Recruiting Brainfood - Issue 354
Response Rate Benchmark Report, Interview Scheduling, AI productivity gains
This week’s brainfood is supported by our friends Adway
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Want to know how they did it? Check out the case study here:
https://lp.adway.ai/case-elits-adway-tech-talent-sourcing
SPONSORS
Friends,
What a fantastic week it has been in so far. I’ve been in Germany since last Tuesday and have the enormous pleasure of connecting with the recruiter & HR communities in Berlin and Hamburg. As much as I do online, I have rediscovered how important it is to meet and connect in person - relationships get revived, networks energised, rate f information flow increases between members who meet. Go to a meet up; if you don’t see one in your town, go ahead and set one up and add it to the Big List of Recruiting & HR Events to Attend in 2023. If it helps, invite me to come and I’ll get on a flight.
Thanks to Eugène van den Hemel, Joey NK Koksal, Kevin Green, Tim Sanchez, Dave Hazlehurst, Michael Blakely, Juliana Park, Rob Walker and Andreea Lungulescu for publicly endorsing all things brainfood - essential for keeping this show on the road. Scores updated on the Brainfood Hall of Fame.
Can you help? Share this newsletter with a friend in industry who needs a boost
What Do Brainfooders Think?
Great response from the community last week on a challenging topic; probably should come as no surprise that we recruiters would be mostly pro-immigration, especially when we most clearly see the talent shortages continue in certain sectors of the national economies
Thanks to everyone who voted - we’re going to keep doing them, so make sure to scroll to the end of the newsletter and make your opinion heard there.
Brainfood Live On Air - Ep216 - Fully Automated Hiring
Something totally different this week for Brainfood Live - brainfooder Stanislaw Wasowicz is going to present his vision for a future of recruiting that can be conducted entirely without human recruiters. We’re going to use this utopian / dystopian presentation to explore the edges of what is possible - and acceptable - in the future of recruitment. Expect audience engagement - you will be called up on screen. Register here!
The Brainfood
1. Response Rate Benchmark Report 2023
Fascinating report from our friends at Starred, on candidate / new hire response rates to surveys. Trying to understand the quality of your candidate experience starts with understanding how many of the people you ask to respond actually do so. What else can we learn? Unexpectedly valuable deep dive into candidate experience. Download the report here
CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE
2. Why Cisco is Training its 84,000 Employees to be LinkedIn influencers
Outstanding case study of the sort of TA / HR leadership which really makes a difference to the bottom line. Imagine if you could convert your work colleagues into brand ambassadors on LinkedIn? According to this (overly brief!) interview, Cisco reduced time-to-hire on aggregate by 5 days, a massive efficiency gain. Love to hear if anyone else has been experimenting with this type of approach, let me know in comments if so!
EMPLOYER BRANDING
3. How a Vast Demographic Shift Will Reshape the World
We need to talk more about demographics, because if we do really care about ‘talent pipeline’ we cannot afford to ignore the absolute numbers of people who might be available to do the work. Economic development seems to correlate precisely with demographic decline, presenting a challenge which is testing the state capacity and political efficacy of different systems of governance. This superb interactive essay from the NYT sets the scene for a debate that needs to be had.
SOCIETY
4. AI Improves Employee Productivity by 66%
Nice post collecting together three early studies on the productivity gains of generative AI; study No1 on the customer support agents has already become canonical, and we would do well to familiarise ourselves with the others also. More of these to come no doubt, as the business case continues to build for the widespread operationalisation of AI in the world of work.
AI
5. Part 3: Put Your Money Where your Mouth is
Concluding episode of a excellent 3 part series from brainfooder Jessica Zwaan, who outlines a framework for mapping performance to compensation, which is a surprisingly hard thing to do. Read Part 1 and 2 if you have not already done so.
CULTURE
6. The Future of LinkedIn could be Turbocharged Profiles and A.I.-driven recruitment—and its COO is here for it
Interviews with C-level at LinkedIn are fascinating, not least because its not clear whether they are intentionally leaking snapshots of future roadmap or just riffing off-the-cuff on what may be possible. I’m altogether unsure whether AI generated LinkedIn profiles are the way to go, but then, what makes human generated ones any better? Challenging implications from this brief interview, going to be the topic of today’s poll and maybe a future topic of Brainfood Live. H/T to brainfooder Donna Svei for the share.
AI
7. Interview Scheduling: Candidate Expectations, Frustrations, and Preferences
How many of us use commercial grade interview scheduler? I have a worrying intuition that it might be significantly less than we might hope. Some useful research from our friends at Cronofy on how interview inefficiency impacts candidate experience, usually report to forward to your boss if you need to make the business case.
PS: Webinar with Cronofy later this week on the 25th July - How to Measure Recruitment Efficiency - register here
CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE
8. The Value of Not Commuting to Work
In the battle for remote vs RTO, workers are going to need all the support that they need, especially as the bosses seem increasingly confident that macro economic conditions will give them the leverage to enforce a return to office. This ‘cost of commuting’ calculator might come in handy, plug in your numbers and make your case.
REMOTE WORKING
9. Do High Interest Rates Fix High Inflation?
With inflation rates seemingly on the way down, we might today be inclined to say ‘yes’. But before we do, we might find it useful to understand exactly why interest rates were raised so aggressively in the first place, how that redistributes wealth around in society and what the end outcome of this inflationary cycle might actually look like. Few better commentators than Lyn Alden on this, whose writing is not only convincing, but also accessible. Long read, but you’re going to learn something.
ECONOMY
10. Artificial Intelligence and Jobs
The title is a bit of a misnomer, because this short post from the OECD is really about cross country unemployment rate and real wage growth (or decline). The cost of living crisis is indeed a crisis and pay increases are not keeping pace with the real rate of inflation, especially for those in the public sector. Remember the ‘essential workers’ in the pandemic period? Yes, it is those folks who are suffering the most. Easy read, important read
SOCIETY
The Podcasts
11. The State of the Market with Neil Carberry
Any podcast with brainfooder Neil Carberry is always worth listening to; here’s a fella who managed to communicate complex topics in a way which everyman can understand. Maybe is the Scottish vernacular. Great listen on the state of the market, especially pertinent for recruitment agency.
ECONOMY
12. Canada’s Tech Talent Plany with Ilya Brotzsky
Canada’s super aggressive targeting of H1B workers currently working in the US has been one of the most interesting immigration stories in the past few weeks. This is ‘war for talent’ at geopolitical level, with the US doing everything it can to help Canada win it. Brainfooders Serge Boudreau and Ilya Brotzky in conversation
SOCIETY
13. Is AI Development Moving Too Fast or Not Fast Enough?
It’s Reid Hoffman, talking on Clearer Thinking podcast. Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, recommends AI accelerationalism as not only the most ethnical position, but also the safest. He makes the conventional argument that AI will shuffle the work, rather than reduce the overall requirement for human work, hopeful speculation which is as wrongheaded as it is flawed. Still worth listening to however, so give it a go here
AI
End Note
One more day in Hamburg before back to Berlin tomorrow evening and on toward the final two events - AI in Tech Assessment on Wednesday and, of course, the massive We Are Developers World Congress on Thursday If you’re going to any of these two events, please do let me know.
In the meantime, lets have a think about the AI features which are coming to LinkedIn. Which do the brainfooders might most problematic?
That’s it - thanks for reading.
Have a great week everybody
Hung
Thanks Hung. Always a great way to start your Sunday. Respect for keeping the letter relevant and a fun read every week.