[Podcast] Bonus Episode | Executive Forum Insights, Tech Bloat, and AI

• The importance of focusing on foundational processes and technologies in the staffing industry
• How recruiters can work around rigid platforms using technology
• The potential of ChatGPT and other AI tools in helping recruiters scale and work more efficiently
• The significance of maintaining human connections in the talent industry and not relying solely on technology

Tom Hunley, Sr. Product Marketing Manager:
Don’t let fun tech remove a crucial piece of your process. It’s like, even if you do have capability to text or to email an email journal or a client portal, don’t not go manually talk to your customers and take them donuts and things like that. So just because you can do something doesn’t mean you need to, and you can, there’s a lot of shinies out there. Don’t get caught up in, “This is really cool so I want to use it,” to the detriment of the actual process that works for you.

Kortney Harmon, Host:
Hi, I’m Kortney Harmon, Staffing and Recruiting Industry Principal at Crelate. Over the past decade, I’ve trained thousands of frontline recruiters and I’ve worked with hundreds of business owners and executives to help their firms and agencies grow. This is the Full Desk Experience, where we will be talking about growth blockers across your people, processes and technologies.

On today’s episode, Tom Hunley, Senior Product Marketing Manager, and Sarah Gossin, Director of Product here at Crelate, both join me. We are taking questions from the audience about SIA’s Executive Forum and best practices for staffing and recruiting technology, and the use of AI. With that being said, let’s get started. Hey Katie, what’s our first question?

Katie Jones, Producer:
So this woman is a VP at a staffing firm and she didn’t make it to staffing SIA’s Executive Forum this year, and she was wondering what was each of your single biggest takeaway from the show? And if that was from a session or talking with people, but she was like, “Did I miss out?”

Kortney Harmon, Host:
I love that.

Katie Jones, Producer:
… The FOMO was real.

Kortney Harmon, Host:
I’m going to go last. So Sarah, do you want to go first? Did you have a favorite session, or if it even isn’t a session, but what was your favorite conversation with clients, potential clients, anything that sticks out to you? What was your favorite part?

Sarah Gossin, Director of Product:
Oh my gosh, I knew this question was coming and I still have had a hard time putting down my biggest takeaway. I think my biggest takeaway is finding a partner in your tech stack solution. I heard so much about manual processes, right? So many people that I had conversations with were like, “Oh my gosh, my middle office is completely manual. I don’t know where to start.” Or, “I am using 10 different technologies and I have no source of truth.”

So they’re actually all things that we’ve all kind of touched on in this subject, but no one was really focused on finding that platform and that partner. So obviously, being a product, I was really excited because that’s what we’re trying to build. I’m trying to build a platform. We are building this platform that really truly helps our customers, and it was just something that I was so shocked how often I heard this. It was either, “Everything is manual, I don’t know where to go, how to start and what to do.” And then the other side was, “I have too many partners. I’m confused and not efficient.” So I think that was my biggest one.

Kortney Harmon, Host:
And I love that. We’re so busy running the day-to-day of our business, sometimes we slap on a bolt or we put some tape on something. It’s like, “Okay, I’ll figure it out later.” I can say I’m guilty of it too in some aspects, but it’s like we get running so fast and it’s like, “Oh, well, we’re busy in the day-to-day of what our candidates need and our clients need.” And then you have a conversation, you’re like, “Maybe I need to go back and visit that.” So I love that. That was great insights. Love that, Sarah. Thank you. Tom, what about you?

Tom Hunley, Sr. Product Marketing Manager:
There was a ton of good things that I went to. It’s tough to pick one. But there was an overarching theme about move to a contingency, your workforce is growing. Not everybody here is staffing, but there’s going to be 1.7 billion I think this year in professional staffing alone. And I keyed in on professional staffing because if you’re direct placed in the exec search, it’s just a hop, skip and a jump to be a professional staffing company, especially with modern solutions that are out there, be it point solutions, whatever.

And I think people are more open to flexible work through recent events and things like that. So if you’re talking to your prospects and candidates, just ask them, “Would you ever be interested in contract contingent staffing? Is it something, part-time work maybe?” People are reevaluating their relationship with work, so that might be more acceptable. And I think that flexibility and openness is really going to make it easier for recruiters across the board, because you can really sell the opportunity, not just the job, but the experience.

