Decoding AQ with Ross Thornley Feat. Matt Charney - Recruitment and Marketing

Speaker A: Hi and welcome to decodingaq. Helping you to learn the tools, mindsets and actions to thrive in an ever changing world.

Speaker B: Welcome to the next episode of Decoding aq. With me today, I have Matt Charmey. He's in Dallas in Texas, and he said in our little warm up, if it's about hr, we're good to go. So. So I think a guy who is currently the CMO of Employer.com focuses on content marketing and communications, but really has been in this world for some time at, uh, some real powerhouses from Warner Brothers to Disney to a stint@cornerstone, hr.com, uh, recruiter.com if it's about HR, I think this is the guy to have a conversation with. So creating compelling campaigns and linking this marketing stuff to business results. Right. So welcome to the show, Matt.

Speaker C: Hey, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be on.

Speaker B: Nice. A non HR question to start us off. What's the story with the hat? Where did it come from? What compelled you to buy it? Looks cool.

Speaker C: Yeah. Thank you. So I have a large, large hat supply. Uh, let's say that my stock's probably sitting at 50 right now of ones that I'll wear, but nice. Uh, yeah. So it's interesting. I was in Vegas for a sherm conference early in my career, let's say 2012. And I did what one does in Vegas, which is I got tore up the night before. And then I had like a 7:00am um, like production meeting. And so I thought, I can't shower, I don't have time. I'm just going to flip on a hat. I'll take the heat, whatever. Everyone complimented me on it. Nobody a problem with it. In fact, I made a couple of good connections because I happened to be wearing a Dodgers hat that day. So ever since then, with the exception of my wedding, every single picture of me, every single appearance, I've. I've done the hat. So there you go.

Speaker B: Isn't it fascinating how serendipity and little, little choices we make, um, can change our trajectory, right? The people we meet, the conversations we have by, by having things like hats. There was somebody I met at Unleash who had a little badge, you know, and it had a little question I'm, you know, uh, psychologist asked me about this. You know, just these little things that spark conversations. Right. And I guess when it boils down to it, recruitment is a lot about how do we have conversations? What are good conversations? What are, uh, difficult conversations? And so tell me, you know what originally, Drew, you Into this world, this mix between marketing and hr. What were the sort of dots that you connect when you look backwards, Matt?

Speaker C: Like, um, some bad luck and existential mistake and a very expensive degree. Um, so I'll give you the very condensed CliffsNotes version of this. So I actually have a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California in writing for Screen and Television, which is um, considered to be the number one program in film in the world. So I had actually started working at Comedy Central in their talent development, uh, you know, program, uh, which is their way of saying you read scripts, you write coverage, you package and do all the behind the scenes production stuff. I was graduating from college, I was looking for another job in development and I was on Craigslist and I saw an ad that said talent scout. Like, okay, cool. Clicked, uh, on it, applied, went through the whole thing. And it wasn't until I got down to the office, which was like this very far from where you'd expect in la where I found out it was a recruiting job. But I was like, I didn't know what recruiting was. I said, your job is to sell jobs. That seems pretty darn easy. So, you know, that's just how I've, how I fell into it. And uh, as it turns out, I was right. So path of least resistance. I stayed in it for quite some time. And as far as the intersection with marketing goes, um, I had worked at Warner Brothers, worked at Disney, and I'd actually set up uh, social recruiting and employer branding, uh, at both of those companies prior to those becoming codified as a discipline. So like I registered like Disney careers, Warner Brother jobs, all that sort of stuff, built their first career pages. And so I did have a little bit of experience of that. But what really kind of, uh, to your point of inflections, just kind of changing everything, uh, I actually wrote a blog post for ere, and this was 2009 maybe, uh, so yes, I'm old, uh, and it was called How Recruiters Read resumes. And in 2009 it went about as close to viral as you could get. So as a result I got a call from monster.com and they said, you know, come fly up to our world headquarter facility in Maynard, Massachusetts. And I'm like, okay, I'll take a trip to Boston, uh, and this will be funny. So I did it as material and they offered me a job basically running social and B2B content for them. And that's what I've been doing ever since. So I guess jokes on me.

Speaker B: It's interesting. You know, uh, when I saw you'd been@monster.com here in the UK, they did some heavy marketing and push some great creative. I mean my background was in brand and marketing. So, you know, you can appreciate good concepts, good, you know, script writing, good ideas and then a lot of it in the execution. And I think what's been interesting over the last couple of decades is, is the translation of the different channels of what concepts and ideas work across different channels and specifically across social. As we've evolved and I guess, you know, with a history at Comedy Central, humor, bold narratives, the balance between tone of voice, professionalism. How do you navigate those choices when you're working with broad range of different brands? What's the sort of process you go through? Matt?

