The Job Market Is Not Broken the Way You Think with Bonnie Dilber

Speaker A: Hey.

Speaker B: Welcome to Transform youm Workplace. This is the show for leaders who want practical ideas they can actually put to work. I'm um, your host Brandon Laws. If you run a small or mid sized business, you already know how hard it is to hire and keep good people. The harder part is that what your team wants from work keeps shifting and guessing wrong gets expensive. And that's where Zenium comes in every year. Zenium runs. It's what people want from work survey. So you can stop guessing and start leading with real data on what actually keeps people engaged. You could register for free and participate for free. We do all the work. All we need is one person from your organization to sign up. You can find a link in the show notes and go to zenimhr.com and register there. All right. My guest today is Bonnie Dilber, the senior manager of talent acquisition at AH Zapier and one of the most followed recruiting voices on LinkedIn. She spent a decade in education before moving into tech and she is refreshingly honest about how hiring really works. In this conversation we get into the myths people still believe about the job market, why it feels so broken right now and how AI is already changing the way people get hired. Bonnie also shares straight advice for anybody job hunting or trying to hire better. I think you're really going to love this conversation. So if it's useful, follow the show. Leave us. A review or a star rating helps more people find the show and help them transform the workplace in a positive way. So let's get into it. Here is my conversation with Bonnie Dilber. Bonnie, it is a pleasure to have you on Transform your Workplace. Thanks for coming on the show.

Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker B: So you got an interesting background. I saw that you were an 8th grade teacher, English teacher, and then you spent you pivoted decade in education talent work and, and I'm curious, why'd you leave the classroom and what kind of pulled you towards this recruiting world that you're in now?

Speaker A: Yeah, so I joined a program called Teach for America um, out of college because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I had an internship in college in an office setting and I did not want to do that. I was like I don't want to work in an office and so what can I do that's not that and found out about Teach for America. So that's how I ended up in the classroom. I wasn't, you know, an education major or anything and so I didn't necessarily ever intend to spend my whole career there. But I Ended up staying. It's a two year program. I ended up teaching for four years. And I did want to stay in education and have an impact, but I didn't feel like the classroom was the best place for me. And so I moved into sort of like teacher development, working for Teach for America, so taking people such as myself who wanted to have an impact and teach in lower income communities. And so then I moved into this role, kind of coaching them and building programs to develop their learning experiences. And I, like, I, I had a really fun ride with that, honestly. But my favorite part, I was a manager. Um, I jumped from the classroom straight into a manager role, which I have no idea how that happened.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: So, yeah, it was kind of managing coaches, like teacher coaches. So anyway, I was like drinking from a fire hose. But what I always loved was the hiring part. I loved building my team. And because I was in a pretty high growth setting, I got to do a lot of that hiring. And so once I finally felt like I was ready for what's next, I thought my favorite thing is the hiring part and like recruiting for my team. What if I did that full time? And so that's what I did.

Speaker B: So teaching talent development, recruiting, what's like the through line and all of that, Is there any connection to those things or was it just your path?

Speaker A: Yeah, no, I think it's the people side of things. Like all of it is about sort of like helping people, elevating people. And I think that's the part just like even highly, uh, kind of social interactive. Um, I'm not someone that was built for sitting at a screen, sort of like by myself, not interacting with people. And so I think these are all jobs where a lot of what you're doing is helping other people find, whether it's like finding their success, kind of being the best version of a professional they can be, figuring out what's next for them. Yeah, I think that that's like the piece that I really like and get kind of joy from. And so those are the types of opportunities that I've been drawn to.

Speaker B: So you're currently the senior manager of talent acquisition at Zapier, and you were telling me earlier it's like 850 employees, so I imagine you've, you've learned a lot in this role. But I'm curious, with all of the recruiting history that you've had, what's been like the biggest changes over the years or things you've learned the most?

Speaker A: I. Yeah, uh, Zapier has been awesome. So, you know, after all that time in education, I kind of had this realization. I was like, I think I've done all the things to do here. I will just be doing the same kinds of things in very similar settings unless I make a leap. And so tech felt like a place where I would really like be stretched. Totally different types of positions and totally different impact and that kind of thing. But I think the thing that stands out to me is that, uh, people are people and so really does kind of translate in any environment. Maybe the roles are kind of what you're looking for is a little bit different, but at the end of the day, understanding who people are, what their priorities are, how to sort of build teams around the strengths and the styles of a manager and what's going to like, help their team really like blossom and understanding those dynamics. Like that to me is the same in any environment. And so really kind of like, think you could kind of put me in like any environment and that's like how I work.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I wonder if like the teaching environment, moving to the tech was just the leap that you wanted because you probably want fast pace and obviously like finding talent for these companies that are like fast growth and looking for the best in the world was probably exciting for you, I would imagine. Is that why you kind of chase the tech world?