Sell remote work as you’re 30 seconds from boardroom to backyard baseball, that kind of thing. And you can keep these notes and know these things using the technology that you have, and keep following up with the tools that you buy. So it’s really a cool just overarching blue sky kind of mentality of the whole show.

Kortney Harmon, Host:
Yeah, they really talked about the pandemic opening that door. And then since that’s opened, heck, we’re seeing four-day work weeks, we’re seeing flexible working hours, whatever that might be. But I think that goes back to Sarah’s point, why you have to have your technology so on point. Whenever you are able to offer those solutions, you need to see your business, you need to know what’s going on in your business, and you need to give the people in your business, the ones that you’re investing in the most, the best experience possible.

I love that. You’re servicing those people. Great insights, tom. I don’t even know. Some of the things were my favorite, there were overarching themes. But one of my overarching themes that I loved was the idea of the generational differences. It was talked about in a lot of things. It was talked about in the workforce conversation, it was talked about in technology, it was talked about in one of the keynote sessions with Kim Lear. She talked about recruiting and retaining next generation of staffing talent. And shameless plug, yes, I knew Jenny’s phone number was 867-5309 whenever she went into that conversation. Yes, I did, and I was excited about that. So did half the other attendees.

But I thought it was so insightful to hear how not only our industry is changing, but how we need to accommodate leaders in our industry, or what’s important, and really connect to know what motivates people. This even goes back to the episode we did with Jen Meyer. She really talked about her conversation with her teams, to him holding you accountable, but I’m only holding you accountable because I know what you want to make. So therefore, I know what you want to make, therefore I know how many calls you have to make, or how many submissions you have to have. But it’s like work how you want to work as an individual, and I am here to support you in your process.

But it’s so crazy to see the difference between the boomers and the Gen Xs and the millennials and the whole nine yards. And I am not going to lie, that was one of my favorite sessions along with the growth conversation that, [inaudible 00:06:39] really guided and moderated. So I thought that was good. Hopefully, I’m going to be able to pull one of those people from the growth conversation onto our future industry spotlight. So stay tuned, hopefully good things to come. But I think that was it. Katie, hopefully we answered. All three of us had an answer.

Katie Jones, Producer:
I think that was wonderful. And to answer your question, Lizzie, yes, it sounds like definitely it was a show that would’ve been amazing to been at. So hopefully, we’ll see you there next year.

The next question coming in is more centered around when you guys were talking earlier in the episode about tech and the amount of tech that you have. A listener who is concerned that they might have too much stack, I believe we call it tech bloat. She was wondering at what level do you think, “Oh my goodness, that is way too much technology and you should scale back.” She was wondering, is there a number or any suggestions that you guys might have of what might be successful?

Kortney Harmon, Host:
Sarah, do you want to start and maybe answer this first?

Sarah Gossin, Director of Product:
Sure, I’ll definitely start. I would say there’s no perfect number, which is hard, right? Because that’s not probably the answer that they want to hear. But I think when your tech starts impacting your process negatively is when you need to start looking at it. And that could be as something as simple as overhearing, “Gosh, I have so many logins.” Or, “It’s taking too long for me to be able to X, Y and Z.” Or you have a hard time getting reporting because you have too many places to go.

So we talked about leadership on this call, right, and it is being in tune with your business to the point that you can start seeing that there are issues and road blocks and really turbulence in your business. So I wish there was a number, but when it starts impacting your process or when you get that gut feeling of, “Could this be different, could this be easier?” That’s when I would start looking.

Tom Hunley, Sr. Product Marketing Manager:
I don’t think I can add to that, but something that I thought about while she was speaking is don’t let fun tech remove a crucial piece of your process. It’s like, even if you do have capability to text or to email an email journal or a client portal, don’t not go manually talk to your customers and take them donuts and things like that. So just because you can do something doesn’t mean you need to, and you can, there’s a lot of shinies out there. Don’t get caught up in, “This is really cool, so I want to use it,” to the detriment of the actual process that works for you.

