Building A Strategic TA Function

[00:00:00] Support for this podcast is provided by Paradox, the conversational AI company that's transformed the hiring process for global TA teams like General Motors, Nestle and McDonalds to get recruiting work done faster. What if recruiting and hiring was as simple as this? Yes, this. The conversation I'm having with you right now.

[00:00:23] With Paradox, it is. They leverage conversational AI to seamlessly automate time-consuming recruiting tasks like applicant screening, interview scheduling and onboarding via chat conversations right on the candidate's phone or laptop so recruiters can spend more time with people, not software. Paradox has helped global employers save countless hours and millions in recruiting costs simply by making hiring simple and conversational.

[00:00:51] Visit Paradox.ai to learn how Paradox can work for you. That's Paradox.ai.

[00:01:16] Hi there, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 565 of the Recruiting Future podcast. Talent acquisition is in a state of fast accelerating disruption and it's never been more critical for TA leaders to demonstrate the strategic value of their function. However, in the current volatile environment, many organisations are still struggling to get the essential elements of recruiting right.

[00:01:44] So, what should TA teams be focusing on to make sure they're fit for purpose in an uncertain future? My guests this week are Kurt Bridge and Christian Lelou from Macrame Consulting. Kurt and Christian are both highly experienced TA leaders. They have much advice to share on building the right foundations for talent acquisition and implementing effective data-driven recruiting.

[00:02:11] Hi Kurt. Hi, Christian. Welcome to the podcast. Please could you introduce yourselves and tell everyone what you do? Hey Matt, it's Kurt. Really appreciate you having me on your show. Looking forward to the conversation. So, I'm the co-founder and head of our search business here at Macrame Consulting. Living and breathing everything talent acquisition in APAC for the last 20 years. So, Red Hat, Dell, EMC and Cisco. Myself and Christian have recently set up Macrame Consulting.

[00:02:41] So, three main areas of focus. Consulting, so helping organizations increase their effectiveness of a TA function. Macrame Search, as the name says. So, running searches and doing deconstructed searches across the APAC region. And what we're also seeing a lot of growth in at the moment is Macrame Embedded. We're looking at organizations who are scaling up here and looking at plug and play or embedded solutions,

[00:03:09] which allows them to do a lot more cost effectively. So, great to be here. Looking forward to the conversation. And Christian? Thank you. Christian Alou here. Lovely to be here, Matt. And thanks for the time. Originally from Australia. I shifted to Singapore about nine years ago now. For me, a bit of a TA tragic, to be honest. I've been in the field for quite some time, nearly two decades. My previous role before joining forces with Kurt at Macrame Consulting was at Microsoft, where I led quite a large team across the Asia region.

[00:03:40] We focused on talent sourcing, talent intelligence, talent analytics. But also from a delivery perspective, we are kind of 150 strong and accountable for upwards of 5,000 hires a year. Prior to that, I spent five years at Apple, initially on the retail side, helping with their retail expansion across greater China. So again, developing their sourcing function, their sourcing strategy, bringing in team members, connecting it with the CRM. Prior to that, I worked in professional services. I've worked in engineering. I've worked in government. I've worked in education.

[00:04:09] But many, many moons ago, when I first got into talent acquisition, I cut my teeth in agency and then RPO. So again, thanks for having us here today. Fantastic stuff. And great to have both of you on the show. Now, I always start with a question about the market. And we've had lots of information and opinion and insights into what's going on in the US and what's going on in Europe. But this year, not much insight from APAC.

[00:04:32] So delighted to be able to ask you about the trends and the challenges that you're seeing in APAC talent markets at the moment. Yeah, look, it's a fascinating market, Matt. Obviously, one which we both enjoy. Obviously, you're living here for so many years. But obviously, a huge region have over half the world's population living here, extremely diverse.

[00:04:55] So, you know, six, three different countries make up the APAC region over 2000 different spoken languages and dialects, many cultural different norms, nuances. I think when it comes to hiring, look, you know, it's certainly we haven't escaped the trends which have happened globally. But I think, you know, when you look at the APAC region and you look at the challenges around, you know, obviously the culture, the languages, the maturity levels, it makes it a really interesting place to be in.

