SPEAKER_00 0:00

We have to apply AI in those components where you can take the manual monotonous admin elements of the process to enable your TA partners or your recruiters to still hold value.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Hello everyone and welcome to talent download. I'm really excited today to have uh a guest on board uh which we're gonna learn lots about talent acquisition but also um uh delve into the areas of early careers um and and how his organization uh works within it as well. Um so welcome to Chris Hay. Um he's from NSTAR Group. Um NSTAR uh works within the insurance sector. Um it uh has you know ultimately uh been a business um where it's really achieved um many things and great things ultimately for it. Um it's a business which is evolving uh within the early career space um and I think has got lots of different ideas uh around it. But I guess Chris, do a quick introduction, I guess, on InStar, just for people who don't know uh about the organization.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Uh thanks very much, Darren. Um so NSTAR Group um are not a typical insurance organization. We we don't provide policy, we don't provide cover that many uh people would assume an insurance firm does. Um so we operate in a very niche part of um insurance, which is called the legacy space or the runoff space. So, in more simplest terms, we would acquire portfolios or insurance organizations where um you know they don't want to have any more liabilities on their balance sheets, so they will um, in effect, pass those liabilities on to organizations like NSTAR. Um, NSTAR will enable those organizations to effectively release capital nice and easily. And it would mean, therefore, that NSTAR takes on that liability and how we make our money is through managing um the those claims exceptionally well and using those reserves for further investment returns, um, etc. So, again, a really unique, quite niche side of insurance that not many people know about.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Yeah, good. And and always good to get a little bit of background about yourself and then what sort of draw drew you into NSTAR would be really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Absolutely. So um I've been in talent acquisition now for roughly nearly 15 years. Um, I started off in uh agency, recruitment agency, and then from recruitment agency worked into early careers and my earlier sides of my of my background, and then moved into more professional uh sides of recruitment, uh worked across MSP, um, also RPO, um, and then obviously in-house, so took a number of managerial roles and then moved into a uh more of a director head of TA space. What drew me to NSTAR initially the three main things. Number one was um the fact that I've never worked in the insurance space before. Um so new industry, new sector, learning uh new skills um and gaining some new experiences in an industry never worked in before. Um, second of all was the the opportunities to initiate change, transformation, and add value. Um I've always looked at myself as someone who would absolutely roll their hands up transactionally, but obviously loves building out a TA roadmap and transforming a TA house. Um and thirdly, I was just through the whole recruitment process of NSTAR when I was being interviewed, was just sold um the amazing opportunity, the people, uh every stakeholder that I met was fantastic. Uh, and overall uh it was an easy decision to to move across.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah, and uh working across those um different industries which kind of got you to InStar, um I I often find myself it it kind of shapes me in in many ways. I um I started in IT recruitment and I got you know thrown on site in different environments within IT service business, within a uh and banking environment, and that sort of shapes me in my early days in terms of the way in which I kind of looked at particularly within outsourcing and recruitment regarding it. And has that sort of sounds like it's happened to you in terms of what are sort of those lessons that you you sort of learn, I guess, that's kind of got to this point now.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I I think it was just the exposure of working across the different sides of the coin really in recruitment. Having started off in agency, you really appreciate the graft that goes into recruitment agency work. Um, obviously to you know manage really good candidates, to bring on good board great uh clients, and then moving across into the RPO space. Um, you really appreciate your ability to be on site, but also wearing still your kind of agency hat. And then you've got the MSP side, which is obviously dealing with really fast contractors and freelancers, so fast-paced nature of that work, and then moving back in-house again. Um, you then kind of solidify all those different experiences. Um, and I was able to kind of gain really good exposure of working in pharmaceuticals, telecoms, and then eventually moved into sort of private equity hedge fund data, and then now where I am in insurance. So I I was able to kind of bring all those different experiences, and I think that served me really well where I am currently at NSTAR, so I can appreciate the challenges across all the various verticals, but also apply sort of that in-house hat as well. Yeah, no, that's good.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

And and obviously I'm Amber Jack very much positioned within the early career space, um, also managing uh volume hiring, but um being very much at our origins uh are from that that space. Do you I I I it is an incredibly exciting area to be in. It's it's all about future leadership in many ways, but that career journey which we we get the opportunity to take people on. Is there things you've learned kind of from even from your own career, you know, kind of through from recruiting consultant through which gets you excited to go around?

