SPEAKER_00 0:00

I think those shocks, I think we're gonna have back to have another one, right? I haven't seen it work anywhere very well. And I'm sure there are all pockets, maybe consultances, consulting businesses that are better at it than others, but I think for me skills is just a small part.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

And how much is the AI adoption effectively coming into the workplace?

SPEAKER_00 0:20

For me, I agree. I think we're seeing it as some panacea where we're gonna jump from no all jobs to no jobs. Is it all?

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Hello, I'm Darren Lancaster and welcome to the Tunnel Download uh episode. Really excited um to have Spencer Hurley uh with us today from Spider Healthcare. Uh we're really gonna get into the detail um regarding um a skills-based uh look of the way in which we make hiring using Spencer's vast experience uh that he has over many years of working for some of the leading organisations, but also the way in which AI uh can interact with that and what we should really consider uh in talent acquisition as of what the future can look like. So it's a very warm welcome to Spencer.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Maybe just kind of kick off and just give us a little bit of background on yourself, uh would be really great.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Sure. So Spencer Hurley has been in recruitment, talent acquisition for 26 years, starting in 2000. Before that, actually had a career before that, came out of university, became a qualified financial advisor and area manager for a business that no longer exists called Polar Assurance. Um so was uh going down that route and decided to pivot and move up to London and become a recruitment consultant for I guess what ultimately became Hudson.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Yeah. Oh good.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

And then from then on, um uh moved to Digney Morgan as a recruitment consultant, doing HR into the city, and then decided to go in-house where I've been ever since.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Well, that's good. We'll we'll get into all of that story. But when people think about um talent acquisition, um, and I think it it depends depends where you are, um, whether you're in HR or or equally kind of just operating within the business. There can kind of be a perception, I guess, that you know, it's about posting jobs, reviewing CVs, um, filling seats ultimately. But how would you kind of describe the function actually and how does it kind of how does it work basically?

SPEAKER_00 2:23

So look, I think it's the difference between being a recruitment team and a talent acquisition, it's how you see yourself. Um, as I said, when I first started recruiting in the city, it was personnel, it then became um human resources, then it became human capital, it's had lots of different names. And I think sometimes words count, which is what is it you're actually doing, right? So there are loads of talent acquisition functions, where they call talent acquisition, that are just doing recruitment. And so it is all of those things. But I think what you're talking about is what talent acquisition could be rather than just doing the processing effectively that you can automate. Um, and I've been lucky enough in my career to have some great leaders that have understood that and have really pushed the boundaries on what that looks like in terms of adding value and challenging the business of what that function can do. So, I mean, we're sure we'll touch on it, but it is absolutely things like you know, better assessment, it's about um um workforce planning, strategic workforce planning if you want to go that far in into it, um, about insight, data, how the business is running, how it's not running, where it's areas of uh fatigue are you know the the function can be as big and as challenging and as important as the business wants it, yeah, but it can be as quiet and as as ineffective as it needs it. And sometimes that sort of mirrors the view of how businesses want to treat HR, right? You know, if you want a business that is challenging, that function that's challenging and moving things and progressing things, you'll get it. If you want them just to pay bills and do what you're told, you'll get that as well.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Yeah. And just rolling back the years a little bit in in terms of your experience, you you you mentioned sort of starting at agency recruitment uh in the world. You you mentioned Hudson, business I was with for around about 15 odd years. Yeah, but probably a different version because I think you were you were that you were there before me around it. But how do you um when you look back, what what do you see it at it was to kind of kind of almost like the evolution of what it's become to how's that sort of moved?

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Well, look, I mean what was interesting is that you know these really big companies, really big companies with lots of money, big investment banks were happy to pay you what they were paying you for an HR administrator, an HR director, or anything in between. I mean, that's gone, right? They they are not going to agencies for those things, they've got their in-house recruitment functions sorted, etc. So I think the maturity of businesses, how they've invested, what they see the value in, um, driving costs out, getting more strategic lenses on things has certainly I think pushed those a lot of those suppliers out of the market, or certainly reduced their market share. Um, and uh again, we may go on to it, but you know, my first in-house role, where it was the first ever in-house role, um, it was quite a low base, right? I mean, in some cases it was a very low base. There was no applicant tracking system, there were no preferred supplier list, it was just, you know, do what you want, when you want, how you want at any cost. And so you've gone from, in those 20-odd years, you've gone from a wild west environment of what I've just said, do what you want at any cost, um, to some really added value, deep insight, strategic functions that are, you know, if not driving the business forward, is certainly helping them drive their business forward and get much more efficient, much better people, much you know, much better overall.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Yeah. I think I think there's certain certain instances that almost happen within the economy which kind of create change. So I think where you had the dot-com um bubble burst, um, I was in IT recruitment at that time. Yeah. And it was all about, you know, Y2K, it that happening and that change uh process. Um, but even sort of back then, or it was kind of the early days of, you know, I was a recruitment outsourcer, so it was kind of those early days in recruitment outsourcing the way talent acquisition stood. But one of the biggest changes that I personally saw was within the financial services crisis, effectively, in 2008-2009. And that kind of really started that trigger to move across to whether it was an in-house team, whether it was an outsourced team, and that effect around kind of direct recruitment. And the interesting part side will be is obviously COVID kind of happened. That's a big material sort of economic sort of earthquake for su for you to have, and then you kind of then move on, and we're now into this AI part, and we'll we'll come to a bit on that a bit later around it. And that's interesting, those evolutions that can happen and and your your you know, your your right to reference kind of how it moved forward.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

