Recruiting Brainfood - Issue 361
European Startup Heatmap, legal ruling on the use of AI, Grindr goes full Elon and disinformation becomes cool depending on which side you're on...
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Friends,
Despite last week’s heatwave, we’re past the summer now and the serious business of September is well under way. I hope we’re all back with a bang. I’m delighted to see some more jobs on the Brainfood Jobs Job Board - signs of life coming back to the market?
Remember, employers can post jobs for free using BTCFREE coupon code - if you’re hiring for recruiters, post up your job there. If you’re on the market and looking for work, two things to do: join the Brainfood Talent Collective and be visible for search for employers looking to hire, and elevate your profile by answer 20 Questions on the Brainfood Tribune. For the latter, comment below and just say you wanna (look at who is on it, it is good company to join!)
Thanks to Eugène van den Hemel, Steve Jacobs, Salma Rashad El hamalawy, Joey NK Koksal, Kevin Green, Dave Hazlehurst, Robin Choy, Bert Wareham, Alan Furley, Samantha-Leigh Hayward, Alex Her, Addi Rodrigues, Adam Gordon, Rob Walker, Lyndsey Taylor, Virginia Tirado, Juliana Park, Jim Berrisford, Viktoriia Dankevych and Harriet Lavender for your public endorsement of all things brainfood - essential for keeping the show on the road 👊
Can you help? Share this newsletter with your team or a friend in industry who needs a boost - thanks!
What Do Brainfooders Think?
The results of last week’s poll seem very promising - 49% of respondents say they have some form of multi-generational programme. As societies in the Global North simultaneously get older + more hostile to immigration, we need to come up with a mindset shift on hiring older workers.
Thanks everyone for contributing - 484 is a (non-buggy) record for votes on this. Scroll down to the end of the newsletter for this week poll, lets keep this going 👊
Brainfood Live On Air - Ep223 - When Politics & Employer Branding Collide, Friday 15th Sep, 3pm BST / 10am ET
Changes in abortion rights in the US have had a profound impact on how women think about their relationship with the government, state and federal. How does this impact employers who happen to have job vacancies in states where people’s rights have changed? Brainfooder Pawel Adrjan, Director of Economic Research at Indeed, who recently published a paper on how Dobbs vs Jackson ruling as impacted job application behaviour - and local recruiters and candidates who join the panel. Must attend folks - register here
The Brainfood
1. The State of Organisations 2023
2000 organisational leaders surveyed on what they thought were the key trends impacting organisations in 2023. Reports like this tend to regress to the mean, so no huge surprises other, other than what was omitted - nothing on hostile de-globalisation, demographic crisis or climate change - each of which are more significant variables than many of the 10 listed here. Still, this is the stuff your CEO is going to reading, so that means you got to read it too. Download here
CULTURE
2. How To Choose An Email Finder Tool: A Side-by-Side Comparison of 30 Apps
Email finders are probably the most in-demand tool in our business - we know the candidates name, but what is their email?? This comparison blog is super useful for anyone who is looking to get one, particularly the table of the 30 apps tested. Thanks to brainfooder Denys Dinkevych 🇺🇦 for the share in the online community
SOURCING
3. August CandE Pulse Results: We’ve Barely Made A Dent
Brainfooder Kevin Grossman has been doing some of the most important work on the candidate experience for the past decade. These pulse surveys provide immense value in helping us understand the general sentiment of job seekers - and no surprise in this tough market of 2023 - that job seeker resentment is on the rise.
CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE
4. Grindr Loses Nearly Half Its Staff to Strict RTO Rule
Employers are getting serious with RTO’s, with presumptive resignations following failure to return to the office, dating app Grindr being the latest to follow Elon Musk’s lead in making a come in or leave ultimatum. 50% of the employees didn’t show and presumably, have now gone. One good thing to know is that the more employers do this, the better the market sorting will be - workers who really prefer remote will gravitate to those employers who also really prefer it. It’s an interesting question for us all as whether our employer could be described as such
REMOTE WORKING
5. The Role Of Generative AI In HR Is Now Becoming Clear
Clarity of thought is one of Josh Bersins strengths and he puts this on full display in this excellent post on how we’re going to be seeing Generative AI in the workplace. Useful for getting the language, the categorisation of applications, as well as important context for why those applications will be in this type of work. You should be following Josh by now, do so if you’re not already.
