How the Top Talent Teams are Answering the Big Question: How Might a Candidate Act Around Coworkers or Customers When They Join?

So I'd love to introduce Ben Mones, who is the founder and CEO of Pharma, a modern candidate screening solution that makes hiring great people easy. Something that who wouldn't be interested in. I mean, hiring as a small business owner is very, very difficult. And what Brent Ben brings to the table is a lot of great thoughts in terms of what to look for and what to avoid, which I think is extremely important in today's conversation, where employers are, are slow to hire, and, you know, really looking for the right fit candidate and are not willing to take risks that could hurt the business and slow it down. Uh, Ben, it's great to have you here to present on the strategies and solutions that can enhance hrs ability to assess candidate fit more accurately and concisely. Awesome. Thanks a lot, Dan, for having me and for teeing up the intro. It's great to be here with you on the webinar. Uh, I'd also say we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that you're about to be a dad, so congratulations. I know we got a bunch of strangers, but send good vibes Dan's way, guys. He's about to welcome a little one into the world, and if you ask to leave, it's because this baby's come. So anyway, uh, congrats, Dan on, uh, on your big news, man. Really exciting stuff. So, um, you wanna go ahead and walk through the agenda for today? Absolutely. Great. So, um, again, we're, uh, uh, here, you know, partnering really to talk about, you know, this, uh, uh, sort of converging of worlds of the ongoing. I think, as Dan mentioned, need for companies to hire high quality candidates, the tools that talent acquisition and hiring teams by extension can use to help do that. And really digging into, uh, a lot of the areas related to risk, right? And so how can we think about risk as a proxy for being to understand whether or not someone's a good fit for our organization? How are they going to contribute to a thriving, welcoming work workplace culture? How are they gonna contribute to building a great brand in the eyes of our clients? So we'll talk about how candidate screening can help do that, how that can help sort of increase quality over time. So this is sort of the, the high level agenda that we're gonna go through today, but definitely welcome. Any questions? I think, Dan, we got what at the, the, the tail end? We got a q and a session. Yeah. Be sure to input your questions there. We'd like love to get to as many as possible. Yeah, absolutely. So, tail end of the call today, we'll be going through any q uh, questions that you might have, but we're gonna start, um, how candidates are looking at technology to increase their chances of being hired. How hiring teams can kind of use that same sort of type of technology to assess quality and find some green red flags that are out there and, and really, um, what the impact is. So we'll talk about the cost of getting it wrong, but also the real positive side of getting it right. So, uh, that is what we're gonna cover today. We should be able to wrap up with enough time to spare to get into those questions. So Dan, I'll hand it back to you. So Ben, at a high level this year in 2024, how should we be thinking about the quality of hire? Yeah, sure. So I think from a, a quality of hire standpoint, you know, it's one of those things that, uh, LinkedIn actually had as one of its top recruiting trends for 2024 for, uh, a lot of reasons, right? I think one, we're seeing at a very, you know, kind of macro level, an increasingly tight labor market, right? We're also seeing, uh, people that are being very selective about the companies that, you know, they want to join, and even some roles that are even more overcrowded, right? And so we're in this moment where quality of hire around retention, with the great resignation being over, uh, the great separation, whatever you want to call it, you know, we're in a very much a kind of a new normal when it comes to, uh, you know, companies assessing talent and talent going the other way, assessing companies. So when we think about quality of hire, we're talking about impact. How are these people going to help advance your mission as an organization? How are they gonna contribute to a culture that doesn't make them wanna stay? What makes other people around them want to stay? Be more engaged, be more locked in, focused on that task at hand, right? So when we think about quality a hire, it's a multidimensional, uh, you know, uh, sort of definition. And one that I think, um, you know, wide range of different practitioners can, can kind of tweak and vary, but it all comes back to a couple of key principles, right? So skills, right? That's the very basic, what I would say, qualification, right? Does somebody have the skillset that they need to perform the function? If I'm a welder, can I make that right seam, if I'm a software programmer, um, you know, can I write code the right way? Right? Those are those kind of basic skills. Do you have that qualification, you know, to do the job? But I think as we all know, so much of work happens outside of those clearly defined lines of just doing the job, doing the task in itself, right? So when it comes to integrity, right? You know, that's that question of is that person, you know, going to act in a way and treat other people fairly, right? Are they gonna treat people how they want to be treated? Going basic, you know, to to basic first grade principles, right? Of how we all treat each other, how we treat customers to create and foster a welcoming, uh, you know, uh, workplace where folks who work there feel like they belong and customers feel like they belong too in that environment, community you've created. And I think the third vector here is really fit, right? And so if you think skills, I have the foundation integrity, I have that kind of, uh, you know, the, the, the, uh, framework, the mindset of how I work with other people, the behaviors I normalize, how I interact with others fit is really that third dimension of some of those traits and competencies that somebody brings to the table so that they can fit from a working style, communication style, leadership style within the broader group that you have within your organization. All of that is validated, I think, by talent acquisition teams with their years of expertise and experience, uh, you know, that they bring to evaluating, Hey, is this the right person for the role? Yeah, I, I mean, I, I think that's so important, right? Especially now with, as you were saying before, the amount of people who are submitting applications for jobs is so much like, how do you narrow it down and make the right choice? Uh, but then also at the same time as you said, like the other perspective is the candidates are more selective as well, right? And so you have to be able to create the right fit and take into account, like you're saying, like the soft skills, the hard skills, and like match it with the cultural fit, is this person, what's the probability that this person is gonna