Player/Coach TA Leadership

Eden: This is an episode for anybody who is in a leading position. My startup to a scale up. Yes, if you're in a big four organization, you can learn something from here. But I don't think what we're going to talk about is going to appeal to specifically where you are right now as a company. So if you're either interested in startups or scale ups to lead or if you're already there, please, please stick around. What we're going to talk about is how you can focus your leadership style to that player, coach style where you can really get buy in, get credibility, get trust from your team by doing but uh, finding that balance between doing too much on the hands on IC route but also focusing on the strategic side. So here is a little bit what you've got coming up in this episode.

Rob Gallas: I do love the data side of things. You know, I don't want to go through this conversation and say, you know, anybody who's leading a TA function should be ignoring the numbers. Those things, those dashboards, those analytics, they bring you really powerful insights that you can action, you know, with your teams. But I think if you just sit behind the dugout, going back to the analogy, if you just sit behind the dugout and you're looking at all the dashboards and then you're screaming at, you know, your team, do this, do that, but you're not actually out on the pitch with them and seeing the reality of what they're having to deal with in the game. I don't think you're going to win the league. One thing I hate is micromanagement. And one thing I would hate to think is that I'm a micromanager. It's not about doing the job for them, it's for me more about sitting down and navigating it together. Some of the best TA leaders that I've worked with, you know, the way that I learned from them was by doing it with them. There's this sort of intangible thing that you can't necessarily put your finger on as how you do it. And if you try and explain that to somebody, they're not always going to get it. They're not always going to see that thing you do that helps you manage that candidate through a tricky process or through delays or through whatever it might be or helps close that offer, uh, when they're on the fence between two different things, you know. So I think if you can jump in with your team and do some of these things with them, not only are you kind of helping on that role and helping the business need at that particular moment, but, but also through osmosis, through doing it with you. I think they'll also, they'll learn a lot.

Eden: Genuinely love this episode. It's just one of those where you come out of it and thinking that makes sense, but it's very hard to put into practice on everything. So hopefully with the tips that our guest shows with you for the conversations that we've had, you can start to morph your, your style or your leadership capabilities a little bit closer to one. Um, obviously help me help your team, but also help your career. Also super important here. So thank you so much as always for sticking around and being part of Tea Time with Tan Acquisition. Welcome to Teatime with Tan Acquisition, the podcast aimed at fostering knowledge and sharing stories within the vibrant Tan acquisition community. I'm your host, Eden, and for next hour or so, I'm going to be joined by a guest who sits right at the intersection of technology, talent and human intuition. He built a career proving that the best hiring decisions don't always come from the algorithms. As a global head of TA with a truly non linear journey, including founding and scaling his own international business, he offers a perspective others might overlook in the field of talent acquisition. He can see past the AI screening thousands of CVs in seconds and focuses not just on technology, but the things we can't measure. Resilience, adaptability through cultural chemistry. His approach is built on a powerful balance that extends not just into his team, but into his leadership style as well, which is one thing we're going to really focus in on today. So when you're ready, grab your favorite tea or coffee if you prefer, and join me in welcoming today's guest, the head of time acquisition at Shapr3d, Rob Gallas. So, thanks so much for joining.

Rob Gallas: No, thanks, Adan. Thanks for, for having me. It's nice to be here and, uh, yeah, excited to, uh, to dig in.

Eden: Absolutely. And before we dig into the topic, which, again, if anyone's clicked on this, it's all about leadership styles and kind of what's working for you. I always kind of want to start this off slightly different because we get lots of guests on here now. Um, and the questions have changed over the years, but I am curious now. We're kind of at this intersection where AI is really here and there's so much happening around the world. What do you think is the biggest challenge from your perspective that recruiters are going to need to overcome in the next three years?