I I I agree, and I think those shocks, I think we're gonna have about to have another one, right? I think so. Um we'll see. Um, it'd be gonna be interesting to see what that shock delivers to to talent acquisition and and and businesses generally.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

And within your first position, I think it was Lloyd's, was it Lloyd's? In house. Did you did you start to then build out? Is that did it almost a start to think about I know there was no ATSs or things like that. Was that kind of but you started to implement those types of things that journey started beginning, or was it Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 7:34

I mean, it was it was it was the basics. I mean, I I remember um I think it was the first two weeks there, I paid for myself because just checking invoices from recruiters. Of course, yeah. And it's like, well, that's not what was agreed, and and that's actually not even accurate. And you know, they didn't like that, right? They because the HR team were disparate, they didn't know what the business had agreed, they just paid bills, right? It's like, hang on a minute, that's not fair, that's not right, and that's not even accurate. So I remember just even basic, I'm paid for myself and my value just by checking the invoices the first few weeks. Then it was preferred supplier lists, then it was um um um proper briefings, it was getting the applicant tracking system that we then thinking about bringing in a graduate recruitment scheme in, a lot more marketing uh in terms of employer branding, distinguishing what that is because I mean I love that business, I still do have a very warm feeling towards it. Um beautiful building, um completely um gulfed by all the big ones around it now, but beautiful building. Um HR director who I had huge respect for and learned a lot of, um, and just a business that was was a little old school, but certainly intelligent enough leaders to go, yeah, we can change, and we we're open to this journey. I mean, assessment was was one that I wanted to put in, you know, psychometric assessments as different layers of of viewing people and more data to make better decisions. It took a little bit of pushing, but you know, I like a lot of these things, you find your the the open-minded ones and the ones that you're going to be your champions and let them do a lot of the heavy lifting for you internally. So it was it was really quite basic in terms of getting a lot of the hygiene factors in that now you'd just laugh at companies that you didn't have.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

Yeah. And was it was the move you moved from Lloyds of London? Did that move you into nationwide? Is that was it? Not directly.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

So Lloyd's London, obviously, its position in central London insurance market. Um, there were there was work that I was doing with those that were in that market, so um the uh separate individual businesses, um uh to get um it wasn't just about employer branding for Lloyd's as an employer, it was for the market as well. Um and so I've been had connections with a number of those um um businesses say, like, why don't we sort of pool our resources, talk about the market and why the market is an interesting and a sexy place to work, etc. Not just all separately shouting into the void. And we've done some work on that. And one of those companies, um, which um it's called Ace Insurance, became Chubb, not when I was there, but became Chubb. Um they needed something similar happening, which is their first recruitment manager to come in and do something similar. So it wasn't really a headhunt, but it was a you know, would you come and do something similar for us? And it was just a slightly bigger scale, it was a European scale, so it was an opportunity to take some of those things, replicate them there, um, but on a slightly more complicated European scale.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

And let's let's talk a little bit about um nationwide, because it's quite a big, big part of your career. And yeah, I imagine went through quite a lot of transformation through the conversations we previously had. It'd be good to just hear about that sort of the start and and sure. Almost I think it was a decade, wasn't it, or something with them?

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Yeah, yeah, it was about I think it was 11 11 years eventually, which was the longest by a long way. I think up to that point I'd stayed anywhere four four years at the maximum. Um and if you told me I would have been there 11 years at the beginning, I wouldn't have believed you. But um I'd done a number of different roles there. So I initially started off as sort of um um senior manager in the executive recruitment team. Um had gone through, in that period, gone through quite a lot of resourcing directors for reasons we don't need to go into. And I was very, very lucky, and this was where the first time it happened, and my career has repeated itself from then on, where a leader has seen some of my work and put their hand on my shoulder and said, Would you like to do this? So I actually haven't really been for an interview since then and and the multiple roles. And the reason why um she asked me to do that was I hadn't really asked for permission for this, but I I felt that the target operator model that we were working to wasn't really making much sense, it certainly wasn't being proactive enough, it certainly wasn't adding enough value, and I had some thoughts about how we could do that. And uh and I actually had gone into the external market to view 10-15 different companies and asked what they were doing, and then sort of pieced together, I like that, that could work in our context, etc. So I had this idea, and um, my boss at the time, who was head of exec, had gone off into an internal role um for a long comment, and the director of resourcing said, Do you want to do that role? I said, I'd love to do that role. She went, and if you can do that role, do you want to do the target operating model you've just talked about? I went, I'd love to. So I you know that was one of the um um proudest moments in my life that somebody had recognized the stuff I was trying to do for free, as it were. Um, nobody was asking me to do that target operating model, it was just me agitating for some level of change and trying to make a difference. Um, that then led into um running that um area, and then the individual was going to come back after a long period of time, and like a lot of things, it's difficult to step back when she's been doing that role. Um, it was absolutely her right to come back, and I had no problem with that. We got on very well. But I had a new recruitment director, and I said, don't really want to be stepping back, but it is her job. And he's like, No, I here's it's something else. And he gave me something else, which again was probably the most challenging role in my career, which was looking after transformation technology and being a sort of um the focus there, which at the time wasn't as big as it was going to be. It was just running the team that serviced that area of the business. Um, but it was weeks after that, and not many weeks after that, that Nationwide decided it was going to invest a huge amount of money, completely change its IT tech um um um um model from being entirely outsourced in third-party supplies in India to bring it all back on shore. Oh wow, okay. Um, at the same time as the engine, you know, software engineering become the hottest job in the world. Um, they put huge amounts of money. I learned so much. I mean, it was so much fun. It didn't feel like, I mean, I was doing 12-hour days easily, and it just didn't feel like work at all. I was just like a sponge soaking up all the extra information. I was getting all the training we were getting around things like agile work methodologies, which was just something I'd never heard of before and drew it really resonated to me. And um, you know, loads of missteps on that. Loads, I mean we will sure we'll talk about some of them, but loads of missteps. But I just loved it. So much learning, so much challenge, center of the biggest strategic change the business had been making for years and years and years. Um, and then um ultimately um for reason too complicated to talk about quite now, but we decided it was just something that the internal recruitment team wasn't wasn't going to be able to deliver. Yeah. Not at the scale and the pace and things. So we brought uh initially some contractors in to help. That wasn't going to work, and then very quickly pivoted with my new recruitment director, saying, Look, we've got to outsource this, and which was where we we started the process and outsourced that. And again, that got outsourced, which meant you didn't need quite the same level of leadership and some work. And at that point, it was like, Yeah, my time's probably here, it's done. Um, not sure there's anything else I could do. And my boss at the time was like, Hold on, hold on. There's loads of stuff you can do, and then kind of created this sort of portfolio role for me, which looked after employee branding, resourcing's response to the IND agenda, which actually became, I think, one of the biggest um uh push factors in the whole IND agenda in the business, um, actually delivered some change on that, and then um like an innovation, market scanning, and transformation element for resourcing. So it's like this multi, multi-pronged round. Again, loved it, had a small team, and um yeah, it got to a point where um we delivered some stuff, um, but it was time to leave nationwide.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