get along with people and, and last longer than six months, right? Because it takes six months to train them at least, right? So I, I think that once you have the quality, quality of higher down, these persons mo more likely to stay with the organization longer so they, they can get more out of the role and you can maximize productivity And, and you actually see increases in productivity with folks that are engaged, right? That feel that sense of belonging, right? And you see signs of misconduct continue to spread when one incident happens, right? You know, we did this research report, uh, state of workplace misconduct put out every year. It essentially ties to this idea that a single incidence of misconduct creates, you know, 0.5 x more misconduct in that organization. In other words, like bad apple spoils a bunch has been quantified, right? And so I think it's just important for us to remember that when it comes to adding people to our team and growing our organizations, or even backfilling, every new person coming in slightly tweaks the thread of that fabric, right? Makes the overall picture look a little bit different. So I think it's a living and breathing type thing too that we have to, you know, pay attention to. We have a poll, there it is. Boom. What are your biggest green flags in candidates you see today? So feel free to type in those green flags here. Okay. So we're gonna keep going. Um, Ben, back to you. What are the top green flags in candidates you see today? Sure. Um, look, I, I, I think the, when it comes to green flags, right? It's kind of a, a basic term, right? I think it almost simplifies it to a point that, uh, can, can kind of, uh, you know, in other words, oversimplify, right? So I think when it comes to green flags, right? These are the intuitions that you have as a hiring manager talent team, right? That you're dealing with your pattern recognition. These are the things that have worked in the past. These are the methods of success. I've done my talent mapping, my talent planning, and I might do that against traits and competencies. I might do that against skillset. I might do that against a wide range of different types of qualifications, right? But I think green flags, you know, that we see, and we're, you know, a, a a smaller organization for sure, not 50,000 people, but definitely getting up there in terms of size. What are the things that we look for? One, of course, are you qualified for the job, right? Do you have the skills and experience or in realm of, you know, more junior types of employees that are walking into maybe their first or second job, uh, opportunities for growth, right? Do you have that mindset, that hunger, that kind of grit, if you will, to learn the sort of skills that you need to develop? Because a lot of times qualified doesn't necessarily mean do you have the job that the skills required for the job, but can you develop those skills in a meaningful period that's gonna get that, you know, return on investment for the company in itself? I think, you know, two is really this value alignment with the company, right? When it comes down to how are we going to ensure that the people who are coming in reflect the core values that make us work well together, that make us great, right? That's a, a big question. I think signals and signs of that for us, certainly, uh, you know, exist online, right? How are we looking at all these different vectors of who somebody is, not just how they present an interview, but how do they treat other people when the camera's not on, so to speak, right? How are they acting towards other folks as they might exist in text image and video online? How are they engaging with the world around them using that as a proxy for the kind of, uh, value orientation that they're gonna normalize that they bring into an organization? So I would say between that and adding value diversity to the team or some of the big, you know, green flags that we look for, I think it's important that you're kind of balancing as a hiring manager, the, uh, the, the, the tree and the forest within the trees itself, right? So how do we ensure this is the right person for the role, but they're contributing to a, a broader framework, a broader team, a broader organization that's gonna push this company forward. And it doesn't always mean by the way, that somebody who has a, you know, a green flag means that they look like, uh, I don't mean physically, but from a skillset standpoint that they, uh, you know, value orientation standpoint, maybe it doesn't mirror exactly what we already have, but green flags can also be highly complimentary, right? So maybe that iconoclastic salesperson and a team of, you know, uh, uh, rule followers, right? Maybe that's what you need to kind of break outta your growth curve, building a sales organization, for example. So good news, I have a list of everyone's green flags. Cool. Uh, experience, experience, knowledge, skills for the position, collaborative flexibility. I think flexibility, I mean, such a relevant term, right? And, and it means so much to so many people. Communication always rank the number one soft skill, um, actively engaged in the interview process and resume. Mm mm That that's what we got, right? And there's more, but that, that, that, that gets you some examples of What people totally. And so many of those are reflections of what teams know work well within their organization, right? And I think that last one of somebody who's, uh, attentive to the interview process is a function of, or a reflection of how they're going to act when they join a company, right? And so that's the big, to dumb it down, that's what TA is, is really doing and helping. It's how do we use our experience of what's worked and what hasn't to provide the best assessment and recommendation that we can to a hiring manager in what I would describe as, you know, murky waters at best. Right? So I, I love that, that answer too. I remember when we were doing in-person interviews, it was like, what about that paper stock? They bring their resume in on? Did they take the time to go to Kinko's or FedEx or something like that? Because they care about the position that obviously you don't have those, those kind of proxy checkpoints anymore. But I, I think the biggest ones from, based on my research over the past 15 years are how prepared or is this person preparedness, right? That's always the biggest frustration of recruiters that I've, I've seen in, in the data. Um, and then I would say in today's world, especially in 2024, with all the ghosting, right? Dependability, right? You know, is this, is this person gonna show up on time, not just in the interview, like on the first day of work? And there's been recent research that shows that some people are just not even showing up. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. We, we, and sometimes we see other people applying for jobs than the folks that are actually showing up maybe for a job at a call center or something remote like that. So yeah, we've seen ghosting all the way to, you know, uh, uh, a different identity, you know, of a person who's coming in. But I, I, I think that's right. And I think for so long with green flags, what we've tried to do as hiring teams is, again, use our experience to, to funnel in the best possible guess of limiting our downside and maximizing our upside. I remember there was a, a, a job I applied for when I was just coming outta school that the, uh, hiring manager, you know, asked me on, uh, probably the day of the interview. It was a, a interview I was driving to, um, an office job. And he said, Hey, um, I don't know if you would mind doing this, but, uh, on the way in, would you stop at CVS and grab me a small pack of diapers because my kid's out of them, right? And so I said, okay, like, sure, I'll, I'll, I'll do that kind of a weird request, but I figure, you know, earn some goodwill with this guy. And it turned out when he hired me that he told me, he asked everybody that interview question, right? Because it's one of his proxies and one of his, you know, methods of analysis to say, Hey, look, is this someone who's willing to go out on a limb for me? Can this person deal with the unexpected day of, right? So I think hiring managers often try to put candidates in these scenarios, right? And, and now I think to your point in 2024, you don't have to ask somebody to go get a pack of diapers or a a carton of milk, right? Or something like that. But what you can do is begin looking at other elements of, of a person's, you know, behavior and engagement with the world around them to, you know, determine, uh, uh, that quality question. So absolutely. And now for the red flags Babu boom, Which are just as if not more important than the green flags, because they could really save everyone a lot of time. So we have another poll, one of the biggest red flags you're seeing in today's candidates. We'll give you a few minutes on this one. Do you have any like, interview stories like that, Dan, while we're waiting of like, things you've been asked to do that seemed a bit, uh, bit strange in the interview process or things you maybe weren't expecting that you later learned were part of like a broader, broader game or, you know, broader set of, uh, goals for the person you were interviewing with? I Just remember back in the day, I haven't been interviewed in such a long time. Sure, yeah, of course. But back in the day, I went through like the gamut of interviewing. I had to interview with eight people for a job over the course of like six months. Hmm. Uh, back in 2006 ish. Uh, and it was just a gamut. It was like one after the other, after the other, after the other. And like, they kept asking the same exact questions. And like, by the time you're in interview, like number six, you like forgot what you said in interview number one. Right? Right, right. And you know, what's funny about that too is to your point, like if a candidate is highly selective in a process, they might think a hiring team is disconnected because of that. Right. And that might be how the organization operates, right? Which could be a, a negative single 'cause I think we gotta remember too, it's not just red flags on candidates, but Yes. Um, how is your process setting up red flags for, you know, the prospect and for you as a company, right? All right, we're gonna close this to see some red flags. Cool. So some red flags includes lazy communication, rescheduling attitude, unprofessional lack of follow through. Mm-Hmm. How dependent is this person overstating experience? Oh, I mean, who doesn't oversee experience? That's gotta be really common. Poor communication skills. Yeah. Communication's king. Honestly, that comes up in everything as always. Right? You gotta be a good communicator. Other ones include fear, no knowledge of the job or company, yet the lack of preparedness huge, right? New hire revealed someone else did their phone screen. That's pretty funny. I actually, for me, one thing that happened, I was interviewing for, I had two funny things happen, and like, of course, two weeks back in the day, one was I lost reception during a phone screener. And then the other one I was interviewing with TJX. And they're like, when was the last time you shopped at our store? And I'm like, I, I, like, I was stump, I wasn't gonna lie. I was like, I don't even remember when. And they're like, oh, you're not as interested in this job. Right? Those was my two phone ones. Uh, non-engaged or timely response to the interview process. Impatience. Mm. Jumping from job to job every two months. Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. Yeah. And so much of this is context dependent, right? On the type of role that you're stepping into. Because to some degree, if I'm applying for a highly competitive job at a, you know, call it a, as a holiday shift worker, right? At, uh, at, you know, I, I worked at Nordstrom, so that was my, that was my experience, and I had a great, great experience there when it comes to, to retail. But, um, you know, I, I think it is dependent upon the role, the red flags that you are looking for, right? Because again, if somebody maybe didn't prepare for an interview working in a retail or, or, or staffing type setting, you'd understand that, right? But if it's a job that is in the six figures, right? You know, they're applying for an office role, maybe a, a, a director, that type of thing, even a senior associate that sort of, uh, you know, world of work, you are looking again at the various things that happen in the interview process, but you have just a snapshot in time, right? And you also know everybody's on their best behavior, right? And the interview process, or ostensibly, right? And you get some of those, like, I think to the point raised in the, the, the, the panel you just did, you get folks that are disingenuous, that misrepresent who they are, what they're doing, right? And that is the the easiest thing, you know, I think for a hiring manager, a, a VP of talent acquisition or talent acquisition user, uh, to identify in the process, right? Because that's the clearest kind of, uh, you know, right in our reptile brain that hits us like, oh yeah, we don't do that. Right? Back to these kind of first grade principles, right? And so for us, I think in it by extension, we are really seeking those red flags that again, show that deviation from the pattern that we understand and know to be true that makes a high quality candidate. Now, at the end of the day, that's gonna evolve and that definition is gonna change. But I do think that there are certain things like people who act, you know, violent towards others, threatening towards others, right? And telling right of other people. Those are the sorts of things that are, regardless of the role you're in, you, you probably wanna know about, right? You know, when someone treating your customers or coworkers differently 'cause of what they look like or where they're from. But certainly like being discriminatory or rude to an interviewer, I've seen that in the past, right? Or, you know, the hiring manager comes in and the candidate asks, you know, oh, well, when's, when's the manager coming in so I can have my real conversation, right? And so I, I always, uh, encourage folks, you know, many hiring teams, you know, what they will do is try to construct in as limited time as possible, how do I get as much information about this person to fill in, you know, my almost like mad Libs definition of what a great candidate is gonna look like, and they pack it in, right? So I, I advise, you know, the, the folks that are younger earlier in their career that I mentor and just tell 'em, you know, treat an ea like you treat the CEO of a company, right? You never know when you're talking to somebody what their impact is if they're being asked, right? And I know at our company, if anyone does ever apply in the future, I'll just tell you, like, I ask those questions of the recruiter, the phone, if you don't show up or you are short, or you write one or two sentence emails, like quick replies back to the person who's doing the phone screen. Even if your final interview is with me for a senior position, I care about that first thing, right? 