Rob Gallas: It's a really great Question. And I knew we couldn't talk without saying those two letters, AI. I knew it wasn't going to be possible. I was going to try and hold back as much as I could. Um, you know, I could talk to you for, for 10 hours about AI, the good, the bad, and everything in between. I think from a, the perspective I'm seeing things right now and the challenges we're going to face, there's a lot of unknown out there. You know, is AI going to become a superpower for us? Is it going to enable us to do things as recruiters we couldn't do before or didn't have the time to do before? And that's probably what I'm seeing more now. Is it taking away some of the grunt work, some of the admin tasks that we maybe don't love, as much as spending time with candidates and hiring managers and, you know, building really awesome experiences and processes, et cetera. So I am seeing that more now. So I'm seeing very much the positive of it. I'm also aware that there are other directions that it might take us in, you know, both from a job market perspective, but also from a kind of candidate experience perspective and, and what we're all going to come to expect from AI as part of the hiring process in a big way or smaller way. Um, I, I think one of the challenges we're seeing at the moment, though, is noise. Is, is AI creating a lot of noise, especially on the inbound side of things. You know, I have already started building agents and putting things together with AI, but there are people out there who are far smarter than me, far more advanced with that than me. And, you know, they're able to apply for 50 jobs in a minute with bespoke applications, bespoke CVs. You know, they've, their agents probably dug into the back end of our ATS or whatever and worked, uh, out which words to put in to really hit the marks that we're looking for. So I think we have to be smart about how we approach that. We can also leverage AI to help us to filter through some of that noise. But I think it also means we have to train ourselves to understand even more clearly than before what, what we're really looking for. I don't mind if a candidate uses AI. I mean, that's demonstrating capability on the one hand, but I think we just have to be careful about listening to everything that we see and not being able to filter effectively.

Eden: I think that kind of segues very nice into what we're talking about which is your style of leadership and that's your philosophy and we bring this into your team as well. But the title of this, this is, I don't really think of a sexy punchline title, be honest with you. So I just went with what you sent me which is player slash coach leadership. So someone's going to be particular on that going, what the hell is that? So in layman's terms, what the hell is it?

Rob Gallas: Um, yeah, I mean I might talk about football a bit during this because I'm a big football fan and that's probably where people have heard that most like player coach or in sports at least anyway, the player coach role. But um, I think it's also important to establish who it's for and who it's not for. Right. Because I don't want to sit here and say to you like this is a universal law for TA and, and everybody should, every TA leader, every recruitment leader, you know, you should be a player coach. I, I don't think it makes sense for everybody. And you know, because to me player coach is somebody who can sit behind the dugout to use the, the footballing analogy, but also strap the boots on and get on the pitch and, and be part of the team as well. That's actually playing the game. And I think if you're running TA for a uh, 50,000 person megacorp, you just, you know, you can't do that.

Eden: You're, you're basically telling me they're not just, they're not picking up that mechanical engineer we spoke about yesterday, they just sifting through the CVs you could.

Rob Gallas: And we'll talk a bit more about where there might be opportunities to do that potentially and where it might add value. And I think we'll talk a bit more about ROI of this approach as well. And it's not a uh, kind of universal truth that you must be doing this all the time, but I think, you know, looking at those leaders, they're building a super highway if you like. So it doesn't make sense for them to be down on that highway driving individual cars and testing individual lanes. They need that uh, top level view. But when we're talking about the world I'm in right now, you know, that startup scale up world that the ground underneath that highway is literally moving sometimes on a day to day basis. And if you're not at ground level, if you're not on the dirt road if you like, you're not going to survive that environment. And again it depends on the team, you have to Right. I'm very lucky. I have a very. Well, I have a senior team and I trust them. I trust that their baseline execution is going to be what it needs to be. So that helps to free up my bandwidth a bit to be able to be a bit more in this player, coach, kind of, kind of roll.

Eden: By the way, for anyone who hasn't clocked, we're already on two analogies. Um, I have come to work out for the conversations of how do you, Rob, is that you are an analogy king. So I am going to tally them to see how many we get over the course of the conversation. I love the analogies, by the way, so please don't stop this. We are on two. Um, so I think you're absolutely right. This isn't right for everybody. And um, yes, your love of football had kind of helped bring you the phrasing of it, but how did you kind of personally arrive to, to say this is the style of leader that I want to be for my team at, uh, this company right now? How was kind of that journey for you in general?