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Yeah, absolutely. I think um from getting that exposure of working in in early careers, um, one of the things I kind of certainly realize is the importance of yes, you can manage early careers recruitment exceptionally well and bring on board future potential and future talent, but going through their own development and being able to provide them with mentors and provide them with bodies, for example, um, but also providing them with a really strong development program, getting that exposure across the various elements of their um kind of early careers, rotations, et cetera, would really serve them well once they come in later on into their career. Um, so something here, even with NSTAR at the moment, is yes, we've done a lot of focus on working with Amberjack to uh bring on board great talent, but obviously we also use Amberjack for um the development side and the skills-based sessions as well. So we're kind of developing that program. It's not just about bringing people on board. We can't forget about that potential. You continually nurture that talent throughout that two-year grad program, and then following that, uh making sure that they obviously had the best um stepping stones to have a great career within your organization.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yeah, no, no, I agree completely. And and from your your career, your career perspective, um can you kind of pinpoint key aspects that happen, key event, I guess, that happened, key mentors that that kind of led you down your path that kind of influenced your your way of thinking?

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, if I if I take my time back for uh example, when I worked at Sonofi as as an instance, um, which was a you know a global pharmaceutical organization, it was my first real stint in sort of um talent acquisition management. It was an RPO. Um, but I had an absolutely fantastic manager who gave me that exposure, gave me that first chance opportunity to manage, um, gave me the opportunity to work on projects and gave me exposure to things I've never done before. And as those first chances, I think, is exceptionally valuable and always will stick in my mind. Um, because without getting those opportunities and I suppose a fair chance, you would never have that opportunity to grow and flourish and show your true colors. So I think for me, that that time at Sonofi really kind of propelled me up. And probably at my time at Prequin as well. Um again, it was a financial data firm. Um, my manager at that time, you know, really trusted me and gave me exposure to take on more and more things, whether that be onboarding, whether that be promotions, performance management, etc. Um, gain an exposure of working across various different verticals and different regions. Um, you know, I think she was fantastic in supporting me. Um and again, I think that just goes to show really good line managers real make a difference and those that give you that opportunity and chance to step up I think are the ones that real, you know, will always stay in your mind because they are the the game changers at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Yeah, agree. And you know, you you talk about Sanafi in terms of your you know your experience around there, regular, you know, regulated um pretty much um a sector you're in at the moment follows equally um the same regulations, and we will maybe we'll delve into that uh a little bit and a little bit later because I think that does shape um yourselves in terms of uh working across it. You you you've been work specialists, you've got you kind of work within that corporate um structure. Has that shaped um from an NSTAR perspective in terms of the way in which you approach early careers? Have you been able to kind of bring some of that influence into the way in which you're working or change the program, I guess, ultimately, or thoughts around it?

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah, absolutely. I think um NSTAR works in a regulated obviously, but we're financially regulated given the fact that we we we we we we were in in the insurance space. Um and actually that kind of brings itself obviously some particular guardrails when it comes to um recruitment and diversity and elements like that. One of the things I would say um, you know, coming into to NSTAR that I found from my kind of previous early days and early careers, but also um from my previous times at a pre-quein, etc., was um just the importance of that kind of experience and the candid journey, um, and and the importance obviously of things like skills-based hiring and skills-based assessments. Um, and obviously Amberjack does that fantastically, you know, using your platform and you know, the the use of sort of predictive analytics and and predictive of potential, etc. Um, that for me was something that I really bought into and one of the reasons why I really bought into the whole Amberjack process as a whole. Um, and again, you know, that really solid kind of experience, also the hiring manager experience, when I look at what Amberjack can bring to the table for our emerging talent program, it ticks a lot of our boxes. So, when coming into NSTAR, one of the first things I said around emerging talent was just to make sure that we actually have a clear strategy, bringing on board quality hiring talent for um our future leaders within the business, but naturally ensuring that we naturally have a really solid uh candidate and hiring manager experience because you want that return in investment, but also you want hiring managers to want to have a good experience and want to be able to use the platform and use Amberjack again and uh and ensure that they are repeat hirers of the program as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Yeah. I I I've spoken about it on um some other episodes before. Um I've got five kids, but I've got two sons, uh, one in university at the moment, one that's just graduated. And um it's amazing the different kind of candidate experience that they felt around it. Um my son that's at university is just doing his placement year at the moment in the city of London, um, but went through quite a process to kind of get that. He's he's at a he's at a good university doing finance accountancy uh management, uh good degree and good sounding. And his candidate experience was was different ultimately at some really quite high profile uh brands. Um and you know, he'd he'd come to me and ask me, you know, I thought it's all I've ever worked in recruitment and and generally recruitment outsourcing. And you know, he'd say, like, well, you know, it's a big, big brand, big firm, you know, why why aren't I getting contacted regarding it? Uh, etc. And you know, I I I I think we as um uh you've called it a sector of specialism, uh an area within early careers, I I think it's so important that we try and approach the ways in which we deal with that um for the future. So I'm pretty sure we might be getting everything right exactly all the time at the moment, but um our approach to doing that around it, and it sounds like Insta, you know, equally are trying to trying to think about that in terms of processes that you may follow just to improve.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Yeah, absolutely absolutely. I think as we know, you know, the candidate market is is is becoming more and more hotter. Um, you know, we we've gone through a number of economic cycles. Um, you know, we we acknowledge the importance of a really good candidate experience, um, not only just at the merging talent level, but across only you know, across also the kind of senior levels. And you hear the kind of topics that go around, you know, candid ghosting, etc. And you know, one of the kind of key things I've really pushed for my team is candid experience is is prime, it's it's golden. Um, you know, the markets are, especially in like insurance, is quite small. Um, you know, the talent pools are quite small, especially in the London Lloyd's market. So if you provide a poor candid experience, naturally they will either tell their friends, tell their colleagues, some of them could well be in a couple of years' time repeaters and may apply again back to ENSTA. If they've had a poor candidate experience, that will be transcended to their friends and their family, and may they themselves may not want to apply again. And so, again, that reputation in keeping that in extinct of the employer brand um is super, super important. So that's why I keep driving that with my own team, you know, feedback after interviews, making sure that feedback's done on the phone, um, providing really rich detailed feedback, not just a couple of rejection lines, um, something meaningful because naturally is a two-way process and kind of do spend a lot of time interviewing and researching your organization.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