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And like the reason I went for a scale of a zapier versus some of the bigger companies that I did also interview with over years, like massive, you know, 50,000 plus companies. But I do think it's like the lack of bureaucracy, the ability to kind of move quickly. And while I never worked in a traditional school district, I worked for a charter school network which was basically designed to achieve, uh, the same outcomes as like a school district, but in a space that isn't so bureaucratic and that doesn't have as much regulation. And it was a lot of fun. And I would often look at like, how we could do our work versus how counterparts in school systems were working. And yeah, I knew that, like, I did not want to be in that space where you have to get someone to sign off on every single word out of your mouth. Um, and here we can ship things, you know, in days that might take months in other environments.

Speaker B: It's funny because I've worked inside of a. We're about 100 employees here in Portland, Oregon area. And just because we're small, it's been able to move so fast. In fact, I've been a zapier customer for probably 12 years. And I'm able to build stuff on my own without any sort of red tape or of approval process. So I totally, I totally resonate with you on that. Bonnie, I was looking at your LinkedIn profile. You've got like 500,000 followers on there and I'm sure you have different channels where people are following you. So you're talking about recruiting the job market. Like, what made you want to start posting stuff on a regular basis?

Speaker A: About that, I have to say that I didn't realize I was so close to 500,000 followers. But one of my colleagues just messaged me this today was like, oh my God, you're so close. Like, let me know when you hit 500k. And I was like, I am. Oh, this is fun. Yeah. So, you know, in education I was. The Teach for America network is very like tight and integrated and I, I just felt like I knew everyone and that was how I got stuff done. When I was hiring for my teams, I was reaching out to like 15 people that I knew, hired the kind of people I would like to hire and said, here's what I'm looking for and where, like, who do you know? And it was my networks. And then that helped me get stuff done and helped me like build my own teams. And then I like came into tech and I didn't know anyone that worked in tech. I mean I very few, like, I had a few friends. But, uh, literally my whole life was, you know, the majority of people I was close to were educators. So I felt like I needed to like very quickly build a network. And so I was like, I guess I should try LinkedIn. And so I started posting, just like started a new job, hiring for these roles, like, would love to connect with, you know, these kinds of things. And then, you know, sharing like different thoughts on how it was going, transitioning from education to tech. And you know, it was just very like organic, trying to be decent at my job. And then like a few things started going viral and people were messaging me and you know, stuff like that. And then I just, you know, then I think your ego kicks in and you're like, oh, I like this, this is fun. Get ah, these like rewards of social media. So then I just kept going, that's so cool.

Speaker B: This is kind of a transitional question because I now want to get into like picking your brain on the uh, like hiring, recruiting, AI, all of the things that you probably talk about with your followers. So I want to start with like just hiring in general recruiting industry. Like, I'm sure there's a ton of misinformation about the recruiters out there and hiring in general. What's the most like persistent myth that you want to like clear up right now?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's funny because I actually think a lot of the persistent myths that I have tried to debunk are things that will be reality about a year from now. So take it with a grain of salt. But one of the big ones is this concept that like the ats, as people say like is like preventing recruiters from even seeing most of the applicants. Like, I just, I don't know what tools you've used, but I've used like 10 applicant tracking systems, all the best in class ones and none of them have this functionality. And so like where are people getting this? But yeah, there is this idea that people, the reason people aren't having, having success navigating the job market is because recruiters aren't seeing their applications and you know, jobs are being filled. The other one is that hidden job market concept, like these sorts of things.

Speaker B: So probably said another way is like if people are questioning bias in these tools, it's actually the people behind it.

Speaker A: That's what I've always said. I'm like, there are real issues. But you know, it's people don't blame machines for the poor decisions or poor systems of humans because most of this comes down to like people who are either, you know, choosing not to review applications, picking the first time they come across that are good and then not taking a roll down. Lots of stuff that you can critique in the process. But I think sometimes it's easier to make like a, a tool, the bad guy than it is a human. And so that's maybe where it comes from.

Speaker B: It's probably a persistent myth too because when people's backs are against the wall and they're just not getting a role and they're, they're putting in a ton of resumes, not getting any interviews. They're probably just frustrated and so they got to blame something. It's not, I'm not the problem, it's the, it's the tool, the technology. How would you describe the job market right now? I know that's a very open ended question, but uh, it's. From my perspective, it's messy.