Rob Gallas: Yeah, you've totally stuck me now because the things that come into my mind are all either football related or they're an analogy or they're both.

Eden: I'm here for it. Keep going with the analogy.

Rob Gallas: I'm going to go with it.

Eden: I might take a side bet for myself thinking, have me above or below 10, let's see.

Rob Gallas: I think, I think anyone listening to this should have a little bet on it as well and reward themselves of an extra biscuit or piece of cake if they get within one or two of the final, final number. But yeah, no, to answer the question, I think it's a bit coming off the back of my background, right. I've been in startups, have been in bigger, uh, you know, mega corps, whatever you want to call them, and then and sort of back into startups again. And I think that gives you the perspective from, from a number of different sides. So you see there are different ways to, to lead and to, to build a recruitment function and to, to run ta. Um, I am going to jump into the analogy though, because it is really what sticks in my mind and I, I do remember, you know, as a kid talking about football, love football and, and loved these weird kind of simulation games called, well, they were called Championship Manager at the time. These days I think it switched to, to Football Manager. Yeah. And whenever I try and explain it to my wife, it's quite funny because I tell her, you know, what she asked her, uh, what's the game like game? And I say, well you know, you, you look at the players profiles, the stats, the analytics, the data, the tactics, all the reports and she's like, yeah, but you know, is there like you play football, right, and you score goals, you know. Well, no, not really. You just sort of look at tech numbers and dashboards and then she's like, well that just sounds like work. That just sounds like you enjoyed from a young age going to work even though it was under a different name, uh, under a different umbrella. And she's right to a degree. And I think I do love the data side of things. You know, I don't want to go through this conversation and say, you know, anybody who's leaving a TA function should be ignoring the numbers. Those things, those dashboards, those analytics, they bring you really powerful insights that you can action, you know, with your teams. But I think if you just sit behind the dugout, going back to the analogy, if you just sit behind the dugout and you're looking at all the dashboards and then you're screaming at, you know, your team, do this, do that, but you're not actually out on the pitch with them and seeing the reality of what they're having to deal with in the game. I don't think you're going to win the league especially uh, as a sort of size of company that I'm working out right now because strategy is execution is very hard to separate those two from each other. And then of course you get to the 50,000 person megacorp, it's a lot easier to see how, you know, you need to build these robust strategies based on all of the data, all of the insights across multiple organizations, potentially global countries, whatever it might be. Ah, and then it will help with the execution. But I think at this level you have to see those two things as being very close together.

Eden: One of the concepts I think you shared to me beforehand, uh, before we clicked record on this is the comment of crash test dummy. Um, and like having, having that as like I just want to kind of explain what that is in, in all of this because I think a lot of people are sitting, going great, like sounds cool, like how does it work in practice? And I think the crash test was probably the, the best example you gave me of straight away I can see how it could work in something. So explain to me a little bit about what that is.

Rob Gallas: Well, you're forcing me into the analogy now so I have no choice but to jump into another one. We're on like four now.

Eden: Yeah.

Rob Gallas: Yeah, so the crash test dummy thing, uh, you know, I think when you're looking at this as sort of new roles, founding roles within a startup, uh, very often there's just a lot of unknowns, right? There's a lot of things you don't know and, you know, you might be talking about a role and the spec is a bit. And as recruiters, I think we've all experienced this at every level. But the spec to wish list, right, you know what that hiring manager is looking for is might as well be a mythical unicorn that breathes fire and farts out ARR. Right? You know, using sales terminology. And if you give that to a recruiter on your team or that's what they're faced with, it's a bit like asking them to drive into a wall blindfolded. They don't really know what they're looking for and inevitably they're going to crash. So I think the way I see it is, look, I'll be the crash test dummy. I'll be the one that's going to strap into that with an idea, knowing this is probably not going to work out and I am going to crash. But like with every good crash test dummy, you know, you still, you sit in there, you crash the car into the wall and then you see what's, what's, what. And then from that, I think it allows you to kind of tune the engine, build, build a little bit more of a robust playbook or robust kind of process to then be able to either, you know, close up yourself or potentially empower your team to jump in, especially if you've been working alongside them and for them to actually just have a much clearer field to know, okay, this, this is what we need now and this is how we're going to deliver it.