They do, and and uh I was um working with a financial services institute institution, and um we um you know historically um would post uh a PA role or an executive assistant uh role out to market, and we'd kind of done that for you know many years and get some nice applications through and kind of manage that application route and didn't generally have to uh kind of headhunt that role, it wasn't necessary uh approach uh needy regarding it. Um but because of the market changing, you know, over the last couple of years, um if we were to post that role now, you know, today, the number of applications that would come through became impossible to, you know, to the design of the team or the way in which this kind of the solution of the team on the productivity and the way they they were kind of designed to cope to actually manage that application route and it becomes easier to directly approach for that role because you can manage the candidate experience in such a better way uh regarding it, and and and we'll come on to in a in a moment, but I uh you know I think the different approaches you have to think about that um in terms of the processes, the technologies, and the things that you use become so important, you know, ultimately.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Absolutely, yeah. Um, I think what what we're seeing now roles that we may have been advertising a couple of years ago, volumes-wise, have I've you know double, tripled. Um, and and I think that's a combination of factors. You know, we we operate in London, um, obviously global as an organization as well. But if I were to take London as an example, more and more um overseas candidates. Um, you know, a lot of people want to work and live in London. Um, second of all, you've got um a situation where people are are certainly always um keen to find out what else is better out there. Um, cost of living, for example, people are always looking after the bottom line. So they want to make sure, you know, could I find a better job? You know, the elements of careers for life is gone. Everything is all about career self-management now. So people are moving sort of every two to three years, and that's reflected in you know the that kind of volume of applications now that we're seeing. So having a really strong ATS and having really strong robust processes and streamlined workflows is super important to manage that funnel of candidates and ensuring that you're still hiring quality at the end other at the other side of the process as well.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

And uh just uh in star at the moment, you you've recently gone through an um an investment round uh round again uh overall as a business. Um there's commercial pressure always on all businesses. Uh you know, I'd um was speaking the other day um to a public sector uh institution uh institution and and they were you know talking kind of quite constantly about funding, etc. and how they're kind of set up um from a commercial world perspective. My business is a commercial, there's always those pressures around it, around it. Do you how do you approach that, I guess, around the TA space, hiring the right people, getting the people in, most important thing for the business, but there's always that pressure point you know around what you need.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Yeah, I I think we're quite lucky with with with NSTAR because I you know, in the organization, we we hire really, really niche types of roles, um, you know, actuary, risk, legal compliance, etc., investments. Um, and naturally, you know, the bottom line is we always want to bring in quality. We we don't hire hundreds and hundreds of of roles um every year. We we hire probably around 100 to 120 um roles um in that year. Um, but you know, we're we're quite fortunate. I've got a very strong TA team. We do quite high direct sourcing, so we've got a very high direct sourcing model. We use agencies as and when we we wish to. They have full autonomy when they wish to use agencies as well. Um, but again, you know, the kind of overarching um sort of sentiment by XCO, you know, from my line manager, from myself as well, is ultimately always bring in top quality candidates. And even though even if there is a cost associated with views and exec search or agencies, etc., and you know, my team have full autonomy to use agencies, irrespective of that. You know, we we're not kind of put on the cost that we can't use recruitment agencies or under the cost that we have to use agencies for certain types of roles. We've got that full autonomy to do so. Um, but again, you know, quality trumps cost um because the longer term investment is whatever that cost of bringing someone on board will always be trumped by the return of investment you get with someone who is a high grade player who can bring back investment to your organization two, three, four, fivefold. Yeah, good.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

And and you, your team at the moment, is there um some strategic projects that you're working on, priorities that you have to achieve? Is it good to hear about some of that?