Speaker C: So for me, I would say it's a combination of a couple elements. The first is, um, like, uh, differentiation and the second is contrarianism. So if you think about in my mind, good marketing, um, and again, I cover primarily the HR technology industry. I wouldn't necessarily say that those two are highly correlated outside of the B2C stuff like job boards, which you mentioned or.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: And so I think that if you look at any category, as a general rule, you would be hard pressed to. I'll use eor, which is employer of record is a silly example, but if you looked at Deal and Rippling's websites, uh, obviously these companies are going head to head in this like, you know, giant drag out, uh, corporate espionage battle. But you couldn't probably tell the difference between the companies looking at their website. And so I think slightly different tone,

Speaker B: color of a sort of burgundy and a purple maybe.

Speaker C: Uh, yeah, I think, I think, I think you might have nailed the colors. Yeah, so. So something that kind of looks like it belonged to a bathroom in the 90s tends to be the color palette to your point. Um, so yeah, I think you have to look different because if you're saying my, you know, buy my product, well, what is it that is going to keep you from, you know, what is the distinction from everyone else? I think that's largely an element of brand because ultimately the, you know, within a category, uh, it comes down to price, uh, or it comes down to quality. And generally you want to have people opt into quality. The quickest way to do that is through brand affinity as a rule.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And what would you say is the thing that you're most excited about in this space right now? Because, you know, you said you just come back from a SHM conference. We go to lots of These conferences and we get dazzled by the demos and a lot of those demos and things are about tech and new tech and how we can save time, automate things for you in your world. What's really exciting you? What are the things that are shifting the way that you're thinking?

Speaker C: Yes. So um, just as an issue of correction, the SHRM conference, that was the beginning of my career. I've actually been blacklisted by Sherm and want nothing to do with them. So I'll crack up. But I did just go to Unleashed where I hosted a talent technology stage. And so I uh, have to say there's not a lot within the HR and recruiting space anymore that excites me. And the reasons are this, there is a commoditization. This has always occurred. Certainly I think you look at programmatic big data now it's AI and you have people who are trying to sell a product using a feature set that they have no understanding of and are just kind of throwing it in. So everything's AI, AI, AI, uh, that actually doesn't excite me at all with the exception of the candidate use case which is candidates are doing a tremendous job now, um, basically turning recruiting on its head. So using AI, uh, to game the uh, application process, show up higher stack rankings, use uh, it even to be fake candidates, cheat on uh, interviews. I love the fact that recruiters are finally getting uh, that playing field leveled. So for me it's actually really exciting because I think it's going to require a lot of upskilling. I'll use interviews as an example. There's this giant uh, I would say trend towards uh, recruiters and HR professionals being really worried about people faking their AI interviews for example. And so I think we're at a point where you're going to see companies really actually start to go back to the fundamentals and say maybe I should ask better questions. Maybe I should have an interview where AI is going to be of the utility. Because I'm actually assessing something that's not going to be a hard skill. Which ultimately I think that's kind of what a resume is for. Skills testing has always struck me as somewhat silly outside of an entry level. I think that certainly excites me. And then I just think that um, just looking out at consumer technology, um, the way that search is disappearing and largely social media in the more traditional sense as well, and really moving on to, on the search side and the other side, I would say more contained or closed communities I uh, think is great. So like I Don't care if I'm ever on Facebook again. But for a hot minute there, that was, uh, you know, the place where all recruiters are supposed to go. The thing that excites me least, other than AI LinkedIn's continued dominance, despite it becoming even worse every year,

Speaker B: lots of ground. And I think the couple of things that stood out for me there, Matt, the leveling of the playing field of candidates, being able to use resources to increase their chances.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: And yeah, some of them we can say, okay, that's fake. Um, you know, there's some great technology that can listen in, help you with those difficult questions, give you the responses in live feedback, uh, of those. Those things, tryouts, testings, all of those things, that the balance between am I leveraging something that helps me? It's still me. I've chosen to do that. Uh, that shows a particular character trait of, you know, that I want it, that I care, that I know about these things. And then the other part is, what actually is it that we need people to do? And how much is that evolving of the tasks that we need? And what is the task completed by another human being or technology or different things? So I think that's an interesting one I'd like to, uh, dive into. And the other part where you mentioned around, where do we hang out and do we trust the content, the information when we hang out there, from mass ones to closed communities and social groups? Um, and is there ones that you're hanging out in right now that you're feeling valued, are, uh, returning your effort? You know, you mentioned everybody goes to Facebook at a particular time at this moment. Is there somewhere where you're going? We're getting a lot of ROI from my time in this place because I'm learning, I'm filling slots, whatever it might be. Give us some insights on that.

