Hiring Redefined: Winning Talent in 2025’s Hardest Markets

It is my great honor
and pleasure to introduce today, Brian,
Christie, and Ryan.
So come on up, go off mute, put your cameras on.
You know the drill. Here they are.
Um, for those of you who were with us last year
for our talent branding
and communications, you may remember Brian was our
keynote afternoon speaker
and he just brought the house down.
So it's just such a wonderful treat to have him here.
He's one of the smartest people I've had the pleasure.
No, no, you are.
And other things like your skills in tv,
your books, everything.
Taylor Swift, everything. Christie Christie, amazing.
Uh, vp I'm gonna give you all a chance to go around
and introduce yourself, but I'm so thrilled to have you here
because you're living and breathing this role every day.
And Ryan, so much you bring to me personally, like
whenever I call upon you to ask questions.
So this is going to be great.
So without further ado, we're gonna start with you, Brian,
just take a minute, introduce the audience
to your greatness.
And the question that I would like all of you to answer,
what do you think is the biggest misconception about hiring
in 2025 that we really need to debunk?
Put it away. It's not real. Okay, let's go.
Alright, so, uh, so I'm up first. My name is Brian.
Uh, I'm the managing partner at the Rework Group.
Uh, I like to think of myself as a modern talent acquisition
and technology recruiting aficionado.
I did write the book on this, it's called Talk Me,
the Non-Technical Guide to Technology Recruiting.
It was published about two years ago.
And, um, I really focus on recruiting strategy
to attract those, uh, those individuals
that are the unfindable
or unreachable AI engineers of today.
Right? So I like to demystify complex technology concepts.
I like to make everything as simple as I can
for my candidates
and for the recruiters that I get
to mentor about mentorship.
I do provide open office hours every Friday afternoon from
12 until 4:00 PM Eastern, where if you've got a question,
ping me on LinkedIn and we will tackle that together.
Uh, beyond that, I think that too,
Jody's question about the biggest misconception
that is taking place in the market today is
that it is a employer's market.
I think that, uh, candidates have heard
that it's been beaten into them, it's beaten them down,
but the reality of the, of the matter is it's still a market
where if you want to go and grow and you want to achieve
and you want to dream big
and you wanna build fantastic organizations,
there's a place for that recruiter.
There's a place for that candidate
and there's a place for that organization.
That's my misconception that I want to put to bed.
Excellent. Thank you so much for that.
Okay, Kristy, you're next.
I'm Kristy Spilker, vice President, head
of Talent acquisition at Smile Brands.
I've been recruiting for over 20 years now.
Started on the agency side, moved over
to the corporate side, and I was also, uh, past president
for the Association of TA Professionals.
And I'm a Lean six Sigma green belt,
so I'm very close to process.
I like to look at process and we'll talk about
that a bit today as well.
A misconception I think is happening in ta.
You know, everywhere I go, every webinar, every um,
in-person event I go to AI is the hot topic,
and it should be, it's very exciting right now.
I also think though it's not going to solve everything,
we still, talent acquisition professionals are still
so critical to this process and the strategy that we bring
and just the way that we go about the recruiting process is
still going to be critical.
And so I think just that AI is going
to solve everything is the misconception
that I would put to build.
Good one. Good one. Thank you, Ryan, you're up.
Hello? Hello. Um, hello everyone. I'm Ryan Volter.
My, uh, specialty is, I'm a coach trainer
certification instructor
and expert in all things talent attractions.
So think recruitment marketing, candidate experience,
employer brand, uh, with Rogue Hire, uh,
which is a decision intelligence platform
for healthcare recruiting.
Uh, to answer the question, I think that there's kind
of a fundamental misconception that TA is merely
operational more so than transformational.
And I think that there's a lot more gleaning insights into
data us as TA professionals can gather, whether it's top
of funnel data, down funnel data to make better, uh, more
strategically informed decision making.
Thank you. Thank you for that.
And I just wanted
to find out anybody here in healthcare recruiting,
because if you are, think of your questions
because Ryan is amazing in that.
So I think we hit on it in our introductions.
Let's talk about the elephant in the room, the AI elephant.
And Christie, you said it very articulately,
so I wanna start this one with you.
Where do you think AI can
or has delivered the biggest impact in talent acquisition
and where does it fall short?
So one of the things that you said
as we started was it's not the answer to everything.
Let's talk about both ends of that spectrum. Okay.
And we're gonna go circle around to everyone else after.
Sure. And it's a big question.
We could probably take the whole
call today to talk about it.
