Recruiting Brainfood - Issue 322

LinkedIn algorithm, ChatGPT for recruiter outreach & the Flexible Jobs Index

Hung Lee

Dec 11, 2022

This week’s brainfood is supported by our buddies at BrightHire.

There’s been a lot of buzz about pay transparency lately.

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Whether the laws are impacting your company – or you want to tackle them proactively – BrightHire’s Pay Transparency Checklist is here to help.

It includes 8 easy steps to help you update your hiring process and stay compliant with pay transparency laws.

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Friends,

I’m really glad to see everyone get excited about Generative Artificial Intelligence.

It’s seems like every week there is an application which catches fire, whether it is Lensa AI helping us all look like characters from the latest Star Wars franchise or ChatGPT which is changing the way we search, create and even think. Generative AI is clearly breakthrough technology which has the potential to revolutionise the world of work, including a great deal of the stuff we as recruiters currently do. It is imperative for us to be skilled users of GAI, particularly if we want to increase productivity, add more value to our businesses and future proof our market value.

One thing I wanted to say that I will not be using any GAI to produce this newsletter. I am going to experiment with it, but this will be on another channel and clearly labelled as such. The reason is that I genuinely enjoy ‘hand producing’ this copy and I want to make sure you know that it is a Human Hung putting it together, every week. I do need a Robo Hung though, so expect to see this guy as soon as I can figure out how I can get him up and running. 🤣

Thank you all for your support last week, especially to Clair Mohammed, Christian Payne, Joey NK Koksal, Paul McCardle, Colin Donnery, Kevin Green, Vanessa Raath, Oonagh Clarke, Michelle Flynn, Bas van de Haterd, Lars Schmidt, Somer Hackley, Andreea Balan, Tim Sanchez, Tim Sackett, Eugène van den Hemel, Ryan Rowe, Ella Frankland, Samuel Leduc, Mariana Moreno, Spencer Ryan, Andrei Campean, Peter Hros, Christophe McCain and Chris Mannion - doing something as simple as shouting out the newsletter or the podcast or whatever, is the only marketing that we have on brainfood, so the only way the community grows - thank you! Scores updated in the Brainfood Hall of Fame.

If you wan to help, just share this newsletter with your network and recommend folks subscribe - cheers!

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What Do Brainfooders Think?

Two polls in successive weeks, have delivered a pretty clear message; we recruiters are expecting to ‘do more with less’ and are highly interested in how we can become more efficient as departments and as individuals. Recruitment Operations and Recruitment Automation are going to be core topics for us in Brainfood in 2023.

Thanks for everyone who voted - remember, we’re going run polls here weekly, which is going to be our way to surfacing up community sentiment on topics we care about. Make sure you scroll to the end of the newsletter for the latest poll.

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep185 - Job Search & Career as a Mother-to-Be

Wandering well out of my depth on this topic, so I am thankful for good friends such as Rebecca Collis, Talent Acquisition Manager (AMS), Carly Poulson, People + Culture Partner (Hazy), Leanne Redstone, Founder & Sara Dalsfelt, Head of Community (Adway) who are joining me to discuss an aspect of DEIB which is much under discussed - motherhood and the impact this has on job search and career track. Recommend everyone sign up to this, especially us blokes, who might need the education most! Register here

The Brainfood

1. Dialogue with LinkedIn Engineering

Sourcing nerds will already know how cool brainfooder Irina Shamaeva is. Her refusal to accept LinkedIn’s broken search experience has led to LinkedIn engineering actually responding to her posts, and in some cases actually fixing some of the issues. This never happens. Yet this post is showing that really is, so thanks to Irina’s tenacity (and credibility), we might actually be getting tangible improvements on how Linkedin search actually operates. Interesting bullet points at the end of the post too, which all sourcers need to be aware of, especially the general trend away from boolean, and toward semantic search. Must read

SOURCING

2. LinkedIn Algorithm Research

More on LinkedIn, and more heroic figures from the community, adding amazing value. This time it is Richard van der Blom, who may be the No1 indie researcher on how the mighty LinkedIn newsfeed algorithm actually works. Digestible 57 page guide book here. And of course follow Richard on LinkedInc. Must read for any content / recruitment marketer. H/T to brainfooder Josh Willows for the share.

CONTENT MARKETING

3. Who Owns AI?

It took ChatGPT all of 5 days to hit 1 million + users, and I suspect that it will be many millions by the time you read this newsletter. It’s a game changer for search, coding, communication, content - the possibilities seem endless. If you haven’t tried it, you really should. But as GAI begins to eat the world, questions are being asked such as, who actually owns the training data? Important question asked in this excellent post in The Verge, for which there really are no good answers.