Speaker A: Yeah, you're lucky that I think about this a lot. So I talk about it a lot. So I'll share. Look at the data a lot too for fun. You know, it's interesting. This is probably not a take people like, I don't necessarily think like it's as bad or as unusual as people think it is in terms of like, we actually don't have a significantly lower number of jobs available than we used to. We just have more and more people who are competing for a pool of jobs that is relatively stagnant because there's other. There's a ton of jobs right now. Jobs in the trades, you know, construction, healthcare, education, teachers. Like, if you want to be a teacher, you get hired tomorrow. Having worked on that side, I'm like, there are tons of places out there that will hire career changers, that will train you, that will invest in you, but people don't want those jobs. And so there is a far more limited set of jobs in HR or tech or things like that, and lots of people who want those jobs, some of whom are wanting those jobs for the first time. They're, you know, recent grads. But we're not actually like seeing enough job creation to keep up with how many people are entering the job market. So I honestly think that's like more of the issue. There's like a workforce plan planning, uh, gap. I think there's issues of how a lot of the work that is available is positioned in terms of compensation and the lifestyle it offers. That doesn't really align with what people want for themselves. That to me is like the bigger disconnect. So that piece is on fire. But I don't think the core issue is like, it's not isolated to just.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think like anything is a supply demand issue. Uh, I talked to an economist a couple weeks ago and kind of said the same thing as. What you're describing is like, you got certain industries that are, whether through technology, AI, whatever, they're, they're not needing as many people as they once did. But then there's other industries like construction and trades. They can't find enough people. Like, there's a skills gap and a supply issue there. And so it's like, you know, people who are on the sidelines. It's like, are you going to go up skill and find and adapt to these changing times, or are you going to keep trying to find the same job with that has a limited supply right now?

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And if you're early in your career, be really thoughtful about that right now because, yeah, if you're entering a field that's already saturated, you're going to have a very hard time. A lot of companies, because they flattened, there haven't been those growth opportunities. So the entry level, I mean, you know all this. So the entry level roles aren't being created because people aren't moving. You know, people are staying in a role for five years that they would have moved out of in two years, a few years back. And so a lot of that stuff has been stagnant. But I also think we created some really unrealistic expectations in like 2122, like that post Covid, you know, uh, when there was a huge investment in tech and you know, interest rates rock bottom. So everyone's like blowing up in that period. A lot of people got into certain industries. Like a lot of people broke into tech for the first time. They worked for two years, they got laid off. Now they don't have enough experience to really be competitive. And they've tasted that life, that salary, the remote, all of that. And they want that. And so don't fault people for wanting those things. But I don't think we were ever actually equipped as a system to support that many people working in those fields or those roles. And the only reason those jobs were created was this sort of like pandemic, bounce back, slash, huge investment to try to get companies to hire more. And now that that's gone, like, you know, it'll move back up a little bit I think as interest rates decline and it's more worth investing. But right now companies need that capital to build their AI infrastructure and so that's more valuable than having people like sitting around.

Speaker B: So this is probably more of a follow up to this question, but since you talk to job seekers and recruiters peers every day, I'm curious what the biggest disconnect between those two groups is when it comes to hiring and what's going on right now.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think one of them is the fact that like there's a lot of applicants it should be easier to hire when it's actually kind of the opposite. There's a lot of, a lot of applicants, there's a lot of people who are unemployed. It's actually much harder, much more rigorous to hire because on the employer side you're actually making fewer hires, you have fewer roles. So everyone's more selective about who they need. They're often, you know, hiring managers are thinking the job market's bad, we can get really awesome people right now. We're not going to sacrifice on our bar. Meanwhile, people in the Canada pool are thinking, you've got thousands of applicants. How, you know, just hire someone. How is it possible that it's been six weeks and you haven't hired anyone? You know, those sorts of things. So anyway, I think that there, that's like, kind of a disconnect. Yeah, so that's, like, one that comes to mind for sure.

Speaker B: One of the things I was prepared to ask you, and you. You sort of led me there right now is, um, now that everybody's using. Not everybody, but people are using AI to write cover letters, resumes. And I'm wondering, do they all look kind of the same? Like, same format, same kind of style? And then to your point of, like, why does it take six months to hire somebody? Well, you got a ton of applicants, and all the resumes are written by AI. Uh, kind of look and sound the same. How do you even begin to. To choose out of the pile?

Speaker A: Yeah, it started to turn into a lot. You spent a lot more time for the people who look good validating on LinkedIn. You know, what's the story where. I used to. Not really do that, you know, like, used to be like, okay, the resume is the resume. Now it's like, okay, but what's the story on LinkedIn? Are the job titles the same? Are the companies the same? Is this even a real person? So I think there is, like, a lot more trying to validate certain things. We're also. I don't know if y' all are doing this, but in our applicant tracking system, we have, like, fraud detection that runs, like, you know, checks things like, how old is this email address? Are they using a vpn? Are they filling out this application from the same location listed on their resume? Like, a lot of those things that could start indicating a fraudulent candidate or that sort of thing. And so when you see those alerts, then it's like, now I really need to dig in and see if I can verify that this is a real person. There's also cases where you have a real LinkedIn profile, like, the real resume of the person, but someone else is, like, representing them. And so, you know, things like that. And so if you don't check the LinkedIn and see what that person looks like, you might not realize that the person you're talking to is not the actual, like, the person whose LinkedIn profile resume name you have. And so, yeah, I mean, there's, like, all sorts of crazy stuff happening.

