Recruiting Brainfood - Issue 352
LinkedIn algorithm changes, AI + Automation, Candidate Expectations Gap and challenges to DEIB
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Friends,
Great to see everyone at Recfest23 last Thursday. Something very special happens when you have a high density of talent enthusiasts getting together to talk and connect. Get yourself to some events this year folks, it really is something which can be an uplifting experience. I’m going to be shilling hard for Recfest USA in the coming weeks, because I think we need this type of mega event in the US. Tickets on now folks so go grab yourself a couple before they inevitably sell out. See you in Nashville in September ðŸ¤
The distribution power of the social media giants was on full display last week when Meta launched it’s Twitter killer Threads and immediately racked up 100 million users. I’m on it and happy to explore the channel with you guys. Follow me there and let me know what you think we could use the channel for. Still going to be on TikTok and Twitter in the meantime though, so connect with me there also if you want.
Finally, I’m in Germany from the 18th to 27th this month and looking forward to seeing as many of you as I can. Come to Talent Horizons at HelloFresh office on 19th July, Untold Stories of Tech Hiring at OLX on the 26th July and WeAreDevelopers World Congress on the 27th July, for which I believe I may have 5 x comp tickets as a speaker, which I am happy to give away to whoever wants to go. Also: in between those dates, I will be in Hamburg from 21st - 24th, so might set up a mini meetup on Friday if anyone is around and wants to meet. Look forward to seeing you all in one of these events 👊 🇩🇪
Thanks to: Lauren Sharp, Eugène van den Hemel, Joey NK Koksal, Samantha-Leigh Hayward, Bas van de Haterd, Peter Hros, Rob Walker, Alexandra Gyetvai, Alexey Geht, Jonathan Trillwood, Tracy Chau, Adam Gretton, Dave Hazlehurst, Kevin Green, Neil Carberry and Adam Gordon for your public endorsement of all things brainfood - scores updated on the Brainfood Hall of Fame.
Can you help? Share this link if a recruiter friend who needs a boost.
What do Brainfooders Think?
Popular poll from last week on how we solve the demographic crisis - we have a pretty even distribution across the options considered the best way, though thankfully few of us thought stopping people from leaving was a good idea 🤣
The number of votes tells me that this is a topic which is at least becoming more prevalent in the community; its probably way past time, but great that we can talk about it. Hope you enjoy these polls, doing them every week, so make sure to scroll to the end and vote on this week’s hot button issue.
Founders Focus - Ep38 - Ryan Steelberg & Alex Fourlis (Veritone / Broadbean)
It was a landscape altering deal when Veritone, acquired Broadbean earlier this year. Having previously acquired Pandologic in 2021, this future vision of an AI-enabled, intelligent recruitment system at scale is taking shape. We’re with Ryan Steelberg, CEO of Veritone and Alex Fourlis, MD of Broadbean who will talk us through the deal and what this means for recruitment advertisers going forward. We’re on Thursday 13th July, 2pm BST - register here. Essential viewing folks.
Brainfood Live On Air - Ep214 - WTF is Fractional Working?
If you search for ‘fractional’ on LinkedIn, you will see increasing numbers of - usually highly experienced - professionals term themselves in this way. What are fractional workers and how is this different from normal freelancing / contracting? And does it ever make sense for an employer to hire people in this way? It’s a growing trend which we in TA / HR need to know more about, so we’re going to discuss in Friday 14th July, 2pm BST - register here
The Brainfood
1. AI and Automation of Work
Ben Evans is one of the most astute commentators on tech and society today. His pro ad tech views persuaded me to change my mind on ad tracking (track away!) and his analysis of AI this year has been equally impressive. Here he presents the conventional view of the AI optimist position, based on the historical precedent - AI will indeed destroy jobs, but will also create many more. Historical precedent might be misleading though, especially as we conventionally frame the Industrial revolution as a purely internal European development, when it was in fact deeply embedded within the wider context of colonialism, relying on conquered lands and enslaved peoples for raw materials and cheap or free manpower. We’re at a similar moment with technology today, though no more lands to conquer or natives to displace. Lots more to think about here. H/T to brainfooder Martyn Redstone for the share the online community
AI
2. LinkedIn Algorithm Changes
Many prominent LinkedIn influencers have been reporting a precipitous decline in engagement from their posts, and it looks like we have the reason why - yet another algorithm change designed to reward genuine knowledge share. Most interesting insight? The information on your profile page is correlated with what you post about, which suggests some old fashioned keyword stuffing might be in order. Andy Foote is on Brainfood Live next month to tell us about it (register here). You can read more on the topic on this article from the Entrepreneur
CONTENT MARKETING
3. Applications vs Sourcing: What is the best way to make tech hires?
Nice bit of analysis from our friends at Cord, who reviewed candidate behaviour on their platform over time and found some interesting trends - mainly that tech candidates were become more active in applying for jobs, leading more hires via advertising as opposed to search. It’s a strong signal that the market has indeed tightened for tech candidates…
RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING
4. The Evolution of Work from Home
Really interesting summary of research papers here, which kind of forms a mini history of our shift to remote working. The application of socio-economic class to the types of working mode resonates with me - fully on premise (‘front line’) being low pay / low status, fully remote (task workers) also being low pay / low status, whilst hybrid "(‘knowledge workers’) high pay / high status. A crude model but not without some truth. Academic paper, but easy reading.