4. Wage Growth in US Posted Job Slowing Substantially

Interesting post from Indeed, tracking the rate of change for wage growth in US and Europe. Wages are still growing but the rate of growth is slowing: Two interpretations: candidates are no long so hard to hire as before and / or employers are curbing their desire to hire, taking a defensive posture into 2023.

ECONOMY

5. The Flexible Jobs Index 2022

Excellent study on the percentage of UK advertised jobs which present flexible working options. We know that flexible work not only means different things to different people, but also that it unevenly distributed across job categories, demographies and geographies. A digestible, intersectional study on the changing nature of work.

REMOTE WORKING

6. PrologueGPT Outbound Copy Generation

So I wrote about 5 possible use cases for ChatGPT in This Week, In Recruiting last Monday, and this tool is an early example of what might be done. Still pretty much work-in-progress, Outbound Copy Generator used ChatGPT to personalise message outreach. Why don’t you give it a go and send me a message - I know some of you already have 🤣

ENGAGEMENT

7. What is Pay Transparency?

Pay transparency has been one of the themes of 2022, led in many cases in the US with state level regulation. This is a great overview from our buddies Celential as to the current patch work state of pay transparency in the US, as well presenting a coherent argument why employers should move toward adopting it regardless of the compliance requirements. Significant implications for recruitment advertising for US employers here

CULTURE

8. Why You Could Have ‘Face-ism’ – an Extreme Tendency to Judge People based on their Facial Features

Can confirm my dear old grandma has this bias 🤣, but it may be more common amongst us than we would like to believe. Huge implications on many aspects of recruiting - asynch video interviews, zoom calls, in-person interviews. Can we do something about it, or is this futile effort against human nature? Fascinating conundrum. H/T brainfooder Michael Blakely for the share

ASSESSMENT

9. Why Are There So Many Tech Layoffs?

Copycat behaviour, says Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, who makes the bold and unorthodox claim that layoffs are mainly made not from prudent cost/benefit analysis, but through the reverse of the herd mentality which led to hyper growth in the first place - mimetically aping the behaviour of competitor organisations. It’s a mind virus in other words, the irrational contagiousness of which making the overall impact ever worse. Interesting read, lots to think about.

CULTURE

10. Meta Behaviour Ad Tracking Illegal

The end of Meta has a business will not be mourned by many here, but I suspect we will live to regret the end of the ad-supported big tech era. Everything will move to subscription, and what was once free will only be available to those who can pay. Implications for us too in recruitment - advertising will get dumber, so either we spend more via saturation campaigns, or funnel yet more money into places which promise us relevant audience.

RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING

The Podcasts

11. How to Pick the Right Payroll Solution?

Yeah I know, hardly the most appealing podcast title 🤣. But as workforce populations dramatically change, finding a way to future proof your payroll is no easy task. Good job we have some experts at hand to help, including brainfooder Anita Lettink who dispenses sound wisdom in this 25 minute pod

RECRUITMENT OPERATIONS

12. The Power of Attention in a World of Distraction

Interesting perspective on the dehumanising impact of technology, particularly in our addiction to the phones. How do we refocus, on the thing we want to do, and with the people who we are with? The additional important insight is the idea that being distracted by technology also means being closed to opportunities you did not plan for. You need some emptiness in your life folks Really good listen.

SOCIETY

13. Social Class & Accent: The Hidden Bias in Hiring

Second week in a row where I am promoting my own podcast, the reason being that yet again this is a topic which I feel is massively under discussed. Feedback from the livestream has been humbling - so many people impacted by pervasive class-ism, especially in the UK. We talk about it, share experiences and even come up with a few ideas we can use to mitigate it. Thank you for listening

D&I

End Note

So I am writing this on Saturday, as not only do I have one of my oldest mates (he is actually old) birthday parties to attend, but it’s also England vs France in the World Cup Semi Finals, so hence I anticipate being slightly worse for wear by the time this newsletter is pinged out.

It’s been a weird World Cup so far - some great drama, some great moments, but not yet truly a great game. I think this one will be it, two titans of the game, swinging at each other for 90 minutes or more. Going to sad when it’s over, but also kind of glad to get my life back 🤣

Poll this week is going to be about ChatGPT, so vote below and let me know what you think, comment if you have some other option or perspective you want to discuss.

Recruiting Brainfood