At Meteor he focuses on recruiting the top 1% of the top 1% of technology talent and I’m delighted he agreed to come on the show to share his thoughts and some of the practical techniques he uses. In the interview we discuss:     •    Why turning passive candidates into active ones is always better than post and pray     •    How to identify your Hiring Bar     •    The importance of a great ATS     •    Automation and personalization Chris also gives us a step by step walk through of the techniques he uses and share

The critical role employer branding plays in attracting top tech talent to companies is something we have covered a few times on the podcast. However, what happens when you need to create an employer brand for an entire country? The Irish government recently initiated a project to do just that in order to service the growing need to import top tech talent into the Irish digital economy. My guest this week is Niall Dowling who is Strategic Director at Atomic, the marketing agency who are delivering the project and its resulting website www.techlifeireland.com In the interview we discuss:     •    The strategic thinking behind the employer brand     •    Some surprising insights from the research that reveal the motivations that drive people to relocate     •    Audience segmentation and personas     •    The importance of quality of career and meaningful work     •    How the brand has been activated and optimized for the target audience. Niall also shares the results of the project so far and offers h

The balance between global consistency and local nuance in recruitment marketing is a difficult issue that provokes a lot of debate. It has become clear to me from working with a number of employers in this area that there are no right answers and every company needs a bespoke approach to be successful. My guest this week is John McCall who oversees Talent Branding for Groupon in the EMEA region. Groupon has grown via acquisition in EMEA, creating a number of challenges for brand and marketing consistency. In the interview we discuss:     •    Groupon’s definition of Talent Branding and how they are positioning themselves as an employer of choice.     •    Creating a core central truth with local variations     •    Marketing effectively in multiple languages     •    The role of mobile video and social engagement     •    The importance of messaging consistency throughout the business John also talks about what is next for Groupon and gives us his thoughts on the future of Talent Branding This episo

Changing established ways of thinking is difficult. Changing established ways of thinking about recruiting within large organizations can seem impossible. However, with economies fluctuating, technology improving and people’s communication preferences developing, driving effective change is a key part of the job for every in house recruiting leader. My guest this week is Samantha Ramsay, Head of Resourcing and Employer Brand for House of Fraser. Over the last two years Samantha has been systematically challenging assumptions, moving mindsets and embracing new technology to order to drive change within her organization. In the interview we discuss:     •    The difference between recruiting and resourcing     •    How fundamental change creates massive impact     •    Questioning standard practice in recruiting     •    Why House of Fraser prioritise behaviours and traits over past experience     •    Success with bespoke online assessment and video interviewing Samantha also shares her view on the re

Employer branding has never been a more popular discussion topic with a huge amount of content and conference time now dedicated to it. However, when you dig below the surface, there is very little that addresses the day to day concerns of employer brand practitioners, particularly those working within global organizations. Working in partnership with my regular co-collaborator Mervyn Dinnen and in conjunction with employer brand solution provider Papirfly, this summer we did a piece of research design to restore the balance by uncovering the real issues in employer branding. On the podcast this week I’m joined by Sara Naveda, Client Director at Papirfly, to discuss the research and its findings. In our discussion we cover four key issues: • How to align internal and external brand to greater effect • Why employer brand becomes even more important in times of commercial turmoil • How to adopt employee generated content to grow your employer brand at scale • The importance of measuring effectivene

Planning and executing a social media strategy for recruiting and employer branding is never a straight forward undertaking. However, doing this within a global organization can be particularly problematic. Complex stakeholder relationships with PR, marketing and comms are a key issues as is getting the right segmentation of channels across geographies and audiences. Local versus Global is a debate I’m often asked my opinion on. My guest this week is Charu Malhotra. Charu has a wealth of experience working as an interim within a range of global organizations and has some unique expertise in building global social recruiting strategies. She is currently leading EVP and Employer Branding projects at Ferrero. In the interview we discuss:     •    The specific challenges social media presents for complex global organizations     •    Transparency and fishing where the fish are     •    Content types     •    Alignment, stakeholder relations and project management     •    Global versus Local     •    The

Over the past five years there has been an investment boom in technology products aimed at the talent acquisition market. The industry is getting more complex by the day and making sense of it is a constant challenge for corporate recruiting leaders. My guest in this episode is Jon Kestenbaum Executive Director at New York based think tank and incubator Talent Tech Labs. Talent Tech Labs have done a huge amount of work to map out and understand this technology market and has developed a taxonomy that identifies 27 different categories of product in the sourcing to onboarding journey.  In the interview we discuss:     •    How to make sense of the complex market by cutting through the marketing spin     •    Disruptive solutions versus point solutions     •    The importance of analytics     •    The Five key trends of 2106     •    Levels of innovation and tech adoption being seen among corporate employers and staffing companies. Jon also tells us what has surprised him most during his two years at Ta

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 recrui

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 we

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

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 can

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

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     • 

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

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 trad

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 tar

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