[00:05:25] And I think, you know, for those of us who are operating here and certainly for those who, you know, work for large global organizations, then I think there's a big educational piece. You know, what does work here? What doesn't work here? Example of this would be we're talking to a sales leader in the US last week and they're looking to expand and bring over a sales leader. The original plan was to have somebody covering Japan, ASEAN and China.

[00:05:53] And when you trim this down is actually essentially about 12 different countries they'd be covering all with our own languages, all with very different levels of maturity. So I think providing these insights, providing this education around what works and what doesn't work in APAC is absolutely essential. So I think localization, dealing with the cultural nuances, having an affinity for those is absolutely key to how companies operate and succeed in APAC.

[00:06:20] Now, this year we've seen layoffs and downsizing in talent acquisition all over the world, it seems. And they started to happen very quickly. I know that they're still happening. There's some talk that the market might be picking up in certain geographies. And this comes on the back of a period where companies couldn't hire enough recruiters. So there's obviously not much long term thinking or strategy behind what's going on.

[00:06:45] So what are the unintended consequences of these TA layoffs that you're seeing? Yeah, look, it's a great question. So as I said, you know, we haven't avoided, unfortunately, the big large tech layoffs here. You know, obviously, especially in the back office functions in APAC. But what I think is different with this downturn, certainly different from what I've seen before, is we've seen a lot of senior leadership being laid off.

[00:07:12] Not only, you know, in TA, but within HR or operations or branding. And, you know, I think this creates a big challenge, certainly that strategy level. I know from talking to a lot of TA leaders who, you know, fortunately remained in their roles, you know, that they're struggling. You know, there's a lot of pressure on them. They're generally under-resourced at the moment. And I think, you know, at times like this, they're getting forced very much into a transactional play.

[00:07:38] So I think the question probably might at the moment is, you know, how do companies grow out of this? You know, how do we get that innovation engine running again? How do we get it revved up again? You know, as we said earlier, one of the areas we're seeing a lot of demand at the moment is around sort of fractional leadership. So, you know, if you like sort of guns for hire or guns to rent. So how do you bring in expertise on a demand basis rather than committing to full-time headcounts?

[00:08:01] What we're also seeing is smart companies looking more to more embedded or RPO solutions as a plan for the future and a plan maybe for, you know, hiring spikes towards next year. So, you know, more fixed cost, allowing more for scalability up and down. And I think certainly for the companies which were burnt or, you know, had to lay off, unfortunately, a lot of people during the downtime. This is, you know, really smart move moving forward.

[00:08:29] So, so yeah, there was some of the key things we're seeing and some of maybe the differences which which are happening this time around. You know, we talk about strategy, senior TA people being laid off, companies sort of struggling to move forward and be strategic. There's always lots and lots of talk about innovation and the future. And obviously, that's what this podcast is pretty much all about. But do you think that most TA functions have got the basics right?

[00:08:59] And what what's kind of lacking in terms of building that foundation to innovate and be strategic and move forward? Yeah, I'll take that one, Matt. And I love that question. It's very near and dear to my heart. In fact, you'd like to think in a galaxy not too far away, a lot of TA functions are optimized, you know, are living at the bleeding edge of talent acquisition.

[00:09:22] But unfortunately, and certainly through my experience and the more I work with Kirk, his experience and certainly some of the clients we work with today, I think in a word, you know, the answer is no. So TA functions don't have the basics right, which for me, you know, remains surprising and somewhat perplexing, certainly in the year of 2023. I think as a discipline, you know, TA seems to want to keep reinventing itself, chasing new soundbite or trend.

[00:09:47] The recruiting fundamentals and the value of the function really haven't changed much over time. It's about connecting people. You know, the old adage of right person, right role at the right time. We seem to want to overcomplicate rather than simplify. And I think interestingly, the AI discussion that's rampant at the moment, you know, we're all kind of tagging ourselves to that and, you know, what will the future be with AI? And, you know, will it make recruiters roles redundant? What will it replace in part of the process?