And that was kind of a real transition moment for you because you'd you'd almost moved from the recruiter role into effectively the business leader type position. Was there a point that you kind of felt that that was happening? Because that sounds really exciting, that the work that you were completing.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Yeah, that tech tech piece definitely was. It wasn't just managing a team downwards, managing their you know their volumes and all the bits and pieces, it was really properly putting your thinking cap on how to do something very tough in quite radical senses. And I remember this agile methodology workshop that we had, and it was just it was a light bulb moment for me. We're like, okay, that's a different way of working. Never heard of that. Now I understand the principles. Why don't we do that for recruitment? And we I went back to uh a guy who was operationalizing some of these things, and I said, Hey, look, we could do it this way. Let me just what do you think about this? And I'll tell you what this is in a second. Um, so yeah, maybe we could do that. I said, try it, just try it. Because we were in that sort of test and learn space where it was like, just try it. If it doesn't work, end it, let's pivot to something else. And it was uh it was using agile methodology in the recruitment space. It was about swarming over things, right? Getting all the people together in the wrong room, really working at pace, and these different touch points like scrums every morning to get things, and and we'd gone from in the tech space uh average time to highway somewhere between six and seven weeks, which which would be good in most cases, but you were dead on your feet in software engineering at that point. If you weren't getting an offer out in a week, you they were gonna be gone, right? Um and we worked at it and we worked at it and we worked at it, and in about less than four weeks, we'd got it down from six to seven weeks to under five days. Wow. Uh and that was just an opportunity to go, okay, we're now adding some value, and it's not just about managing staff in the same get a job, fill a job, move on.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

And what were the steps that you did that you implemented that kind of got down to that five days in terms of sort of tangible things people can think about?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Well, there's a couple of things. There was there's there was the absolute building that contract with the higher managers because historically, and this is still true, hire managers throw a job over, going, there's a job description. No, I don't have time to talk to you. No, I don't want to talk to you, understand the process and could hardly be bothered to do the interviews properly. I'll get back to you when I can, I'm busy, right? And then they start complaining that it's a six, seven week. Yeah, yeah. But you're not contracting with me to do, I'll work at your pace or I'll work at my pace. Do you want to work at my pace? Or what's your pace? Well, I can do this in five days if you want. Yeah, go on then. So it was really about holding into account. So it was a brief on like Monday morning. No, go back. It was a have we got sign off for this on Thursday? Yeah. So in brief on Monday morning, they would sit in the room with the three or four recruiters because we're going to swarm around this. It wasn't one recruiter. It was going, okay, what's the what's the problem statement? Fine. Then we would iterate. So we'd like, we'll be back in an hour. Go and do some work, work on LinkedIn, look at our talent pipelines, etc. Bring some CVs. They haven't been qualified. She's going, do they look right to you? Yeah. Does that look right to you? No, why? These reasons, okay. Take that out. Does that look like yeah? Okay, so I've now got three or four candidates. Okay, great. So if I present you that short list, you'd be interested in interviewing them. Yeah. Yes, fine. So that's what, two hours later on Monday. Then do a sprint of like get hold of people as quickly as possible. As soon as you've got them on the hook, send to the line manager because you've already pre-qualified what good looks like. Get them to you're not waiting for shortlists or and you're just constantly iterating, you're not slowing down the process because you're waiting for different sections. So be like, okay, so Wednesday we've got a meeting with you. Are you agreeing? You've seen all these people, we've spoken to them. Yep, cool. So you're into them tomorrow. Yeah, because we've already told the candidates we'd interview them on Thursday. So we'd already pre-planned everything. Does that make sense? It does, yeah. And then so not only were they interviewing, it's like, okay, so I don't need just you in the interview, I need everybody who's gonna make the decision into in the interview because we are making it an offer straight away. Yeah, fine, do that. And then we had this wrap-up session, wash-up session, where obviously people you maybe you've got four candidates for one role, but one's gonna get it. Great. But what if I've just identified two brilliant candidates? I'm not starting the process all over again. So the next question is okay, who's coming to this wash-up session that we can all say we've met them, we've been through this process. I think they meet a benchmark. You could hire them because they weren't the only people hiring, right? Or they don't quite have my tech stack, but they have this tech stack. Go and speak to the line manager that might need that other tech stack. Now it requires some trust. You know, your view of good is my view of good. But hopefully you get that because you're colleagues and you trust each other. Like, do you want to make them an offer? Well, probably you're not gonna make an offer when you haven't seen them, right? But all that work could be done. Okay, fine. So you've got them to meet them on Monday. Fine. Now you want to make an offer. Yeah, yeah. So all of that work had been already pre-planned and it was working at that level of pace. So we are but it was about contracting.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Yeah, I think uh where I've seen it work, which is exactly what you're describing there, is almost the project management style of holding people accountable basically for what they need to do, particularly a hiring manager, and sort of showing them steps, and that's where I've seen it work so well, and particularly around that time to hire, is exactly how you've kind of described it out, yeah. And is really being right up front and making people accountable for their time scale, which we need to work at, but you you need to give me your time, yeah, basically, to make that achieve.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