So I'll just give you a couple
of things that I think about here.
Um, AI's doing a great job with sourcing,
helping us identify candidates at scale with, in some cases,
screening, depending on
how deep you're talking about the screening process.
Uh, candidate engagement with text messaging, uh, chat bots,
engaging candidates, especially on our website,
answering questions, getting them engaged and excited.
Um, AI's doing a great job with recruitment automation
and having the ability
to send out more personalized communications at scale.
All of those are great. And then another area too.
Um, and obviously some
of those things like interview scheduling
and the things that recruiters really aren't excited about
doing anyway, so that's great.
Um, but another area, uh, that I think is, it comes
to mind is things like co-pilot, Chachi, pt,
Gemini, Claude.
I mean, there's so many out there right now
that we can leverage in different ways depending on
what your organization's rules are.
Um, and also tools like Google has a notebook, uh,
LM too, that's really great.
So you can learn a lot about areas
that maybe would've taken you forever to Google, um,
before, like for example, you know, Brian's got a ton
of knowledge about tech recruiting
that might take somebody who's new
to tech recruiting a long time to learn.
You can go through some websites into Google LM
and have it create a podcast for you
and learn while you're driving all about the different tech
roles that you might need to recruit for.
So I think in terms of helping us learn
and training, recruiting teams, keeping us up to date,
creating job descriptions through, um, things like Chachi,
bt, or copilot, assessing data, predictive analytics,
I think about those tools as well
and the huge impact they're going to have on all of us.
And where do you think it's falling short? Where do
We still all of Us?
Yeah, so I think there's a few areas.
Um, we don't wanna over rely on ai.
Um, there's nuance in communication
with candidates and assessment.
You still want to have that human in the loop
and still have that human as a process
and in a lot of these areas.
Um, also with, you know, working
with candidates through the process.
A a recruiter who can talk to a candidate
and say, Hey, what are you looking for?
What are you excited about in your next role?
And understand how to pull additional things outta
that person to have a more strategic conversation when it
comes time to making an offer.
Making sure that we are considering the entire conversation
we had with the candidate up to that point.
I think there's just some things that AI is not going
to in the, any time near future, have solves for where
that recruiter can be more strategic.
Um, so I just think of it in terms of the recruiting process
and I don't think it's gonna solve
for everything right now, though.
It is going to give us a huge lift,
and I'm very excited about it.
Mm-hmm. Okay.
Ryan, I'm gonna ask you to add anything to that,
and I'm also gonna ask everybody listening if they have any
of their own experiences that they wanna add
to the chat in using AI in their current roles.
Awesome. I loved everything Christie had to say.
Uh, she's, she's point on.
I've really seen AI unlock value in being able to,
uh, tap into our existing talent pool.
So we refer to this as candidate rediscovery.
Ai and automation has made that incredibly easier to go
and resurface missed candidates, silver medalists, those
that have shown interest in our organizations,
but are for a sense sitting in a digital filing cabinet.
So I love that part.
Uh, we could talk all afternoon about the administrative
efficiencies, but one thing that I love about AI is, uh,
note takers and,
and transcription being able to record all my conversations
and have easily
Identifi. Brian, I think you were
the first person
who told me about the AI note-taking,
and that seems like it was yesterday.
It was so many years ago. Like, that's amazing.
And I think that's, that's kind of a no-brainer for, uh,
recruiting teams to, to tap into
so they can be more engaged
one-on-one in their conversations.
Amazing. Falling short. Where's it falling short?
Uh, a couple areas I think, and,
and this might be, uh, just in healthcare,
maybe other industries see this,
but gaining leadership buy-in has been difficult.
I think, you know,
there's extensive governance processes required
to onboard elements of ai,
and often, at least in healthcare,
TA doesn't have a seat at that table.
So we do a lot of firefighting and course correcting.
How do you get that seat in the table and share your voice
and kind of mitigate any, any fears
or avoid like lengthy 12 month long
info security processes just to enable one, uh,
plugin tool, right?
Uh, so that's one area. I think it's falling short.
Uh, the other area, I think the promise
of AI to eliminate bias has been overstated.
Uh, you know, without proper governance, AI can amplify
existing biases in, in hiring.
So I, I think that there needs to be a lot of, um,
focus on that area
and, uh, careful not to lose too much of that human element.
That's interesting. And skipping ahead
to my next question, but
before I get to that, Brian, I'd love
to hear your take on it.
And also, I'd love to know, do you think that it's a help
to the candidate experience?
Because I hear a lot about it,
but at the same time, is it a real benefit, uh,
to the candidate experience or not so much just
because everybody knows you're talking to an AI bot?