[00:10:17] And I think a lot of the time we're asking the wrong questions. Do we have our own foundations right? Liking it to maybe an analogy of, you know, building a structure, building a building. You know, if the foundations are right, we can continue to build up. You know, we can level up. We can also place things around at the complement. But if we don't get the foundations right and they're wobbly, it makes it much harder to withstand the storm.

[00:10:40] And I think suffice to say, you know, in the current environment, TA globally is certainly weathering a very big storm. And so perhaps a bit of a definition, you know, maybe more aptly put in terms of the basics is what is foundational recruiting? And, you know, for me, it's all of the things that allow for the structure to lead to great delivery, to lead to great reporting and analysis. It's that entire recruiting lifecycle.

[00:11:07] So it's things like org structure, operating model, role definitions, KPIs and metrics, processes, workflows, systems, tools and reporting. Maybe more pronounced and amplified post-pandemic is the concept of experience and providing the right experience to each and every persona that interact throughout that recruitment lifecycle. You ask the question, like, is it hard to optimize or why is it hard to optimize? It could be a question of prioritization, competing agendas. Perhaps it's more a matter of, you know, time or the money investment.

[00:11:35] And I think in most cases, it certainly could be due to the underlying behaviors, you know, of the team members themselves, the sources, the recruiters and the TA leaders. There's a lot there to unpack, but perhaps a quick example. Everybody has an ATS and the people that use the ATS every day, they complain about it. It's clunky. It doesn't have great search functionality. Profiles are hard to find. Share with that hiring managers and the list goes on. You know, as a result, we see recruiters spend as little time as possible in the ATS. Yeah.

[00:12:03] The outcome, simply put, poor data integrity and hygiene, workflows that are used more like a choose your own adventure story, and ultimately a significant number of missed opportunities with respect to our direct applicants. And so I've seen in companies up to, you know, maybe 70% of direct applicants and referrals just not actioned. They're not reviewed. They're not screened. They're certainly not interviewed. They're kind of left on the shelf. And maybe that's because we're time poor.

[00:12:31] Maybe that's because we have ace candidates in the pocket. But there are very little kind of instances and times when that's truly the case. And so we say, we're time poor. I don't have time to do that. But when we actually lift the lid and go and do some very simple analysis of the people that are warm, that are attached to the company, that are directly applying, there are people there that do suit the needs, that are being called out in terms of skills or background or experience from the hiring teams. But we're just not getting there. For me, that's, you know, the ultimate goldmine at the end of the ATS rainbow. And we ignore it.

[00:13:01] That, for me, is basics. That's within arm's reach. We don't need AI. We don't need a lot of money. We don't need a lot of time to go in and properly vet those individuals and bring them to the fore. And so one example of many, but ATS for me, in the context of foundational recruiting and the culture that should permeate through that delivery team simply isn't there and simply isn't prioritized.

[00:13:26] I think that's interesting, particularly in terms of companies seeking to have a great candidate experience. But actually, that's being undone by some fundamentals that aren't in place elsewhere. For example, if you're just, you know, ignoring people who've applied or effectively ignoring people who applied. You also mentioned data there.

[00:13:49] Keen to get your views on the role of data in this and the role of, and you know, your kind of definition of data-driven recruiting. It's a hot topic as well. You know, how to use data to create efficiencies? How do you transform data into insights? We're getting that question from a lot of our clients at the moment. We've actually put a kind of a working series together, some training and some workshops for clients. But let's start with, I mean, our definition. We've thought about this and here's one that I prepared earlier.

[00:14:19] But I mean, data-driven recruiting is an approach to the recruiting process that relies on the systematic collection, analysis and utilization of data and metrics to make informed and strategic hiring decisions. It involves leveraging quantitative and qualitative data to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of recruiting efforts, enhance the candidate experience, and ultimately drive better hiring outcomes for an organization. Okay, so it's just data. Yes? Well, no.

[00:14:45] When you actually start to think about what's involved in collecting the data, managing the data, assessing the data, transforming the data, there's a lot there. And it's not necessarily a skill set that sits or kind of, you know, rests within the current TA structure. You know, we're often looking to bring those skills in from the HRBI team, perhaps somebody in the TA ops team is very adept with managing data. But really, it's a full-time job or could be a series of full-time jobs to get it right.