Eden: So it's about you taking that risk of something that's maybe a little bit uncertain, maybe a new environment, new location, new role in, in the org, taking that risk away from your team and say, look, don't mind team, I'm the dummy on this one, I'll, I'll give it a go.

Rob Gallas: And, and to a degree, you probably have the political capital a little bit more as well, you know, because you're in a leadership position, you probably have the capital to be. And, and you know, I encourage all of my recruiters, you know, push back. You're not worrying about titles here. You know, if you think something's not achievable, it's not going to work. You've got the data to back it up. You've got the market map to uh, to show that person we're not going to be able to achieve all of these things you're looking for, you know, push back. And I think it's great when recruiters can do that. But as you probably have experienced, you know, at a certain level, the hiring managers maybe, you know, if they're the CEO of the company, they think they know better, uh, and they think they've got a better lens on the market, on everything essentially. So when you're in that leadership position, sometimes you just have a little bit more. Yeah. A little bit more weight to put behind these things. You still go out there and crash the car into the wall. But then when you come back with the insights, they just sometimes land a little bit sharper, a little bit stronger.

Eden: Yeah, I110 agree with that. Maybe not using the same framing of the crash that stummy. But speaking with founders, which is obviously a lot of the stuff I'm doing, sometimes you have to go out and prove them wrong by doing what they want you to do first. Yes, it can waste a week, two weeks in a search, but that sometimes that's how they start to listen. Because you're absolutely right. Everyone thinks they know best until they hear otherwise. And I'm the random recruiter that's working with them that, you know, I might have some, some scope of the market. Internally you guys are working with them, but again, you've got some scope of the market where they think there's always something better out there. Um, I do think, and I actually put a post about this this week, I do think a lot of founders get hiring really, really wrong in like that earlier starts early stage to startup phase and they, they over index on certain things, under index on certain things. But a lot of the time it's, it's just education and you being the crash system opposed to your team, I guess it's your protecting team and you're keeping yourself to the, you know, keep yourself in the market. Understand, like, okay, why is it not possible? Why, uh, how can we help improve it? But I think on that, when does it become more micromanagement? Let me give you the example on it because I feel like if there's an opportunity that's coming into the team and it's like, say it's a, an AI engineer because no one in your company is hiring AI engineers. Like someone, another recruiter, go, me, I want to work that role. That looks amazing. And then you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, new role. Let me take that, ah, kind of then becomes a little bit like pushing things. It's like, you know what I mean? Right.

Rob Gallas: You're 100.

Eden: Right.

Rob Gallas: And one thing I hate is micromanagement. And one thing I would hate to think is that I'm a micromanager. And I think you have to be very clear about the difference between these two things. You know, uh, to me, micromanagement is, it goes too far when, you know, you're taking the laptop out the hand and you're doing the job for them. Right. It's not about doing the job for them, it's for me, more about sitting down and navigating it together. So listen, if that recruiter, uh, they know exactly what they want to do with that role, if they've got a vision for it and understanding and I can see, yeah, that is, that is what we need for this. This is going to land. I'm not going to stand in their way because this is not an ego thing. This is not a glory hunting thing. It's not to step in and be like, hey, I'm going to save the day. It's what happens when that role's never been hired before. What happens when you don't have that skill set in your team or that knowledge or that background in your team. Are you just gonna let them step forward onto the front lines by themselves and like stick their head up above the parapet and get shot down? You know, go with you.