Speaker C: Yeah. So I think for me, right now, there are kind of two community platforms that stand out. One actually is old school, which is Reddit. But the amount of job and career content on there, the amount of recruiter shop talk on a lot of the subreddits is definitely grown in volume. So I think that both the anonymous nature and the kind of legacy, um, volume of content and infrastructure, they're, uh, probably the top one because people are not talking the filtered way. Um, and similarly, and I'll give a shout out to indeed here, which is something that I don't often do. Um, they bought an app about two, three years ago now called Fishbowl. And so it essentially has come and replaced the Advice. Uh, part of Glassdoor, because it reports up through Glassdoor and Fishbowl is mostly M. HR and recruiting professionals. It's anonymous, but they validate your company and your title. Um, and it is one of the better places I think to really tap into like the zeitgeist of what's going on and also be able to um, find out very specific information about localized trends, what companies are doing specifically and also what industries are doing when it comes to hiring and recruiting. So those I think right now, number

Speaker B: one and two and often there's sort of sub levels of conversation. Right. There's the conversation in public when your mum's listening, uh, or your peer or your boss. And there's the conversations that happen in the hallways and what you're talking about there is potentially being able to get into the hallway conversation where we've got anonymity but we're validated who's there and we're able to speak about real things. Not necessarily.

Speaker A: Ah, ah.

Speaker B: I'm got to be careful. I might be judged about what I'm saying. Got to be, you know, mindful of that. And I don't feel super safe in these environments, but here I can be an authentic version. What don't we know if we're not in that room that you're hearing of some of the uh, excitement and challenges uh, in those spaces for those who aren't um, plugged back into you know, indeed's fishbowl or aren't on Reddit, what are you seeing right now that they need to go, wow, I was blindsided by that. Or uh, yeah, I didn't realize people are also talking about that because I haven't been brave enough or found a place that I could talk about it.

Speaker C: Yeah. So for me, one of the more interesting things, and this has certainly been, uh, a development over the last few months is for the last 10, 15 years in recruiting, uh, we've been talking about the importance of candidate experience. And there is this general prevailing sentiment, uh, that if somebody applies, you need to take the time to let them know their status and give them sort of like white glove treatment and have them have a positive impression it's going to help your business, blah, blah, blah. What we're actually seeing now that companies have codified that in automations become easier is a pushback on candidate experience largely. So I apply for a job in the past, I wouldn't hear anything now because of the way things are set up. I'll hear back in 30 seconds. Half of the time. Thanks. We've reviewed your application closely, you're not a fit for the job. Which best practices would tell you is great candidate experience can tell you that nothing makes a candidate more upset than going through 20 minutes of workday screens and then getting that email immediately. So I think erring too far on the side of over communication, seamless automation and the time thing, I think that's actually turning a lot of candidates off. So I think that's interesting. And the other one is that there is a data definite bifurcation, uh, between have or have nots, uh, that seems to be growing greater. You have a very small subset of companies right now. They're largely in tech, but there are a few in manufacturing consumer packaged goods who can kind of write their own check when it comes to salaries. They're poaching talent left and right in their industry. They're building up huge internal talent acquisition teams, even bigger than they've had in the past. And they're being very strategic about using uh, sort of a flat job market in order to build bench strength within their recruiting function. And they're reinvesting in it as opposed to, you have a lot of companies who are resource strapped. They are retrying to replace uh, as much recruiting heck out as possible through automation. Even companies that are doing massive layoffs right now are actually largely in the market for applicant tracking systems, which tells me that there's a shift in money away from recruiters and um, towards tech spend. So I don't think that uh, we know which uh, of those polarities is going to necessarily win now. But the companies that are invested in recruiting, despite the economic headwinds, um, definitely seem to be just cleaning up the competition and I think probably doing themselves a great service when hiring picks back up. Uh, and I say the other feature between these kind of haves and have nots is uh, like I said, on one side there's this rush to riff, on the other side that's the absolute worst case scenario. They would rather lose a little bit of revenue than lose talent. And I think empirically we'll see the wisdom in that strategy start to play out uh, once things pick up again.