Speaker B: And, yeah, I was gonna say you're putting a lot more work in than you had to do in the past.

Speaker A: I think this is particularly for remote companies, because remote companies are real targets for this since it's. They're less likely to ask to meet you.

Speaker B: You ever run into somebody who's got multiple jobs and they're still, like, trying to Get a job with you and maintain those three, four full time jobs. I've heard this is an issue especially with remote.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm uh, familiar with the concept. I cannot say that I don't know if I've experienced it or not. I probably have but I've possibly we've hired people who are, but I honestly don't know for sure. I haven't met anyone that is openly planning to do that. Like I'm currently employed and I'm looking for something new. So I can't say I haven't made it higher in that situation.

Speaker B: But yeah, for somebody who's been searching for a job for a long time and just getting nowhere as a recruiter, what's some honest advice that you give them that they might not want to hear but they probably need to hear?

Speaker A: Yeah, the first is I think people need to have a realistic assessment of how competitive they are. And I do feel that most people over as much as we hear about imposter syndrome, I think most people are like kind of unrealistic about how competitive they are in the space. Because what I see a lot of is people saying I could totally do that job. Like, you know, they've never had a title that aligns with that job. But it's like I'm great at social media. I have, you know, a thousand followers on my personal social media. I could totally run social media for a tech company. It's like you couldn't. Like it's just two different things. So um, you know, that sort of dynamic. And I do think a lot of people are banking on like I'm smart, if given the opportunity I know I could figure this out. And they're forgetting that you probably can. But that company also probably has 500 people who have the exact experience they're looking for. And so they're not going to consider someone that's going to, you know, be diving into that job for the first time. So. So I mean that's one is I think people really need to do an honest assessment and apply for jobs that are fairly similar to the jobs that they've had similar industries. This is not the time to like pivot into an area especially where there's a high supply of talent. Don't pivot into hr. Ah, right now like so many HR people are already unemployed and having a hard time. You're going to have a really hard time breaking in to the space. So you know that sort of thing. Or if you are trying to make a pivot, don't look for remote Companies, because remote companies can hire people in any location. Look at lot more competition. Go look at your city government. Like they are probably struggling to find people. So you know, your government, uh, a small business with 30 employees, like in your town, those places are probably struggling to find talent. And so they are going to be much more willing to train. And also a lot of companies, like smaller businesses are more willing to have someone who only brings expertise in one area because you wear a lot more hats in those spaces. So they end up actually being a lot more like open about who could do the job. So I think, and I think this is a great use case for AI. Like tell, but just tell it to be, tell it to be extremely like picky and extremely discerning because otherwise it will glaze you. But like, if you can just tell it like, you know, you're only looking for the top 1% of matches, like how close am I? It will tell you very honestly, like where your disconnects are. That's probably some uh, advice I would give people. And the other is if you're not really competitive in the space you're trying to get into, then you need to kind of pivot what you're looking towards. And if you don't want to do the thing you've been doing and you are looking to make a career pivot, it needs to be in a place where there's job creation. So like, you know, go get certification that will allow you to become a teacher, uh, start substitute teaching and then you can transition to a full time teaching role. Look for like health care positions. Like look in the areas where there's a lot of job creation happening.

Speaker B: So in other words, don't do what you did.

Speaker A: I did it when the market was hot. And when the market is hot, then people should do that.

Speaker B: You made the pivot at the right time.

Speaker A: Yeah. And something I should say is I applied for my first job in tech in 2014. I didn't, I don't even know that I got, I definitely got no interviews. Like I got tech and private sector. Did not get a single interview from anyone when I first started applying for jobs in the private sector. Did it again like 2016, 2017. Actually got an interview at Google in 2017. It's like a finalist that I didn't get an offer. Same thing happened again in like 2019, like meta or something. So you know, at that point I started like getting interviews mostly because I now had friends that work there. So I was able to get referrals. Right. Get a foot in the door and then I could like make my case. And then it was like 2021. And because the market was really hot, I got two offers from, you know, tech companies. But it took like, it took a while because part of it has to be line up, uh, of like your experience and the job market. And so, and the other thing I did was I was willing to take a step back. I went back from management role. I actually came to Zapier as a recruiter, was able to like quickly move back into management, but I really wanted to make that move. So I was like, I don't care what level, like just give me something like give me a job. Um, and then I knew I would sort of like prove myself and have other opportunities arise. But you know, I think sometimes people like not every single one of your boxes is going to be checked, so you have to decide what's important to you.