AI in general. I, oh, Brian, sorry. No,
No, no, no, no. Brian,
You're gonna have to figure that out.
No, Ryan, I'm sorry,
Brian, go ahead. Brian
to you, Brian, the answer the question is to you.
Alright, so, so I want to, I want to answer this question,
but I also want to piggyback on something
that Ryan said, right?
Like, and something that Christie pointed out is
that AI is removing a lot of the friction when it comes
to sourcing, right?
Um, I disagree.
I I agree with both of them about that, that I disagree
with Ryan about the bias component.
And I think that this is, I, I think bias is, is rampant.
I think that we're all victims of it.
I think that we all perpetrate it as I think that AI
will try to clone your existing team if you say, Hey,
we all went to Stanford, and, um,
and we want people from Stanford, it means
that you're hiring echoes.
It means that you're not hiring evolution.
It means diversity, creativity,
and innovation are going to suffer,
and they're gonna suffer at scale.
Real talent acquisition isn't about building echo chambers,
it's about creating that friction,
and it's about expanding that worldview.
So I think that I, I would, I would challenge the, the,
the bias conversation that that is happening.
Um, one of the things that I do think to the question
that you poses, Jody, is that I think that soft skills
are still soft and that AI can't read the room,
and it doesn't know if a candidate has presence.
It doesn't know about their emotional intelligence
or their leadership potential.
It doesn't have the ability
to see the spark in somebody's eye
when you light them up in person, uh, the, the giggle
or the, or the noise they make on the phone
when you talk about solving an intimate
problem together, right?
Um, I guess that's a way of saying it can't call bs.
And then finally, uh, I, I want to bring
this to Christie's point,
and to bring it to your question, I think that it gives,
that AI gives us the opportunity as recruiters
to really consider whether somebody's making a career pivot.
If it's something that looks like job hopping,
if it was a sabbatical to care for, uh, a dependent parent,
we know that's becoming more prevalent,
that the middle generation is becoming the caregiver
for elder care and the caregiver for,
for youth, uh, oriented care.
It could all be interpreted as a resume gap by ai.
AI lacks that context and it lacks that empathy.
And these are two things that recruiters, let me say this,
two things that recruiters need to have in spades
to be effective recruiters.
And that's my answer to both your questions, Jody.
Amazing. Amazing. Thank you so much.
You see that the, uh,
the emojis are flying when you say that.
So I wanna talk about a question that I just saw from Tony,
which is that it's underutilized in hiring public
sector employees.
Has anybody seen that?
And does anybody have an answer to why that is
and how to change that?
I, I, I think that it's
because of the adoption that is being forced upon people,
is that when we think about the public sector, we, so,
so let's just talk about the, the machine in the room,
right, as if it's here is chat.
GPT is not the most secure thing for
a enterprise, right?
It has to, it has
to have very specific guardrails put on it.
It has to be redacted from being a large language model
to being a small language model.
Without getting too technical, we default as organizations
to using copilot inside
of coding assessments like GitHub
and inside of, uh, the Microsoft office suite,
because they're Microsoft products, that's
where it's having the most widespread adoption
amongst government agencies,
because that licensure has already been sold into the
organization, and it can be turned on.
However, the adverse is also true
because it costs more per license
to have a copilot license than it does
to have a chat GPT license.
So there's a, there's a financial hangover that, that
is not, is, is not kosher. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Got it. Got it.
Let me go back to you, Christie.
Are you, um, how have you successfully
mitigated bias in automatic screening?
Or is that a concern of yours?
Or have you run into that at all?
And particularly even in job postings,
like reducing the bias or every other kind of thing?
Are you doing that or have you talk to me about that?
Well, I'll start with job postings.
There are actually great tools out there that will help you
with your job postings in, uh, writing postings
that are more inclusive.
Mm-hmm. Uh, tools that will even like,
highlight certain words
and tell you, Hey, you may wanna change this
and then train you, uh,
because you're learning as you're going
and like, you know, oh, I may wanna use these types of,
of words going forward to represent
what I'm saying, to be more inclusive.
So lots of tools out there on the market,
I would definitely say check those out.
They're really good. I have used some of those before.
Mm-hmm. Um, and then in terms of mitigating bias
through the process, just always remembering
that human in the loop.
And if you are bringing AI in, if AI is screening,
make sure you're running a lot of tests.
Make sure a human is looking at, I would say every,
every one for a while just
to see if you're seeing any trends that are happening.
And then conducting regular audits.