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Um I mean last year we did we did um quite a lot. Um, you know, we implemented uh a technology um system, we implemented greenhouse, which has been an absolute game changer, automating a lot of our workflows and bringing good candidate experiences, hiring manager experience. Um and we put in place like a DI plan, which has made a massive change on our hiring. Um I think last year we did about 52% of our hires were female, and that was a dramatic change from a couple of years ago, which sort of sat around 35-40%. This year, our main focus has been around employer branding by by far. Um we've been working with an employer branding agency to conduct research, um, build out EVP pillars, EVP themes, EVP narrative, EVP statements, etc. And then we're now approaching that final stage where we're looking at EVP activation. Um, employer branding, not only for early careers, but also for across the organization for professional hires, is super important. We've never had an employer brand. You know, we've never been able to differentiate ourselves not only amongst our competitors, but just within the overall financial services insurance sector. Um and and sometimes, to be fair, you know, it we because we operate in such a niche area, it's not that bad not to have an overarching full employer brand like organizations like a Viva, the well-knowns. Um, you know, we're we're quite happy to go subtly and and quietly, but at the same time, we want to also showcase we're a fantastic place to work. You can come on board and have an amazing career with NSTAR and gain some real good experience and skill sets and knowledge. So employer branding is one of the big, big areas we're currently working at the moment. Emerging talent is is another big area. Um, we're currently working on the emerging talent strategy for next year. Um, and again, where we are as an organization within insurance, that there are a lot of pressures that push organizations like us to want to invest in early careers and emerging talent. Um, there's something what we call the kind of credit, the the talent crunch within the insurance space where you've got um really, really senior, very knowledgeable. Skilled individuals approaching that time of retirement. But also insurance itself is, you know, it's not a sexy industry like investment banking or banking in general or legal or whatever. So we're not getting that influx of innovation and key skills in areas like data or AI. So you're getting this crunch where you're getting these potential gaps in skills from a succession planning point of view, but also these key skills that we need to operate. AI, data, technology transformation, et cetera. So emerging investing emerging talent now is an essential strategy to bring in that fundamental talent skill set and to mitigate ultimately against risk, to mitigate against those risk skill gaps and succession planning purposes.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

And what does success sort of look like for you, sort of as you as you sort of shape that strategy around early, Chris? It's really interesting to hear you talk about, you know, to a certain extent, an aging workforce in certain areas actually is is obviously quite a common area regarding it. You mentioned the word sexy in terms of different areas of banking. Um I'm not sure everybody always says that. Everything is sexy, but you kind of you kind of compare against insurance regarding that. But uh going back to the kind of the the success part regarding it, do you how do you see that? Is that is that the quality of the individual that comes through, understanding or just seeing that career progression or the individual?

SPEAKER_00 23:36

It's a great question, Darren. Um, you know, when when we are sort of looking at what does defining the success of an emerging talent program, you could look at the short-term and long-term goals. For me, the three main long-term values are one, bringing in quality talent after the two years of the grad program, and that they'll be able to have those opportunities to get promoted and start off as an individual contributor and become a team manager. And that you see that individual flourishing and growing in their career. That for me is one of the key successes that I would determine of a really good emerging talent program is bringing on board talent. They finish the grad program and they achieve a promotion within X number of years. Um, you know, the other one would be that kind of conversion rate that we see from sort of interns to grads and then from grads moving into uh you know a professional role where you know you would be saving the business X amount of money if they if you would have to use an agency as a result of having to hire that person. Um and then the kind of third success, I would say, is having an emerging talent program that becomes a respected program and a respective talent pool within your organization. So it's not just always about, okay, this particular person has left the organization. Okay, great, let's go and start hiring like for like. It's actually no, you want to be able to build that candid pool within the organization post-grad, where you can then access and identify and promote from within so that naturally you've you've got this in-house built talent machine that you're basically building in the end-star way and not always having to utilize external hires, because there's always no guarantee that external hire, regardless of how you know skilled, experienced, or expensive they are, will always be a fit for your for your business. But sometimes having that investment to nurture and develop a talent pool, because you've got that into the end-star way, um, might have a more a far better long-term return on investment. So for me, those are the three sort of benchmarks I kind of consider as a as a measure of success. And yes, you've got your kind of short-term, you know, uh, you know, cost savings and recruitment cost savings and you know, retention within program, retention after program, but these are naturally metrics. Um, but the three other variables that I talked about there is what I deem as a successful program.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