Speaker B: I think you've articulated the sort of strategic challenge of short versus long in terms of what are we investing in, what are we playing for? Building up a bench is for the long game, not the game that's on the field right now to a certain extent, to a, ah, let's make loads of layoffs, but at the same time another division that's looking at what Are the new areas that we are investing in technology or um, interestingly, one of the things that uh, was resonating in conversations. Uh, as you know, we focus on adaptability is a core competency and skill. We have our own pattern around all the different sub dimensions that make up this language of aq. And rather serendipitously the name that we went with of AQAI because when we launched in 2019 we kind of had this vision of skating to where the puck was going, the assessments done via conversational AI, which in 2019 was quite novel and unique versus now. But this idea of AQ before AI and so whatever the technology is be AI or any other piece, it's fundamentally a human ability to adapt, to unlearn, to let go of something that's been before to that ensures any kind of technological shift or change. So a shift in, okay, we don't need these people anymore, but we need this. We don't need that service or software anymore, but we need this. All of those things are still a choice that a human is making. Uh, and then implementing that either fails or doesn't based on human behavior. As you're seeing those shifts, when those see a new light, you see, ah, this is happening, you communicate it to your team and there's often pushback. You know, uh, we've done it this way before. Uh, in whichever case, you strike me as someone that is a champion of the the new and leads directional change when you see things. If others uh, are in that same situation, what could they learn from you? That gets buy in to help senior leaders, other people resource you. So when you say okay, turn left and this is why, because this is going on in Reddit or this is going on here, you see it, you see it before it's coming. How do you get other people along for the ride? What's some of your techniques and uh, methods for doing that?

Speaker C: Well, so I do embrace the new for sure, but that's never the default that I go with. And I think that's like an important first step is a lot of times companies are out there buying solutions without identifying a problem that they're trying to fix. With those solutions you're just buying tech to buy tech. And that seems to be one of the critical errors that I see corporate talent acquisition functions make. Oh, we're going to move to skills based hiring to do we even know the skills that we have in the company right now? Do we know how to map those? Et cetera. Right. So I think um, number one is knowing what it is you're trying to achieve and making sure that that's directly tied in with a business goal that has nothing to do with HR talent acquisition. Right. Because you're a cost center and it is always good to have people who are running the profit centers. So your hiring managers largely, um, being able to, uh, help make a business case or at least have the ability to tie your initiatives into what it is that they're doing. Because at the end of the day your job is to help increase, uh, revenue per employee. I, uh, think probably being the best benchmark metric out there. So for me, you look at process first. 99% of the time. It's something that can be adjusted without having to go externally, without having to hire anyone, without having to spend additional money. Then I would say cut number two is review all free or low cost alternatives. And you're at a point right now where in the past there'd be a lot more pushback on the CIO level saying this isn't secure, this isn't enterprise ready. I think that the game is largely giving itself up on that. So getting a lot less pushback on just introducing tools to stack than you would have in the past. Then finally from there, if there's not a B2C tool or a free tool, uh, or low cost, and it's not a process issue, and I have a very specific angle in mind that I know quantifiably where we're at and where we need to be going, then that business case is already built. And then it just becomes a matter of going RFP and finding the cheapest solution within a subset of categories.

Speaker B: You picked up on a key measure of earnings to employee ratio.

Speaker C: Yeah, revenue, if you employee.

Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, several wealthy tech individuals have talked about, we're very close to the, you know, billion dollar business of one and all else is done through technology. Do you think that is coming? Uh, and what's your view on that?

Speaker C: I think it exists actually, but it's not technology based. So, uh, fun fact, we actually@uh, employer.com put together a bid to buy TikTok, um, earlier this year. And so we were one of the finalists. They never actually awarded it by the way, so we're technically still in process. Um, but I work pretty closely in doing that with Mr. Beast, who is a billion dollars, I want to say, like he has marketing support and other functionaries, but essentially that guy has built a billion dollar brand based on himself. And so I think actually the lever of power is moving, is going to move more towards individuals and less away from efficiencies as this new reality kind of takes hold. Because anyone can sort of replicate anything that's being done to make operational efficiencies at scale. The one thing that you can't replicate and the one thing that people are willing generally to pay a premium for is, is affinity and like brand recognition. Right? That's how luxury goods get away with paying more. So I do think there's going to be a billion dollar company. I don't think it's going to have anything to do with AI.

Speaker B: Interesting, interesting. And often, you know, we, we're at this stage where the entry point to build things certainly in software and tech is so low, so quick, so easy. We're going to have this, you know, absolute awakening. A bit like when the web emerged, websites of all flavors and blends, uh, it went from very expensive to very low to free for this application and software development and the investment that some of these systems, you know, whether it's ripple, whether it's, you know, any of these big ones workday, uh, successfactors that have spent huge resources in developing complex software platforms that could be replicated very quickly. Where is the angle? Is it the brand equity? Is it the affiliation? Is it the channel? Is it the market distribution? Is the content strategy? Maybe it's a blend of a few of those things.

