Why are we still in recruitment?

Eden: And blank. This is an episode for anybody who is in a leading position from a startup to a scale up. Yes, if you're in a big corp 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 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 of what you've got coming up in this episode.

Alex Corbyn: I mean there's much more around it, right. There's the whole data piece, there's the whole market research for us to actually become better at ah, what we are doing on top of that matching with uh, every every Friday you know we would have those show and tells, you know, kind of like in kindergarten when you bring your favorite toy. But this time it was like uh, a new technology, uh, right. Or a certain way of uh, building uh, uh, a bullion, uh, something different. Right. Uh, and so I realized that there's like so much more around it and that you constantly need to stay on top of of um, the different trends. Right. So for me everything is about data. Um, I don't look into operations anymore. Absolutely not. Right. I uh, have managers who actually do the operational work. Right. So they're the ones that are in charge of uh, delivering on the um, recruitment plan. Right. My only visibility on what is happening is if I get the data because I'm no longer hands on, on top of you know like that's what's happening on the tech side of things. Non tech. And if you want to be taken seriously by, by the business and build a case around anything. Right. I mean you might see a bottleneck in the process. Right. And that's the only way you will uh, be able to uh, to move forward in your career. Looking at the data and talking data.

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 kind of start to morph your, your style or your, your leadership Capabilities a little bit closer to one, um, obviously help that simply help your team, but also help your career. Also super important here, but thank you so much as always for sticking around and being part of Teatime 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. For the next hour or so I'm going to be joined by a T100 winner and the head of talent for one of the fastest fintech providers from the Middle East. His leader is scaled on a truly monumental proportion. Having built his own career across agency, RPO and in house environments, he brings a unique perspective to discussion, understanding what talent acquisition looks like from several different lenses. He's passionate about building high performing recruitment functions that go far beyond just simply filling roles. But the hoot truly helps tackle today's problem. So when you're ready, grab your favorite tea or coffee if you prefer and welcome today's guest, the head of Talent acquisition at Tabby, Alex Corbyn. So thank you so much for joining.

Alex Corbyn: Thank you for having me.

Eden: I appreciate it. Before we picked Rapport, we were just talking about the scale element of what you've done and I think how we're going to unfold this conversation, um, is like a real honest lens of your career to begin with and probably what a lot of other people felt to show that you don't have to have gone into recruitment with this idea that I'm going to be this at some point. You've kind of got there. Yes. On your own merit. I think you also said a little bit of luck at some point, but to showcase you can to the position you are at, um, with no idea of how you're going to get there to begin with. I really like the idea of doing that. But before we get into yourself, um, I'm curious to understand your perspective. Looking forward next three years, what do you think the biggest challenge is going to be for us as recruiters to really overcome like the genuine root calls challenge.

Alex Corbyn: So that's actually a very good question, a tough one as well. I think that the um, the biggest challenge acquisition is is, is most likely going to be uh, facing is how are we going to prove to the world that we still have a place here? I uh, mean we know that AI is a very hot topic. Right. And with the progress at which uh, AI is, is moving. Right. I mean we, we're already talking about possibly not needing coordinators by the end of the year. Right. In the next 12 uh, months or so, sourcing might actually just become obsolete. Right. And done directly, uh, by AI. Um, we know, and we're already using, and I'm happy to tell you, uh, about. About this. Right. Uh, but we are using AI agents to, to screen, uh, at the moment. Right. So then the question is, what's left for, uh, 10th acquisition? Right? So a lot of people say, yeah, but what about the human touch? But then there's also. So, so there's two ways of looking at it. So there is. Okay, Human, um, touch. One does not mean we're going to remove it. We're talking about. I'm talking about tant acquisition specifically. Right. You can still keep the rest of the interviewing team as part of the, uh, interviewing panel. Right. Um, but do you need to actually screen every single candidate? And then the other thing is, by actually automating the screening, you're technically giving a chance to more people. You can ultimately screen absolutely anybody that applies for your job. Anybody. So everybody has a chance. So this is also. Okay. I don't get to speak to a real person, but I also get my chance instead of getting rejected or skipped. Right. So went to this conference a, uh, week ago, uh, part of the RL community, uh, where they were saying that, um, plant acquisition is most likely going to move away from being a more operational department. Right. Where we actually conduct the interviews and all this to becoming a much more strategic, uh, department. Right. Where we would be talking, uh, more about workforce, uh, uh, management. Right. Manpower, uh, planning, uh, compound ban, etc, etc. So let's see how fast everything moves. Right? But I do think to kind of summarize everything, the challenge is going to be to justify tant acquisition still existing the way it exists, uh, today and the way we understand tent acquisition.