Kortney Harmon, Host:
I love that. And that starts with you as a leader. One of the other quotes that I heard, and I’m going to not do it justice because I didn’t write it down, but it was that leadership is the bottleneck to our industry, because oftentimes, we want something done a certain way. We want to see something executed a certain way, but we maybe not train on it. I think it’s really making sure your insights are shared and your mission and your goal is really across the organization. So people have that same passion. They connect with the why that you have as a leader. So you have the people behind you that want to stay behind and you want to stay in your organization and they want to win not only for themselves, but for you. I think it goes back to those foundational processes.

I’m with Sarah, I don’t think there’s a special number, but I do think you have to honestly assess. In talking more with Maurice Fuller, he mentioned possibly quarterly that you have to evaluate these things. But understand the ROI that’s coming with those, if it’s something that it’s causing more pain points than not. But my first step is understand where you are today. Understand those foundational building blocks because that is the data that fuels all of your decisions, that fuels all the future automations, that fuels all of the AI, that fuels all of the candidate experiences and more. So make sure you go through your own processes today, just like you were a candidate coming in or a talent coming into your organization to say, “Why should I work with your organization?” Are you stand out to them? Are you standing out to yourself as you go through that process?

Katie Jones, Producer:
So while you guys were talking, two more questions came in on this topic. The first question that came in is actually, I know, a question that you guys are going to have lots of answers to, so I’m going to say it over the second. The second question that came in is when you talk about foundational processes, this person is using a platform where they’re kind of, they feel bottle necked into using the way, basically, the platform isn’t flexible. There’s one way to do a process and it’s not working for them. And they were wondering if there are integrations that they could use to go around that, or what your advice might be in using tech that kind of changes their foundational processes, or [inaudible 00:11:04].

Kortney Harmon, Host:
Tom, I’m going to let you go first and then I’ll go from there.

Tom Hunley, Sr. Product Marketing Manager:
Well, yeah, I mean if the platform is not allowing you to do your process, you absolutely need to either talk to the platform provider and say, “Is there a new upgrade?” Is there something that you don’t know about? Is there a feature you’re not using? Is there something on the roadmap that might be coming down the pipe that could facilitate that? And then if you do need that integration, there’s lots of point solutions out there. And Crelate has a pretty open API and we’re consistently working with integration partners like that.

So there’s a solution. There’s a lot of cool tech out there. That’s one of the reasons I like being in the space. So yeah, it’s just reevaluate and research, and then talk to your platform. They probably have some suggestions even. Talk to, if they have a professional services team, talk to them. They might do some consulting and tell you the best thing, or like a Maurice Fuller type of thing.

Kortney Harmon, Host:
I love that. I’m going to throw a percentage out here, and I know this percentage varies, but whenever you talk about software features, 20% of software features are used by everybody. It just goes along with any tech. Probably with your phone, with Office, with your ATS. Only 20% of the software features are truly used. 50% of the features are hardly ever or never used, and the other remaining 30% of the features are used so infrequently they forget that they’re even there. So I know, in my last organization with 10 operating companies, I had someone specifically dedicated in our training department for the technology.

They saw the releases that were coming from the software. They’re saying, “Okay, is this impacting our current processes today? Is it going to impact them in the future? Do we update any training manuals, any screenshots for SOPs, for standardized processes? Whatever that looks like.” But it was, I needed one person to be up on that because I feel like technology, if you are not up on that, especially an ATS and you’re a single source of truth, not that you want to invest in that for that one person, but you need to have constant conversations, just like Tom said with your provider to know, “How is this impacting me? Do I need to know?” Because there are probably things that your system does that you’re completely unaware of.

Sarah, you want to add to that?

Sarah Gossin, Director of Product:
I think you guys answered it really well. The only thing I could possibly add is point solutions are great, but integrations are always going to solve all your problems. So it is good to kind of partner with your platform and exhaust that before you try and tack on solutions. Because it’s kind of what I mentioned at the beginning when you tack on too many solutions, it’s kind of putting lipstick on a pig. You’ve got to make sure that the foundation is there before you add a bunch of tech on top.

Kortney Harmon, Host:
The grass isn’t always greener on the other side to say, “I need to scratch this, I need to start over.” You’re counterintuitive to against what you’re trying to achieve.

Tom Hunley, Sr. Product Marketing Manager:
If the grass is greener, water your lawn.

Kortney Harmon, Host:
Yeah, I love it. Okay, Katie, you said that was a two-parter. That was the first part. What is the second part?