Speaker C: Uh, and I think the two examples you mentioned actually tend to be a little bit illustrative because they are actually replicants of companies that existed previously and then shut down. So workdays is peoplesoft, like they sold to Oracle. Dave Duffield went and started PeopleSoft 2.0. And then on the other side of that, uh, Ripley is founded by item Conrad Parker who found a company called Zenefits. Exact same thing before State of California basically took away their insurance licenses, deregulated them. So I think that actually all we're just seeing and you go across the board and there may be a couple exceptions, it's people who have done this before building something new with a different package. So there I'll uh, double down on the importance of brand. And what are they doing from a brand perspective. They are taking the huge margins that they are able to create and rather than plow them back into any sort of innovation within the product or even hiring engineers, they're doing stuff like buying PGA sponsorships or you know, sponsoring Super Bowls or other things of that nature. So uh, it's a weird, uh, the bigger player is weird because they're doing this B2C sort of go to market play. But I don't know what sea is paying attention to most of the activities that they're doing there. So I think that that space is rife to be disrupted and will probably be a CRM or consumer focusing marketing company that is able to.

Speaker B: A lot of your focus and things are around content and content strategy for this. What's current elements, current thinking for you, um, of what challenges are you trying to solve and where does the content strategy come in as part of that?

Speaker C: Uh, so for me content does one of three things. Uh, the first is demand gen. The second is what I would call buzz, share voice and getting people just to know about your product. And then the third is building that affinity differentiation that we talked about, uh, which could be thought of as lead nurturing in traditional market sense. So for me, uh, right now reaching recruiters, and this has kind of always been true, is recruiters in particular HR people may be a little less, but there are some. And those tend to be my uh, favorite. Clients are very, very cynical as a general rule. They tend to have dark, darker senses of humor. They tend to have an appreciation for people who like straight talk and who understand their problem, uh, which I think is the case in all marketing. But it's particularly true when you are talking to a function that's either overlooked or stereotyped. I'm sure lawyers are probably sitting in the same, uh, sort of thing. Um, for me content is content and the goal is entertainment. Right? Because you don't need to be reading this B2B blog post. You don't need to be listening to this uh, podcast when I could switch over to something by Wondery or something on buzzfeed respectively. And like that's probably going to be more entertaining. So I fundamentally look at this as is this something that if I didn't actually care about the subject matter, that is going to resonate with me. And what's great about the recruiting HR space is that it focuses on the one thing that every individual in the workforce actually has a vested interest in and cares about, which, which is building and maintaining a career. So like, I think that that hook generally, uh, tends to uh, pull people in and then making it interesting and not just rewriting uh, a listicle about the five reasons AI is going to transform your recruiting department. Like, you know, I think there's some utility in that. And also, uh, it's stories, right? Particularly when you look at things like customer success, uh, or you are looking at um, just like product marketing rather than, you know, your traditional, uh, Kind of case study, looking at it as telling the narrative of that person, their challenges and not leading with product, but leading with person. Um, that those tend to be certainly the strategies. And at the end of the day, um, I can tell you that content marketing almost always, almost always beats uh, uh, any other form of marketing from an ROI perspective. Certainly Google AdWords and uh, certainly trade shows. So anytime I see a company that's paying money for a booth at a trade show, which is essentially just like a display ad on some sad website that does at most what, 20,000 hits, um, you can always beat those ROIs. So for me I'm just looking for opportunities to uh, create relevant content that will get in front of the right audiences. But more importantly, I like other people involved in it to create uh, an affinity so that their brand can help mine and vice versa.

Speaker B: And often it's the surrounding work of some of those decisions. Right. So whether it's uh, on the face of it or they sponsor pga, um, you know, door to what is the content play around that, how are they leveraging stories, how are they doing things to milk and work that strategic decision and asset, uh, of those things is often gets overlooked because they think, oh well, I've done that bit. That's enough, um, to know you can really leverage this and squeeze this to get better ROI and things out the back. To your point around, we're all overwhelmed with choices of content, of what can we listen to, um, and does it, do I care? Does it matter? You mentioned that this underlying hook of I care about my career, the family that I provide for and I'm part of, and what does that look like for me? One of the challenges that I'm interested in your viewpoint of is as people take different and divergent career path choices and what we've seen from an adaptation point of view is this inability to see beyond my, my past experience, my job title, my job role. This is who I am. I'm a lawyer, I'm an accountant, um, and I've done these things that have given me an applause, a celebration, a promotion, a check at the end of the month, the next job, the next job. When a computer was a job role and now it's a physical thing, we'll have many things that are a job role that is not a human's job. How do we transition and decouple people's identity of their job titles, their job roles, their job descriptions, and what role does recruitment play in helping that journey if you think that journey is valuable to have?