Eden: Five analogies.

Rob Gallas: I thought you were trying to stop me there, but there was a technical.

Eden: No, I realize that's why I kind of spread my fingers a little bit because, uh, again, if no one's recorded with me, whenever we have an issue, I do put my hand up. So we're on five, five analogies. So how do we then do it in a way that we're trying to build credibility for the team again, not just trying to take the glory, do it for eager, but we're really doing it in a way that the team then looked you and go, holy shit. Rob's got that like now I understand that perspective. Or like whenever that you do step onto it with them, they know that it's coming from a place of genuine care, ah, to help. So like I said, it's that credibility element. How should we, how can we start building that?

Rob Gallas: I think it's really understanding what's needed from you. It's not always needed from you. We talked about the political capital before and, you know, having a bit more weight in those conversations at a more senior level. But that's not always what's needed. Sometimes like good example, you know, from recently is having a recruiter who's fantastic at that. She's absolutely great at, ah, managing senior level stakeholders. She knows when to push back. She pushes back in absolutely the right way. So it doesn't feel like pushback, that magical skill that, you know, we don't all have to really kind of move the needle in the way you want to move it without it feeling like you're doing anything that they don't want to do. Right. She's great at that. But sometimes struggling for maybe having not hired certain roles before to understand what is that profile that we need to bring? What is, what's the profile that's going to solve the business problem that we have right now. Okay, talk about a VP of marketing, a chief financial officer, whatever it might be. And so for me it's at that point it's not, okay, I'm going to step in front of that, push her out the way and start talking to the CEO or the CTO or whoever it might be. No, I'm going to source for her or source with her. You know, I'm going to sit down with her and go, okay, let's work out this profile together. We've got a blueprint but let's work out specifically what we need. Where do we find them? How are we going to find that and support in that way. Sometimes it's just about being behind the scenes and literally doing whatever you can to just have their back, as you say. And I think that's the difference often is not trying to feel like you have to step in and step in front of. It's more, okay, I can see the gap, I'll fill the gap. Whether that's a glamorous gap or a nitty gritty, not fun gap. I mean I love sourcing, so I'll happily do that all day. But even if it's something like that, which some people would see as being kind of maybe beneath them, that's where you step in.

Eden: There's um, a really good episode by the way. Not just to chat about tea time, but it is a really good episode. Um, a guy called Dan, he spoke about kind of, um, work with hiring managers and sourcing. And he's a brilliant recruiter. Um, but he spoke about sourcing sprints, um, which he would do with his hiring managers. And actually as you was talking, I guess in theory as a leader you could do that with your team if someone's really struggling or it's a new role, you do a sourcing sprint together, you go your separate ways, you come back together, then you talk through, um, you can explain who you're looking at and why. They explain who they were looking at, why. And it kind of starts that element of, okay, you know, if the search is going to be challenging because you've kind of done a little bit yourself, but you're not stepping over and taking over that whole search.

Rob Gallas: Yeah, it's a shared reality. I think that's, that's really what it is. And if it's like any team thing, you know, whether it's sport or whatever it is, you know, when you see other people have the same battle scars as you, when you see they're suffering the same knocks and same bruises, it builds trust. And you know, we were talking before this about how challenging recruitment can be and you know, it's up one day, down the next. One day you're living in dopamine highs and euphoria because you're closing and you're getting offers accepted and all that stuff, and the next day that candidates backed out or got another offer that's better that you can't match and there's a crash. Right. If you're on the sidelines, it's very hard to empathize and to support your team in that way. Whereas if you're in it, you were part of that, at some point, you maybe even touch that candidate or you were part of the process to get them to where they got to, you're going to feel that pain. And it's a shared pain, it's a shared reality. But I do think it just brings teams closer together, especially when you're a smaller team and you're having to navigate a lot of these ups and downs that you get at a startup scale

Eden: up kind of level, you feel that. And this isn't a, a witch hunt by any means, don't get me wrong, but do you feel that leaders of TA in startups and scouts, do you feel that we're getting it wrong? From your perspective, what do you mean by wrong?