Just always audit what is happening.
Um, and depending on what your volume is, you may want
to say, listen, if AI screens somebody out, we're going
to put them in this bucket over here,
but we're still going to go
through every single one of those candidates.
Again, depends on what your volume is.
If you have super high volume,
you may wanna address it in a different way.
But I would say the biggest piece is human in the loop
and don't just turn it on and then forget it.
I like that human in the loop. Okay.
I'm gonna move on to a different topic, but
before I do, I'm going
to ask anybody if they have any questions.
Anybody in the audience have any questions about AI
for our team or anybody have anything else
that they wanna share on the topic of ai?
Ryan? Brian Christie.
I'm good. I just wanna say I, I agree with, uh,
Brian's retort other than just wanted to clarify.
Its AI without governance, uh, might open up the opportunity
for, um, you know,
amplifying bias in, in both ends.
I've seen examples of that, so that's why I, I advocate for
that, that oversight.
Thank you. Okay.
Let me keep going with you, Ryan, with an R.
Let's talk about pipeline and hiring velocity.
And this really does play into your healthcare.
Uh, what strategies have you seen work best
for building agile talent pipelines in competitive
markets like healthcare?
Yeah, there's, there's a lot out there.
I think I like to lock on what, what I've come to, to kind
of coach and educate healthcare ta, uh, on being kind
of my big three.
And kind of the gold standard for, for quality that
I always preach, uh,
from the rooftops is employee referrals.
Uh, we have incredibly powerful benchmark data showing
that successful organizations should aim for at least 30
to 35% at the minimum
of their total hires coming in through referrals.
That doesn't necessarily mean you always need like a high
tech approach, right?
You can have, uh, high touch teams of, you know, referral
advocates and, and processes in place.
But I think that's, uh, a, a big number, uh, one
for sustainable pipeline and candidate advocacy.
Uh, the others that that kind of come to mind are, uh,
boomerang strategies, right?
Kinda keeping that high touch relationship with your,
your previous in employers and engaging them
and have alumni groups
and, uh, processes, especially like in healthcare
where there's a lot of volatility.
There's, uh, a lot of shift in, in,
in careers and transitions.
Most healthcare practitioners, you know, have four
or five, uh, healthcare systems they work
with in their career.
Uh, and then the last one, uh,
we talked a little bit about it before,
but the, the candidate rediscovery piece, uh,
you have such amazing data, uh, at your fingertips,
and if you're not utilizing your existing databases, you're,
you know, cutting yourself short.
So finding ways to, to have high touch engagement
and interaction with your silver medalists past applicants,
and, uh, finding ways to, to keep that contact information,
uh, fresh is, is key.
That's wonderful. So those are, those are kind
of my big three, but I mean, man, there's a,
there's a whole list of recruitment
marketing tactics out there.
Christie. Are you using employee referral?
Yes, we do. And I'm just curious to know like what
specifically, and not, not just within your company,
but what are their specific bonuses these days?
Like how much money are they going for these days?
Well, in the industry in general, I see it range a lot.
I don't think there's really a standard.
It, it can go from hundreds of dollars to many thousands
of dollars depending on the role.
And I'm speaking in the industry in general,
yes, our company.
Um, but you know,
you can see employer referral bonuses get pretty hefty
for some very hard to fill positions.
Any other strategies that you are using
to build agile talent pipelines?
Oh, yes. This is a huge focus for us,
uh, especially this year.
Uh, we are, and in general, I would say, um,
my focus area within the CRM is always
how can we leverage our CRM to help us build
and engage our talent pipelines?
And so when I think about the CRM,
and if you don't have a CRM, you could do this in your a TS
as well, but just like Ryan said, those candidates
that you've already engaged with, you've already paid
to have those leads in your system
and to have those candidates.
And so how am I going to maximize that ROI?
And for these candidates who applied to one position,
who knows how long ago, it's great for them when you say,
Hey, you know, we spoke to you six months ago,
would love to talk to you again.
Um, and they may still be looking.
So I would say segmenting your talent pipelines, deciding
what you want those pipelines to look like.
Maybe that's by job, family or something else.
Um, and then having a content plan,
what's my content calendar?
How am I going to get in touch with them?
Um, maybe I'm doing two touch points a
month, whatever that looks like for you.
Do you have a newsletter you're sending them every month
and some hot jobs
or maybe some content from some leaders in your
organization, maybe your CEO just did a podcast
or who knows what that looks like?
Getting that content in front of them on some type
of cadence so that they're regularly hearing from
you, but not too much.