REMOTE WORK
5. UK Fruit Picking Farms like Prison, Migrant Worker Tells Peers
Talking about front line workers, nothing is lower status / lowest pay than migrant workers doing agricultural work. These workers are economically needed yet socially rejected, a contradiction which continues to manifest at the political level in Western style democracies. We have a pretty straight forward choice: take a political risk and change the conservational tone on immigration or find some other way to arrest the demographic crisis.
SOCIETY
6. Embracing Change and Resetting Expectations
If AI does kill sourcing, it will do so at the interface. In the pre-GAI world, human users had to develop advanced search skills because precise inputs were required to extract relevant information from massive but dumb online systems. But what if AI powered systems were able to effectively respond to imprecise inputs? Sourcing will evolve from the design of complex boolean strings toward dialogual skills with the interface.
SOURCING
7. Mind the Candidate Expectations Gap 2023
Great piece of research from our friends at Thrivemap, who repeated their candidate expectations survey of 2019 and compared the changes in response over time. A couple of key insights that stand out: role expectations mismatch on the rise (are we mis-selling the role?), lack of communication over how roles have changed since Covid era and the rise of pre-hire assessments, most of which seem to be resented by the candidate population.
CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE
8. What Happened to the Creator Economy?
…well it is kind of doing ok, at least for prominent creators on platforms like Substack and OF. But the ‘creator economy’ has certainly peaked as it suffers like every other segment from the inflationary policies of the US Federal Reserve, which sucks money out of global circulation and into illiquid assets in gods knows where. It’s a still a living to be had, but for a smaller number of people, making less than they thought they might.
CREATOR ECONOMY
9. The Hypocrisy of Mandatory Diversity Statements
The second order effects of last week’s US Supreme Court ruling against race conscious applicant assessment might be seen early in the legality of mandatory diversity statements. Again, still in academia but has become a phenomena in the corporate world also, where executives might be expected to sign up to DEIB commitments as a de facto condition of getting the job. Diversity of race or diversity of opinions? It’s a contest of which is more important. Thought provoking and challenging read.
D&I
10. Best LinkedIn Post Ever
…it’s definitely up there. Original Linkedin post from Finlay here
PERSONAL BRANDING
The Podcasts
11. Inside the Tech Tsunami: Layoffs, Remote Work & More
‘I knew Steph Smith before she was famous’ is my meta claim to fame, and it was a real pleasure to reconnect with Steph in her latest role as podcast host for the Andreesen Horowitz podcast, where I join AJ Thomas and Rob Frohwein to talk tech layoffs, remote working and the impact of AI. Fun conversation, and make sure you follow Steph, one of the best tweeters still on there.
REMOTE WORKING
12. How to Set up Your People Operations
More from a16z, this time an internal talk on how to set up People Ops. Lots on values and culture on this and lots to agree with, though I have to say I am not so much of an advocate of ‘design’ of culture, as I think it risks exacerbating the gap between rhetoric and reality. Worth a listen though for anyone putting together a culture doc. H/T to brainfooder Pedro Oliveira for the share.
CULTURE
13. Has LinkedIn Ruined Your Career?
We recruiters are so dependent on LinkedIn that its important to occasionally exit our bubble and see how normal people actually see and use the platform. This comedic critique is played for laughs, but has some interesting insights on LinkedIn scale and business model (avg LinkedIn user is worth 3 x as much as the avg Facebook user etc). Have a watch, it’s a cool vid.
ENGAGEMENT
End Note
I may be an naive, but I have an optimistic view of the human condition. I believe we all care about justice and for everyone to be given the fair chance at opportunity. Where we differ is the best mechanism to achieve this. The recent controversies on affirmative action in the US have got me thinking a bit more on some of these mechanisms and I thought it would be interesting to gauge the community sentiment toward mandatory diversity statements. What do you think folks - are you for, or against? Vote on the poll below, and let me know…
OK that’s it.
Thanks for reading and have a great week
Hung
Mandatory. Inclusive leadership as a skill should be an essential requirement of any leadership role.
I agree with Luke. We've been doing "voluntary" for decades with little to no change - racial discrimination in job applications has been stable across Western countries in the last 50 years.
Time to put pen to paper and commit with real accountability and consequences for not complying. This is more of a behavioral change exercise than a mindset exercise.