'cause we expect you to treat people. That's a fama value thing, just like you want to be treated, right? And so I think the, the challenge of red flags is that we all know what we're looking for, but it's increasingly harder, especially with, and I know we're gonna get to this, but candidates are pretty savvy, right? They're having Chachi PT write cover letters, right? They're having deep fakes, true story in some cases. Do you know these, these interviews for 'em? So I know we'll get to that. But, um, how do we reconstruct that thorough kind of review of a person and also give the candidate a thorough review of the company so they can make a right decision about where they wanna join in a work environment where, you know, Workday and indeed, or screening resumes before they even get to us, right? Or, you know, you're meeting people remotely or you're hiring for a certain number of roles in a particular time with a small team. So it's kinda reconstructing that legacy workflow over time, um, in a fast moving, highly tech oriented hiring environment. So, And speaking of tech, on the next slide, as you're saying, I mean, I'm seeing this all the time now, and I don't blame candidates for being more tech savvy and using, as you're saying, chat GBT or some sort of AI to create cover letters and resumes. I haven't heard as much about the DeepFakes. I'm definitely interested in what you're seeing, but I'm not surprised, right? That's happening like across other industries too. How, you know, what technology do you see people using outside of that, and how is it improving their chances of getting hired from the candidate perspective, but also from the talent acquisition side? Do they, do they look down on this? Do they, right, do, do they look like, do they think, hey, this person is using ai that's like them showing a scale and maybe they're more likely to hire them because this person's savvier and they're looking for more savvier, technically advanced and AI candidate, Right? I'll, I'll start with like the, the most, I would say, you know, extreme example I've heard of, of the use of this technology in a non even hiring context where, and, and I can, you know, dig up the Wall Street Journal article about it. But there was a story of, uh, of a accountant at a, a relatively large financial services company that, uh, was tricked and duped into wiring $25 million of company funds to a thief. And what had happened was that his boss, you know, sent him an email, called him into a Zoom meeting 20 minutes later. And on the Zoom video interview, were five or six different members of the management team. And this guy telling him, alright, we need you to wire $25 million this account, here's what it's for. He asked questions. Those questions were responded to by the deepfake pose, the meeting. This guy wires the money out. He has, you know, signature authority on, on that amount, right? And so if somebody can be tricked into spending, you know, selling, you know, sending a, a, a criminal $25 million, you know, you can get tricked in the interview process too, if somebody's applying for a job, right? That technology is out there, and certainly in the next two to three years, you know, it is going to become increasingly cheaper, more available, and just better. And so what does that mean for us, right? Like this technology is, is happening, it's here. We better ride with the current and let it take us as opposed to fighting it. Because this, you know, toothpaste is not going back in the tube. Genie is not going back in the bottle, whatever you wanna call it, right? Whatever analogy you want to use. And, and my take on it is that, look, this is no different than a candidate writing a cover letter on a laptop and emailing it compared to writing a cover letter on a typewriter and mailing it or faxing it, right? That evolution, in other words, like what we are seeing now is that candidates have the ability to scale their own outreach. Candidates have the ability to complete cover letters, summaries, written tests faster than ever before with a coding copilot, you can get through the entrance tests for Google Engineering, right? Like, and they've made it more difficult. Now, they've of course changed the nature of how they do these evaluations and tests, but I remember when CHATT first came out, uh, it passed the mcat it passed the bar exam, right? You know, those are really difficult things to pass for most of us normal folk, right? Our, our our non non-AI people. Um, but you know, at the end of the day, there are tools out there that, that can, you know, do this. So you can either fight it and bury your head in the sand or pretend that it's not gonna happen to you. Or you can start asking yourselves the question, how do I evolve my interview process, right? Because these candidates, I think we can only expect them to use them. And for my money, I like the candidate that tries to get their, you know, resume out faster, right? That tries that creative approach, right? That tries to overcome the firewalls of job boards that are out there. Because I like ingenuity, I like creativity, I like that disruptor mindset. And if you're using tools out there in the world that are gonna help you do your job better, in the same way that, you know, you ask someone to prepare for an interview, I'm using that proxy and saying, this is somebody that's gonna try to do more with less. This is someone who I give a task to when they join it. They're gonna be creative about getting from A to B as opposed to, you know, following the path we laid out for 'em. So I, I think this is only gonna increase. And it's, you know, uh, it's one of those things that is gonna continue to develop over time and, and we gotta be ready for it as, as hiring managers. So, Yeah. And at some point during the interview process, you're gonna meet the person, right? Whether it's virtually you're gonna see them or in person in, in office. So like, even if their resume is chat, GPT aside, right? You're still gonna get a sense of who they are and you'll be able to tell if who they are reflects their resume or