Eden: I think that's a really interesting perspective because I asked this question to a lot of people, not just on podcasts in general, having conversations with ta, and it's always about, oh, no, I'm always gonna be needed. Always, we need. You've always got that human side. And it's quite an interesting perspective from your side, say, actually, we probably won't be, but where else can we add that value? How do we. For the justification? Um, I haven't personally sat and thought, well, I need to justify why you need me. I think I've. I'm in the camp of you need the human side. Actually, some people might not want or might not care. I think my colleague, um, Jodie, she mentions, it's like when people first had chatbots Was also annoyed. You just want to speak to a human and now it's just second nature. You have an issue of Amazon, you go through the chatbot and does that then m become three years from now the second nature of recruitment? Who knows? As you say, it depends on what else we can do. Um, but your career has spanned different environments. As I mentioned in the beginning agency, then to rpo, then to in house. But when you first entered the recruitment space, did you really think, this is my career, this is what I'm going to spend the next, you know, years doing? Or is it more of just like I'm going to do it for a bit, see what it's like, especially on the agency side, you know, earn a bit money here and then go do what I want to go do.

Alex Corbyn: Um, so no, I didn't even know what recruitment was, right? I, I did not even really. No. Recruitment was a thing to be, to be very honest. Um, it's actually a friend, uh, that reached out to me. He was, he ah, was in London and at the time they were looking for um, French speaking recruiters. Uh, uh, and I was looking for a change and I was like, why not, right? Uh, why not? So um, remember, flew out to uh, to, to London, joined this uh, this uh, is very big agency. Uh, and at the time I was given the uh, French, uh, and uh, Swiss pharma, uh, market specifically within SAS technology. Right. So you had r, uh used in the public SAS in private. Uh, and I had no clue what I was doing, right? No clue what I was doing. But you know, the classic British agency, we, we all looked awesome, right? Like total winners, little town. Yeah, yeah, exactly. If you guys make 10 deals in a uh, in a month, you're gonna get Rolex. Uh, and you're like, wow, you know, at the time you're like 20, early early 20s and you're like Rolex, you're gonna go to those lunch clubs, you can get like big ten commissions. So you know, they were, they were really selling the dream and I was buying it. I was, I was actually like totally, totally, uh, buying it. I uh, um, you know, some of those classic BD calls, you know, calling them and they're like, ah, ah, we have an internal recruitment team. And I found out that you had internal recruitment teams. And I was like, whoa, I didn't even know that was a thing. You know, like I, I was really like clueless. So no, I did not think this was actually going to become uh, my career because I didn't even know this Was a career.

Eden: Yeah. When did it, when did it start kind of going away from. I had no idea about recruitment in general and internal. And then you started sitting there going actually I like this a bit like this, you know that, that kind of element of like I'm no longer just doing this for the sake of the Rolex watch as it were. But I'm doing this because I actually really enjoy doing this now.

Alex Corbyn: Uh, I hated actually the whole recruitment in the sense that I thought that was recruitment right? When you have to do BD and na na na. And I mean I didn't like the markets then, like the company. Either way, it was just not um, my thing, right? So when I actually uh, left them, um, I moved back to Poland, right? And uh, at that point I was looking for pretty much uh, anything. Um, but I did have this prior um, experience uh in recruitment. Um, and so I also applied to this uh, RPO called Toolbox for hr. Unfortunately it does not really exist anymore. Uh and um, so they reached out to me and uh, I uh, was invited to come meet the uh, founder Marcin Smolinski, who used uh, to be one of the first uh, tech recruiters uh for Google in Europe. He pretty much opened every single office Google had, uh, around uh, Europe. Uh, super cool guy. Um, and, and his approach was um, I'll take people that have minimal slash, no uh recruitment experience and I'll make a beast out of you. If you look at the, the different people that have worked at Toolbox for hr, you'll see that they're all in like incredible uh, companies. I have for instance Ostap, uh, uh, right now he's uh, he's leading uh my uh, tech recruitment team. Uh, uh, and I mean they're everywhere, right? Amazon, Uber, etc. Right? So, so everybody actually really made it in the world of uh, of uh, of recruitment. Um, and obviously having his background, uh, as well as the network he had, he was working with absolutely everybody, uh, in uh, in Europe, right? Uh, and the guy was right, amazing uh, mentor. Not such a good manager, but he admitted it himself. But in terms of mentorship, showing you what real tech recruitment is was incredible. Uh, and he had so many cool clients, right? So at the time, uh, one of the bigger uh clients was uh, Vion. Uh they were building this massive Apple. It never worked out, uh, in, in the end, right? But it was supposed to be the, the WeChat of uh, of Europe, right? So you could do absolutely everything, payments, etc, etc and uh, it's a pretty big group Right. And so, I mean, on my second week in the job, I was already on a plane, uh, to their, uh, flying to their headquarter in, uh, in. In Amsterdam. And I didn't. And I had no clue what I was doing. I remember I was given this recruiter license, LinkedIn recruiter license. And I was like, whoa, what is this?