So yeah, and and look, we were we were then talking to the boss's boss, which is like you're all under this pressure. If they don't come to the the party after us agreeing this, we do we Your permission to flag it. Yeah. What are they going to say to that? No, I don't want to hear that. They're going to say yes. Okay, so I've got your permission. So if they were falling behind, it was like, we're keeping our end of the bargain.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Um, in fact, not only are we keeping your end of the bargain to be if you don't keep up with us, we've got these this demand elsewhere in the business. We'll move on to those. Yeah. So you can get to the back of the queue. Or don't want to get to the back of the queue. Well, that's it's not about threatening them, it's about understanding that when we're contracting, you've got a polite part to play. And if you're not playing it, we've got other things to do.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Yeah. Great. So maybe changing directions a little bit and um just thinking about today and and and and where talent acquisition is ultimately. Um, and one of the points that I wanted to get on to with because there's been so much discussion about skills-based hiring um in the market and and what that looks like, um, and whether that's achievable. And it's particularly relevant, I think, at the moment, because obviously the adoption regarding the AI tools coming in and having those tools alongside an individual uh is going to change work and the way in which we perceive it. Yeah. But it'd be good to just get your your thoughts around it because skills-based hiring was talked, it feels like it's been spoken about for you know quite a few years around it, and this AI adoption is kind of coming in to it. But yeah, good to get your kind of perspective.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

I mean, I'd love to hear your perspective, but yeah, um I think it's a great idea. I think it's a lovely pivot to old world thinking, which is you know, you have to have a CV that says you've done something for 10 years or 15 years or whatever. Um it's about talent in its general sense, right? I think which is your skills over there can transpose to hear how far away are they, and you can learn and constantly adapt. I think it's a great idea. However, I haven't seen it work anywhere very well. And I'm sure there are all pockets, maybe consultances, consulting businesses that are better at it than others. But I think for me, skills is just a small part. And personally, as a hiring manager for myself, I I'm actually not that bothered about the skills to a degree. I'm actually more interested in attitude and a lot of other soft skills. Yeah, if you don't want to work hard, if you aren't curious, if you don't have the willingness to constantly improve, whether you have skill X, Y, and Z is irrelevant to me, to me. If you're not going to turn up on time, if you're not going to be able to engage, think about the next step, the implications of the next step, all of those things, you're gonna struggle with the world of work. So I'm open-minded, and I've demonstrated my own career where I've gone, okay, so you're not a recruiter. I'll give you a great example. There was an individual who um was on the um um what was called the race together employee network group in nationwide, and he was uh in the branch staff, he was a branch manager and had been for 20 years, right? So he has lots of skills, certainly recruitment not being one of them in any way, shape, or form. But he just had drive, curiosity, uh a style about him that people warm to and things like that. And he knew the business. And I said to my boss, I said, like he will need some guidance, but he definitely could do a role in recruitment in these this particular recruiting business partner. And so yeah, I can see that. So we just actively waited till there's an opportunity, but supported him offline. One of my colleagues, I'd asked him to support him off how are you going to prepare for the interview? What are the skills you're going to need to understand? Uh, what are your gaps? How are you going to fill those things? So when he came to interview, you could knock it out of the park. But he had all this other stuff that were intangibles that you definitely wouldn't catch on a skills matrix. Yeah. And then ultimately, if I extend this further, and I appreciate that it's moved on in the last few years that I haven't seen it, so it may have moved on. Is okay, so Spencer thinks he's brilliant at A, B, C, and D. So he puts that on his form. Has anyone checked?