not a hundred. So it's still on the candidate side, just like all of us to, even if you use chat GBT to review, to make sure, hey, this is accurate, this reflects me. Yeah. And, and I, I like it. Honestly, if that's unclear, like I, I think it's great that, you know, candidates are finding, um, you know, ways to rise above the noise. Because like you said earlier, there aren't that many new jobs that are open. People are leaving jobs a lot less frequently than they did in the past. And, you know, they want higher salaries that they're gonna go, especially with their mortgages getting higher and higher. So with fewer openings and more competition for those roles that are open, I hope and expect that people use whatever tools at their disposal to do, honestly. And we talked about all these green flags, but what about overcoming all of these things? Like how do we uncover the top green flags during the hiring process? Yeah. Sorry, I think we're bouncing around here, uh, on, on the slides, right? But, you know, I, I think the, the, the challenge is how do we adapt our process to rise above the noise, right? How do we go above and beyond where we were before, you know, and not look at the chat GPT, right? But still uncover some of those green flags. So I think the first thing is adapting your hiring process to reflect in real time the ways that candidates are evolving their approach to reaching out to you, right? And so I think when it comes to uncovering green flags, you gotta really get down to the details of what matters to your organization, right? Like, what are the things that you are screening for, for lack of a better term, right? And that's, I think, an answer to a, a, a, a, a, a question that I think a lot of people think they know the answer to. But I bet you if you ask different folks on different hiring teams, what makes a great hire at our company, you'll get five or six different answers if you ask five or six different people, Right? We'll, we'll know it when we see it A hundred percent right? And that's like the easiest cop out and you know, I think comes from that, uh, you know, pornography ruling from the Supreme Court back in the eighties, right? Where you know it when you see it, right? But at the end of the day, there are things that are either contextual, uh, research oriented, right? I think there are a lot of, uh, organizations now that recognize the value of building diverse organizations that reflect the communities they live in and the different types of customers that they serve. I think, you know, uncovering other green flags in the process, you can use third party technology, of course, you know, Fama offers, uh, a lot of unique solutions around screening for the positive and the negative, of course. So how are you examining all dimensions of who somebody is, not just who they present in the analog world, but who they are in the digital world, for example? And, and genuinely, this is like kind of a cop out answer for me, but this is just tuning your process to the real things that drive your company forward. And if you have an understanding of what those are at a hiring manager at a strategic level, these the types of people that we're seeking, I can tell you at Fama, you know, we look for things like someone who, uh, leans into adversity. Someone who comes with a ownership mindset, for example, right? So what are the key values you're sourcing for? How do you structure the interview panel and interview questions and interview tasks and activities to reflect that? So, And then on the next slide about uncovering the top red flags, is this similar and it's just like uncovering overall, or is there something unique you have to do with the things you wanna avoid in a candidate? Well, It's, it's hard, right? Because I think, you know, the, the green flags, you have a, uh, a willing participant right? On the other side of the conversation who is more than willing to share all the positive things about them to help create the best picture of, of who they are, right? They're, They're their own best publicist, A hundred percent. And the references that they give you are, Hey, you know, John, before I talk to Schmos tech, can you make sure that you gimme a good reference? Right? You know, those are things that We're not gonna send you the, the former manager that fired you because you didn't show up to work one day, they gonna send you all the, the managers before that, that love them. They're Gonna send you their like, cousin friends you worked Before their cousin That, that summer, right? And, and they're, oh yeah, they're great, trust me. And oh, you didn't hire them again. Why? So anyway, you know, there's a, uh, I think a lot of questions with references in general and, and how those are conducted in the validity. But look, uncovering red flags are again, uh, tuned to, I think with some, what we already heard in the interview process of how folks are, you know, uh, having folks be prepared for interviews or what they're measuring, what they're looking at that more under, you know, a, a second or third order, uh, sorts of things and factors that drive a person's employment. But ultimately, one of the things that we see, and this is why we started Fama, is that, you know, three and four hiring managers are using our digital identities to figure out whether or not someone's gonna be a fit. Right? You know, they're looking at who somebody is online as a proxy for who they're going to be in the workplace. And it is the one place, you know, that we have not just, you know, uh, uh, did they or didn't think. That's what background screening is, right? Background screening traditionally is do you have a crime on your back, on your background or do you not? Do you have a drug test that you passed or failed? Do you not? Do you, uh, you know, go to the school you said you went to or did you not? Right? And so that kind of binary yes or no does help. I think hiring managers kind of fill in the gaps. And of course, tra traditional background screening is a way to uncover those types of red flags. But again, that leaves you with these sort of binary yes or no, where you as a hiring manager have to kind of fill in the gaps of what's happening in between. Whereas what we've seen why people turn to online screening, looking at publicly available information about people online, what they say on the internet, articles they appear in message boards, they participate in, to establish more of a pattern of behavior that's continuous over time, as opposed to this kind of binary, did they, or did they ever, this gives you that kind of sense of how somebody acts over a more extended period. Um, and, you know, helps, I think, provide a lot more color into that ultimate analysis. 