Recruiting Brainfood - Issue 327

BlackRock Global Outlook, Sketch Note resiliency vs GAI & Bossware installation as a condition of WFH

Jan 15, 2023

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Friends,

Thank you all for subscribing to this newsletter on SubStack, especially those who migrated from Revue late last year. Revue is scheduled to shut down later this week on the 18th January and whilst everything should go as normal for us, we’re going to lose the web versions of the newsletters from 1-316. The Larder has the content backed up though so we you still go and retrieve articles from there.

The good news is that growth rate has up ticked significantly since the move, as SubStack seems more discoverable, perhaps easier to share with others and has some interesting community features which are as yet under explored. We’re up 28,627 subscribers, with an average rolling monthly increase of 183 subs per week. My prediction of 50K by end of the year is a stretch goal but I think we can do it if enough people know about it. If you want to help, share this link with your network and have them subscribe.

Special thanks this week goes to Eugène van den Hemel, Luca Cicatelli, Joey NK Koksal, Colin Donnery, Rob Walker, Ivan Harrison, Clair Mohammed, Garry Turner, Paul Daley, Dave Hazlehurst, Alison Birch, Bas van de Haterd, Hannah Morgan, Paul McArdle, Vanessa Raath, Kevin Green, Steve Jacobs Victoria Williams, Anna Ponomarenko, David Green and Liana Avetisyan for your public endorsements of all things brainfood - scores updated on the Brainfood Hall of Fame!

What Do Brainfooders Think?

Pleasantly surprised at the results of this poll - it seems that most of you have heard of some of the other channels we’ve got where we can connect, converse and discover new content. Seems that the aforementioned Brainfood Larder is the least well known, which is a shame because it might well be the most useful; it’s a free searchable archive of all content previously posted in Recruiting Brainfood. If you ever had that problem of retrieving content you read in a brainfood newsletter but couldn’t find it, this is probably your best solution - check it out, and if you like it, bookmark it.

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep189 - Recruiter Use Cases for ChatGPT, Friday 20th Jan, 2pm GMT

We’ve had a month of experimenting with ChatGPT and its time for us to do a show and tell on how we think this might work for us in recruiting. This is going to be an extended special folks - first part practitioner led use cases, second part rectech founders showing how ChatGPT has influenced / altered their roadmaps. 405 people already registered, I think limit is 500 on my current Crowdcast plan, so first come first serve on this - sign up now here!

The Brainfood

1. Big Ideas in Tech for 2023: An a16z Omnibus

Big predictions from two of the biggest VC firms out there - Andreesen Horowitz and BlackRock, who each give their 2023 predictions, which I’m combining in this insert. VC’s are by no means infallible, but because they do cast a wide investment net - and, as they have plenty of skin in the game, their forecasts are worth paying close attention to. Check out both the links above for their high level yet comprehensive coverage on the macro trends we need to be aware of in 2023. Contextualise with the geopolitical substrate, for which the latest Economist piece The destructive new logic that threatens globalisation, provides grounding. It’s not all positive reading, but such is the world as it currently is. It’s essential stuff folks.

ECONOMY

2. Takeaways from the LinkedIn Algorithm Report 2022

As GAI overtakes human text composition, I wonder whether sketch notes will become the most resilient mode of human authored written communication. Take a look at the above rendition of how you should post on LinkedIn - pretty awesome way to consume information eh? Original work from Richard van der Blom, someone you should follow on LinkedIn, artist being Katrin Wietek, who I may soon be DM’ing on Insta myself….

CONTENT MARKETING

3. OpenAI Cookbook

This post provides not useful prompt examples, but lays the groundwork on what GAI is, and in particular how Large Language Models are used to train rather than programme applications like ChatGPT. Excellent post for beginner and advanced user alike, as well as something which looks like it is going to be continually updated.

4. Wage Growth Continues to Slow in the UK and Euro Area

Central bank interest rate raises are designed to take the ‘steam’ out of the economy, in large part by reducing the cost of employment - a.k.a suppressing wage growth. Latest data from Indeed Hiring Labs (must follow for economic news) suggests that wage growth acceleration may well have indeed peaked, as the market tightens, people lose their jobs and become more desperate to work. Good timing for the RES Foundation to also come out with Living Standard Outlook, worth reading up on both of these to get some sort of balanced view on economic theory and practice + societal impact.