Katie Jones, Producer:
This is a fun one. You guys are going to love this. Okay. Tom, this question came in from Zach and he said, “When you mention fun tech, immediately ChatGPT and Jasper type tools come to mind? Do you have any advice as to how to use this in the staffing industry and any things to avoid?”

Kortney Harmon, Host:
I love this question. Tom, can I go first and then you can go second?

Tom Hunley, Sr. Product Marketing Manager:
Okay, go first.

Kortney Harmon, Host:
I’m just excited. I’m sorry. Going to just wait one second. ChatGPT is something that I selfishly use in some capacity, on the daily. It’s been a lot of questions. We’ve had some conversations and audience members to say, “How are you using this?” It can be as simple as your social post for engagement with your candidates or clients. It can help you create screening questions for potential candidates. It can help you for interview preparation. It can help you with job writing for job descriptions, because let’s face it, some of the people in our industry, they go and they say, “This is the ad from the company I need. I’m going to copy paste it to my job board.” But are they making it enticing? Are they changing the wording? And there are so many more.

So Tom, I know I selfishly use it when, even as a proofreader. I’m going to not lie, I move so fast sometimes I’ll be like, “Oh, I forgot a word.” Or, “I knew what I meant to say.” But I throw it in ChatGPT and it helps me just to even proofread my stuff. Tom, anything else that you were hearing at the conference of how people are using ChatGPT in the talent industry?

Tom Hunley, Sr. Product Marketing Manager:
Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of ways. Actually, the things you talked about, writing job descriptions, questions for candidates, any marketing type aspect that you can do. If you ask it to write out information about a certain industry, say you’re pivoting to a different industry you’re recruiting in and you don’t know that, well, give it a synopsis of the industry and why your team would be the best fit for that type of thing. Just play with it.

But just know that ChatGPT, you really got to quality control it. I wouldn’t just copy and paste directly from the form, directly to client or prospects. That’s going to be a recipe for disaster because again, you want to put your best foot forward. But as far as having it check yourself, or maybe you have all kind of marketing material for, let’s say, manufacturing, and you want to pivot into logistics or healthcare or whatever, take that same marketing material and plug it in and let it rewrite it for you. It’s just going to save you time. Or, if you want to have your sourcers and recruiters have different talk tracks and things like that.

Kortney Harmon, Host:
I love it.

Tom Hunley, Sr. Product Marketing Manager:
I think that’s probably the best thing.

Kortney Harmon, Host:
I love it. And honestly, I think we’re going to see a change. I think ChatGPT is going to change us in all. I don’t think it’s going to take jobs. I think it’s going to, if you know how to use it effectively, I think it’s just going to help you scale, help you do things faster. I actually heard a thought on another podcast, today actually, that you used to be able to email and communicate that way, but it just doesn’t pack the same punch, right? There’s so much spam, you go into junk, then social came around. And yeah, while it still packs that same punch, it doesn’t go out without the promotions or the spam in your inbox, or overall noise that you have to get through to get the quality that you want to see.

That very well might happen when we focus on AI outreaches, due to the sheer amount of outreaches that we’re able to produce into a market. You may lose that ability to reach people and growth may be solely relying on the ability to get into the decision makers and that echo chamber of voices that matter in the talent industry. So with all of this talk of ChatGPT and AI, don’t steer too much away from that human element. Remember that trust in relationships are still so much value add for those in our business, and it’s how so many of our industries scale, and it’s through our connections. So with all of that being said, use it to your benefit, not as a solution.

Okay, Katie, we got four minutes left. Is there any more questions or should I wrap up?

Katie Jones, Producer:
No, the only other questions I will email you after and we’ll try to arrange a call with Kortney so that we can get those answered.

Kortney Harmon, Host:
Thanks so much for joining us today. I know the entire team here at Crelate had an amazing time at Executive Forum, and we enjoyed talking with many of you in the audience and hearing more about the innovation in our industry. If you have questions, don’t forget to send us an email at [email protected].

I’m Kortney Harmon with Crelate. Thanks for joining the Full Desk Experience. Please feel free to submit any questions for next session to [email protected] or ask us live next session. If you enjoyed our show, be sure to subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen, and sign up to attend future events that happen once a month.