Speaker B: We talked a little earlier about how AI is making things challenging in the recruiting hiring space from a positive standpoint, like, how is AI helping, uh, you and your team hire and recruit?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's great. We use it a lot as Zapier and I'm really excited about some of the potential because I do think what we were saying about like applicant tracking systems, they're not quite yet like evaluating people but like it's getting there and I'm really excited for that because I do think it's going to help, you know, be able to get through thousands of applications and really surface like great matches. And so I think we're headed towards that. But yeah, how are we using it now? We have a lot of tools, like AI tools for sourcing. We have a lot of like AI and automation built into our processes. So and just like flagging small things for the team, like this person hasn't heard from us, this person's a closing risk. Like those sorts of things that again, like Gen AI can pick up on. Looking across all the communication via like email and everything. We use Agentic, hm, AI recruiting tool. We don't have every candidate go through an AI interview. But for those sort of bubble candidates where probably a year ago we would have just rejected them and said like, we've got enough people to talk to now we kind of send those people who you're like, I see some potential, but there's real question marks too. Now we can give them an agentic interview, like AI interview.

Speaker B: What does that look like? I've never heard of verbal, like on video.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's like verbal. I mean they get on like this, um, there's an AI agent that's asking questions and it does follow ups. Like it knows what the rubric looks like. So it asks questions and it's really good like because you know, when I've done several of them to test it, I would give bad answers and it would be like I'm actually looking to hear more about this or like can you tell me a little bit more about your metrics? Or you know it like does a really good job of asking follow up questions and really getting like all the information. And then you can go in and sort of like listen to the interview, review the transcript. It does word against like a rubric. And that has helped us bring some candidates into the process that otherwise I think we would have rejected. And so that has been really cool. We um, use a tool called brighthire that is like a note taker but it also records every interview. So that's also great because it allows you to like kind of share candidates across hiring teams. And also if you know someone says like, hey, I'm a no on this candidate for this reason now you can actually go in and like watch the interview and be like, do we agree or is this person misaligned? Like it actually has allowed for a lot more coaching conversations, um, and alignment conversations.

Speaker B: What do the candidates say about the experience of that? Like do they have to like sign off? I would imagine they, they know that they're being recorded and that for all

Speaker A: of these things, yeah, they're, they can totally opt out of any of them with no penalty. On the agentix screener. I will say the majority of people have said that it totally exceeded their expectations, which is great. And I for, I did my first one almost two years ago at this point, like uh, like in a demo environment. And I felt that way like and initially I was like that's crazy, it's gonna be weird.

Speaker B: But just said.

Speaker A: And then I did it and I was like oh, this is like a very, you know, this is a nice experience. I think for most people it exceeds their expectations. Of course some people find, you know, the biggest feedback is probably that people feel like it's not as personal or they would have preferred to talk to a person. But I would also say that generally the people who are often it's not like your choices were a human interviewer or an agentic interviewer. It's usually like a rejection or rejection

Speaker B: or this is the option. Is it sort of a replacement of a phone screen? So a lot of small businesses I talk to, they do Phone screens. And then they get to the actual, like, hiring me manager might do an interview, maybe a panel after that. This would replace the phone screen.

Speaker A: It would replace the phone, but not exactly because for us, like, you'll still then meet with a recruiter before you go to the hiring manager. So it's more of like kind of candidates that the recruiter may not have spoken to that would have sort of been that like, next batch where you're like, I took the top seven people in my applicant pool, I interviewed them and then I felt like I had enough people, so I rejected everyone. Now it might be like, I'm going to take the top five and then I'm going to give the next 15 the sagentic screener to learn a little bit more. And then I'll take the best of that group, which might end up being different than like the two you would have picked on paper. That's how we're using it. I'm not saying every company is using it that way. That's just how we're doing it.

Speaker B: I, I'm just, I'm curious if it's going to be the norm at some point because clearly you're saving time. You're able to actually widen the pool a lot more because you're getting more, more data. And I'm sure you're using AI at, uh, some level to analyze, not make decisions, but.

Speaker A: Right. But the tool gives you like, summaries and it tells you like, based on your rubric. Here's how they, like stack up. So we do have guardrails. Like someone has to review every single one. And we have that in part so that people don't default to like, let me just send this to every applicant. It might just be, you know, quicker. We don't want people doing that. We don't want to waste candidates time. So. But yeah, so we got lots of AI tools.

Speaker B: Yeah, I was kind of curious, like, how many AI tools are you bolting into your process that maybe be back office for you and your team or that candidates are experiencing? And, um, where does Zapier play in all this? Because you have an AI and automation tool, Zapier as a product. How much of your own product are you bolting into the entire process?