ECONOMY

5. The State of AI in 2022

I missed this overview from McKinsey late last year, so I’m including it in this week’s issue in order to get it scraped into the larder. The research is a survey work from McKinsey customers on how and whether they have implemented AI into their organisations, includes data on types of categories of tech, common uses cases, types of talent being hired and where we are with DEIB in AI. Important read for an overview of where ‘we’ currently might be, bearing in the mind that the sample is from McKinsey customers, so presumably amongst the most well capitalised firms around. If you want some future forecasting on what happens next with AI, then this thread is a great complementary read

6. The GAFAM Empire

‘GAFAM’ or Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft - kind of feels like a cohort which is already somewhat historical, doesn’t it? What better thing to do then than read a visual history on one aspect of their dominance - their 20 year acquisition spree of other, smaller, companies. Beautifully presented, this post gives us a pre-2022 snapshot of the biggest beasts in the tech landscape, as well clues as to how they saw their business strategy. There is probably some sourcing value here, particularly when looking for employees who have decided to mask their last GAFAM employer on LinkedIn as an anti-recruiter countermeasure. Or, you could use it as nurture content for those tech candidates you said you’d keep in touch with…

ENGAGEMENT

7. Woman Ordered to Repay Employer after Software shows ‘Time Theft’

Hard truth: remote working increases the surface area for candidate and employee fraud. I suspect the unstated reason behind a lot of the manager led calls to return to the office is motivated by the suspicion that workers aren’t working as much as they say they are. Now Satya Nadella certainly has a point that there is a great deal of ‘productivity paranoia’, but there is surely also a non-trivial degree of employee dishonesty. I wonder whether installation of bossware might be a future condition of WFH - would you accept it, if it were? H/T to brainfooder Colin McNicol for the share in the fb group

REMOTE WORKING

8. Can Ads Be GDPR Compliant?

Have you noticed the slow, low key, drip feed of fines on tech companies for GDPR non-compliance lately? Each successful case lays further groundwork for more cases to be brought, such that online advertising as it currently know it may well be entirely non-compliant. That at least is the argument presented in this fascinating post (get past the uncompromising non-UI!), which looks at individual cases and why they were lost by tech companies - mainly because the consent banners were deceptive or nudges users toward acceptance. Includes interesting speculation on what types of advertising might come next. Essential read for all recruitment advertisers / marketers.

RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING

9. How Much Should You Pay for Tech Talent?

One of the consequences of the US State requirements to publish salaries advertised jobs, is that you can scrape the data and present it into a talent intelligence website. Comprehensive - an aspirational title as it is far from atm, covering only US data and then only data from states where salary transparency is law - but the idea of having a single place aggregating openly declared salaries is more than solid one. From the same folks who built Levels.fyi and promises one day to be equally valuable for US tech recruiters looking to benchmark compensation.

TALENT INTELLIGENCE

10. 12 Crucial Recruiter Tactics for 2023

Straight talk from brainfooder Greg Savage on what agency recruiters and owners need to be doing in 2032. Some bullets in this post, including my personal favourites the need for leaders to ‘re-recruit’ your staff, for consultants to ‘brickwall’ existing clients and for everyone to re-engage the silver medal candidates who came close but did not get the job. All great advice, delivered in the inimical savage style - have a read folks. H/T to brainfooder Sajithkumar Swaminathan for the share.

RECRUITMENT OPERATIONS

The Podcasts

11. Future of Work - Remote Salary Competition

I had the good fortune of visiting Lisbon late last year and doing the fireside chat with my buddy brainfooder Pedro Oliveira was one of the highlights (Pulvo afterwards obviously even better). We’re talking location agnostic pay, increase of candidate fraud and anticipating anti-digital nomad legislation. 25 minutes, great conversation

REMOTE WORKING

12. Recruiting with ChatGPT: Tips for Beginners

Wonderful to see this type of content from brainfooder Jim Stroud - its kind of exactly what we needed when it comes to breaking the ice with the technology which I think is going to transform a great part of recruiting work. I’m telling you now, its essential we get good at this. 18 minutes of easy watching / learning right here. H/T to brainfooder Jacob Sten Madsen for the share in the fb group

SOURCING

13. The Mind Blowing Stats of Male Inequality

What if gender inequality reemerges, but from the other way round? An interesting question but one which is no longer hypothetical as throughout WEIRD countries everywhere, girls outperform boys in education and now increasingly, in the workplace. Some radical solutions suggested, including startling enough - starting boys schooling later. Important watch if you care about DEIB, 15 minutes

D&I

End Note

We’re seeing a lot of movement in the recruiter labour market. A great deal of this is normal at this time of year, but I suspect the number of us recruiters being part of tech layoffs is a non-trivial number.

As over 50% of brainfooders work in tech, this ‘big tech winter’ is going to disproportionately impact this community. Got me thinking: how many of us are thinking of moving sectors, to more stable (?) or predictable growth markets (healthcare, space tech, cybersecurity, green energy). Give the poll below a go, lets see where the community sentiment lies

NS: ‘tech’ means software in this case

Recruiting Brainfood