Rob Gallas: What we're doing wrong?

Eden: M. Do you feel that maybe. I feel like the root of leadership in TA was very much you do really good in your job and then. And it's the same for Internet. So I feel like once you get really good at your job, you kind of like pushed into leadership and then from leadership you can't just not to go up the career ladder and then all of a sudden you're completely hands off, completely detached. Strategic.

Rob Gallas: Yeah.

Eden: And I saw it, and not as much now because I feel like some companies are making a U turn doing kind of what you're doing. But I do still feel like there's companies like 50, 60 people and the head of TA is completely detached. So do you, from your, from what you know and see, do you feel that maybe as an industry we've kind of gone too far into having leaders that are only, um, strategic, only leadership and not, you know, the player coach getting their hands dirty as much as they maybe should?

Rob Gallas: Yeah. I mean, without being too controversial, I think.

Eden: Yeah, I love controversy. It's fine.

Rob Gallas: Well, listen, I think the common advice is, you know, you step up and you step back. Right. And I actually think that's a better

Eden: phrasing of what I was just trying

Rob Gallas: to explain, but I think it's more you, you step up and you step in some of the time. Because at, uh, a startup level as well, you know, it is working stuff out on a daily basis with the founder, with the CEO, and you can't step away from that. It builds credibility with them, builds credibility with the team. And so I struggle a little bit because I think there's other advice that floats around on whatever platforms and it's dangerous advice sometimes because it might be applicable to one thing, but it's definitely not to another. Like that classic CEO advice of hire good people and get out of their way. Fine. I don't want to hire bad people and get in their way or whatever the opposite of that is. I do want to hire good people, especially in my team, of course, course. But if you just get out of their way sometimes that's like abandoning them in a silo, you know. And I think as, as the leader, whatever size company you're at, you are the DOT connector, the context connector. You have what you have better visibility of the business context, commercial direction, you know, the things that are actually going to move the needle, especially, you know, for particular roles. So I think if you step too far back or you're just sort of announcing these things from a pedestal with a megaphone to your team, it's probably not going to land or at least they're not going to understand the context of how they can use that information. But if you're on feet, on the ground with them, you can help to connect those dots. And I think that's what gives them a better radar, to really be able to filter for the talent. That's actually going to be what you need at the stage you're at. And you know, how crucial it is when you are a startup to hire the right people, you make a few bad hires and that can set you back a really long time. So I, uh, do think that's when you're talking about startup scale. It does become even more crucial at that stage.

Eden: You mentioned, uh, Roi maybe about 10 minutes ago. Um, and obviously Roi can. You know, there's varied ways we can look at this, but from the context of being the player coach, I think the biggest question mark that someone's going to say is, is this the best use of my time? Is it the best use of the resources that I can bring to the company? Or from a cost perspective, you know, a head of is usually a costly person, which is fair enough. Say they've got the experience. What's kind of the situation that happens then? Because obviously you're not being paid or employed per se to go and source for that. I keep using mechanical engineers. I don't even hire mechanical engineers. It's just stuck in my head now. But like, so when does it become, I guess, cost effective? Not cost effective. Where's the return investment of what you're doing?