Speaker C: Well, I Do. And so I think we're probably simpatico on one fundamental truth, and that is, uh, I heard you use a hockey metaphor earlier. So I'll throw out an American football one and then we'll meet in the middle at, you know, uh, Chelsea. But I think that um, in college recruiting, uh, for, for college football, they essentially have your normal positions. They have a position that's called athlete. And the athlete is somebody who has the ability to really play any position on the field. And those are generally your highest valued recruits. Right. So a, uh, guy could be not as good of a quarterback as a pure quarterback recruit, but you're still going to want the athlete because he could go play wide receiver. Receiver. Right. Uh, and so, uh, then the first of them actually just got drafted first in the NFL draft. So he's a cornerback and a tight end. And I think the and is really important. Um, if you hire for learning agility, you will never have to really make any adaptation. Because when you're talking about screening, uh, for skills or personality or propensity, ultimately all I want is somebody who can synthesize really disparate pieces of information or do pattern recognition and figure out how to do something that not only have they not done before, but hasn't been done, period. Right. If I can go look and see what my competitors have done, that's a best practice. And people who follow best practices are falling behind. Right. So I want people, uh, across company challenging themselves to do the new. And there shouldn't be a precedent for it because if there is, then we can find lower caliber talent to knock it out as a project. Right.

Speaker B: And often that's so difficult because things start with a use case, a job role title, and a job description for something that is very specific. And we're talking about the ability to um, perform value without the specific existing today. And the specific is a moving target and we want to recruit for that. We want people to be okay with it. And we want to build out the wide bench for whatever the position is. Or let's say actually that bench is now swimming and not playing American football. And that bench is now riding horses or whatever it may be. So what does recruitment need to do differently that, that will change that? Because a lot of traditional things, a lot of job posts, a lot of these things, it's a title and it's a job description. It's looking for the unicorn that knows everything and done everything. And I know that's a wide statement,

Speaker C: but I've been in the same way.

Speaker B: Right. I'VE been in the same boat. I've been an entrepreneur for 27 years. I've employed people. I'm always after the unicorn, the person that doesn't exist, that can do all the things that don't map and make sense. And generally it's a much simpler one of people who get what we're trying to do and turn up and show up to help move it and make progress. Um, and it's quite simple in that aspect. As long as we're brave enough, courageous enough to ask the good questions, be bold enough to experiment and when it goes wrong, see it and have another crack. Uh, how you know is that redefining what a job descriptions purpose is? Is that changing the process of recruitment? You're talking about a shift in the balance that you know the uh, seeker now has. What's your view of how, how do we move forward in this?

Speaker C: So I think job descriptions are a perfect example of how we'll be up leveled through like AI LLM M. Right. They're pain in the butt to write like it's like a resume. Nobody likes doing it. And so, so what we've gotten into the habit of is just taking a salary or compensation document which is why you have like your preferred requirements and your basic requirements, just cutting and pasting that and using these uh, things which are done to justify salary in order to describe a job which I think is kind of silly. So for me what I think recruiters need to do is actually take the time to define not a job but a role. Because to me jobs or transactional roles are going to have uh, challenges or obstacles that come up that are unanticipated. So you have to be able to um, have a little bit of uh, agility uh learning wise when it comes to fulfilling uh, a role. Um, so I think that that's an obvious number. One is if you're trying to hire for something actually describe what it is you're hiring for. I think two is there are some basic requirements that seem to cut off a lot of really qualified people. So uh, the first is geographic location. I think if and when and you can avoid it, always do virtual or hybrid work as an option. You're just going to expand your candidate pool significantly and your churn's going to go down while your productivity is going to go up. Uh finally I think you, you look at this a big debate over here, uh the skills based hiring do we need a college degree? And my answer is yes, emphatically yes. But it doesn't matter what that degree is in. You've kind of, kind of proven it. By the time that you walk out there you can show up, you can do something that's long term and hard and you can get like, you can see it through. Right. So that, that, that to me is like a stamp. And I think beyond that we spend too much of these interviews which is sort of the only pass that we have on a candidate. So there's the resume pass. And if I'm having that candidate come in for an interview, I probably believe it's certainly mid career or later that they've done what they say on the resume. It's pretty easy stuff to tell. So I'm not going to sit there with let's say a controller candidate and ask them clever questions about like GAAP accounting or you know, like reconciliation work they've done. A, I don't know and B, I'm assuming that they did it because it's an the JD and the resume. I think that the number one thing that you can do to switch the profile people you're hiring is spend the entire interview talking about literally anything as a recruiter but work because you already know the job.