AI
6. Startup Heatmap 2023
What does the the Tech Startup landscape look like in Europe? You’ll probably find out most of what you need to know in this superb report from DEEP Ecosystems. Includes stuff like how your city is trending in terms of founder attractiveness, the contribution of startup to job creation, the number of exits per city and lots of other great stuff besides. Download it here
ECONOMY
7. Here’s the Best Networking Hack You’ve Ever Seen
Simple stuff but how many people have actually done this? Great example of the mother helping her son identify some leads by using sourcing mentality - and generative AI - to increase the relevance of the results. You can deploy this technique today for sourcing candidates or BD, but more importantly, building the mental habit of thinking outside the (LinkedIn Search) box. H/T to brainfooder Donna Svei for the share.
SOURCING
8. What a Landmark AI Hiring Bias Lawsuit Means for Employers and Candidates
So I am going to learn the wrong lesson here and say that it probably makes sense to delay automated rejections so as not to arouse the suspicions of job applicants, as that seems to be the mistake which cost this employer $300,000+ in damages. Of course the better lesson is to understand the implications of using AI & Automation, which fundamentally wants to restore a human recruiter to be the one doing the rejecting. How this is going to help with de-biasing might now be beside the point.
ASSESSMENT
9. EU's War on Behavioral Advertising
More regulations, more problems for recruiters. I suspect the EU’s antipathy toward advertising will inadvertently lead to even more advertising as brands respond to less targeting by simply increasing the volume of ads in a saturation strategy. Or maybe brands will simply give up? Great breakdown of the latest regulations and how it impacts advertisers. Don’t forget Google is going to disable cookies in Chrome next year also. The ads landscape is going to be transformed, and that means the digital world will be too. We need to get on top of this, if we are in recruitment advertising.
RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING
10. Ghosts In the Machine
That intelligence services are a primary vector for the pollution of the information environment should surprise nobody by now, but I have to admit, I was surprised to see a recruitment advert extolling the virtues of disinformation. Have a watch of this, it’s brainfood if you zoom out enough.
EMPLOYER BRANDING
The Podcasts
11. Generative AI - A Deep Dive
About 15 minutes in, Jon Krohn, host of the SuperDataScience Podcast gives a very good description of what Generative AI is, and how it works - in depth but not excluding to non-experts. Worth a listen.
AI
12. The ONE Skill, We Can All Learn, That 95% of Millionaires Have!
Business podcast, but introduces the idea of the ‘skill stacking’, on how some skills become exponentially more valuable once you add more skills to your set. If you find yourself stuck in a specialism - sourcing, marketing, management - this segment of this podcast is well worth paying attention to; some hiring angles too - do new talents also stack with existing team? Brainfood for sure. H/T to brainfooder Bas van de Haterd for the share
ASSESSMENT
13. The Emergence of Money with Lyn Alden - Part One
Inflation, cost of living crisis, de-dollarisation - macro trends which impact all of us on planet earth, yet few of us have anything like the necessary education to even know how to think about it. Few commentators are as astute as Lyn Alden. She’s shilling her new book, but these series of podcasts can save you a few pennies if you prefer to watch and listen.
ECONOMY
End Note
Mother arrived safely last Friday and is going to be around for the next 5 weeks. Handy for the first week at least, as there is someone to feed pet turtle whilst I’m away in the US. For those of you who are going to Recfest USA - see you Weds / Thurs!
In the meantime, the Grindr story got me thinking about the attrition rate for employees should our employer implement a similar ‘RTO or lose your job’ policy. Vote on the poll below friends, let me know what you think would happen.
That’s it - thanks for reading
Have a great week everybody
Hung
The McKinsey report also dances around the edges of Mental Health. One might position that much of their advice over the years of endless efficiency gains in chasing ever greater productivity has contributed to some of the mental health burnout.
Let's address the root cause...