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Okay. And who's checking? So if you're my manager, are you in agreement with me? Let's say yes, no, yes, no. Does that mean you only take those two elements and put it in your skills thing? And can I move it to another role? Maybe. Do I trust your assessment of myself? Does that make sense? As in if I'm a hiring manager and I'm trusting is is is uh is Darren's saying he's got those skills. I don't know. I I think it's problematic, and I haven't really seen it very well. And not only that, that's coming from HR recruitment, etc. And it's a great idea, but you still got hiring managers to commence. And hiring managers, in my experience, not only don't want to see CVs, but they want to see the companies they've worked for, they want to see someone's got a degree that they don't definitely don't need. Yeah. I think a university that they rate, which they definitely don't need. There's so many other biases going on there that I think is a great idea, but yet have not seen it implemented in a way that has an adoption that has shown me it works.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

Yeah. I think my perspective on it is that the the way in which work is to be defined is going to be task-based in terms of work. And the dimension of having a career ladder, a traditional career ladder, which I've grown up all my career on, is changing. And I do believe in the concept is basically a climbing wall now, and you need to manoeuvre your way across um horizontal, it may be still going vertically, but the way in which work is to be performed becomes task-based. So what does an individual's task come? And then when you break that down further, it then comes down to um what I talk a lot about is really the five C's, which um is is a stolen concept, it's by a new book um that's come out, Open to Work, which was written by um LinkedIn CEO and CTO. And it's a really interesting concept, which is basically saying the things that you've described there, which are important, are curiosity, communication, etc. Those those five C's that are really important um to an individual's makeup, because what's gonna happen with work is you are you you're effectively gonna be sitting next to, let's just call it an AI agent, but effectively a large language model, which is gonna assist and help you with your work. So it doesn't necessarily mean that work is going to be destroyed in terms of, and there's a lot of doom and gloom that goes out about work's gonna be destroyed, jobs are gonna be destroyed, etc. But it's basically the concept work will change, and certainly to a little bit around this skills-based um agenda, because skills is is important, but it's actually more the human intelligence which becomes really important in work, which will become uh the new way of basically thinking about it. And I think I think that's that's an important way, but it's kind of it but it's built into the skills-based side. So, very interestingly, um the ISC uh released some new data, uh, so the Institute of Students Employment. Um they basically uh went out to all of their members, which is all of the top, top, top businesses uh uh around the UK, and they basically um surveyed them to actually understand how much is the AI adoption effectively coming into the workplace and how much is that. And the really interesting figure was you know, 80% have seen you know no adoption at the moment. And that's at this moment in time they're seeing kind of no strategic change. And their general perception, and this report's very available online, and anyone can go in and read it just on their website. But the general perception is from the workplace and the feedback that's coming back is there's not this massive bin push, which you would perceive you pick the Daily Mail up or you pick anything else.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

I agree. I I think there's two things going on here, and let's not get too political about it. I think those businesses that are now valued, if they ever go to IPO, as trillions of business. It's in their interests, it's in that ecosystem to pump this up that it's the saviour of mankind, right? Yeah. I mean, I doubt it will ever be the saviour of mankind, maybe the destruction of mankind. However, there's this ecosystem of it's exciting, it's sexy, the world's gonna change, it's gonna, yeah, okay, it might do. Um, or people might get fed up and bomb the data centers, who knows, right? There's loads of things that will happen or not happen. For me, I think it's just far too a bubble of the world is going to change. I think it will be softer adoption. I don't see these some of these things happening. Go back to the skills things, right? I work in a healthcare sector, okay. You're a nurse, okay, and you're not a nurse. And you might have all the skills a nurse, but you're not going to become a nurse because you haven't got the qualification to prove you're a nurse. So it doesn't really matter. Do you know what I mean? Your skill gap analysis might say you could be suitable for a nurse, but you're not going to become a nurse because you need to be a registered nurse, right? So there's some barriers. I'm not saying that's the only um that's a poor example because there's that small cohort, but for me, I agree. I think we're seeing it as some panacea for we're going to jump from no all jobs to no jobs. It's a tool.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Well, it is is a tool at the moment. And if you're good at tools and using tools, I mean, this is one thing that's and we're talking about adoption, it strikes me as interesting because lots of companies won't allow you to access those tools through the corporate network, right? Yep. Now that doesn't mean they're stopping you because I've got a phone and a laptop next to it, right? Okay, so so you're you're not allowing me to do it, but I'm gonna do it anyway, fine. But what I think is interesting is um if you're not allowing them to think about how my systems integrate with your systems, there's a disconnect there and it's slowing it, would definitely slow the adoption down. And then there's this issue, I think we're debating in in assessing candidates, which is well, are they cheating? What do you mean they're cheating? Well, they're using AI. Well, it depends what you mean by cheating, because if you're asking them to use AI as part of their job at some point as a tool, surely you would want them to know how to use that tool and and and and do it well.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

And it's in the idea that we're gonna put that cat back in the bag or the genie back in the bottle. I mean, seriously, I'm generally, I mean, I'm not old enough. When accountants were still using paper and pens or computers, and someone said, Hey, listen, we've got this tool called Excel. I mean, how many businesses were like, Oh, we can't use Excel, we've got to do it this way. And it's just a tool. And I think there are some other issues, which is not just adoption, it's about our schooling, our education. You know, my my daughter's about to do GCSEs and she's still got to write with a pen and paper something about the Second World War. Okay, great, lovely. But have we taught them any of these tools that they can use? My son, who's dyslexic, um, yes, he was allowed to bring a laptop in to his exams and he can type on it because his writing's not great. Okay, good. Um, what they won't do is give allow him to use a spell checker. Okay, it's a tool that he's allowed in every other piece of technology he's ever ever going to integrate use in the spelling.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

Well, since since he he's known technology, it's not and it'd be weird if you wasn't allowed to do that.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

And yeah, what are you testing? Are you testing his spelling or are you testing his thought processes and his ideas and his concepts? I I there's so many things that will need to change for adoption of corporates, society, education before it becomes as well um oiled and as well integrated as I think we think it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