Rob Gallas: Yeah, it's a really important question to ask and one I hope I can answer in the right way because I think that is what I'm doing, maybe not on a daily basis, but certainly very regularly is monitoring signals. And I was just talking about business context and moving the needle for the business. And I think it applies to this really importantly as well, because that's what you're doing. You're looking at business needs. You know, we can go to six now if you want. Uh, another analogy would, would be like if you're a plumber, right? There are some days where you're looking at it and the business is screaming at you. This toilet is overflowing. Like you've. You've got to unblock this toilet. You know, we need to hire a CFO tomorrow. We're going to raise another round that we're going to do this. And this is crucial to the business now. Yeah, you can have a good recruiter in there doing an okay job with the role. But I'm not going to stand back. I'm going to jump in with them and we're going to work out a way to fix that. But if every day you're just, you know, fixing the same toilet or one toilet after another, it doesn't make sense if the rest of the water system so that the TA processes everything else that you're trying to build as a foundation for hiring within the company is breaking and springing leaks. You know, at that point, you probably do have to step back and look at the bigger picture and, and start to prioritize those things and work on those things. So I think it really does come down to two business needs. I also think it comes down again to team. You know, you see somebody drowning, you see somebody struggling, telling them they need to send more InMails, or their response rate on LinkedIn is below whatever percentage. You know, they know that they've been staring at that for longer than you have, going, I don't know how to fix this.

Eden: Yeah, they're feeling it well before and they already feel bad. There's no added benefit by making them aware that you know now that they feel bad.

Rob Gallas: Yeah. And even if you do it in the nicest way, even if you're an empathetic leader and you're just trying to frame that in a really positive way, help them come up with solutions. So some of the best TA leaders that I've worked with, you know, the way that I learned from them was by doing it with them. Right. I, uh, talked about there's this magic to it. There's this sort of intangible thing that you can't necessarily put your finger on as to how you do it. And if you try and explain that to somebody, they're not always going to get it. They're not always going to see, you know, that thing you do that helps you manage that candidate through a tricky process or through delays or through whatever it might be, or helps close that offer, uh, when they're on the fence between two different things, you know. So I think if you can jump in with your team and do some of these things with them, not only are you kind of helping on that role and helping the business need at that particular moment, but also through osmosis, through doing it with you. I think they'll also, they'll learn a lot as well. And that's definitely the feedback that I've had. But more, uh, importantly, it's my own feedback because I experience that.

Eden: Uh, yeah, I think also coming to the leadership, past leaders that are in recruitment with the recruiting leaders now were brilliant recruiters, typically. Right. So they've gone through the motions. They know how to do the job. 90% of them. 99 maybe. Um, but. And also, as you say, you love sourcing. Like, there's so many of these leaders are still passionate about what they do and they just want to kind of share that knowledge where they can. But I happen to agree that you can't, you can't really identify the exact moment where Eden got robbed to say yes to that job. It was all the little nuances and little touch points throughout the process. The good lucks on the interview days, the, uh, hope you, hope your little one's feeling better if they're, you know, had a, had a bad day or whatever. So, uh, there's all these little touch points that just build up, I think a genuine care in the process, which again, linking back to AI, you cannot replicate as much as early, uh, stage founders and startups and scalps who are trying to save money believe you can. I'm firmly in the camp. You cannot replicate that part of the process. And even if you only have one, you can do the whole process. And we only meet them once. It's not enough time to build interest, to build genuine care. That's my own perception of it.

Rob Gallas: Listen, uh, and I think that's, that's the shield we have right now. And um, you know, if we're thinking about why do this, like, why would you want to approach things in this way as a TA leader? How does that serve your career? How does that.

Eden: Oh, ah, you've just asked my next question already.

Rob Gallas: Well, there you go. See if I can do it without an analogy. Let's, let's, let's try.

Eden: That's gonna be hard.