Speaker A: Yeah, so the, uh, Zapier automation side of things is like very heavily integrated because that's how we move information from one place to another. And like, when, in previous places where I've worked, when you make a hire, you then have a bunch of other stuff you have to do, whereas at, uh, Zapier, once someone clicks hire, the recruiter is done. You never have to do anything else because Zapier actually takes them, it plugs them into like the H R I S. It sets off all their onboarding stuff, which is also automated. They get like an email. It's like, here's the stuff you figure out. They start getting invites for their onboarding stuff. Their tech is ordered. A human is not involved in like, any of that. But that's our, you know, historical like, automation tool. And then in terms of like the more AI side of things right now, I would say that's more of like the back office side versus, like candidates. We are using a ton of it for how we manage processes, like internally, like interview scheduling, interviewer, like training, like a lot of those pieces. And then I would say, like our team, like fraud detection, for example, we built our own, now our ATS has it, but before that our team had actually built their own fraud detection using like Zapier to check all, like run all of those checks and then send like an alert, that sort of thing. And so a lot of those things are built in. I don't like, I just built, uh, we haven't launched it yet, but it should launch in the next week. An external referral program for people to submit, like referrals to Zapier and get paid for them. People outside of Zapier. And I just built that all on Zapier with our agents. So it's managing like the communication, vetting the referrals against our open jobs and being like, here's the people you should look at and that sort of thing.

Speaker B: So you seem to be excited about where things.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I love it. I think it's great. Yeah. You know, every now and then I'll talk to people about other opportunities. I'm always like, do I get like, Claude code with unlimited? Because if not, I don't want it.

Speaker B: Uh, I just read something today that Claude's going through like their budget because of cloud code and the amount of people using it or something. I don't know how true that is,

Speaker A: but I'm sure I was shocked today and I was like, devastated.

Speaker B: Oh, my God.

Speaker A: I hit my max. And I was like, I don't have a max. What are you talking about?

Speaker B: So I'm curious as a recruiter, how you think about. I mean, because things are moving so fast, like with AI and automation and stuff. I'm like, you could be hiring for a role right now that in 12 months might be obsolete or something. So how does that ever stick in the back of your mind of like, okay, I'm hiring this position. We might not need this based on. Yeah, what's going to happen down there? Like, what do you, how do you think about that?

Speaker A: And sometimes that happens in, within the process. Like, over the course of the process. They're like, you know, things have really evolved. Like in the last.

Speaker B: Yeah, it was like I built. I just built this agent this week

Speaker A: that, that stuff, uh, we actually did have that happen with something where we were at an offer stage and the manager said, we're about to launch this thing and it's just totally revolutionizing how the team operates. And I don't think that we need this hire anymore. That is so fascinating, you know, so that stuff's tough, but better to find out, I guess, before, you know, someone quits their job and, uh, signs an offer. But I think part of it is hiring people that can kind of grow and scale with your company and hiring for, like, some of those, like, transferable skills. So, uh, what. I mean, there is like, anyone that we hire for recruiting, we had a really high bar for how they're using AI because our thought was your role might evolve, you might turn into, you know, maybe you don't need to really know much about sourcing anymore because you've got tools that are going to be driving your sourcing and you just need to manage them. So are you also comfortable with that? Like, do you have the mindset to navigate that? Are you building things and are you, like, excited about that? So that if we told you, hey, like, it's less about, like, your ability to get on LinkedIn Recruiter, you don't have a LinkedIn Recruiter license anymore. You're not going to be sourcing on there. We're going to ask you to, like, build an agent and train an agent that does that for you. Is that something you're, like, comfortable and excited about? Because that might be what recruiting looks like in a few months. And so I think, like, really testing for that agility, adaptability, and for some of the baseline skills that you think, like, people need. You hear a lot about, like, T shaped talent. That's one of the buzzwords, right?

Speaker B: Like, I don't think I know that. What is that? What is. Can you explain that?

Speaker A: T shaped talent is this idea of, like, um, people who have deep. So the, the stick of the T deep, like, uh, expertise in one kind of functional area, but they also have, like, the breadth to apply that knowledge across multiple functions.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: So rather Than you know, you want someone. Like, I'm probably somewhat a good example of this because like I have some deep like recruiting expertise, but I also have some pockets of like using some of those similar skills in like an L and D space a little bit like, and then even better if you're like. And that would translate into sales or. And like we could plop that person into a customer success org and they could kind of like consultants. Management consultants are a great example of this. Like I feel like management consultants are going to be hot for a lot of tech companies because they are able to be thrown into so many situations and very quickly build contacts and like figure out how to add value.

Speaker B: So Fascinating. It sounds like you're pretty hands on with the AI, uh, tools.

Speaker A: Oh yeah.

Speaker B: Are you?

Speaker A: Yeah, I have like a whole screen of them right now.