I think with the assessment piece, so um at Hamberjack, we we're assessment business, so we've got occupational psychologists that work with us, we've got our own RD suite, and what we saw um was basically this opportunity to basically assess candidates' actual use of AI. So, completely going to your point based wrong, everybody's using AI. So let's actually embrace it effectively and put you into a controlled environment with basically basically with a large language model which you can um operate with. We'll give you a case study that you need to work your way through and use that model, and then we can basically bring in and our normal um assessment um criteria in terms of skills base, because we've always looked at that. We're very big in early careers. What do you need to look at early careers? You need to look at skills effectively of the individual. There's not a huge amount of history and things you can go back on. But if you can combine both of those things together and put them into a controlled environment and basically give you actually um scientific outcomes effectively from that with realistic data, that is a good place basically to be.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

I think that's exactly right. Yeah, are you hiring somebody to go back to that point I remember about my son history? Are you hiring the fact he can regurgitate information that he's managed to cram for two weeks in a row? Or would you like to see how he can use tools that he'll use for the next 10 years in a really powerful connected way? Well, I mean, that's a maybe a rhetorical question because I think everyone knows the answer to that, right? Yeah, unless you're a historian or GCSE history teacher.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

Yeah, and it's it's it's different, isn't it? It's different the way in which um you you kind of potentially look at your kind of the career that some uh particularly um young folk in terms of what of what they look at should be and what they think they may become ultimately. I've got two boys, they're they're pretty much doing their accountancy degrees, one's just completed it. Um but then I've got my daughter, 16, did her GCSEs last year. She's down at dance college. You know, she's basically in a job which I don't actually think AI can touch. So who would have thought that I got the boys doing accounting degrees and I've got a wonderful daughter that's doing you know dancing and really embracing that, and that will probably be the one career that will probably outlive all careers.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I I read a book about six or seven years ago to uh called What to Do When the Machines Do Everything.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Like a lot of things, if you give it some enough time to think about it, there's an answer. Um it was one, it funny enough, it was one that I'd I mean, I got there was a few books I read at the time. There's another one called Lynch Pin by Seth Godin, which which resonated with me about you know how do you keep your future career? And it's about being a linchpin. And and the main thing, and actually, as you now think about it, it resonates very well with AI or computers or tooling, which is the idea, one of the concepts is that you're not to be a cog in a wheel or cog in a machine, because cogs and machines can be replaced. And if they're replaceable, then you're definitely replaceable and at a cheaper cost, or you know, whatever. So you need to think about not being a cog in a wheel, and you need to be thinking about being a linchpin, which is how do you connect lots of different things, how do you give your work away for free? How do you have the passion for your work? And there's a load of concepts in there. But I even remember six, seven years ago being in a room with the recruiters, and they weren't my team. I was like, let me just share an idea with you. If all you're going to do is move a process from A to B to C to D and C V, right? Which you do you are at the moment. Um, not only if you you are unlikely to have a job in this company, you're unlikely to have a job full stop because a machine will very, very quickly be able to do that. You're not adding any value. Now, a lot of them, I think, thought I was being scaremongering, or what is he talking about? And that's fine, you know. But those that did, I suspect, are those that are on the market now looking for recruitment jobs, being at recruitment admins, because they that's what they thought their job was. Yeah. The good news is there is an answer to that, and you just need to think about the answer and how you present and build your career to solve that that answer.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

Yeah. And you were you were part of um relatively sort of large reviewer, I think, when you're at DWF, in terms of looking at that, because that was that was kind of complete transformation ultimately for them in many ways around talent acquisition. Yeah, but just useful to hear a little bit about that and then the tools, like any tools that are implemented or things that you saw in improvements because you because the benefit you have, yeah, you get to see lots of suppliers coming in and people talk to you and things like that. So good to hear. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Well, on that example, I think the the view was you know, the function was failing. Yeah, it was an in-house function. We need to get from let's say okay to good, but then move to good to great. I think the problem was it wasn't good, it wasn't even okay, it was generally failing. Um, so the view was to come in and review everything. Fine. It became quite clear, given the feedback and a whole load of other things that were going on, that the conversation was um with the HR directors, like even if you had a lot of money, you're not gonna have the time to go from where you're at to where you need to be quickly enough. You're not gonna the business isn't gonna allow you the time that there are too many fires, too many, too much negativity going around the processes. You know, you would not do that by keeping it all in house. So it was like, well, how do you jump from A to D quickly enough? And the answer really was you had to bring in RPO. And that sort of overtook the initial journey, which is how do we build this out and maintain it and grow it ourselves? And that's where obviously we we we we came in into contact. So the the idea wasn't really to get it from um A to T, it was to get it to A to D, right? Which is you've got to stabilize things, your data's got to be right, your tooling's got to be right, so your applicant tracking system's gonna need to be um completely replaced, your integrations with your job boards, a whole load of stuff needed to do it. And that was where you went, look, yes, I'm paying a premium, but that's why I'm going to an RPO because they know how to solve this like from the moment we turned this on, and there was quite a short time. So we didn't really have a lot of talk about AI or very sort of more cutting-edge workforce planning tool, nothing like that. It was you know, make it secure, make get the data right, and then you can build on. And I'd left once the the RPO had started and had started that journey. So I didn't haven't really seen what they've done since, but that wasn't really, they weren't ready for it in that.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

You were taking everything you'd learn at nationwide, uh, ultimately, when the different stages, but nationwide were a lot more advanced, yeah, basically for everything journey they'd gone through.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

And I could have said you could do this, and I did actually. One of the couple of things uh had in the target operator model in terms of the org structures, you could have this person, this person, this person doing these roles. And although that was the right presentation to give, it was their absolutely their prerogative to go, don't need to hold that cost right now, don't need to hold that cost right now. Although we agree with you in the future, it's about settling everything down, keeping it at a reasonable cost, etc. And that's fine because it was like, yes, okay, so at least I left them with that. And if you get to that point, these are some of the things you can do to start building out your brand, your data sets, your insights, and things like that. Yeah, it's not like they disagreed, they're just like, now's maybe not the time, it's just too much. Let's just get things settled.