Speaker B: You know, if I'm all sorts of things.

Speaker C: Well that's, that's right. And so uh, at first, and this should start every requisition you open, you've already met with the hiring manager. I would encourage recruiters to, in addition to the standard like what does this will do, who they reporting to, the normal stuff really take 5, 10 extra minutes and ask the hiring manager about things like culture, their personal work styles and preferences, what makes team members successful and get all that data in. So that, and this is another thing I think that recruiters often overlook. There is no more important thing that you can do than the submission letter when you're sending a candidate ahead. Oftentimes we neglect to do that. But if you can come down with three or four bullet points about why you as a recruiter have talked to this candidate and think that it meets the things that you talked about that aren't on the jd they're going to get an interview and most of the time they're going to get hired because they're a better interviewer than the person who has the uh, kind of direct skill set that you could go out

Speaker B: and store and buy who's doing this really well and link to that in all the job descriptions, in all the things that you've seen. Has there been one that knocked you out, that made you lean in, that you really smiled in the mind and physical. So who's doing it? Well, and tell me a story about one that has stuck in your mind as a. Wow, that was really on point. That was so different. They really understood this difference between job description and job role.

Speaker C: Yeah. So as far as companies that I think are just getting it right, um, they are not relying on job descriptions at all. So and these are older school uh, kind of approaches but I think like companies like Johnson and Johnson, uh, Procter and Gamble and then you know, a lot of, at least over here, the defense industry or NGO type companies where they will essentially take in big cohorts of undergraduate or MBA students and then they'll rotate them and they will get exposed to all elements of the business. And so then they have cross functional knowledge. And then um, if they stay through that rotational program and end up getting hired on full time, which is the guarantee, then we know their culture fit. Right. So I really like that try before you buy and cross training approach. Obviously most of the time you need to be multinational to do that in a really four formalized way. But I think even small companies could really benefit from, from from schemes and programs like that where you're just saying, okay, this is a mutual test drive, it's not an internship. We'll expose you to all areas of the business. Where is it that you can add the most? And you know, I think that that's ultimately going to end up being cheaper than having to go through a whole recruiting search again. Um, and then you were asking about companies that made me smile. I love entertainment industry, particularly at the studios or big talent agencies. They go out of their way to make the job sound as painful as possible knowing they're going to get slammed with applications. So the way that they try to deter it, I would love to see more private sector companies sort of adopt that approach. I looked at one, I want to say this was a year ago maybe where CAA was basically like don't apply for this job. Like you will not going to have a life. You are going to essentially be at the beck and call 247 of whoever it is you're supporting. There's no guarantee that you're ever going to get promoted and you're probably going to burn out. Uh, so having said that, like if you're interested in this program, click apply. And I think that's great, right? You're gonna get a very different subset of people, probably less candidates. But a, you're being transparent and two, their candidates I want to hire want the challenge as opposed to, we're the greatest place to work. We're like a family, you know, like, like everyone says that. I know it's not true, and that doesn't tell me anything about the culture. But if I want to hire a players, a players want to work with a players and a players respond to challenges to that.

Speaker B: It reminds me of the campaign I saw, um, Palmer Lucky, the guy, uh, that founded Oculus, sold Oculus. Now he's in defense, I think. Is it Andrew Missiles? Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And his whole recruitment campaign was, you know, don't come and work for us. Essentially, you know, work for us. Crossed over, bit of graffiti. Don't come and work for us. Exactly saying that how it, you know, we take this seriously. It's bloody hard. It's going to be long hours, you know, uh, and he said it wasn't about attracting, it was about repelling. It was about repelling the non fit, non right candidates. And by virtue, that would absolutely attract right fit, you know. And I think the other thing I'm interested in is when we talk about fit and cultural fit culture, it makes me think of then cyborgs, of replicas that all look the same. And when I was in my agency, I was always looking for cultural ad as opposed to cultural fit. And it's a subtle difference. And what that difference was for me was that they add something different. They push us in a different point, but don't break us. And same for them. We push, push but don't break. Rather than it's in the comfort zone, it's a complete fit. Because we'll never create anything worth creating because we're not brave enough, we're not testing enough, we're not pushing each other and we're not doing our best work. You know, when we ask ourselves, in my role, am I doing something that is my best work, is it the best that, uh, is possible? Or am I just showing up? Am I just turning up?