'cause at the end of the day, that's what we're talking about is how do we feed intuition? How do we put a user in a position where they have the experience, the expertise to understand the meanings and implications behind the insights that we provide so that they can enrich the decision that they're about to make. So, And speaking of implications, when companies miss these red flags Yeah. The ones, you know, in terms of the people who have been part of this and attended this webinar, they've listed off the ones you've listed off, the ones I've lifted, listed off, like, what does that do? The hiring process, They're big numbers associated with this, right? And I think almost like any HR tech company out there is selling against the cost of a bad hire, right? So I'm just gonna like, skip over that entire part of the process and discussion, because we all know the billions of dollars on sexual harassment, the 50 billion from employee theft, right? That cost us, you know, country annually. But that's so hard to pin down and so hard to like feel that I think so many of us will be like, ah, it's not gonna happen to me, and if it is gonna happen to me, it's maybe only gonna appear in like a p and l doc or something like that, that I don't even touch and doesn't relate to my job whatsoever, right? And so, you know, I I, I think storytelling is probably a, a better proxy, right? And I think, you know, for me, why I started Fama, like, I didn't, I didn't come out of, uh, talent acquisition. I wasn't in background screening and do anything like that. I, I actually used to think that background checks were stored in some secret underground database, 50 miles beneath the Pentagon. And like some minority report, honestly, like this image up on the screen, that there was someone who was like, you know, moving stuff around with their hands and some digital touchscreen. Turns out it's nothing like that if you don't know. I mean, it's record keeping is a, is a whole separate, you know, thing. There's even like a John Oliver episode about it in the United States. But, um, in any event, like I started this company because I, it happened to me. I hired a guy look right on paper, resume references, checked out, seemed like the right person for the role. Social interview goes, well, everyone likes this person. Six months into the job, the guy ends up sexually harassing one of our top salespeople. Horrible experience for this woman, for the company, set off such a negative chain of events that a bunch of our staff left material financial implications for the company. Um, and after the fact all over this guy's social media was like pejorative, misogynistic content about women that if we'd have seen it, we never would've brought this guy on board, right? And so I think all of us have those stories, right? And those are those the ones we hear, right? Of knowing that when somebody comes into an organization, it's not as if, you know, the organization is going to be forever unchanged, and they're going to fit into it, whether you like it or not. Every new person that comes in lightly, slightly changes the, the makeup of your organization. It might sound obvious, right? But the characteristics, the values that they bring to bear, right? The way they treat other people, what gets normalized in an organization becomes codified, especially in a leader, right? If a leader in a company treats people a certain way, and that's a vertical organization that's gonna trickle down, normalize, and set standards for how other people are gonna treat each other, but also treating customers, right? And that, I think comes to the final point, which is like we all know brands, um, like Southwest Airlines, right? We know brands like REI, right? These are brands that people like to buy from because we like the way that they treat their employees. We've heard those stories about stock buybacks, right? How they treat folks, uh, who are on maternity leave, right? You, you, you've seen it. You feel, you just know intuitively that these are companies that you wanna buy for. And, um, you know, there was a, a example from, uh, a long time ago now at this point, it's hard to believe, but, uh, I think five years ago or so, the Papa John, the CEO of Papa John said a, a racist slur on a, a recorded phone interview with some consultant agency that he was working with. And they saw the biggest decline in sales in 35 years. And we called it like the racist pizza incident, right? You know, this is one of those things where if I have apps on my phone for Papa John's, Domino's, and Pizza Hut, I'm not gonna choose the racist pizza. Even if I was a fan of Papa John's before. And that's how consumers vote. They, they vote with their wallets, really, when it comes to companies that they wanna support. And sure, I think there's like the overcorrection, you know, that we've seen between some companies being treated like they need to be Mona Lisa or, uh, or, uh, not Mona Lisa, excuse me, mother Theresa, right? Like, companies don't need to be Mother Theresa. They don't need to be giving back and feeding the poor and holding out a, a helping hand, right? That's not, in my personal opinion, the role of companies in the world today. That being said, like if you treat people different 'cause of what they look like, and you got folks that look like the person who's being mistreated, they're not gonna buy from you. Like, I know that seems like a obvious thing, but you know, you can, you can go to ethical consumer.org and see a list of boycotted companies that, you know, thousands of consumers have already come together and, you know, decided that they don't wanna buy from. So it sways, it sways financial performance and decisions. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's like that old phrase of like, you can spend forever building a brand, but in one moment you can lose all of that trust, right? Totally. And you can't, it's hard to get back, And then you gotta start rebuilding that the reputation, it's like during Covid was a big test. Like everyone, you know, everyone was paying attention to how they were treating essential workers, or just workers in general, right? And like companies, like, I always remember if I were to say, if you were to say like, what is one company that you remember that did the right thing during Covid Darden restaurants, like the way in which they treated those workers were, was really positive relative to other companies, right? That might not have, you know, had that same treatment. And, you know, you just don't think of them as in that same high regard, because during tough times, you want the company to step up more, Right? And it's, it's funny how like that from a buyer psychology standpoint influences us, right? But I, I have plenty of companies, same story, that treated their employees the right way that I continue to buy from, or even how they treat their customers, right? You know, I, I, uh, shop at stores that I've returned stuff in the past and they've had no questions asked, because I'm like, yeah, great. Like even if I've never gonna return anything again, I'm still gonna come here, even if I could go right down the block to your competitor. So, Absolutely. And obviously I, I I'm very involved in social media, so this really resonates with me about all the social media content that's out there and really enabling you to be able to assess what a candidate could be like based on what they publish. You know, it's an old phrase, another old