SPEAKER_02 41:30

And what do you think? Um, in terms of the recruiter role um and the adoption of so many, so much tech and etc., that's available. Do you think we're losing more recruiters kind of in the marketplace? Or do you think due to the nature of everything being, you know, it's a personal transaction, I've always found recruitment. That's why I've always enjoyed it so much. And when I go back to my days as a recruitment consultant, that's the interesting side, interesting and frustrating side. I guess sometimes you deal with people, it's not always gonna go exactly the way you planned. Yeah, but what do you think? Do you think do you think the roles it's certainly the task, I guess, ultimately, there's tasks that can be better automated. Oh, yeah, massively.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

So again, if I go back to that story of agitating the recruitment team saying, Are you gonna have a job? Right?

SPEAKER_01 42:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

That second conversation, in the same conversation, this was interesting, right? Which is okay, so they were doing branch network roles. So they threw up an advert, they get lots of applications. They didn't, they weren't necessarily, I don't mean that they were the sorry, I don't mean that the people in the branch were not skilled, they became skilled, but we didn't, we trained them in all the things they needed to do. So what was the assessment? The assessment was are they customer service, are they reliable? Have they certain certain intelligence level, all those things to be able to learn? Okay, fine. So I don't know, let's say White City branch. I said, roughly how many applications you think you'll get in two weeks? 160. That's a lot of people to review, particularly when there's not an obvious criteria, right? Yeah, okay, so I said just just play around with this. I don't know the answer. If you if I just randomly pick 30 of those candidates out of that 160, do you think you'd make a higher? Yes, was the answer. Okay, so why are we not switching off of the applicant tracking system when we've got 30? You'll save yourself a huge amount of time reviewing CVs you don't need to do. And engendering in uh a frustration in the candidate base, you keep applying for these jobs, who one of 160 is going to get it. So most of them are gonna be told no, right? Yeah, use your brain, right? Think about how you can make your job quicker. Because if the answer is yeah, and they were like, Can I do that? I said, Well, the system allows you to do it. Well, can I do it? I said, Well, why don't you make the business case as a leadership team? Because I bet they they'll say yes.

SPEAKER_01 43:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

But that's your job as a recruiter. You you need to be saying, How can I make this faster, better, continuous improvement mindset? Because I know we'll get to the point, because if I say you can you can do 30 rather than 160. Guess what? How much time that saves you? Now you can speak to all the candidates properly. Now you can engage with them. Now you can do the human element that a computer's not going to be able to do. And even if it gets to a point where a chatbot can do it, do we want to be done spoken to by a chatbot? I mean, a chatbot with respect could ask those questions, right? But I wouldn't be doing this in front of a chatbot. I have no interest in speaking to a computer on this basis. Do you know what I mean? I still think there's this that human element. And therefore, if you're thinking about how do I increase the human element, and as you said, as an old school recruiter, that's the thing I loved. That's what they love, right? Recruiters love speaking to people, and people love speaking to recruiters, that's the other thing. Well, let's find ways that we use these tools or these processes that we give ourselves permission to go, can we do these things? Because there's usually an answer.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

And that just requires some thought.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

So it's still tools, still human touch. And then everyone wins. But to answer your question, that does mean less of them are needed, I suspect.

SPEAKER_02 45:03

Yeah, I I I think uh a a little bit, but I think I like in most situations with technology advancement, although this is slightly different, the new things get created, new roles, new new aspects which you might not actually know about just yet, become one, you know. Before you go in a shop, I always like that, always think about it. You go into a shopping mail now. How many places do you see to get your smartphone fixed? All these people in the career of smartphones, there's hundreds of them, and they're obviously all sustainable, they're all doing things, people are making the covers and everything around there. That's that's a whole profession that came out of smartphones around it. And and AI is fundamentally different and it will do different things, but we don't necessarily know exactly where that's taking taking us, and that may be the same with intent acquisition and the recruiter role. It might actually take us down a different route, yeah, which we don't actually know completely what's going on as well. And I was just gonna ask you to do you have you see any sort of characteristics within TA functions where um there's kind of common things, common themes. I suppose you kind of you drag across some of the things. You talked about it a bit with DWF and things, the things you saw that were good elsewhere, you could kind of come in and implement, although got you to A to D or somewhere around there. Is there good things that you think people should consider and think about having?