Speaker C: Or is there a path to mastery?

Speaker B: Yeah, to mastery. Or to a point at which I'm going, yeah, today I did the best I could do today of my work. And there is a path towards that growth. So, yeah, as you were telling that story, it reminded me of Palmer Lucky's one for anuril. In terms of as we close out, there's a question I ask every guest on the show. It's inspired by one of our first guests, so maybe it'll make a blog article or some content one day. Um, but it's inspired around curiosity and it's about firsts so the question is, Matt, when was the last time you did something for the first time, and what was it?

Speaker C: Oh, that is a really, really good question. The last time I did something for the first time. Uh, okay, so I recently flew standby for the first time. Uh, there you go. Which literally was my biggest fear in the world as a frequent traveler who really likes to know where I'm sitting and all that. Showing up to the airport and not knowing if I was going to get on a flight or where I'd be sitting there, any of that. Terrifying. Uh, but good news is I made it to Cancun and had a nice three days.

Speaker B: Okay, so what led up to that? Tell me a little bit more. Why did it. Why did you choose that? Was it your choice or was it chosen for you?

Speaker C: I would say it kind of. Kind of was my choice, actually. So I. I'm very lucky that my wife is a director of marketing, uh, for FedEx. So one of their reciprocal, uh, benefits is that you can go on standby, uh, with any of the airlines, because obviously FedEx is also flying out airline staff on their cargo jets. So we can go anywhere in the world. I think it's 100 domestic, 300 international. But the catch is you have to fly standby. We just got that incentive. And so we decided checking out a, uh, couple weeks ago. So, yeah, that was. That was why I was like, yeah,

Speaker B: it did, but apprehensive, concerned. Not the way you normally do things, but you did it anyway.

Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Normally a total prima donna. But I was just like, we'll leave it. We'll leave it to the fates. And it ended up working great. So there you have it.

Speaker B: Interesting. So will you do it again?

Speaker C: Yeah, I'm planning. I'm planning on going to Montana on the same thing next month. So there we go.

Speaker B: Excellent. If people want to get in touch, if some of the things have resonated and they want to look for opportunities for collaboration, who do you want to reach out to?

Speaker A: You.

Speaker B: What do they look like? Uh, what kind of roles, positions, uh, and things that would be valuable and interesting to you, and if they're one of those or they know somebody like that that would resonate and hang out and do some good work. How do they get in touch?

Speaker C: That is a great way to phrase that question, by the way. Um, so for me, uh, people I would love to contact me, I believe very strongly that recruiters and TA professionals in general, but HR writ large, have a brand challenge. And essentially they're seen as this monolith of used car salesmen and snake oil salesmen. Um, so what I would love to do is anyone out there who has worked in this profession is looking to speak to their experiences and work to kind of get their stories out there and build their brand as a person, as opposed to I work for this company or this is my job function. I always really like to help build up people's, uh, voices and help bring their perspectives to a larger audience. So if you have any interest, um, in potentially collaborating just on some um, brand, uh, building but like anecdotal, real, real, in the trenches type of articles, best uh, way to reach me is mattrecruiter.com that's beautiful.

Speaker B: And a, uh, word that resonated with me earlier was you use the phrase and word cynical and I think it's the paradox and duality that cynical but equally hopeful that we can be better. There is a story hidden in there and we just need to be brave enough to tell the real stuff, um, and connect in a real human way. I've been looking forward to today. It hasn't been, it hasn't disappointed. Matt, I want to thank you for the work you do and the work that you'll continue to do with your energy, enthusiasm and your approach. Thank you. And I look forward to following you more and seeing what evolves in our collaborative journeys.

Speaker C: Sounds great. Thank you so much.

Speaker A: Do you have the level of adaptability to survive and thrive the rapid changes ahead? Has your resilience got more comeback than a yo yo? Do you have the ability to unlearn in order to reskill, upskill and break through? Find out today and uncover your adaptability profile and score your AQ. Visit AQAI IO to get gain your personalized rapport across 15 scientifically validated dimensions of adaptability. AQAI transforming the way people, teams and organizations navigate change. Thank you for listening to this episode of Decoding aq. Please make sure you subscribe on your favorite podcast directory and we'd love to hear your feedback. Please do leave a review and be sure to tune in next time for more insights from our amazing guests.