phrase is like, you are what you publish, right? That's what I've been talking about since like 2006 when I started blogging. Sure. And, uh, you know, uh, you think hiring teams are really leveraging all of this content to help make more informed decisions or to see more of those, the red versus the green. You know, I, I think so. As so much of, uh, employment becomes more distributed, right? As the hiring process and candidate experience becomes more fast-paced and, and just frankly, the explosion of, of who we are online has really just transformed the idea of identity, right? You know, even I, I was in Vegas last week for a conference, and, and even looking around the room while the speaker is on stage, everyone's on their phone, right? And you look, you walk around, people got their head down in the brightest city in the world on Las Vegas strip, right? And so much of who we are, and I think increasingly, especially for my new favorite term generation alpha, right? You know, gen Z, right? These are are people and, and I'm a millennial myself, but like, these are people that, you know, have digital first. Yeah. Right? Like the, it's, it's almost more digital than analog, right? And what are the implications for that long term when it comes to hiring? Because the reality is, is look, is like online content is powering meta Google the biggest companies in the world, Amazon to some degree, right? Where, you know, so much of how we buy products and how we are engaged with, and, and even what's happening right now with this TikTok ban in Congress, right? Like so much online information, online content is really a function of, you know, just ad spend when it can be used for so much more. So, short answer is yes, we see people looking for the good stuff, volunteering, charity, the bad stuff is somebody acting racist, hateful towards other people? Are they posting TikTok videos about, you know, selling drugs? We've seen doctors who, uh, we've caught on behalf of our clients, we're selling body parts online. Like true story like that risk management happens. But we're also seeing more and more companies saying, how do we leverage online language, digital identity, for example, we're, uh, you know, launching a product we just announced a couple of weeks ago called Fama Instant Fit. Essentially what that does is it allows you to get a, a validated view on a person's traits and competencies using online language alone. So instead of just asking a candidate to do a typical assessment, fill out a writing sample, answer questions, play a game, right? Instead, what this product, you know, what you're able to do is use a subject's online language, what they've written on LinkedIn, what they've said in the video, transcribed down and get traits, the things that you know, are their core skill sets thing they developed since they were young to competencies, how they've evolved in the workplace over time, right? And so, you know, that's really, uh, where I think the future is, is how do we adapt our hiring process, adapt our workflows to begin reflecting not only what we need as employers, but where are people spending their time? Where is the identity that we want to examine, the pattern that we want to use? Let's find where that's manifesting itself and, you know, use it in a way to, to make a smarter hiring decision. So yeah, people, uh, already know that this is used for like marketing and advertising and all that. If you've ever seen the social network, uh, you know, or, uh, that, that other movie on Netflix, you've seen how much personal data is used to essentially guide, uh, so many decisions about what we buy that there're also uses in recruiting. So, Excellent. Well, Ben, let's go to the key takeaways. And in the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to ask in the q and a box so that we can get to them, because we're running out of time, and I wanna make sure that everyone's able to maximize the time with, uh, Ben and, and me to be able to get the information you need to be better at talent acquisition. Sure. So Ben, what, what do you view are the biggest takeaways from all this? That, you know, anyone in talent acquisition or anyone who works with talent acquisition should, you know, think about starting today, starting tomorrow, to really start to implement and, and change how they think about talent acquisitions so that they don't miss the red flags, but mm-Hmm. Start to get more candidates with the green flags. I'd say my big first takeaway is reassess, get with your hiring team, get with your leadership, get with the other folks in the talent organization and understand what are we looking for? What is critical in 2024 and survey in a genuine way, the various stakeholders that you serve and the talent department, right? How are we helping support the growth, or even in other cases, the reduction of the size of the organization. How do we revisit what's important in 2024? Because I think those are things that can be, you know, kicked off and passed down and year over year, over year over year, they don't change when in fact, maybe your company did an acquisition last year, maybe they, uh, you know, um, launch a new product line or expand into a new category, and you're serving new customers, you have new employee types, you open up call center, right? And suddenly you have a bunch of, you know, people from another country who you've never met before. Like, what does your culture, you know, look like now in this new environment? Right? And so I would say the first thing is to kind of reassess, um, you know, how do we ensure that the values, the quality orientation that we are mapping against, um, is reflective of, of the, the latest and greatest. And two, I would say, you know, continue to examine where your candidates are spending their time. And if you are hiring folks, I think millennials or something like 35% of the, uh, workforce right now, I think Gen X is another 40%. And then below that, you know, we do have, uh, uh, that kind of Gen Z and, and as we're getting into it, gen alpha for the first time, I think is turning 14. So they're actually getting into the workforce for the summer jobs and amusement parks, all that sort of stuff. So how are we tuning how we screen and how we hire to, you know, the tools and ways that folks are using. And I think, you know, looking at, um, online identity, looking at digital identity using both for risk management and assessing traits, competencies, et cetera, all the big takeaways. So understand where, where you guys are at, what you need as an organization simply, and how can we tune our candidate screening processes to the way that these candidates live their lives in 2024. And like you see here on the screen, don't have to screen like it's 1999. So Yeah, I really le my big takeaway to be honest is, is really start high level. Yeah. Like what matters to your organization. Yeah. And then that should trickle down all the way into literally the, well, the questions you ask to identify the red and green flags. Like, I think that that is, is a huge message that you have the top to to bottom message. I