And you you talked you talked a little bit earlier around um skills-based hiring. It's obviously quite a hot topic. You go to go to any HR event, any any TA um session at the moment, there's discussions regarding it. And I think you know, there's a there's a there's a lot of discussions within the HR community, TA space, um, regarding it. I don't know how well the business kind of understands that regarding it. I don't know what your thoughts are regarding it, sort of in star's approach. It seems seems to me maybe it's a journey that we're all we're all sort of going through at the moment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Yeah, I think you've got a spot on there, Darren. I think that's what exactly what it is. It is a journey. Um, and we we've been on that journey for the last two years. You know, I I introduced that philosophy of skills-based hiring into the organization, um, and we've taken components of the skills-based hiring, but not in totalitarian. Um, so as an example, we implemented um things like skills assessments. So there's psychometrics around OPQs, verbal, logical reasoning. We never used to do that in the past, so we made it a uh a kind of a key element as part of our recruitment process. We introduced things like behavioral competency-based interviewing, which in the past never really used to be done. A lot of it was very much so focused on experience and qualifications. But now we're looking a lot more at competence and skills and using competency-based interviewing to extract that, as well as scenario-based interviewing, et cetera, and sample work tests, et cetera. Um, the other thing, of course, is that we also introduced a skills assessment as part of our recruitment process. So in most cases, you will always, as part of the N-Star process, will either have some form of presentation or a case study or a work sample test, something like that, which will test skill and your and your ability to assess a particular competence. Um, but naturally, even with our interviews, um, even though we have hiring manager guidance documents, et cetera, you know, that anchor around looking at qualifications and experience is still a natural default. Um, you know, we we we sit in financial services. So naturally, even for roles like accounting or actuary or investments, naturally hiring managers will determine the success of an individual based on their qualifications or the exams that they've done and their uh and the companies they've worked for and the experience that they've gained to date. Um, we're still on that journey. Still on that journey educating managers to look beyond that and look at transferable skills and look at competence and look at the wider skill set of an individual, not only just on their experience and qualifications. Um I think it's more challenging in areas like financial services where you know you have hiring managers as well as, you know, sort of that tick-box mentality of they got a degree here, they've done X number of qualifications, and they've worked in X-level organizations, they must be really good, versus actually they've developed skills in a whole range of different areas. We're looking at potential as well. Uh, so we're still in that journey, we're still transitioning there, we're still educating. So we've taken baby steps, um, and we're still on that journey towards, but I'm really kind of happy that we've made progress already, but there's still more progress to be made.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

It's it's interesting what you you you talked about there in terms of what you're you're trying to introduce around assessment a little bit more, you know, and then linking that to skills base. I I for for many years I I've always been amazed, particularly around the UK. I mean, I live in the UK. Um the adoption around assessment on certainly sort of let's call it middle management specialist hiring roles, has always been relatively low in terms generally compared to markets like in Belgium, markets in France, etc., particularly continental Europe, maybe maybe to a certain extent Australia. Um and and and it's interesting that we need to make sure that more of the science is basically, in my opinion, is basically introduced into hiring now because because early careers because we haven't got a huge amount of information data to go on regarding a candidate, we have to think about the science within it. We have to introduce that. Um, but from a specialist perspective, not all organisations, some organizations I know that you know have absolutely got it right, but it's it but as a general, a general thing, haven't haven't got it. And I th I think that that that will be the move, the change that the HR, TA, etc. are gonna have to think about in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