Eden: Because we didn't have.

Alex Corbyn: And I was like, well, recruitment is easy. You know, I was just randomly reaching out to absolutely everybody, which, I mean, in the end, you know, there was like zero strategy in this. I had zero idea what I was doing, and it was just like, volume. So in the end, I actually remember, uh, making the first, uh, QA higher, uh, within my first two weeks at Toolbox. Right. And so obviously he was very happy, but once again, it was just like, I was so lucky. It was just volume, right? Obviously with this kind of volume you're

Eden: gonna make, something has to stick eventually.

Alex Corbyn: Exactly. But like zero quality, zero anything. I remember I was just calling the candidate. I didn't know how to, how to introduce, um, myself or, or, or, or the, the company I was working for. Right. Those are things I picked up super, super rapidly. Right. And, and, and I would, as, As I was growing, right. Uh, I've always been like, very motivated workaholic. I just enjoy working, uh, so much, um, that, you know, very rapidly I became lead. He put me on the Jezzy project, so that was also part of Vienne, but in Algeria. I was traveling all the time to Algeria. Bangla link in Bangladesh. We went to Bangladesh, uh, trying to, uh, build an entire data science, uh, team there. Data science was not a thing at the time. It was not really a thing to begin with in Bangladesh. It was in existence. So we had to tap into the diaspora and convince them, like, hey, you want to come back to, uh, Bangladesh and actually be a pioneer here? Um, super fun. Uh, in Berlin. I, uh, mean, that was when Berlin was like the, the hot spot in, uh, in Europe. Right. Uh, working with, uh, well, it's.

Eden: It's still at fourth. It's fourth or third at the moment. It's got, it's dropped, but I've still got it.

Alex Corbyn: Back then, you know, it was really like all those emerging startups, right? I mean, uh, we were, uh, working with, uh, um, get your guide, uh, pretty much building everything for, uh, for get, uh, your guide by. Back then, uh, oh man, there were just like so many startups and we were working with absolutely everybody and, and would just put us on the plane and fly out there, uh, to meet different people. Uh, one of the coolest projects, uh, I, I worked for, uh, was uh, ici. Um, they're still running. They're, they're, I mean incredibly successful. I don't know if you've ever heard of them. They actually send satellites into space and they have this, this, this technology which is uh, the SAR technology and I still remember what it means. Synthetic aperture radar. Which basically means that no matter what is in between the radar and what they want to shoot, it will shoot, ah, a cloud, whatever, right. They will manage to go through it. Right. And so um, they uh, they partner with uh, SpaceX. The idea of Marchin, uh, my boss was to one day sign SpaceX, right. That was passionate about uh, about space. Uh, right. Uh, and, and it was like super cool. So those guys came, they had no idea what they were doing. It was actually uh, three, two students, right. Um, in Helsinki, in Espu specifically, um, who, who built this thing during university. Uh, and they got their first investment and we're like okay guys, now we need to actually get cracking. That was before they even launched uh, their first uh, radar. And so the first mission we had was uh, within uh, three, uh, three months we needed to build their first customer service center for the, the clients, uh, as well as their operations center. So operation center is basically, you know, like in the movies, you know when you have those gu. Those Chinese noodles looking at a screen. That's what it was. And once again we're like what is this? Where are we going to find those people? Uh, and we actually uh, nailed it. Uh, back then they were not even a team of 20. And right now, I mean you can look it up. ISI is one of, I mean one of a kind, uh, in its field sign NASA, uh, everybody. And they're just doing amazing. And so that was Toolbox, uh, for hr. That's what it was. And that's when I realized that recruitment is so cool. It's actually really cool. It's more than just like building your desk, doing bd. I wasn't doing any bd. Right. Um, so that was great. But I was still missing the. I am really an in house recruiter. Right? Because I was not, you know, so you're really like embedded. And thanks to Martin we actually managed to be a proper RPO. Because you know you have a lot of RPOs out there which are not really RPOs, right? They just charge you more for not necessarily being an embedded recruiter. Um, but I wanted to uh, to, to really become a, a true in house recruiter. And then this is when I moved to, to HelloFresh and realized, uh, that yeah, that might become my career.

Eden: So at what point do you realize that there's more than just hiring and recruitment? Then when you realize there's all this other world of just putting bums on seats.

Alex Corbyn: Um, so, I mean already, uh, at uh, Toolbox, uh,

Eden: um.

Alex Corbyn: I mean obviously we needed to uh, share a lot of data, uh, with the different customers. Right? Um, the pipe market research. Um, I remember uh, conducting a bunch of uh, different uh, interview trainings in uh, in Algeria. Because Algerians had this very old school way of conducting interviews, which is just not what the younger talent, uh, was. Was expecting. Right? So they were actually struggling to, to engage with the uh, with the talent and build this relationship. So this is where I realized that, I mean there's much more around it, right? There's the whole data piece, there's the whole market research for us to actually become better at what we are doing. On top of that, matching with, uh, every. Every Friday, you know, we would have those show and tells, you know, kind of like in kindergarten when you bring your favorite toy. But this time it was like uh, a new uh, technology. Right. Or a certain way of uh, building a bullion, uh, something different. Right. Uh, and so I realized that there like so much more around it and that you constantly need to stay on top of um, the different trends. Right? And uh, and I mean on top of that, this is where I also got the, the. The. The first uh, taste uh, of uh, of leadership. Right. Uh, because uh, so at the time I was uh, I was leading three different teams, uh, for three different projects within uh, Toolbox for hr, uh, uh, and I mean, and on top of managing the client, right. Also managing the team and I was like at that point I was barely uh, conducting interviews, uh, uh, anymore. Right. And so this is where I was like, okay, there's more to it. Uh, and so this is where I really got uh, hungry especially for this leadership, uh, uh, piece, which is something I always enjoyed.

Eden: It becomes more strategic, which also links into what you said at the beginning. The next three years we're going to become a more strategic function.

Alex Corbyn: Yeah.

Eden: So from a leadership perspective, I guess, you know, you, you with Tabby and, and how you've kind of grown as a business. Where are you involved? Are you involved in everything from workforce planning, business decisions or how does it, how does it really look in kind of the structure that you've just gone through? You know, scale up.

Alex Corbyn: Oh, so just to give you a bit of a better understanding of. So when, when I started uh, at uh, at Tabby, there were two uh, recruiters, right? And uh, now we have roughly uh, department of. I mean we've had, we've had some changes, right, because we've created other departments. Like uh, a year ago I had uh, analytics, uh, under me, right. Uh, I had a data, uh, analyst running reports and all this. But now we created this uh, people tech department. So look, give or take, give or take, we have between 50 to, to 60 uh, people in the, in the department, right? So I mean, and that is within not even three years, right? So that means that I've, I've, I've had to, to, to adapt and, and, and learn how to actually manage, uh, uh, I mean I am lucky to have three managers I can count on, right? So I've got Steve, uh, managing which you know Steve. So he's managing the cx, uh, piece interjection here.

Eden: Steve is if anyone wants to go back to listen to. He's done the podcast. I'll tag it. Brilliant conversation. Great hire for you guys. Like I love the conversation and just a genuinely decent guy. 100% so.

Alex Corbyn: 100%, 100%.

Eden: Let him know after we've recorded this. I give him some good respect.

Alex Corbyn: So Steve is managing the CX piece I have off step that I just mentioned. He's uh, he's managing uh, the, the tech and then, and then I have uh, Nadia who's, who's doing the, the non tech or business, uh piece. Um, and then uh, not all of them, but some also have like managers and managers that have managed, you know, like, I mean we can go down pretty deep, especially on ah, Steve's piece because uh, this is mass hiring and, and so, so that's where a lot of things are um, are happening. Right? So that's size of the team, right? But also the way we work. Uh, there was an ATS back then. Uh, it was greenhouse actually. It was there. We're just living. Nobody was really using it. Nothing was automated. Right. So that's one of the first things uh, I tackled. Um, actually let's use the ats, right? Why are we not using the ats? Why do we have an ATS and we keep track of everything outside. Why are we conducting the interviews outside? Why are offer letters not automated, which are kind of like simple things and remove quite a bit of admin, uh, from recruiters. Right. So first thing uh, I tackled the license was coming uh, to its end. So we actually uh, Launched Pinpoint. Uh, because at the time it made uh, it made sense, right? LinkedIn recruiter licenses had to fight for this license, right? Because uh, for some reason our founders were against it. Right. So I actually uh, run a pilot and even after showing them that 40% of the hires that were made within this three months trial period were source candidates via LinkedIn recruiter, they still said no to it. I was like, wow, I'm not quite sure how, how I should, uh, they

Eden: have, did they have a benchmark in mind of what they wanted to see or do you reckon it was always going to be a no?

Alex Corbyn: It was going to be a no. It was going to be a no. But I had to uh, I had to, to, to, to show them the reality. At the time we were also using quite a bit of agencies, uh, for um, for tech hiring. Right. Uh, and you know, at one point I just managed to together all of the data and just be like, okay guys, yes, it's a significant cost, but this is also what agencies are costing us. This, these are the results we're seeing and that's how much we can actually save. Right. In the end I did get the uh, the, the, the approval uh, for it, right. Which is awesome. And uh, I mean we're continuing to, to add a lot of uh, a lot of tools. I'm happy to uh, walk you through what's happening on the CX side of things, which is actually very innovative, very AI related.

Eden: Please work. Because I think now this is the element of the strategic side of what we're looking at from a recruitment perspective. It's quite interesting hearing from a leader who's scaled dramatically some of the troubles you've had. Because I think a lot of us think of recruiter. It's a standard. Now there was a friend of mine, she entered a, um, a role and they wouldn't give it to her. And yeah, she's like, well, how do I do recruitment? Then I was like, you can still recruit with that recruiter license.

Alex Corbyn: Correct?

Eden: Does make it slower, but you can still do it. Um, but I think it's, it's interesting to hear that even obviously, um, I think you mentioned when you go into like 500, but it still wasn't, weren't using tools like that. So yeah, definitely share, share a little bit kind of what's, what's happening and hopefully it might resonate a little bit more with some of the listeners thinking okay, maybe we're there as well.

Alex Corbyn: So look, what I am really working on right now is how to Build a uh, smart, um, efficient department. Okay, so what I mean by smart, it's data driven, right? So um, everybody talks about data and you'd uh, be surprised and I was surprised at what point big companies have zero visibility on their data. I'm talking about like proper, proper big companies. Maybe not the Amazons and this, right? But I mean like even one size below, like in the region, like Talabat, right, Which is part of uh, delivery, hero delivery, etc. I mean you'd actually be surprised at what's happening and uh, you wouldn't think that that's how it is in a company that's being been out there for like 12 years or so. Um, and so obviously data tells us so many things and depending on your tech capacity. So we're lucky that uh, tabi. I mean we're very, we're a tech business obviously, but we're very happy to actually um, build everything in house, right? So we're building uh, the entire uh, people, um, people tools inside, right? Uh, mind power, planning. We built it uh, in house. We're building an hr, uh, we're uh, going to start tackling uh, ets, you know, so, so, so we actually have, have this luck of, of being able to, to tackle everything inside. And, and so this does not mean that everything is going to get done if you do not have a clean house, right? So, so stuff. But if you actually manage to get this, then you can start to apply machine learning, right? So that you can actually have a bit more of a predictive recruitment. Uh, right. So one, it's uh, so uh, the whole uh, CV scoring, right? We do absolutely everything manually. Uh, right now, um, I was um, talking with, with, with one of my recruiters specifically for, for a data uh, analyst job, right? We got for only this job over 3,000 applications. So she actually went manually through 3,000 applications, which if you do, let's say that it's like 30 seconds, um, per CV to screen, right? I mean you're already at like you're at a uh, lot of time, right? And so, and so, and so in the end, like if you look at it, it's gonna take like a full 4, 4 days, 5 days for recruiter only doing this, right? And so this is lost time. This is lost time, right? And this is time that. So this is what I want to be fixing, right? Being able to give back time to the recruiters so that they can focus on what they're supposed to be doing, which is ultimately interviewing uh, the candidates, sourcing. We do have some sourcers, right. But like sourcing um as well. So we are at the moment building uh, ah, a CV scoring ah, system. Right. Uh which is complex actually it's much more complicated than you might think. Right. But once it's done uh, we're going to be able to um, add some machine learning to it. Right. So basically the CV scoring the way it's going to work. So we're not going to score all of the cvs, right? Uh, what I'm going to say might, some people might not like it, right? But the issue we have uh, so a company like Tabby, uh, we get thousands and thousands and thousands of applications, right? And a lot of companies are like Tabby, right? I'm um, not saying it's only Tabby, but the issue here is or the challenge is how do we limit missed opportunities because unfortunately we just cannot go through every single application. It's impossible. So what we want to do, this is where some people might not like it and where we're back to AI giving opportunities to everybody. We actually want to get rid to like 80% of the uh, CVS, right. And maybe we just keep like 20% still to discuss on the rules and all this. Right? But like let's focus on 20% of the best CVS and with machine uh, learning, right. Uh, we're going to be able to uh, link um, any uh, one hires that happen. Right? But also compare the applications to profiles that went through the process and that reached the final or, or whatever rule we put in place. Right? By matching keywords universities, companies, projects, etc, etc, right. So it's very cool all those things uh, that you can do. And so this is one of the things uh, I'm uh, working on for instance,

Eden: sorry, does it not limit someone's ability to get a job with you guys more though based on how well they can write a cv.

Alex Corbyn: So yes and no. Yes and no. So one uh, not knowing how to write a CV is not really something we see anymore. In the same way that someone not knowing how to uh, complete a uh, case study we sent. Because everybody uses LLM agents to do everything, right? So now it's more on. And this is where I'm okay with actually rejecting people who don't have good uh, cvs because it's more of how can you leverage this LLM to actually put your CV out there, right? I mean if you're using an LLM agent and you still do not have a uh, uh, good enough cv, like I mean once again some people might not like what, what I'm saying. And, and I'm okay with it. Right.

Eden: Yeah, I think that's, that's the, that's the discussion piece to be had. But I've got, I've got an example which supports, I guess my perspective on it. That's what I was thinking of it. So, um, there's a business that I work with, they, they use the scoring system. Uh, this AI will obviously screen the CV and see, you know, they have the skill. They don't have the skill. Um, this person, she simply just did not put a particular technology on her profile. She's not actively looking. Just not there. Nice and easy. I know for a fact what that company hires for. I'm a hundred percent certain.

Alex Corbyn: Yeah.

Eden: But then the AI says they don't have the experience and then it's rejected. I'm like, well, why are you rejecting? Because of this, this and this. Uh, it's not on the cv. I know for a fact she just sent me the cv. She had, hadn't had it, updating it. It's time and time again. Some people don't think, for example in, on the front end like GraphQL and next are super important.

Alex Corbyn: Sure.

Eden: But they are to some companies and they're the ones that kind of lose.

Alex Corbyn: Yeah, so I hear you. True. So then, I mean, I mean I would have a lot of uh, questions about this uh, CV scoring, uh, tool. Right. Because uh, one thing is, did they actually build it in house? Are they using a third party? I get those 20 messages per day. Right. Hey, we can build this and that. Right. I mean it's really like, it's a

Eden: pretty well known ATS system, shall we say.

Alex Corbyn: Okay. So we are building it in house so we can tailor it. We're obviously, we're testing it right now. Right. And we will tweak it the way we want it to be. Right. So it's not like then, ah, uh, it doesn't work and we have to check with the vendor. But they cannot just uh, personalize it for us here. We can actually personalize the whole thing. And then another thing is, is there actually machine learning? I don't know. We see a pattern.

Eden: Yeah, that's a good point.

Alex Corbyn: On the profiles that work for us. Right. And which don't work for instance in engineering. Right. If we take like a backend engineer, we know that uh, unfortunately an engineer that has not worked in uh, a large scalable product company. Right. Not going to work because unfortunately they're going to fail in the system design stage. And It's a repetitive pattern, uh, that we see up to the point that we know that it's not a coincidence, it's just, it's an actual pattern. So um, can our LLM of LLM, I mean obviously it's linked to an LLM and all this. Right. But like can this system not be taught this specific thing so that even if there's a technology missing, which by the way, one of the biggest wins we had right before Christmas is we started to introduce co, uh, diagnostic interviews. That is, I mean we've been fighting on it for years and right now, because we have become a bit more of a data driven company or department, we managed to actually uh, build a real case around it. Right. So we don't so much care about the language, for instance. But if we know that silly example.

Eden: Right.

Alex Corbyn: But like Amazon um, works for us. Well, we know that Amazon, um, works. Right. And so even if there's pieces missing, this profile would be given a chance. Right.

Eden: Yeah.

Alex Corbyn: So we can tweak it. Right. But I hear you. It's true.

Eden: I think that that will be a real curious reflection and I'd like to at least understand once it goes live, what lot as the milestones happen? Month three, month six. I would very much like to understand what the outcomes because I think a lot of the time I'm speaking to leaders in your position. Um, you know, they, they're trying to do all this, all these moves, some doing far less than others and you know, it's, it's about trying to see what works. But very few people are willing to commit and say we're definitively doing this. Yeah, here's the, here's the update to it because it's the brand that can get knocked by and, but I like the fact you've been very open that some people are going to agree, some people won't and then I'm sure we're listening or some people in some people's ears right now and they're absolutely disagreeing with you. So I think we'd all like to, like to at least understand it. The other perception I have is that you're in a very fortunate position in the sense that, you know, Tabby has scaled dramatically. You know, you've got there in your own right. But you're in a fortunate position where you can experiment. You've clearly got an environment around you and managers around you that, you know, we want to be driven by the same mentality.

Alex Corbyn: Yeah.

Eden: But we have a lot of listeners that are uh, individual contributors that want to step into leadership but don't necessarily have the responsibilities yet. So I guess just as a final piece, shall we say, what would be kind of your, your key thing, that someone who is listening in that environment, what they could start doing today to just start changing the perception of how they're being seen across the team to kind of move more in towards like a leadership. A title, maybe not, but like at least responsibility. Um, exception.

Alex Corbyn: Sure. So um, for me everything is about data. So look, when you reach to

Eden: my

Alex Corbyn: M level, it sounds a bit weird.

Eden: I get what you mean. Don't worry, don't worry.

Alex Corbyn: But so uh, when you're actually leading talent acquisition in such a big company, and I mean we're very small compared to many others. Right. So you can imagine what happens there. Um, I don't look into operations anymore. Absolutely not. Right. I uh, have managers who actually do the operational work. Right. So they're the ones that are in charge of uh, delivering on the recruitment, um, plan. Right. And I facilitate their uh, job. Right. So by putting in place processes, reworking the, the, the, the strategy, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Tooling, etcetera. Uh, but there is one thing which is crucial, it's data. Right. My only visibility on what is happening is if I get the data because I'm no longer hands on, on top of, you know, like that's what's happening on the tech side of things. Non tech cx. I mean and if we talk about cx, for instance, we're talking about thousands of candidates interviewed. Uh, just, just to give you an idea because I have, I have the number in my head. Steve actually gave an update, uh, earlier. So he does, he does. Only in Saudi Arabia, uh, since uh, the 18th of Feb. So that was last week. We have dialed over 4700 candidates.

Eden: Wow.

Alex Corbyn: Exactly. So you're not going to remember all of this. Right? So, so this is where I mean you need to, to, to understand. Right. And if you want to be taken seriously by, by the business and, and build a case around anything, right. I mean you might see a bottleneck uh, in, in, in the process. Right. I've done it and I've seen many people do it, which is like a lot of candidates. But what is a lot of candidates? And there's two things here. One, a lot of candidates doesn't. It's not a number. Right. So, so what does it mean? Right. Uh, is it really that big of an issue? Because you being um, very hands on, you know, like you're the one actually doing the Screen. I mean you know you just get lost in, lost in translation. You know you're just talking to so many people that it might seem like a lot but once you look at the number it's like okay, it was not that much but maybe that person made a big deal out of whatever, right? And that's the only way you will uh, be able to uh, to move forward in, in your career. Looking at the data and talking data. And this is something I, I, I force uh, my team uh, to do, right? Everybody needs to be on top of their uh, on top of their numbers, right?

Eden: Right.

Alex Corbyn: And we have a lot of uh, different metrics, right? I mean you've got the classic ones which is like um, uh, you know, hires made uh, per month, right? So there's a clear number that needs to be uh, to be hit, uh, time to fill, time to hire, offer acceptance rate, etc. Etc. Right. But we also have some which are um, you know uh, the uh, pass through rate from uh, screening or not screening but like so we call it technical which is any first interview after the screening, call up to offer, right? We're aiming at a, at a 10%, right? So ah, technically like one candidate out of 10 should get an offer. And this is something So a lot of people will say that it's an aggressive number overall. We have very aggressive numbers, right? And this is a conversation I actually had with one of my recruiters last Friday during a performance review where the recruiter was actually saying that I mean the numbers are very aggressive and can we actually do anything because I'm burning out and all this uh, to which I said look, unfortunately once again some people might not like what I'm saying. I'm not going to review the numbers and lower everything because you're burning out now. I don't want you to burn out. Don't get me wrong, I don't want anybody to burn out and I don't want anybody to do uh, over time, right? We do it at Tabby because I want of the environment and the speed and everything, right? But I don't want anybody to do uh, a crazy hours. But I want you to feel responsible and accountable for fixing anything. So why are you burning out? To make the, the number is actually five hires, ah, which ah, for a lot of companies in Europe it's an unseen number, right?

Eden: But like that's one aggressive number.

Alex Corbyn: So five hires. If you cannot make five hires, why can you not make five hires and you start to list everything, right? And it can be a lot of things, right? And so in this case, it was like, oh, I'm wasting a lot of time on admin. Cool. Let's draw the entire process. So right now this is, uh, an exercise we're doing, right? We're actually, uh, doing swim, uh, lanes, you know, and drawing the entire process. You know, the process, but have you seen the process? And once you actually look at the process, you're like, okay, this is silly. This can be automated. This, all this, right? And same thing, right? Uh, the hiring manager is too slow in giving, uh, a response. Right? Why is this? Let's reevaluate, uh, how we actually communicate all those things. We just hired a communication, uh, expert for, ah, the people team, right? So we're going to. So, you know, so that's the thing, right? I don't want to remove my target because we have bottlenecks within our own department. Uh, right. Let's fix this. Let's keep this number, and then we might go to 10 per month. I don't know. We'll see.

Eden: But bottom line, I think that's the. Yeah, that's what you're saying. The facilitation part, that's your job. How can I help you get to that? The, the target is this. How do we help you get to that?

Alex Corbyn: Correct.

Eden: I really appreciate you. You're being honest, right? And that's the most important thing I can see from this. And like you said, you, there's two parts of the conversation. You're absolutely right. This is gonna rub some people up the wrong way. And some people sit back and go, me, that's. I want to work there. That's, that sounds like the environment for me. So. But I really appreciate the candidate and honesty because that's, that's really what, what makes this more, more authentic and real for everyone. So if someone wants to pick up the conversation or berate you, where, where can they find you? Where's the best place to converse with you?

Alex Corbyn: I'm. I mean, I kind of want to say the, the, the, the easy one is, uh, you can reach out to me on, on, on LinkedIn. Uh, if you manage to find my phone number, which a lot of people do. I don't know how.

Eden: Uh, unfortunately, you're probably on a database somewhere. That's the unfortunate thing. Apollo has probably scraped you somewhere.

Alex Corbyn: Most likely. I mean, the number is in my email signature. So once you have it, for sure, if you get my number. So you can also WhatsApp me, uh, if you, if you find this number. But if not, yeah, LinkedIn LinkedIn. Uh, for sure.

Eden: If someone, um, does want his number, I do have no, um. I'm joking. I wouldn't do that to you. Don't worry. Just ask them. Did they get it from me? I. I promise you it's not. But, Alex, I really appreciate you taking the time and thank you so much for joining.

Alex Corbyn: I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. It was a pleasure.

Eden: Bye. Bye.

Alex Corbyn: See you.