think it's really important. Totally. Yep. Because then there's alignment A hundred percent and alignment you probably think you already have, but what if you don't? Yeah. And things, and the thing is, this becomes increasingly important because the world and business and markets continue to change rapidly. Like who would've thought like we'd be living in this type of hybrid environment, for most part, for over half of companies Totally. And various other changes to business compared to even like a year ago. Yeah. So the whole idea of like assessing of what matters to you more regularly. Oh, yeah. And, and I think as not just time goes on, you know, it's funny you mentioned about the workplace. My kids asked me the other day, they're like, dad, all you do is talk into a computer all the time. And I was like, yeah, there's other people on the other end of it. But, you know, in, in, in any event, like I think it's tuning with the times, but also tuning your end-to-end process to key events and transformations in your company. You know, especially those that have gone under gone, such dynamic changes to your point, based on the market and how we the world of work has evolved past, Well, we have, we have two questions. The first is, how should hiring teams get on the same page about what the company cares about around company culture and values? Hmm. Big question. Probably a, a webinar in itself, uh, on, on how, on how we would do it. But I think it's couple of key principles. I I would first look at the company values mission statement, right? And not just saying, do I know what the words are, but do I understand the meaning? And if you asked, you know, two or three people on your team, what do our values mean to you? Right? Not in like a HR survey type way, but in a genuine, like, what do our values mean to you? And just like a one-on-one conversation over coffee, maybe over at the water cooler or something like that. I think the first thing is to try to breed, um, you know, casual conversation that's candid, to try to get to the right answer. This sort of thing. I love this technique called Chatham House Rules, which basically gets a group of people together. Nothing is recorded, nothing is attributed. So you say in the beginning of the meeting, we're not gonna attribute anything that anybody says to anybody in this room, but we wanna try to get to the bare basics of where are we as an organization and what do we need to change and improve? So as quickly as you can get to transparent, unbridled, unencumbered communication with a range of stakeholders in your organization, that's my easy, easy, easy, uh, prompt. Tough, tough to actually do. Yeah. And Leah has a really good question. Can you touch on best practices for hiring teams to avoid bias when assessing online content about candidates? Absolutely. So, you know, the first thing is like doing this yourself and Googling a candidate or going on Facebook or Twitter or TikTok, whatever it is. Like, you're gonna see stuff you shouldn't see. You're gonna see stuff about this person's personal life that really shouldn't matter to you and should be excluded from this analysis, right? Because you're trying to look at risk, you're trying to look at the good stuff, right? But not everything in between. So that's why a lot of people get a little skittish about doing online screening or online analysis, but turn into a third party that's FCRA compliant that only shows you hits, that actually reflect the things that have a business purpose that you care about. In other words, like working with a company that can find only the intolerant tweets if they exist, or the TikTok video where they are posting about illegal drug use, right? And showing that to you so that you have that in your context as opposed to all the other stuff is, uh, a critical piece. So go with a third party, make sure they're FCRA compliant. Um, and you know, if you wanna talk more about that, you can fill out a contact form on our site and one of our subject matter experts can reach out and chat about. Absolutely. So I, and I think that's, that's really important, right? Because you know, you are what you publish and you could publish something. I mean, mean, I I, I know this story happened recently. A company, um, basically didn't know they hired someone who seemed on the surface like a really good person, good fit, like always nice. But what happened was one of the customers on Twitter found an old tweet from like 10 years before where they were racist. Yeah. And they, and the company immediately terminated them. But it was like everyone was in disbelief because they saw one image, but they didn't understand like, the full history. But what's tricky is, you know, maybe he wasn't racist anymore. You know, people can, right. And that's, and it's not a bi just like, you know, we were sharing earlier, it's not a binary thing. It's not Yes. No. Fire them hire them. Right. It's, it's not like a, a a judgment day by any stretch, but it's how do we use this as a platform for intervention? If somebody made one racist comment 10 years ago, maybe they've changed, they've adapted. You can ask them about that, right? Like, oh yeah, I can't believe I said that. That really wasn't me. That doesn't reflect who I am anymore. Um, you know, and, and here are the things I'm willing to do to commit and show you that that's not how I'm gonna treat other people. That's gonna be treated differently. And someone's like, yeah, I said it. Whatcha gonna do about it? You know, like, so it's all context related, right. You know, in terms of, uh, of, of how you adjudicate. Take action. Definitely. So let's go talk about resources. Of course you can go to fama.io for all the resources if you wanna go to slide 15. Oh yeah, yeah. They're, they, you know, Ben and his team do a lot of research, just like my company does research with various companies as well. State of misconduct, like Ben mentioned earlier in the presentation and a quiz. I mean, there's just a lot of resources and you can get all these on their website@fama.io. And, uh, Sarah just messaged a video if you would like to watch that. And, you know, there's a lot more that you'll find on the website. Ben, any last words or any inspiration for our listeners? I would just say for anybody who's on the call in the talent acquisition world, hiring world, like, you know what you're doing. You've got the expertise, you've got the experience. And lean into that, right? Think about new technology, new tools as a way to fuel and expand your own abilities to expand the scope of your expertise. I think if I can leave everyone with one thing is like, you are powerful and technology can unleash that power, um, more than you ever even knew. So try to look at it as a friend. It's not gonna come and like take your job, but it is gonna help you do things faster, more efficiently, um, and serve your organization even more. Well-rounded way. So that's it, and thanks a lot for having me on. Appreciate it. Perfect. Well, thank you so much, Ben. It's been a pleasure today.

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