And then also having it to where your sourcers
and your recruiters are going in there,
rediscovering sourcing candidates
and then reaching out to them as well.
Phone call, text, whatever that may be.
Putting those notes in there,
making sure people aren't over contacted.
Um, but really using that information.
Maybe you have tags, maybe you know, key words,
however you are doing it to understand,
here are my silver medalists.
Here are people that have interviewed, uh, with, uh, tech,
now you even have the ability to say,
these people are highly engaged,
these people are less engaged.
These went to my events.
This one just went to an event last week.
There's so many things to think about.
Um, so I would just say, partner with your tech vendor,
if you have a CRM, build out your strategy for the year,
what those touch points should look like,
and how your team is going to leverage that
and make sure everybody is trained in how to do that.
That's so great. And I have a question.
Are you working with your marketing department as well?
Because one of the things that you mentioned is your company
podcasts or positioning the people within the
organization is thought leaders.
And that's what everybody wants to work for.
Like the winning, you know, the winning company, the best,
uh, the best brands and everything.
Do you work with marketing
or is it strictly an HR endeavor to
Build your We do. And
on my team, I also have a fabulous, uh,
employer branding person who does a great job in helping us,
uh, come up with content
and create content in the materials that go out.
And we do also partner with marketing on who's speaking
where and what's happening in the organization so
that we can put all of that in there.
Oh, that's wonderful. That is wonderful.
And what about, uh, strategy for, uh, uh,
Ryan said the boomerang strategy that if somebody left
and then six months later you want to reach out
and say, oh, so was it as good as you thought it would be?
Do you do that as well?
Yes, we do. Um, I would say, you know, it's tough to do
that on like a blanket strategy
because you don't wanna reach out to somebody
and say, Hey, you know, we'd love
to have you come back right now, and you don't even
have an opening for that person.
Uh, that can get a little awkward.
So, um, you know, you just want to be,
uh, targeted in your approach.
And then you may also want to have a campaign running
for those boomerangs to stay in touch with them
and stay top of mind
and keep them looking at any openings in your organization.
Love it. Love it, love it.
Brian, I see your head is nodding.
I smell the windows in your I'm,
I'm I Loving, I'm
loving. Go, go, go, go, go.
I'm loving all this. One thing that I would come back to
that Ryan talked about,
and I like, I I think this is super important,
is alumni groups, right?
People are gonna talk about whether
or not they had a good experience working for somebody,
or they had a bad experience working for somebody.
What are you doing to cultivate
that relationship in such a way that even after they've left
and even after they've said not negative things
or positive things about you, that you still connect
with them, that you still give them tools to make,
make a better move?
And so I think that like, you know, uh, this organization,
everybody knows LinkedIn.
LinkedIn has huge alumni networks, uh, that they distribute
through their groups and what have you,
and they use that as a first resort to bring back
or to boomerang those individuals.
I think that's something that's scalable, uh,
depending upon the size of your organization,
how many recruiters you have committed to it.
One idea though, that I'd put out there is, I think, and,
and this is to Christie's point, is that we don't do enough
to cultivate the silver medalist relationship.
And what I mean by that is, when I was at Twitter,
or when I was at McAfee, or when I was at AWS
or even now, what I do is I have my top 100 candidates list,
uh, I call it my hot 100.
I reach out to 25 of them each Friday morning, um,
via a text message or via an email
and just say, Hey, what's going on in your world?
I offer them a little bit of positive advice.
It, it is simply a form to reengage with them, right?
And so you would be astonished as to how many people, and,
and like, like Christie said, I don't have a role
for everybody, right?
Like, you know, if for instance, um, I'll give you somebody
that I, that I, I, I won't, I won't,
but well, so there's a candidate.
There's a candidate, their name is Jeff Ma.
And Jeff Ma is not leaving his job.
Jeff Ma I tried to recruit 10 years ago
to come work at Cabbage.
And Jeff Ma has been at Twitter, and that may
or may not be how I arrived at Twitter,
because he said, you may or may not should come here.
Uh, he's now at Microsoft and what have you.
But this is, this is the kind of person
that you cultivate a relationship with,
and they bring you talent.
They know they are your talent magnet.
They are your North Star.
And Jeff, if you're listening, I, I'd still love
to recruit you and put you somewhere.
What Brian is saying is so powerful.
We're talking about, uh, cultures
of screening in versus screening out.
And I think so often our technologies are perfectly
optimized to reject everyone,
but that one perfect candidate.
And if we kind of flip that mindset to incorporate some
of these strategies, right?