Rob Gallas: Um, no, but you know, because we've talked about like, how it can help unblock your team. It m. Can unlock them. It can also, you know, once your feet on the ground, you're learning to build better processes, structures, systems, etc. But I'll be honest with you, you know, we, we've been very candid about this. We started with AI, that there's also an element of self preservation here. Uh, I'm not sugarcoating this. I don't know exactly where AI is going to take us. And if you think about it, there are lots of arguments for why it could replace recruiters. It's a flawless algorithm that can write better Booleans, it can do better admin, it can do a lot of the things that we're doing as recruiters, but the one thing it doesn't have is that, that human magic that we talked about. And I think the psychology, you know, dealing with high stakes negotiation, being able to read a room, be able to read a candidate's face when they're telling you one thing, but you can see there's something else. Yeah, yeah. Going on underneath that. And you are going to utilize that knowledge to Help you build a better offer, uh, or to go back to the hiring manager and work out how do we sort of pre manage the objections that you can feel, literally feel are going to come even though they didn't say you can feel they're going to come. So how can we pre manage that? So when we're having that offer conversation, we're already taking those off. We're already kind of closing those things down so they don't become blockers. AI is not going to be able to do that and I don't see it doing anytime soon. And I know it can sort of read sentiment and do these things, but I do think there is a big gap there between actually being able to make the human connection and like you said, you know, understanding that that person is a certain way that day because they've got two kids and you also have two kids and you know how difficult that can be. So probably they're acting like that because one of the kids was up last night and so now today they're not uh, 100. It's not because they hate the company, they hate the offer, they hate you. It's just life happen.

Eden: Yeah, yeah, literally it's the little things that happen that uh, that's, that's why I firmly do believe that the best recruiters will remain. I think, I do think the function will get smaller. I did say to you yesterday when we had a conversation, I'll tell you what my perception of how this will help someone's career would be. Um, so I firmly believe if someone leads down, especially startup, to scale up, if they lean into the adoption, what you're doing, you solidify your career. I think those that detach themselves too much from the day to day operations of recruitment, who sit behind the dashboard, behind the metrics and that's all they're doing. There is a, I don't say a use, buy or sell by date but there is a limitation at that point, especially with companies now becoming stricter in the sense of they're not mass M hiring anymore. So when that's not the case, we need people who are versatile and they can source and they can jump into building such and they can still do the job even though they're a leader when it's really required. Is it every day? Definitely not. So I think if, if you are a leader of a startup to scale up, in my opinion this is perfect way to make sure that you've got a career long term. If the intention is to stay in this field, if your intention is to Go to Big Corp. Yeah, like keep going up, keep detaching yourself because you're not going to have the chance. But I do genuinely believe what you're doing will help you have a career for the next X amount of years.

Rob Gallas: Listen, I can build some pretty nice dashboards and it can analyze data, uh, way more effectively than I can, despite my upbringing on football manager games. So I, I think we have to be great at those things. We have to know how to utilize AI in the right way to give us the superpowers to be great at those things. But then we also have to understand where it can't help or where it actually is a blocker or a limiting factor. And that's where we have to double down, I think, you know, and that's where for myself, I want to upskill myself as much as possible. New technologies I mentioned at the beginning, you know, AI is great and we're building a lot of stuff here in house. With AI, I'm learning every day more things I can do with it. But ultimately I want to fill the gap that it can't fill. So that for career preservation, long term longevity, whatever you want to call it, I'm able to jump in and do those things. And when you're a founder, a CEO, whoever it might be, that's what you're going to be looking for. You're going to be looking for somebody who is going to be the person who can move the needle and be the differentiating factor. They can go and buy an AI to do it up to a certain point, but who's the person that can come in and open it up even more? So, yeah, yeah, totally agree with you on that.

Eden: Nice Rob, it's been a pleasure. If someone wanted to pick brains a bit more about your method to get to know you a little bit more or obviously learn more about your team. Where is the best place that they can find you?

Rob Gallas: Yeah, LinkedIn. I didn't want to have to say that because I'd love to give you something more glamorous as a way that they can reach, uh, out to me. But I think LinkedIn is probably the best way. And always happy to chat, always happy to, you know, dive like we've talked about today, happy to dive in and add a bit of value where I can.

Eden: I appreciate you taking the time. And don't Worry, everyone says LinkedIn is like the go to until someone else comes up with something different. I think it's just gonna be LinkedIn for the foreseeable.

Rob Gallas: Me and you, Eden, that's That's the next project. Right? We need to.

Eden: I'll get Claude. Claude up and running, and I'll give you a call after this.

Rob Gallas: Let's do it. Let's do it.

Eden: Catch you later. Um. Bye. Bye.

Rob Gallas: Bye.