I think over time, as the importance of, you know, you will the volume of applications now, as ready mentioned, is is high. You know, we can't lose the still the premise of hiring high quality candidates. And I think that's where the robustness of your recruitment process plays such a vital role there. It also plays a vital role in filtering out those types of candidates that don't meet the thresholds, um, and hence why things like psychometrics, things such as um role plays or assessments or presentations or case studies start to become more important. Because the problem that I start to see with interviews is you could have one individual going through multiple interviews, and unless you have a really structured interview process where you are asking different questions and that there is a set um goal after each or before each interview, you start to get into this trap where you get interview fatigue. Hiring managers are asking the same questions, the same candidates. There's no value in the interviews. Hiring managers are not talking to one another. So information that you want to probably gather from the next interview is not being met because those hiring managers from the previous interview haven't discussed. So they're just going in blind. And some hiring managers sometimes are not aware of what they're actually interviewing, they don't really know what they're looking for. Um, so I think over time you'll probably start to see less applicability of the interview and probably more science and more objectivity. Um, and who knows, maybe AI may start playing a bit more of a better role as well, although that's another topic altogether.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Well, good topic to go on to good segue almost through in it. You talked about um your rec your recent introduction of new ATS system uh greenhouse, uh, which you selected. Um the introduction regarding AI into selection process um is obviously being discussed, you know, um quite a lot at Amberjack. Um just in this season, uh, we've introduced um AI screening uh technology, um, which is basically looking at video screens um of candidates and then then ultimately um grading them for us um to give us results, very much like a human being would naturally do it, um do it and complete it. We put a lot of a lot around it in terms of quality assurances, lots of checks and validation, but it um so far from the data and the information that we can see that that's being produced, it's providing really good results, yeah, you know, accordingly. What's your view in terms of that? I appreciate everyone's on a sort of different journey regarding AI. There's adopters there there isn't uh around it at the moment, but uh but a general view is always as good as well.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Yeah, absolutely. Um I sort of can answer your question on sort of twofolds, really. Um, you know, my my view of AI at the moment, and having you know attended other events and and and and done some reading around um AI, and there's some really kind of big speakers on AI in talent acquisition at the moment, given it's such a big topic, um, is we have to apply AI in those components where you can take the manual monotonous admin elements of the process to enable your TA partners or your recruiters to still hold value. So, you know, if you you know, as an example, if we can use AI to um build out role profiles or job descriptions as an example, you know, you you feed in a set of information into, say, for example, uh a machine learning tool, and they'll populate a job description. But to make sure that we still have that human loop in that process. So it'll be someone reviewing and checking and making amendments. But the main bone structure, the main basic elements of the JD will come from AI. Um and that would save a hiring manager, a talent acquisition partner quite a lot of time having to do a job analysis and look at old job descriptions and formulate a new one. Um high volume candidate screening is another example you you you mentioned there, Darren. Um but again, you're trying to take away the high volume, sort of admin, monotonous, labor-intensive elements of the process and keep that towards an automated AI element. But that the value-added task should still be, in my view, still managed by a TA person. So, you know, where are those added value tasks? So, you know, offers, offers you would still expect to be held by the talent acquisition team. They're the ones who will be able to sell the role, they're the ones who will be able to close candidates down, they're the ones who can get that engagement and get that candidate over the line. Recruitment briefing meetings, I still think should be a TA-led partner, human-centric element, sitting down with hiring managers, understanding the role, um, gaining the in-depth of what's great and what are the challenges with the position, because they need that to obviously sell to candidates. The candid engagement piece, again, I still think should be held by a Thailand acquisition partner because that's where the human element is there. Um, you know, as a candidate I wouldn't want to be speaking to a bot um about the role or about the company. I would want someone real who I'm actually speaking to who can talk to me about the process and talk to me about the company and talk to me about the role indeed and that can answer my questions in real time and not a robotic response. So I think my view overall would be I think AI certainly does play a part. I think there's going to be elements of the process and there are tasks in the recruitment process that can be automated, that can be managed by an AI element, but the value-added pieces of the process, which is a lot more human-centric, should still be managed by human, by, by the TA partner. And even here with NSTAR at the moment, we've just started our journey of exploring AI. And again, we're really cautious as to what elements we turn on and what elements we keep with the Talent acquisition team. And I think we're in that process now where we're doing a lot more reviewing of the process to see where is the productivity lapses that could be given to AI and where are the productivity gains that could be obtained by just keeping it with a human partner.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Yeah, and I think from an Amberjack perspective, exactly very similar to what you're saying there. We've we've introduced um a bot to help a candidate um through an application process from the perspective of when they drop off. So they dropped off somewhere in the process and they haven't fully completed it. And it may be um, particularly in a role that where we may be lower on candidates, you know, in terms of we'd we'd like a stronger pool of candidates. And when we've introduced that, and it's often going through a WhatsApp or an iMessage uh communication, introduce itself as a bot, so it doesn't you know pretend it isn't regarding it, but can start to understand, you know, what was the problem, you know, regarding the application, can I help with anything? Um, but is sophisticated enough to really, really understand, understand the problem and get the candidate back in process. And we've seen real wins there in terms of candidates going back in process and then ultimately getting place uh regarding it. I've talked about the video screening part. I think I think you it within the process part, generally within TA, well what we're generally finding is applications are going up and up and up. There's recently in one of the institutions released, you know, I think 20 years ago, there was an average of about 20-30 candidates per one role. Yeah, it's now 1400 plus, you know, yeah, yeah. You know, regarding it. And and we as as professionals kind of within the sector, we we have to combat that to improve, you know, around candidate experience, you know, ultimately. We spoke about that earlier, but that's that's our task to try and do it, as you said, ethically, yeah, uh in the right way, but ultimately to make a candidate feel like they are being listened to, yeah, listened to and heard, which I think is is important um ultimately for the for the future future of what we do. Do you think um you talked about the employment brand part? You know, that was a key project, obviously ATS project last year, employment brand, um nearly complete, nearly nearly excited, excited to see what uh comes out of that. What about the future? Do you is there sort of a bit of a roadmap or is it being discussed or where is it for you at the moment?