Whether it's, you know, rediscovery, ambassadorship,
candidate advocacy, I think we open up a lot more doors to,
uh, you know, find the, the right fit for, for everyone
that, uh, you know,
could be a good addition to our organization.
I've seen a lot of healthcare organizations that, you know,
may have dedicated sourcing teams
and they've taken a specific person
and given them a title of like swat sourcer, right?
And their full, so their full purpose is to find homes
for silver medalists or engage those ambassador groups
and be connectors of, of talent to opportunity.
So they're not given a specific wreck, right?
Uh, their job is to, in a sense, be a matchmaker.
And, uh, yeah, those type
of cultures are, are, are thriving.
I think that from what I'm hearing, it's just about
the three of you have all said the same thing.
It's about reaching out to people
and making that human connection.
And I just wanted to share a story
because I'm sure each one
of everybody here listening on the call gets a number
of emails every day from people that you don't know, looking
for jobs, looking to find out more about companies,
and you may or may not have roles.
And one day, uh, last month I got a, uh,
a random email from somebody about a career opportunity
within brand amx.
Uh, and he was a photographer,
and I always take the time to look at the work,
and his work was stunning.
It literally blew me away.
And I wrote back and I said to him,
I don't have any opportunities for you,
but my daughter, who is a video editor,
sends out these kinds of random emails all week
long looking for a job.
And you know, in her honor, I'm reaching back to you to say,
don't be discouraged.
I don't have an opportunity for you,
but your work is amazing.
Please keep going, doing what you're doing.
And it's just that response
just made his day.
And you know what he said, have your daughter reach out
to me, maybe I could help her.
And that's the circle, and that's the power
that everybody has to change a life every day.
So it's just taking a minute
to answer somebody, reach out to them.
Brian, I love what you said about your top 100 people
and you reach out to 25 every Friday.
I love that. I love everybody. I love everybody. So,
So the, so the, so the thing that I want to, I want
to cultivate here, and, and this is on Ryan's comment
and in your story, which is a beautiful story, is
that we are people
and we are trying to screen people in, despite
what the news may say,
there still is a talent shortage in all these areas
in high volume.
I mean, Ryan, is there a superfluous amount
of nurses just looking to get hired by hospitals?
There's more retiring that are graduating in the,
the labor market right now.
Absolutely. So why wouldn't you wanna make sure
that they know that your hospital
or that doctor's office is their next place
that they can build their career and the careers of others?
I'm very hesitant to use the word home
because I don't like the family metaphor.
I think it gets thrown around and gets weaponized.
Um, so, uh, yeah,
Love that. I'm gonna
drop this in chat,
but I wanted to just share a motto of one
of the favorite healthcare systems I work with.
They've kind of adopted this as a candidate advocacy model,
but they, uh, use the motto connection
and guidance, not rejection in silence.
So think about that for a second.
I just, I just love that motto,
Brian. That makes me
think of the two in Five Promise at Amazon.
Everybody knows Amazon.
Everybody loves their two day prime, right?
We probably don't like paying for two Day Prime,
but we like two Day Prime.
We like pri, but okay, we like prime in the think household.
Alright, so I, I bring this up is
that the two in five Promise is
that a candidate will hear within two days
of a phone interview
what their status is every time they walk through the,
through the, the gate.
And they'll hear within five days of an in-person interview
what the outcome was of that, of that interview.
Or if there are an offer being made,
or if they're silver medalist or what the next step is.
It's a two in five promise.
You can Google a lot of it on, on Amazon.
I think it's actually one of the things
that they do really well.
Awesome. Yeah, I mean there's,
there's like the Amazon Promise, there's a lot
of like metaphors that I hear out there around, you know,
creating a, um, recruiting system using kind
of like the, the Dominoes or Pizza Hut tracker, right?
That you can kinda see step by step exactly
where you are in a status.
And lots of great aspirational things.
I think for a lot of us in our industries, though.
Uh, some of those aspirational things are just
insurmountable and unscalable by the thousands of,
of roles that we're filling.
So a lot of times too, I think it's about customization,
looking at your different profiles
and finding what profiles can we give more
of an automated experience, right?
That might, uh, be your high volume roles where you can
set up screens or interviews via, uh, an Olivia chat bot
or short form.
And then what roles, uh, deserve more
of a high touch experience based on the,
the preference and the profile.
Uh, so I see a lot of systems kind of going that way, trying
to figure out, uh, you know, what's the, the,
the right experience
for the right profile at the right time.
Can I also look at it in terms of the process?
So I mentioned my Lean six Sigma.