SPEAKER_00 46:25

Yeah, so in the spirit of okay, you're not a recruiter, but I I I need someone to do something different. I remember one of my directors of resources nationwide, um, she decided to spend what at the time was a lot what felt like a lot of money. I mean, more than any of the recruiters were earning by quite a sufficient significant way on a data analyst. And I include myself thinking, what would you do that for? What's the need of that? Yeah, I was really quite negative about it. He was the most influential hire that that that team had made, made, ever made while I was there. Now it didn't start off like that. There was reasons why he was being brought in to do something slightly different, but he was a data analyst through and through. He knew the systems, he learned the systems, he was creating models, and um, it got to a point where every year in the lead resource and leadership team, he'd say, uh, my model will predict we're gonna hire, I'm making this up right, 4,000 people, right? And we'd go, that's nonsense done. You know, you're not listening to the mood music, the business isn't in that space, it's not gonna happen. Okay, we'd come back the next year. And he said, So my model said it was 4,000 and we got to 3,995, you know, or close, right? Certainly within 100. I'm like, he was. Then in that in the same meeting, yeah. So my next my the same model, which I've refined a bit further, is gonna say we're doing 5,000. And we're like, Dan, you don't know what you're talking about. You you know, and he wouldn't be the person going, I got it right last time, right? He wasn't that type of person. He'd just sit there quietly, and we come back the next year and he'd get it spot on. And he, the point I'm making is his insight, his data, his modeling was so much more accurate than anyone, anyone was doing in the rest of the business. Yeah, that he could we could I could ask him questions for all sorts of things. I mean, there was an amazing piece of work which we won't have time to talk about, where I asked him to analyze 80,000 applications, which was all applications in a year, right? In the funnel, all the way down the funnel based on diversity and inclusion. That was the thing that unlocked all the conversations in the organization about diversity and the need for change. And more importantly, where the problems were, etc. So, to answer your question, okay, so you might not need another recruiter doing some of these because you've got some tools and AI to take some stuff away, but go and invest in data analysts because they will create insight, hypothesis, defensive data if you need to defend what you're doing and why you're doing it, insight to whether you're making the change, if the change is being successful. Honestly, it's powerful. Yeah, I'm kind of a data geek. I'm not a data person, I don't know how to manipulate it, but I do love looking at data and saying, well, is that what is that telling me?

SPEAKER_02 49:21

So maybe one of my last questions. Um, if you were giving any advice to TA professionals, someone who's maybe two, three years into their career, yeah, with all your experience, your vast experience that you have, what would you what advice would you give them? What would you say to them?

SPEAKER_00 49:39

So I would go back to um the two books I talked about, What to do when the machines do everything and and the linchpin, because there's some things that cross over. Lynchpin was about showing passion for your work, showing passion for your curiosity for change, driving change, and the concept is giving the work away for free. And that comes in lots of different ways. But it's do the work for its own sake, right? And give it away. As in, I've done this work, but it's a bit like the target operating model I had with the execu stuff. It's like I'm doing this anyway, no one's asked me to do it. I'm not being paid to do it. I might even ruffle a few feathers, but I'm this is my idea. I'm putting out there, what do you think? Because people gravitate to people who've trying to change things, in my experience. So don't just do what you're told and follow a process because processes will be automated. Start thinking about how you add value, and that is about ensuring you've got human connections, making you got cute time for human connections, whether it's with candidates, hiring managers, etc. Um, and become a linchpin, don't become a cog. Because you you know when you are cog.

SPEAKER_02 50:47

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I said it was my last question. I always like to finish the podcast with people who've listened in uh regularly on a quick fire round. Um, just one-word answer uh for me. Uh so let's kick it off with uh CV or skills assessment.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

I'd love to say skills assessment, but I'm gonna just go slightly uh beyond which is I'm gonna say attitude. If attitude is in skills assessment, I'd say skills assessment.

SPEAKER_02 51:16

Yeah, okay, good. Uh AI tool or human gut?

SPEAKER_00 51:22

Still human gut for me. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 51:25

Job board or talent pipeline?

SPEAKER_00 51:29

Um well, technically I think you need one to do the other, right? Because you can't keep a talent pipeline going if you don't have job boards to feed it. But um, so if I had to give an answer, I'm gonna say job boards, because without job boards, you're not gonna keep that refreshed.

SPEAKER_02 51:42

Maybe, maybe. And then just regarding the best hire, so would it be uh someone you poached or someone who applied?

SPEAKER_00 51:50

I actually don't think it matters, and I'm gonna just sorry, this is a one-word answer, isn't it? Um actually I would say internal.

SPEAKER_02 51:58

Internal, yeah. Okay, yeah, fine. Uh biggest myth in talent acquisition right now.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

Right. I'm I'm glad this might be the last question if it is. I'm gonna so I decided, give it as AI, to ask AI.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 52:13

I asked Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT that exact question.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:17

What do you think they said?

SPEAKER_02 52:19

Uh I'm not sure actually.

SPEAKER_00 52:22

Two of them said um that AI um will not be replacing recruiters. Yeah. And or the myth is that AI will recruit will replace recruiters, and they went on to say that's not necessarily true for reasons I think we've already given. And then the other one, excuse me, because I wrote it down. No, that's okay. Um, yeah, ChatGPT and Gemini said AI on automation will replace recruiters is the myth.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

But they would say that, wouldn't they? And Claude said more applications equals better hiring is a myth. Now that's interesting because I think both are true, right?

SPEAKER_01 53:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

But to go back to something we've spoken about, which is if you had somebody who didn't know the answer and put that in, and they gave that answer, they'd be right, right?

SPEAKER_01 53:15

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

But there were actually two answers, so the question is which one is more right?

SPEAKER_02 53:19

Well, that's where the humour comes in, the human human intelligence. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 53:24

And so my son could ask that question and he would get one of those answers and he could regurgitate it to it. But would he know whether it was right? And if you if they're both right, which one is more right? Well, he would only do that if he's maybe spent 20 years in recruitment.

SPEAKER_02 53:39

Exactly. Listen, it's been a delight. Thanks ever so much for the conversation. I hope everybody enjoyed listening. Um, I look forward to talking to everyone on the next talent download, uh, which will be coming out very shortly. So thank you, Spencer.

SPEAKER_00 53:51

Thank you, appreciate it. I really enjoyed that.