Recruiting Brainfood - Issue 336

Generative AI flywheel, US banking sector crisis and peak tech recruiter?

Mar 19, 2023

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

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Friends,

The pace of change is accelerating. In this past week, three events occurred which are likely to have - or signal - profound changes for our industry.

Firstly, a massive week of AI with significant product releases including ChatGPT4, Microsoft 360 Co-pilot, MidJourney 5 and AI for Google Workspace. Each of these innovations promises step change improvement in knowledge worker productivity, which will in turn further increase the rate of innovation. The flywheel of generative AI is spinning.

Secondly, Meta announced it’s second wave of major redundancies, with Mark Zuckerberg taking particular note to mention that the recruiting department will be particularly affected. Recruiting at Meta will rebound following reorganisation but I have a feeling that we are seeing a permanent industry wide reset toward fundamentally smaller software organisations, and therefore smaller recruitment departments.

Finally, the last minute rescue of Silicon Valley Bank has exposed a hitherto hidden risk to the US banking sector in the form of previously safe securities, which have become unrealised losses due to the US Federal Reserve monetary policy of massive interest rate rises. Pivot the policy, or continue to raise rates - it is difficult to see what the Federal Reserve can do to reduce the fear, uncertainty, doubt that is dominating market sentiment.

Exciting and portentous times for us recruiters. I’m going to do my best to stay on top of it, and provide information, resources and opportunities to discourse and connect with others in the community. To the latter end, I am going to suggest the following resources:

Brainfood Online Community (all members)
Brainfood Talent Community (job seekers & employers of recruiters)
Brainfood Live On Air (discourse)

Make use of these as best you see fit.

Thanks to Eugène van den Hemel, Joey NK Koksal, Colin Donnery, Kevin Green, Christian Madsen, James Martin, Garry Turner, François Gauthier, Eva Zils, Jonathan Duarte, Juliette Rouquet, Peter Wharton, Hannah Morgan, Tim Sanchez, Alastair Cartwright, Jesse Ofner, Chris Eldridge, Gautam Ghosh, Angie Shamley for your public endorsement of this newsletter last week - the only way we keep the community growing. Check out your scores on the Brainfood Hall of Fame.

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What Do Brainfooders Think?

The question was less about what we think, rather more about how exposed we might be from the Silicon Valley Bank implosion a week ago. Already it seems like old news, but the sudden realisation brought about by SVB that the US banking sector may have a combined 2 Trillion liability in unrealised losses on previously considered safe assets means we will all be walking a tightrope in the hope of avoiding a generalised run on the US banking system.

The fact that depositors do not have alternative options - the cash has to go somewhere - usually another bank is perhaps the safest security we all might have the system doesn’t collapse. All of this makes government antipathy towards Bitcoin more understandable - imagine if 2 Trillion USD went into BTC as depositors strove to protect their wealth….?

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep198 - Mental Health Challenges of the Neurodiverse: Real Talk from Recruitment Heroes

How can we better work in a neurodiverse environment? As we know more about neurology of how brains work, we are become more aware that human beings have arrived at divergent solutions to scenarios we find ourselves in. We speak to three clinically diagnosed neurodivergent recruiters and hope to learn from open dialogue what they experience, how they deal and what impact and responses those around them might expect. Something different folks, one to tune into and get involved in - Friday 24th March, 2pm GMT - register here

The Brainfood

1. AI Will Dominate Every Element Of Recruiting – A Snapshot View Of The Future Of Recruiting

Very fine snapshot from Dr John Sullivan on the anticipated impact of AI on recruiting. The call to action is clear - we recruiters need to adopt AI in every aspect of our work, not only to secure productivity and outcome gains, but because C-level might now reasonably expect it. It will be interesting to hear from any community members who have taken the plunge on ‘AI transformation of their TA function’. Drop me a line if you’ve got a plan on this. H/T to brainfooder Jacob Sten Madsen for the share in the online community

RECRUITMENT OPERATIONS

2. State of Candidate Experience: Stage - Application

A lot my Twitter followers have been asking me about the source of this tweet about ‘speed of application by ATS’ and I have finally (re)located it - it’s from this report by our friends at RSConsultancy (Resource Solutions) who conducted an audit of 100 companies job application flows. Very worth read for anyone interested in candidate experience, employer branding and company career sites. H/T to brainfooder Tom Lakin for the share

CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE

3. Was There a Tech Hiring Bubble?

With the news last week that Meta would further reduce headcount (including 70% of the recruiting team), the halycon days of tech companies hiring thousands of engineers seem to be definitively over. The post title is a rhetorical as the narrative of tech over hiring is quickly becoming the fashionable take. Data from Indeed is interesting, and the chart gives us a decent snapshot of where we are now and potentially where we might be heading.