I will write down the entire process, start to fi to finish,
do a visual map of it,
and then really, you know, look at the areas, come up with
what those SLAs
and metrics are of where you're hitting right now
in each and every one of those areas.
And understand where can we automate in certain places,
maybe at the beginning of the funnel,
maybe the middle of the funnel.
Where do I wanna automate?
And then where are those human touchpoint so important
that if I automate over here,
I can give my recruiters more time to talk to candidates.
So I, I think that that's just really important too,
is looking at the entire process
and determining where that time should be spent
and where you may want to bring in automation.
I have a friend and what he does is he,
when he tells people that he always gets back to everybody
that they didn't get the job,
he tells them why they didn't get the job
and offers them an opportunity to coach them on
how they could improve their resume
or their interviewing skills.
Any thoughts about that from anybody on the panel today?
Because I know that that goes both ways.
A lot of times there are legalities
and people are very hesitant about that.
So I'm just wondering because that blew me away.
And I'm just wondering if you do that,
if you promote that, if you're afraid of that.
And by the way, anybody on the chat doing
that or not doing that?
You know, I think that,
I think you said a very powerful word you said afraid.
And I think that recruiters forget
that we are in the no business.
We like to think we're in the yes business that we, I mean,
'cause nothing feels better than to tell a candidate, yes,
you've got the job, I'm gonna make you an offer,
but we're in the no business
because out of a hundred candidates,
only one of them gets the job.
Maybe two. Right? So Jody, my answer to that is I always try
to give my candidates that made it to the final round
that Congress has feedback,
because I use that as a means to cultivate the relationship
and to make sure they are in silver medalist territory.
Somebody who got all the way to the end who went
through four rounds of interviewing to ghost them.
That's 'cause you are afraid of,
of letting that person down.
It's a bigger letdown.
If you ghost them, you need to tell them you need
to ghost them instead of coast them.
I mean coast them instead of ghost them. Mm-hmm.
And show them that direction.
But for other candidates who've made it
through like a first round
or a second round, I just send them a hiring guide
that I've made up that says, um, these are,
these are 10 questions
that you should prepare for, for next time.
And, um, yeah, that's, that's it.
So it's, it's kind of one or the other.
I'm, I'm sorry to be rather indifferent.
No, but also you give yourself time on Fridays,
people can have calls with you.
Does that also include candidates
that may not have gotten their job?
Well, that mainly my Friday calls are mainly
for recruiters who are either out of work
or looking, they've got a difficult search.
Mm-hmm. Those are my open office hours. Yeah.
Oh, got it. Mm-hmm. How about you Christie?
Are you doing anything to, uh,
let them down gently, help them in the future?
Whenever possible? Whenever, you know, in, in my career,
uh, for my teams, you know,
have always given it when we are able to, um,
or when we have information, we'll share it.
Uh, sometimes it comes down to, you know, hey, uh,
this wasn't the right fit
because this schedule doesn't work.
Like sometimes it's something super simple.
Um, and so we always obviously wanna share that.
If somebody has had an in-person interview, like Brian said,
or even made it a certain stage of the interview process,
I believe that should always be a pick up the phone
and have a conversation.
Uh, and again, that's where when you look at your process,
you can figure out what can I automate if I'm logged down
all day scheduling candidate interviews,
I probably don't have a lot of time to do that.
Wow. If I can automate all of my interview scheduling
and that takes out three hours a day,
now I have three hours, I can go talk to people more.
So I, again, I think that's where process is important.
That's amazing. And speaking
of process, I'm looking at the time.
I cannot believe that we are so far along.
Uh, Zach, I invite you
to pop back on camera, ask any questions.
I also invite anybody that has questions for these amazing
panelists to pop them into the chat.
We will get to them. And I wanna flip gears
to my last segment, which is all about,
uh, metrics.
So have they changed?
Are we looking at new things these days?
Christie, let me start with you.
What kind of metrics are you using in 2025
to prove ROI and align with business goals?
There are so many metrics, and
I know too many. Are there
Too many? There's so many.
Maybe. Are
There maybe too many? I think so, which
Is actually part of my answer for you.
Um, and there are so many metrics
that go in different areas, right?
You have your employer branding metrics
and your pipeline conversion metrics,
and then you're, how many, uh, people do I have going
through the process and my web applicants?
I mean, there's so many things.
I think what's really important is
to try to cut through that noise.
So you may have a dashboard that gives you everything
that you need, so maybe you're, you're looking at
that on some cadence, but then also look at your goals
as an organization for the year.