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Absolutely, Darren. So um our plan is once we've got the employer brand built, then we'll move on towards employer brand activation. That would probably happen sort of early into next year. Um and then we we take it from there and we really run with it. So we'll start applying the EVP, the new EVP, to things like building out specific kind of personas. And being able to build out specific kind of personas enables us then to start creating more targeted recruitment campaigns. A good example for that is you know Bermuda. So we we we do a lot of recruitment in Bermuda. Not as much as we do in the US and UK, but Bermuda is always a challenging area to recruit in because for two main reasons. Um, one, talent has to be on the island. Um so if you're recruiting for Bermuda, uh naturally, you know, you would want to find someone who lives in Bermuda, um, not having to find someone in the US and traveling to Bermuda every other month or so. Um but the other challenge, of course, is the Canada pool is restricted in Bermuda. Um there's obviously a visa piece and immigration um complexities as well with that. So, in order for us to reposition ourselves as an employer of choice in Bermuda, amongst our many, many other organizations in the insurance space in Bermuda, uh, we want to be able to create specific recruitment campaigns to attract, as an example, risk professionals, accounting professionals, actuary professionals, et cetera, to NSTAR. Why should they come to NSTAR versus any of our other competitors? So for us, I think that's would be the initial set of actions once the activation happens, is building out those personas and then start creating um specific recruitment campaigns off that and and targeting um those types of areas. So jurisdictionally, Bermuda and other critical talent segments, um, Actuary is a is a really good example, as is um legal compliance, risk, etc. So this year is all about creating that brand and next year is activating it and rolling that brand off to really target those more harder to reach uh candidates.

SPEAKER_01 41:41

And and looking looking to the the future again, um what do you what do you think, and it doesn't just need to be an InStar, but what do you think successful early careers programs may have, but e even generally TA programs will have, or what characteristics do you think that you'll see um basically around it?

SPEAKER_00 42:02

Yeah, um so I think you're you're probably gonna start to see in in my view um adoption certainly of of AI in a lot of our processes, and again, high businesses will probably make a decision on on how far fetched they want to go with with AI and how far they want to integrate it, depending on the type of volumes and depending on the types of roles that they also will have. I think also the the kind of holistic talent function as a whole will start to start to see other programs like with the returner programs as an example. Um I remember in my last organization, we actually ran a very successful returner program. Um so these are individuals who have taken career gaps, um, time out to look after kids or time out to look after elderly parents, etc., have a career break, and then they want to return back into the workforce. Um and these individuals are highly skilled, highly capable, um, but they just need to be given that opportunity and that chance. And we had a really successful returner program. And I think what you'll start to see as you know organizations start to manage obviously the kind of volatility and economic uncertainty, there'll probably be utilization of these additional programs. So emerging talent, you probably get more of the returner program. Um, there may well be more leniency on things like their internal mobility and their promotional programs as well. So exercising internal talent and being able to upskill them, gain skills-based hiring effectively because you're gonna be trans getting those skills to be more transferable and being able to move individuals to departments they probably never thought they would move to. Um, so get a bit more exposure to that. Um, and then you may also get um, you know, additional uh programs, things like referrals, etc. I think there's gonna be a lot more utilization of internal talent, a lot more utilization of Internal capability and a lot more focus on things like emergent talent going forward, given economic uncertainty, given you know the uncertainty whether they'll be able to still externally hire X amount as we have done probably in the last couple of years, and there'll be more utilization of our internal programs to manage skill gaps and succession planning issues.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

Good. And um been in the industry a while now, works as as as you described earlier on, um, across different um organisations in different areas around it. What what maybe is the one thing that you'd you'd maybe change uh within talent acquisition as a as a general industry, so it doesn't have to just be early careers. Is there the one thing? I I I I'll give you an example kind of um which I've seen quite a lot in terms of commentary, um, particularly on LinkedIn because it kind of gives a voice around it. Um obviously there's the the the TA industry um massively expanded, you know, sort of uh COVID sort of happened, but then there was this massive increase, couldn't find many recruiters anywhere to do it. And then we went through this massive reduction sort of based upon Silicon Valley Banker and Bust, um, lots of um redundancies and loss of jobs around a lot of the tech firms, which kind of then sort of had a chain effect across the board. And yeah, one of the big things I see we spoke about it earlier, candidate experience kind of comes up, you know, time again regarding, and that's within our own group, you know, the way in which you know individuals in TA can kind of be um dealt with or managed through in kind of the recruitment process, yeah, kind of comes up as a key theme uh regarding it. And and for me, that's kind of one of the things I guess ultimately that I I think you know we need to be better at around it. But I don't know, any any thoughts from yourself?