ECONOMY

4. ChatGPT4 - Makes as Much Money as Possible

The astonishing capabilities of ChatGPT4 combines with human ingenuity to produce this fascinating experiment. Tweeter Jackson Greathouse Fall gives the AI $100 budget and tasks it to make as much money as possible, with him agreeing to submit to the AI instructions. Amazing interactions ensue and…. a practical revenue generating business seems to emerge. We have a short arbitrage window where money can still be made by those who know against those who don’t. H/T to brainfooder Adam Gordon for the share in the online community.

5. Review: Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our Worlds

This is the sort of book review which really adds value to the original tome. Dr Alice Evans reviews the above titled book by Michele Gelfand, and does an outstanding job of outlining the main theory - that the sense of external threat (lack of security) promotes homogeneity / groupthink, whilst diversity of thinking only emerges when that that sense of threat is reduced. ‘Threat inflation’ then is an effective technique for forging internal alignment, a technique we can clearly see if we take one step back from the latest media furore. Can this technique be applied to company culture? Would it be ethical to do so? Has anyone done it?? Lots to ponder in an accessible essay.

CULTURE

6. Crew Goes Behind the Scenes of What it Takes to Win at Talent in Web3

Generative AI has entirely displaced Web3 in mainstream cultural discourse over the past year but that doesn’t mean that interesting experiments are not continuing in the world of decentralised, peer-to-peer transactions. In fact, this period might turn out to be perfect moment to mature ideas outside of the hype cycle of media and capital. Web3 talent is a different type of candidate and brainfooder Amine Skalli describes what it takes to hire them.

BLOCKCHAIN

7. State of the Software Developer Nation - South Africa 2023 Edition

I’ve been banging on about South Africa for the last few weeks, enthusiastic as I am about the people and the country. Offerzen are perhaps the most well known tech recruitment platform to come out South Africa, and here they are with a beautifully executed website what the tech labour market looks like in the country. Hiring for remote software engineers? You know where to look

ECONOMY

8. Womb for Rent: More Women are Working as Commercial Surrogates as Global Demand Rises

The equity gains of Western feminism is often purchased at the price of offshoring or delegating lower status work to other women of worse means, from poorer countries. The continuing intrusion of the market solutions into broken social relations continues - we already delegate childcare, why no witt delegate pregnancy too? Fascinating and uncomfortable story on an industry solving problems of our own creation.

FUTURE OF WORK

9. Not Allowed to Work From Home? Don’t Work At Home

Brilliant TikTok from an IT worker who was refused permission to work from home….and so took his employer’s instructions literally but deleting his work apps off his devices and being uncontactable whenever he was off premise 🤣. A great example of workers rebellion, but also points to an important point about boundaries.

REMOTE WORKING

10. The Toll of Layoff Anxiety

Fascinating article which tracks the evolving social contract between employers and employees over the pandemic era. Has this wave of (so far mainly tech) redundancies betray the build back better mantra of more humane, employee centric capitalism? From the laid off employees POV, it looks like the rhetoric is dissonant with the reality. Another, from one of the best online resources right now, BBC Worklife. Have a read.

EMPLOYER BRANDING

The Podcasts

11. Bank Runs Set The Stage For Financial Repression End Game

She’s a bit of a doomer, but there are few commentators more astute and accessible on the topic of money, economics and blockchain than Lyn Alden. Her twitter is a must follow and her interviews are always worth a watch and listen. If you’re interested in the state of the financial crisis in US banking right now, this 1 hour interview will do better than most.

ECONOMY

12. The Ins and Outs of the Influencer Industry

Was personal branding the precursor of the influencer industry? Very interesting history on the origins of what may be the most resilient economic category against GAI. The role of women as amongst the first, in stereotypically feminine topics - fashion, make-up, parenting, cooking - is fascinating and, I think, accurate. PS: glad Kimmy K got a mention, she was probably the first big one to make it.

CREATOR ECONOMY

13. Accelerating Change

There probably has not been a more consistent or accurate forecaster of change than the legend that is brainfooder Kevin Wheeler. Here he is with Matt Alder talking about the impact of generative AI and this will change the recruitment industry. We have to get into it folks, today. Listen here

End Note

I’m at Whitstable this Thursday for the RL100 Summit, and I’ll be presenting a short discussion on where we are right now with GAI, then leading a workshop with TA leaders on AI enablement. Most of the experiments I’ve seen so far has been from individual contributors, doing things on their own initiative, so it will be interesting to see whether any business has deployed an enablement strategy

Might be a good one to do for this week’s poll - vote below