[00:15:15] And so what we're really thinking here is, well, why do I need data and how do I use it in the recruiting process? And the answer is actually, you know, quite simple. The first trick we often miss, unfortunately, is data integrity and data hygiene. And again, it comes back to those behaviors. And so if, you know, the inputs are testament to the outputs. And so if we don't have a team that has a foundational recruiting culture that is dotting I's, that is crossing T's, we end up with very disparate systems, very disparate processes.

[00:15:45] There's no way of collating. And ultimately, you end up with recruiters sitting on their desktop, opening another Excel spreadsheet to run a search. And so there's data, but it's not data driven. It's not transforming it. And so how would we consider data driven recruiting in the current context?

[00:16:02] Well, we think about all of the points that data exists, internal systems, external systems, the way that we bring that to the fore, the way that we clean it, the way that we make it accessible, the way that, again, we transform it for audience specific interactions to highlight pain points, challenges, opportunities, where the funnel is strong, where the funnel is weak, where we're making the right hiring decisions and where we may be making the wrong hiring decisions.

[00:16:29] I think, again, not to over kind of oversimplify, but the data is there. And so you need the requisite time to go in and again, make it clean and ultimately accessible. And then you need an overlay. And that could be a dashboard. It could be a Power BI. It could be a Tableau. And once you start to get that data into the system, you can actually start to see relationships that you couldn't see before. And you can automate a lot of that.

[00:16:56] Some of the companies I've worked with have been, I would say, very much on the front foot, had the tools in play, had the skills across the organization, albeit they didn't exist within TA. And we're able to take data from the ATS, the CRM, the HRIS, put it within a Power BI system and start to really say, well, what are the insights that we want to drive?

[00:17:15] And so then, and only then, can you start to inform the hiring teams, the HR counterparts, all the people that rely on us as talent acquisition professionals to be the subject matter experts. And that's, again, something that we tend to miss. Are there organizations that aren't doing this? Because, you know, it sounds like a pretty obvious step to take.

[00:17:42] Appreciate that many people don't have the specialist resource to do this. But is it something that a lot of organizations aren't doing? Unfortunately, it is. You know, we see iteration upon iteration of a new workflow and new process. A lot of that obviously reveals data or requires the input of data. It's only as good as the behaviors of the team that are charged with, you know, the inputs themselves. And I think that's where there's a very interesting nexus of saying, well, I can build the mothership, I can build the Death Star.

[00:18:09] But if people aren't going to want to write it or be part of it, then it often becomes moot. And so, yes, we continue to iterate, but we don't get to that final output. And so it breaks down, especially in large multinationals where, you know, you've got a lot of legacy systems. There's high complexity and people are time poor. And so they opt for the path of least resistance. I describe it as very basic and very simple.

[00:18:34] Why couldn't you just go and get all the data and overlay it with a nice dashboard and train the team on how to use those outputs and say, here are the one, two, threes of how to consult your hiring teams and the business leaders. But I've been on journeys where that's taken two years. And half of that time was just to get access to the data. And so that's part of Kurt's experience and my experience. And so there's a lot of negotiation through that. Teams within the organization, you know, want to maintain degrees of control over that data.

[00:19:04] They don't want any kind of built in obsolescence to how they're looking at it. But often those teams that are charged with the data management aren't in the field. They're not talent acquisition professionals. And so there's a mismatch with what they're producing to what the real needs of the teams are in terms of reporting. Combine that with a lethargy or time poorness, however you want to describe it. And we just seem to kind of take one step forward and two steps back.

[00:19:29] One of the biggest frustrations that I've heard from TA leaders this year is the difficulties they have in proving their strategic value to the organization. And this has really come to the fore with, you know, the layoffs that are being made that do feel like organizations taking a very short term view when it comes to recruiting and talent acquisition and what talent acquisition does and what it's for.

[00:19:55] What would your advice be to TA leaders listening in terms of how they can prove that strategic long term value to their organization? So, look, I think there's a maturity model, certainly when you look at TA functions and obviously a lot which Christian just talks about there. And, you know, we often talk about this nirvana of, you know, everything squeaky clean and we're going after all the shiny new objects. And, you know, as we said, you know, getting a fundamental is absolutely key and how you build on those.

