Recruiting Brainfood - Issue 364

Transformers, Principals, LinkedIn being weird, Age & Ageism and Fridman and Zuckerberg embodied in the Metaverse

Oct 01, 2023

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Friends,

Firstly, apologies for all those who had to make an additional request to access to my deck ‘Recruiting in the Era of Generative AI’. I had a fun week making hundreds of manual approvals as I shared the wrong link to you all 🤣. Link above is the right one so directly access it there from now.

Secondly, a mega schedule of webinars + brainfood lives went out last week. I encourage everyone to get involved - it will keep you connected to the important topics and to other members of the community.

Finally, if you’re looking to boost profile (you should, especially if you’re looking for work), then two ideas to share with you. Join the Brainfood Tribune by replying directly to this email and put your name forward to be a speaker at the next Recfest as brainfooder Jamie Leonard is planning ‘first talk debut’ for each stage in 2024. Get out of your comfort zone friends - trust me, it will have huge positive impact on your career.

Thanks to: Eugène van den Hemel, Joey NK Koksal, Antonio Arias, Kata Törő, Juliana Park, Tim Sanchez, Alan Furley, Jamie Dillon, Holden Lager, Charlotte Steggall, Peter Hros, Ben Halfpenny and Dave Hazlehurst for your public endorsements of all things brainfood - essential to keep the growing this community 🙏. Scores updated in the Brainfood Hall of Fame.

Can you help? Share this newsletter with a friend or colleague who needs a boost. Cheers!

What Do Brainfooders Think?

So a massive 2000 of you cast your votes on whether AI would be net positive for jobs in the next 10 years - and a resounding 89% votes create more. Love the confidence from the brainfooders, but worth knowing that workers in every job category seem to think that AI disintermediation will happen to someone else….

Thanks for all the voters - lets make sure we keep doing this. Check out the poll at the end of this newsletter and make sure you cast your vote.

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep226 - Being Put On Blast: How to Handle Negative Publicity from Unhappy Job Candidates

Have you or your business ever been publicly ‘called out’? It happened to brainfooder Nadia Vatalidis, Head of People at TestGorilla, whose company was on the end of this public criticism last month. Nadia’s Loom video was a remarkable public response to an incredibly difficult situation. It’s the topic of Brainfood Live this week, so join us on Friday 6th Oct, 2pm - register here

The Brainfood

1. Generative AI Exists Because of the Transformer

If you ever wanted to know why this iteration of AI is different from those which have gone before, then this wonderful explainer from the FT of transformer architecture is the read for you. Superbly animated, this is an example of visual storytelling which manages to bridge the gap between those who know and those who want to know. Not recruiting specific, but this is a must read for all of us here nevertheless.

2. How to Evaluate a Job Candidate’s Critical Thinking Skills in an Interview

The answer is ‘the flip interview’ - a role reversal where the interviewee becomes the interviewer. An intriguing and radical technique to assess a candidates ability to seek the right questions rather than the right answers. Includes a useful framework on how to conduct this style of anti-interview - if you’ve tried this in practice, get in touch, I’d love to know your thoughts.

ASSESSMENT

3. What Was Behind Microsoft’s Layoffs of Over 20,000 People in the Last Year?

Fascinating account of big tech scale up in 2021 vs big tech winter in 2022, specifically in the case of Microsoft. Contains themes which resonate for us - new social contract, post pandemic boom, cheap money, hiring frenzy, tech crash, wage suppression and ultimately, mass layoffs. No word on hostile de-globalisation though, which marked the high point and end point of decade long boom years. Unverified but unquestionably interesting.

CULTURE

4. The Online Maze of Job Applications

‘Candidate perspective’ blogging is a POV which provides a shortcut for us recruiters to better understand the UX of the job search. We sort of know it’s terrible but always useful to have some experimentation to give some ballast to the theory. Particularly like the ‘application time by ATS’ metric. Must read

CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE

5. Interview Scheduling: Candidate Expectations, Frustrations, and Preferences

More research on CX, this time survey work from our friends at Cronofy who polled 6000 job seekers on what causes them to drop out of recruiting processes. The results comply with my own LinkedIn poll from a week ago - process, process, process folks - we must get more efficient on process. And update candidate. No registration wall on this report, so have a read directly here.

CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE

6. Are Older People Less Innovative?

Age-ism is real but so is age and we need to be candidly talk about each, without equivocation, caveat or fear of repercussion. I’m thankful we have writers like brainfooder Laeitita Vitaud who can navigate these themes in a manner which invites debate - this is exceptional essay which points toward a way in which we might recognise biological reality whilst eroding obsolete stereotypes at the same time. Another must read folks (and Laetitia is a must follow, subscribe to her newsletter)

D&I

7. The Importance of a Principal Recruiter role - for Talent Executives and Individual Contributors

What is the difference between Principal vs Senior? Brainfooder Andreea Lungulescu draws the distinction and argues for the formalisation of a non-managerial career track for expert recruiters in a series which looks worthy a follow

RECRUITMENT OPERATIONS

8. Are AI Positions Creating New Top Salaries in the Tech Industry?

How has the demand for AI impacted compensation? It’s a question which has interested me enough for me to do a custom webinar on it, with our friends at Figures, next month (register here). Some highlights in this short post from Worklife: ‘Head of AI’ tripled in the past 5 years (LinkedIn), 35% increase in job titles with AI in from 2020-2023 (Indeed) and ML Product Manager salary at Netflix ‘up to $900,000’….

9. How to Create an AI Policy for Your Recruitment Process

One of the main points of friction slowing down the adoption of AI in work is a lack of policy and guidance from the top. We need more content like this from our friends Metaview, whose how-to guide includes useful checklist that you take an run way today. Also: for those worried about potential AI bias / legal risk, we’re doing a Brainfood Live on this next month - register here.

10. LinkedIn Has Gotten Really Weird

‘LinkedIn is not Facebook’ is a refrain heard less often these days, as Facebook is not Facebook, nor is any other social media platform what it once was. With ‘X’ continuing down it’s own marginal ideological rabbit hole I suspect LinkedIn might become the last network standing, which will mean more ‘non-professional’ content on the newsfeed. Good or bad? It’s the topic of this week’s poll so make sure you vote below. H/T to brainfooder Michael Talarek for the share

CONTENT MARKETING

The Podcasts

11. First Interview in the Metaverse

Ground breaking interview between Lex Fridman and Mark Zuckerberg, likely the first one ever where photorealistic 3-d avatars conduct a conversation in the Metaverse. Obviously the hardware constraints will remain a huge friction point for mass adoption, but we once thought the same for mobile phones. Applications for hiring, future of work and collaboration, should be obvious.

AR / VR

12. How to Hire Like A Pro: Hung Lee Reveals the Secrets of Recruiting Part 2

Me again, in Part 2 of a great conversation I had with Dr John Mitchell. We talk GAI, remote work, future of work - and quite a bit of audience building, content and community. Have a listen

COMMUNITY

13. Back to the Office

Resistance to RTO is continuing from the worker perspective, but the sense that employers are increasingly pressuring employees to come back is apparent. Interview with 3 bosses are who making the case for RTO. Interesting listen. H/T to my old mate and brainfooder Steve Simms for the share.

REMOTE WORKING

End Note

Speculating on the future of social media, I am inclined to think that there may not be much of one; Facebook has gone fully into the Metaverse, Google+ long since dead, video only apps like Snap or TikTok are content-before-network graph, X being a confused, increasingly unpleasant mess and new entrants BlueSky, Threads blossom and fade in days rather than weeks. Leaving only LinkedIn as the place where people might actually still connect online.

Big implications for us recruiters, of course, who have previously been the only habitual users of LinkedIn, and who might now see an increase in usage from non-recruiters (a.k.a ‘candidates') who find no other outlet to share their opinions.

What do you think - will LinkedIn become the No1 social network?

Supplementary question which we might want to handle on comments - how will you change your use of LinkedIn, given your vote above?

Recruiting Brainfood