Speaker B: I'm like so fascinated by this because I am too. Um, I haven't really got too deep into the cloud code stuff or even the cowork stuff. I want to, but I'm um, there's just like, as I'm producing more AI stuff and using it more, I'm like there's more. I'm producing a lot of stuff and there's a lot of stuff to review and edit and a lot of this is slop in some ways. Are you seeing that with people, like the way people are using it differently or it's like we're, we might be saving time but we're just doing more and just having more to uh, more stuff to deal with that. It was an articulated question, but I'm just curious how you think about that.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree and we've kind of talked about that as a team because we're like, everyone's building these skills in Claude code, but you don't really know is the output of that at the highest quality or what else would it take to make it uh, you know, take it to the next level, like that sort of thing. And so we sort of started something where it's like everyone can build stuff but then we're vetting it and then only picking kind of like the top ones that then become sort of shared skills that uh, the whole team or the whole company has access to. We built, for example at Zapier, we built a skill builder that gives Claude instructions like or cursor when you're building skills. Here's the stuff to do to make it pretty decent so uh, that we tell people run that and then have it build your skill for you so that it's not like totally terrible, but I mean, I do think a lot of what people are doing is, is crap. But I also think that's a learning process because you have to like, do something that doesn't work very well. Like, I. Probably the reason I hit my limits or they're trying to cut me off is I built something that theoretically has awesome results, but it took like six hours to run every single time. It was like. So I mean, I spent like days trying to figure out okay, because it had to go through so much information. And it was basically a skill that will search our entire applicant tracking system to find like certain profiles, which is extremely hard to do. Um, and so I had to like, keep iterating with it to be like, you're still taking too long. Like, what else can we try, like management. What else can we try to help you, like, quickly filter through the noise so you can focus, you know, that sort of thing. Because. Yeah. So you like, have to just spend, not exorbitant, but a lot of time, like going through those cycles. And if you're not willing to. If you just kind of give up the first time, then most of what you're going to be doing isn't actually going to like, make you more effective. But I also think you have to go through those periods in order to learn the technology, you know, same as any other tech.

Speaker B: Yeah. As, um, AI, uh, is reshaping what jobs exist and how people are getting hired, clearly it's, it's changing the way people are getting hired. What does that mean for equity? Do you think it's like leveling the playing field or do you think it's making things more inequitable?

Speaker A: Yeah, probably potentially both. And um, I do think right now there's. My understanding is like one of the biggest gaps with AI use is along lines of gender. I think it's actually like fairly consistent in terms of ethnicity, but for gender, women are using it at far lower rates than men. Um, it could be partially representation in tech where it's being used the most. But anyway, um, and then women are also playing a much less of a role on the building side. So even if they're using it, the use that they're using, it's more of like the AI that's built into the tech that they're using or an AI assistant versus like building workflows and things. And I do think it's the people who are building workflows who, like we could get to a place where if you, Brandon, like create this AI agent That is so sophisticated that you've trained so well where a company is like we want to hire Brandon's agent because it would take us like years to train a similar agent. And so they're hiring you in order to hire your agent for you bring you know we're, we could be moving to that world right like in uh, the next few years. So the, the people who have those crazy opportunities like the guy that built Open Claw or whatever where you got that massive package from OpenAI Ah like the people who have those opportunities are going to be the builders, not just the users. And so I do, I think like everyone needs to get building. Um, and so yeah, ah, that's like one thing I'll say. And then we also know you know with like I think right now it's early enough that I think if people like get in on it it can actually be an equalizer because it's still early. So it's early enough to become an expert. But I also think access like the resources to be able to afford it to even you know me like working at a company that gives me unlimited use and tells me like whatever AI tools I want like go get them and I cursor I have Claude like I have all of them with unlimited use. Like a lot of people don't get that. A lot of people don't have a company that's like sure, you can, you can reads every email, every slack page, every system. Like that's yeah, not every company gives.

Speaker B: I've got, I've literally got all the tools. We just, in our company we just launched Copilot and so it's like it's looking at my emails and all that stuff and I've always had chat GPT. I've always had a paid cloud account. I've always had a paid Gemini M account. I have all the tools that I'm using them all. It's funny because I, my son's 14 and he, he was asking like hey, can I log into your cloud account? I'm like absolutely dude. Like, like I need you to start using these tools.

Speaker A: No, you cannot see the camera. I will make you.

Speaker B: I mean yeah, I mean I don't really want them to see it's all work related stuff but I'm uh, like just don't touch my stuff. But you can play around with it. Like I really, I do want my kids learning how to, how to use this.

Speaker A: I actually let. So I have a five year old and we will like use it together. And I had a funny moment recently where he said, um, he's going to be starting kindergarten in the fall. And so he was like, what's kindergarten gonna be like if you don't know? You can ask Chachi if you teach.

Speaker B: That's a good use case. Yeah.