[00:20:24] But I think when we look at the maturity model and we call it talent 1.0, 2.0, 3.0. But I think, you know, if you look at the evolution of talent acquisition, you know, let's face it, you know, going back 15 years ago, we were obviously it was all agency outsourced and then LinkedIn came around. So it's all great. You know, we can, you know, save some money here and, you know, reduce our costs from agencies and build out an internal talent team.

[00:20:52] So, I mean, you know, those basics, you know, very basics is what we call talent 1.0, you know, saving money for the business, you know, putting in some processes, probably an ATS, et cetera. So talent 2.0 is obviously the more sophisticated or getting more sophisticated here. So, you know, you're saving money externally, you're building out EVPs, you're doing, you know, CRMs, looking at passive candidates and probably, you know, having a little bit better measurements of success.

[00:21:20] But I think, you know, where strategic value comes from and where this proverbial invite to the leadership table comes from, I guess, you know, the magic is probably in TA 3.0. And, you know, that's very much what Christine just talked about, you know, having data, but having really clean data and being able to provide insights from that. And that's absolutely key. We've written a few posts recently about, you know, keeping your leadership awake with data. You know, what is a business strategy?

[00:21:50] You know, what are you trying to solve? What is future talent? What does that look like? How to build future ready talents within your CRM, et cetera, is absolutely key there. So I think, you know, that's certainly one. But, you know, a huge focus, which, you know, should be for any TA leader. And then, you know, I think other things, you know, we would say, you know, obviously we're very outbound focused in many ways. You know, we get the wreck and we, you know, jump on LinkedIn and we do some headhunting.

[00:22:17] But I think, you know, obviously, as Christine mentioned, you know, you have an ATS and more mature companies have thousands of people in there. How do we use that more effectively? But also, you know, there's a big move towards, and especially obviously in resource, when we're resource stricken times like we have at the moment, where, you know, how do we create better internal talent marketplaces? And I think, you know, a lot of this stuff is skill-based, you know, focus and hiring more for potential and experiences.

[00:22:46] You know, that takes, you know, a really, I don't want to call it strategic, but mature CA function to start working highly effectively across many different divisions. You know, so having this wide lens, partnering, you know, with your finance, with your HR, your marketing team, obviously your business.

[00:23:06] And, you know, really creating an overall view of, you know, a collective insights, you know, which allows you to actually, you know, leadership teams to future-proof your organization. And, you know, we could talk for hours about that type of stuff. But, you know, the quality of your hiring or, you know, how tenured people are in their roles or, you know, attrition, et cetera.

[00:23:28] But I think the leaders of the future, CA leaders of the future are those who can, you know, work across all those different functions and pull all that insights together and provide that to the business. So, I think, you know, they're pretty key. I don't know, Christine, have you got anything to add to that? We spend too much time in a reactive model. We need to be more proactive. And so we can't wait for the business or HR to, you know, define the strategy. We need to be part of that. And I often say, you know, we need to shift and transition from in service of to in partnership with how do you do that?

[00:23:56] You become a true consultant from the vantage point of talent acquisition to deliver those insights to help inform the strategy and ultimately make better hiring decisions. And so, you know, the ATS example is a great one, but we do. We see it every day. We'll come to a hiring brief. We'll ask what you need. Would you like fries with that? I'm ignoring everything that's within arm's reach. And then we go kind of zero-sum approach. We go out and we start an external search. We go to LinkedIn and we spend a week doing it.

[00:24:24] And we come back and we realize that half the people that we've identified as suitable are already within the ATS, are already warm and already engaged, perhaps have already gone through a number of processes and have been deemed suitable for hire. So think about, again, coming from a point of simplicity, but turning up to that hiring brief, already have done the analysis and have not just benchmark candidates, but candidates that are ready to interview. And doing that through ATS overlay of a Power BI, again, it's easy. The search might take three to four minutes rather than the week or 10 days that it would take for a more traditional search.

[00:24:54] And instead of asking the hiring manager, you know, well, tell me about the role. What do you need? You already know what the role requires. You've hired against that for the last six months, 12 months, 18 months. And you say, I don't need to know about the role. I need you to open your calendar and find me some slots to schedule interviews for these five people. They are the best. Your hiring managers have already met with them in the past. They've deemed them suitable. They're diverse. They're from compete organizations. And we're ready to rumble. We don't do that. We're looking in the wrong spots.

[00:25:22] And so we're kind of one hand tied behind our backs. And for me, it comes down to that reactive, time poor, focusing on the wrong pieces of the puzzle or the wrong outcomes when we should be looking for shortcuts and the ability to compress that process into a better outcome through data-driven recruiting. So a final question to both of you. Huge amounts of hype about AI this year.

[00:25:50] And a lot of the short-term predictions haven't come true yet. However, it is very clear that it's a very disruptive medium to long-term force. And the implications are enormous. What do you think TA is going to look like in this new AI-driven age? Creativity, innovation, driving the value is obviously key, as we mentioned, to moving forward.

[00:26:17] AI will maybe get you 60% or 70% there. But as many people say, AI only gets you to good. It doesn't get you to great. So I think if we're in a world whereby everybody's using AI for marketing comms and to push out JDs, we're going to be in a world of just average very, very quickly. Everyone uses the same content.

[00:26:39] So I think we say, obviously, AI is going to help productivity and give us more time back, which is a fantastic thing to have. Just talking about some of the things we've mentioned earlier. We are time poor, extremely time poor. But I think, going back to the other point, what is it going to be? What drives the difference? It's creativity, innovation, and whatever that looks like. There's a whole list of things you could talk about there, Matt.

[00:27:09] But I think it's going from that good to great and having a time to do that, which I think AI will allow that. So yeah, that's where we're at. I agree with those sentiments. I think for me, AI increasingly becomes more of an automation and efficiency play. I mean, AI is not new. You know, AI is part of the emails we send. It's part of the Netflix that we watch. I think with its current iteration and all the hype around ChatGPT, okay, great. What does that allow you to do? Write something, create prompts. Again, it's getting to the output much more quickly.

[00:27:37] And so anything that I think Kurt touched on there, anything that provides sources, recruiters, TA leaders with more time back to focus on the high value tasks, the meaningful interactions with candidates, with hiring managers and stakeholders is only going to benefit TA. It's not going to take anything away. But to an earlier point, you need the requisite skills. And so undertaking a huge AI project, we've got to kind of bolt it to the existing ATS CRM. That's very clunky.

[00:28:06] Okay, there are tools like Beamery. There are tools like Eightfold. There are tools like Maya. And I love Maya as a kind of conversational AI. I've been reading a lot about that of late. But again, it comes down to providing time back. And so, yeah, you can get to the midpoint or the three-quarter way point much quicker, but it's how you use those data points. You could sit there manually and get to the right outcome or even the same outputs in terms of the data that you're analyzing. But AI doesn't sleep.

[00:28:34] And so, you know, think about how many interactions, conversational AI tool like Maya can be having with your candidates, helping them feel seen and heard. And I'm almost kind of paraphrasing from a recent person article. But then you come to the office and, you know, you've effectively as a company engaged 300, 400, maybe in the thousands of candidates that feel much more attached. You know, they're sticking us to your brand rather than sitting in that black hole and never hearing from a recruiter again.

[00:29:01] So, you know, a pragmatic approach is going to be best. I think the hype dies down and we see what's left. There are some great tools coming out. There are some great, again, efficiency and automation plays. But the leaders of these organizations need to be making those decisions on behalf of the team. And they need to be helping them, again, probably a conversation at the time with the compliance aspect around leveraging AI within the recruiting model as it stands today.

[00:29:24] So I'm in favor of it, but I definitely recommend a pragmatic approach not to get swept away with the soundbite that is AI. Christian, Kurt, thank you very much for joining me. Thanks, Matt. Thanks, Matt. Pleasure. Absolute pleasure. My thanks to Kurt and Christian. If you're a fan of the Recruiting Future podcast, then you will absolutely love our monthly newsletter, Recruiting Future Feast. Not only does it give you the inside track on what's coming up on the show,

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