Maybe your organization is standing up a new, uh,
support center where you're going to have
to go hire a ton of people.
You may need to look at different metrics based upon that
to be able to enable that goal.
Um, maybe you're looking at your offer accept ratio
and you think, gosh, I need to double my hiring.
I'm only, whenever I make an offer, I'm only converting
X percent of them, let's say 30%.
If I could convert 50%, I could go hire so many more people
with the same resources and everything that I have today.
So now I'm going to be hyperfocused on my offer except
ratio, and I'm going to look at all the metrics
that influence my hi, my offer,
accept ratio while I'm still looking at everything else.
I'm gonna be really hyperfocused on that
and maybe looking at it every day.
So I would just say, um, you know, connected
to your organizational goals and,
and what is important to you as a company.
Mm-hmm. Ryan, any thoughts on metrics?
Oh, that's metrics is our wheelhouse.
Uh, I'd like, I, I agree with everything.
I've never heard anyone say that before. So,
But to, to go a, a, a layer deeper in that,
to really achieve kind of what,
like Christie's talking about, I think you need
to dissect your entire process
and understand what's happening each step of the way.
Aspirationally, if we look at, you know, time to fill
or time to source, as you know, end goals,
how do we improve that?
Uh, there's so many micro processes and steps
and handoffs that go from the talent attraction to,
to the hire if you're not measuring every step of the way.
And most importantly, if you don't have anything
to compare it to, you know, what's, what's good?
What's the benchmark time between, uh, uh,
an interview to a, a hiring manager handoff, right?
How do you know what in your process to optimize
or, or improve?
So I think one, yeah, the measurement piece to having,
you know, goals that you want to
look at in the micro process to help achieve those,
those bigger goals.
Like, like time to fill. Mm-hmm.
Um, I think the other is, uh, you know,
especially on like the top of the funnel, I think trying
to solve things like optimize my, my indeed
or programmatic job advertising by number of hires,
I think is, um, kind of aiming at a moving target, right?
I, I see a lot more healthcare organizations
and others talking about focusing more on, uh,
the quality of candidates.
So focusing in on conversion rates and cost per quality
and looking at, you know, waste those
that didn't even make it past an initial screen versus
trying to, to hold our recruitment marketing vendors
or solutions to, you know,
an anecdotal cost per hire, uh mm-hmm.
Type of metric. Those would be my two.
Thank you. Thank you for that. Brian.
Metrics, are they your wheelhouse?
Me? The only metric that I am obsessed with is
submittal to final interview.
Like I am obsessed with that number.
It has guided me my entire career.
Um, I don't handle budgets for Indeed
or for LinkedIn or anything of that nature.
Never have, probably never will.
I just look at introduction to hire and I look at that
and I try to keep that ratio as tight as I possibly can.
Amazing. That's amazing.
Well, listen, we are two minutes away from closing.
Apologies if I did not get to your questions in the chat,
but feel free to engage with everybody on the panel.
I think they have already left their LinkedIn emails to you,
but feel free to type them in the chat.
And I wanna leave you with one question.
What is the one bold bet TA leaders can make now
to stay ahead in the next two to three years?
And Brian, I'm gonna kick it off with you. Bold bet.
Bold bet. Bold bet.
Go smaller. Go with smaller teams.
Ask your teams to deliver more.
Don't go with big teams where people can hide.
Go with smaller teams.
Thank you, Christie.
Bet on your people. Invest in your people.
Train your teams. Train yourself.
Get out there to that Google lm I mentioned.
Get out there to Chachi pt. Start asking questions.
How do I become a more strategic recruiter?
What are the top skills I should be focusing on in the next
two years as AI becomes more prevalent?
Learn about ai.
Don't just think of it as, oh, it's gonna take my job away.
It may one day if you don't learn about it.
So take the time to learn about it
and you're gonna be just fine.
Amazing. Ryan, bring it home.
I'm gonna double down what I mentioned at the onset,
but invest in AI governance now.
Position yourself as,
as leaders in AI adoption rather than waiting
for other departments to take the lead
or set the standard. Get a
Say goodbye to everybody.
I love that. Thank you so much.
Uh, thank you everybody, the four Jody, for facilitating
to the three of you for bringing your expertise
to our network and to everyone attending
for dedicating some time outta your day
to grow and sharpen your craft.
I really encourage you to connect with these leaders.
I share their LinkedIns in the chat there.
Follow them, reach out to them.
I'm sure they'd be more than happy to share some more
of their insights if you have additional questions.
But thank you so much everyone. I appreciate it.

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