Speaker A: So, but I'll let him like, he asks questions and I put on voice to text. He'll ask a question, uh, we'll like look at the answer and that kind of thing. So it's very basic, but I've kind of like let him play on there. I'm like, this will be a part of your learning experience so let's learn how to ask better questions.

Speaker B: So we covered a lot today, but since you are so active on LinkedIn and you post a lot of different ideas and thoughts, what did we not cover today that you think is that needs some airtime or that people just aren't talking about enough and you're like, I want to, uh, people need to know more about this. What is that?

Speaker A: Yeah, one thing I'll say is I noticed like a lot of HR professionals because we have a tendency to be, I don't actually consider myself hr, but people in the HR space like tend to be very like risk averse. And I think that is one of the things that's going to like hold people back in this like new era. And so I think there's like an opportunity right now for people to really embrace this and be like, we recognize there's environmental risks, there's, there are certainly like equity risks, like figure out how to solve those while using the technology. Because I do think that there's going to be a real divide in the future and I don't want like people in a very female dominated field who probably have like some of the perspective that's like really important in terms of doing this in an ethical way to be left behind because they're not kind of embracing and using the tools. And I think if you want to, if you want to support having it like regulated and having it used in ways that are ethical and make society better and like make us more human than you have to first like be a super user of the product, otherwise your opinions and your voice isn't going to, you're not going to have a seat at the table around it.

Speaker B: So yeah, because a lot of HR people, they want to see at the table, but they're still operating with old school HR habits, policies and procedures. Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I was going to end with that, but I just thought of another question because I think it's really important. You're very tech savvy. You work inside of a tech company in the HR space. There's so much tech now and like a decade ago there wasn't this many tools available. Now if you think through when you vet new technology and products, uh, that you're going to possibly add, like, what's your process there? Because for HR people who are not tech savvy, it's overwhelming to pick a tool that your whole company or the, in the recruiting process and all of a sudden they're going to use and it changes the experience and operations completely. How do you go about vetting?

Speaker A: That's a great question. And I'm probably not like the best person to ask because I feel like I probably like haven't always done the best job, but I always look at like the end user experience and like go around. Can you kind of poke around and like in a demo environment and actually like make things happen pretty easily? Like, is it intuitive? Because I think that's where a lot of technology use, like gets lost. Like a lot of the functionality of tools doesn't actually get used because people can't figure out how to do it. And so instead they spend time like really just frustrated. And why doesn't this work? I think sometimes looking at like, what is the path to get the things that you want done? I once, uh, agreed. I didn't pick the ats, but agreed to an implementation even though I did have like, concerns based on referral references that I did that I had flagged. But once we got it, it took like 13 clicks and each click required a page reload to review a single application. It was awful. And yeah, so I mean we were able to get on a different system within a year. We were like, this is just unusable. But it had honestly just, I don't know, it had never occurred to me to even ask that or like think about that. I would say like, do references like actually talk to people using the product? What are your pain points, that sort of thing? I think more. I don't know, it's not, I don't have any great advice obviously, but really I think it is just like get in there and play around. Can you like figure it out quickly and what do other people using it like, think about it, what are their pain points? And then like ask the company what they're doing about it. Ask them how quickly they uh, ship new features. Because that's a big thing. If you request something, they'll put it on a Roadmap and you're not going to get it for the next three years or is it like actually, you know, we can do custom, you know, integrations and turn them around in two weeks. Like, you know, very different experiences. So I think like actually just getting into some of those things of like asking those questions in a chance.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's good advice. Bonnie, thank you for spending so much time with me today. This is a lot of, a lot

Speaker A: of fun to chat.

Speaker B: Uh, what do you want to plug before you leave?

Speaker A: Yeah, all the social media like Instagram, uh, TikTok, LinkedIn. Also a newsletter, it's called Landed. And I talk about both like job search and career development advice. Like last week I talked about performance reviews and prepping for performance reviews like now versus when they kick off. So, you know, just advice for professionals navigating the world, like, uh, that kind of thing. And I also talk a lot about like AI and using AI and that sort of thing. So wide variety of content for any audience of people who works. So yeah, find me on any of those.

Speaker B: My guest today has been Bonnie Dilver, the senior manager of talent acquisition at Zapier. Bonnie, thanks for coming on.

Speaker A: Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker B: Hey, thanks so much for tuning in for today's episode of transform your workplace. The content on this show is strictly for general information and educational purposes only so that you can go transform your workplace in a positive way. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed on the show are the guest's own and don't represent the views, thoughts and opinions of either Zenium hr, the sponsor of the show, or me, the host, Brandon Laws, additionally Zenium HR, or myself. Brandon Laws doesn't endorse any guest, their business, or any organization they represent, so discretion is advised. We encourage you to work with a trusted advisor to find a custom approach that fits your organization's needs. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode.