The Recruiting Future Podcast - Innovation In Hr And Recruitment

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 ba

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

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 Sna

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

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

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 hea

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

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    •    

We live in changing times and change is certainly being felt in the recruitment industry at the moment. Technology is changing, communication is changing, candidate expectations are changing and for many employers the talent landscape is growing ever more competitive. Strategically driving the systems and organisational change needed to keep up is big challenge for in house recruitment leaders.My guest this week is Barry Flack . Barry has worked in senior HR and recruiting leadership positions within a number of fast changing industries.In the interview we discuss:    •    How organisations need to get on the front foot with their recruiting strategies and stop being reactive    •    The reason why many employers are stuck with legacy “record keeping” recruitment technology.    •    The importance of embracing technology that improves user experience, candidate experience and enables proactive sourcing    •    Ways in which recruitment leaders can drive the strategic change needed within their organisations.B

Matt Alder talks to Kevin Wheeler Speculating about the future of work is a very popular past time at the moment. This should be no surprise considering the disruptive times we are living through. However I find it very frustrating that there is a distinct lack of sensible debate and discussion about the actual implications of these changes.My guest this week is Kevin Wheeler. Kevin is a Silicon Valley based futurist with a global outlook who specializes in the future of work and talent. We were both contributors to the same book on the Future of Business last year and I have a lot of respect for Kevin’s work and views.In the interview we discuss what the future of work is likely to look like in the short, medium and long term. Topics we cover include:    •    The debate round the rise of the contingent workforce    •    The growth of generalists    •    Jobs we currently take for granted which will disappear or shrink in volume with the growth of automation.      •    The future role of humans at work    • 

The mantra that in house recruiters need to behave more like marketeers is an often-repeated one. Like many recruitment truism it is easy to say but more difficult to justify and even more difficult to describe how it should actually work.My guest this week is Ted Elliott CEO of Jobscience. Ted has spend the last 16 years building tools that help recruiters adopt key disciplines from sales and marketing to help them operate in competitive talent marketsIn the interview we discuss:    •    The concept of Blue Ocean strategy    •    Increasing competition in global talent markets    •    The importance of micro marketing instead of mass marketing    •    Why just in time recruiting is vital in meeting hiring manager expectations    •    Why corporate recruiters have an impossible task in 2016 and need to think differently.Ted also and highlights the employers he feels are successfully implementing sales and marketing best practices for recruiting and explains why Jobscience is built on the Salesforce platform.

For the podcast this year I’m committed to searching far and wide for the most interesting stories and ideas in recruiting and HR.  Change is now a constant in our world and the people who are prepared to strike out from the norm and experiment are the ones driving innovation. My guest this week is a brilliant example of what is possible when you think about things differently.Larry Hernandez is currently a Talent Scout for ThoughtWorks having formerly worked for both Rackspace and Zappos. By working while driving round America in an “RV” he is bringing a whole new meaning to mobile recruiting.In the interview we discuss:    •    Why Larry choose his unique approach to work life balance    •    What it is like to source and recruit on the road    •    How his alternative lifestyle is helping build connections with candidates    •    His experiences of working in the unique culture at Zappos where his team were the beta test for the much talked about move to holocracy.Larry also talks about recruiting innovati

Matt Alder talks to Brad Cook of Informatica One of the most common themes I hear in conversations with in house recruiters is their frustration at the failings of their recruitment technology. A decade and a half on from the online recruitment revolution many employers are finding that their technology is holding them back rather than being the enabler it should be.My guest this week is Brad Cook, Global VP of Talent Acquisition for Informatica. Over the last five years Informatica have harnessed their CRM and ATS to win the battle against the global skill shortages in the talent markets where they operate proving that recruitment technology can be used strategically rather than just reactively.  In the interview we discuss:    •    Brad’s philosophy of capturing data once and using it many times    •    Why you need an SEO mindset to attract active candidates    •    The importance of analytics    •    How Informatica have reduced friction in their apply process to capture data from 45k applicants a year  

In this episode Matt Alder speaks to John Vlastelica from Recruiting Toolbox One of the most critical success factors for any in house recruitment team is the quality of relationship they have with their hiring managers. Despite being a key issue for pretty much every employer it is not something that gets written or spoken about in public very often.I’m delighted to have John Vlastelica from Recruiting Toolbox as my guest for this episode. Before founding Recruiting Toolbox John was Director of Recruiting at Amazon and Head of Global Recruiting at Expedia. He is passionate about helping recruiters to improve hiring manager engagement and now trains in house recruiting teams all over the world.In the interview we discuss:    •    Why hiring manager engagement is the secret sauce to recruiting success    •    How to influence hiring managers by speaking their language and pressing the pain button    •    The two most important things hiring managers care about    •    Common mistakes recruiters make when tryi

In this episode Matt Alder talks to Dave Drury I’ve recently returned from HR Tech Fest in Sydney and while I was in Australia I was planning on interviewing my good friend Dave Drury, a thought leader in Experience Design for HR. However Dave had other ideas and when I got to his office he decided that he wanted to interview me instead!Our conversation covers a lot of ground and some of the topics we discuss include:    •    The three revolutions we have seen during our careers in recruitment    •    The talent centric future of the industry    •    Key trends for the next five years    •    The biggest problem with HR TechnologiesI also talk about what I’ve learned from doing the podcast this year, who my favourite guests have been and give some hints about some exciting developments in 2016Link to the Tech Recruiting Whitepaper I mention in the interviewSubscribe to the podcast in iTunes

Matt Alder talks to Iain Wills from Powermeeter Back in 2013 I researched and wrote a market report on video interviewing and I’ve been tracking the space every since. This year I’ve noticed video interviewing get some significant traction in a number of recruitment markets and I was keen to get an update from the front line.My guest this week is Iain Wills the MD of Powermeeter, an emerging provider of video interviewing products.In the interview we discuss:    •    Where video interviewing is currently fitting into the recruitment process    •    How the candidates are reacting    •    The market fit for video interviewing    •    Video interview as a potential solution to the technology problems in mobile   recruitment    •    Video in recruitment at a more general levelIain also tells us about the most unexpected thing he has learned about video interviewing since joining Powermeeter and gives us his thoughts on the future of the spaceSubscribe to this podcast in iTunes

Matt Alder talks to William Uranga from GoDaddy Over the last few weeks I’ve been deep in research mode looking in detail at how the best in house recruiters are finding tech talent in increasingly competitive marketplaces. The most competitive market of all for tech talent is Silicon Valley and it is always interesting to get an insight into the strategies its most successful tech business are using to keep ahead of the pack.My guest this week is William Uranga, Director of Technical and Corporate Recruiting at GoDaddy.In the interview we discuss:    •    Why Employer Brand should be every recruiting team’s secret weapon    •    The collaboration and creativity required to craft the compelling stories the recruiting team use to engage with top talent    •    What specifically motivates people to join GoDaddy    •    How his team use technology as a force multiplier and the tools that are working for them.William also gives us his future vision and discusses the pivotal role their employees social media pres

In this episode Matt Alder talks to Matt Bradburn Talent Acquisition Manager at Lyst Talk of analytics and data has been everywhere this year with their importance empathised by numerous, blogs, whitepapers and conference presentations.  Very often though getting started with analytics can be difficult and with a seemingly endless array of technologies on the market many Talent Acquisition professionals are confused about how to get started.My guest this week is Matt Bradburn, Talent Acquisition Manager at Lyst where he has spent the last few months implementing recruiting analytics.In the interview we discuss:    •    How data can’t predict the future but can help you to make incremental gains by understanding what has happened in the past    •    Why you should ignore some of generic advice on analytics and focus on what is useful for you    •    How Lyst have used metrics to reduce interviewing time while simultaneously raising quality    •    How his team measured the engagement of their sourcing outreac

This week I’ve been at HR Tech World in Paris, where over 3000 HR and Recruiting professionals in European came together to listen to their peers, industry thought leaders and a line up of key note speakers which included Sir Richard Branson.In this episode you’ll hear from some of the attendees in addition to two interviews round the topic of digital transformation.Lisa Nelson is the Global VP of HR for Match.com and tells us how HR changed its focus to align with the technical transformation that was taking place in the business and talks about a surprising outcome from their Social Recruiting activity.Jane McConnell is an analyst and advisor on Digital Workplace strategies and she talks about the role HR needs to play in digital transformation.You’ll also hear Johnny Campbell, Bill Boorman and Chris Hoyt give their thoughts on the eventSubscribe to this podcast in iTunes