SPEAKER_00 45:49

I mean, from from my view, and I would say I think NSTAR does it really well with the perception of a talent acquisition team. I think talent acquisition leaders in general talent leaders should be promoting the importance and the strategic value of the talent acquisition far more than than what we currently do. Um you know, we appreciate our our role is to bring in quality talent into the organization. And um, you know, I I I I've seen in in previous organizations that it could easily be seen as sort of bringing bums on seats and just effectively just filling roles. But the role of the talent acquisition function, I think over the many years has certainly changed. And I think as TA leaders, as talent leaders, should be shouting and promoting it more. You know, we don't just bring in people. Um, you know, talent acquisition functions change and they widen. Um, you know, whether they're managing internal mobility programs, whether they're managing emerging talent, sometimes they even manage promotions. Um, some functions are holistic and they manage the entire talent suite. Um, but I think talent acquisition has a much more fundamental and strategic role in things like succession planning and strategic workforce planning. And I think they play a more of a vital role than they probably did or were seen to be playing many, many years ago. And I think talent acquisition leaders or talent leaders as a whole should certainly be more vocal and certainly should be promoting the talent acquisition function and the importance of it to his leaders. And I certainly try to do my fair share when I'm you know presenting in front of exco's or presenting or you know, having meetings with senior business leaders or cross-sector owners within the organization. I'm always flying the flag for talent acquisition. What else can we do for you? This isn't just about, yes, someone's left your team or moved to another organization or move to another team as a whole and we're backfilling. You know, do you want us to provide you with market insights? Do you want us to help you with job analysis? Do you want us to help you with your workforce planning or succession planning elements and being able to provide those additional value services, not just to your cost center owners or your hiring managers, but even to the wider HR team as well? Because then they can get you involved in more of the wider projects as well. Um, not just talent acquisition, whether that be you know areas like promotion or performance management, et cetera. So I think talent acquisition itself has a lot of skills and competence that could be transferred in other areas. I think talent acquisition leaders or talent leaders as a whole probably can do a better job in selling what a talent acquisition function can do now. Yeah, agree.

SPEAKER_01 48:24

Okay, so a final, final question uh from me, and uh really about I guess where uh InStar is is heading as a business, both I I guess as a business, but equally, you know, regarding sort of early careers and and how do you see it?

SPEAKER_00 48:43

Yeah, so um a good great great question, Darren. I think at this point um we're in a really exciting time um within the emerging career space for for NSTAR. So we launched the merging talent program uh last year. Yeah, uh, hence why obviously we we we utilized Amberjack and a really successful um outlay of that in terms of the output. And we brought on board some fantastic interns and some fantastic graduates. Some are so that I remember the interviews that we had with the hiring managers were like, these candidates are fantastic. You know, you you there's some individuals here which you know have greater knowledge and skill set than some of our professional hires, and that just shows the level and bar of that skill set. Um, I think we are now on that journey with emerging talent. Um, and and you know, I'm I'm kind of working with the business to solidify that strategy and and really highlight the importance of the emerging talent program, not only for certain functions, but as a whole group, to identify, as I discussed before, you know, the risks around succession planning, the risks around that sort of talent crunch, et cetera, um, and that buy-in not only to the grad program, but also to the internship program. So I think NSTAR are at a really critical stage now for emerging talent where once we get that engagement and buy-in for the forecoming years, that we'll start to see a emerging talent program really flourishing and in itself will become a standalone, really respective green pipeline into the organization that could support and develop this in-house candidate pool that can be used for our senior hires and future leaders within the business. So it's a really exciting time for NSTOR at the moment and um yeah, looking forward to working with the business as we as we get this program up and lifted.

SPEAKER_01 50:31

Good, fantastic. I said it was the last question, it's not the last question uh at all. So I've got a few and quickfire questions for you uh to answer. Um just in one word, just to make it fun. Sometimes I accept two. Okay, uh, but uh let's go for it. So uh one word to describe the future of early careers.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

Exciting.

SPEAKER_01 50:54

Uh the skill you think will define the next generation of talent robustness and the piece of career sorry, the best piece of career advice uh you've ever received never give up. One thing you've learned from mentoring or working with early talent uh patience. Very good. Well, I'd like to thank you, Chris. It's been a fantastic conversation. Um I hope everybody's enjoyed it who's listened. I certainly have. It's been fascinating to hear about NSTAR your career and how you're taking that for the future. Seems to be a very exciting project for the future. Um, so thank you again for your time. Really, really appreciate it and looking to be.

SPEAKER_00 51:42

Thanks very much.