August 20, 2025 • 26 mins
The recruitment landscape is transforming at breakneck speed, with business models that once lasted decades now becoming obsolete in just a few years. How can talent leaders navigate this change while maintaining the essential human elements that technology can't replace?
Recruitment veteran and Disrupt Manchester speaker Ian Knowlson draws on his 40+ years of experience to illuminate the path forward in this compelling conversation. Having established and scaled recruitment operations across Europe and led public sector initiatives that grew from 2% to 52% of Hays IT's turnover in just four years, Ian brings practical wisdom to the AI revolution.
"AI will not replace people," Ian asserts with conviction. "What will happen is AI with people - augmented AI - will replace those recruiters who aren't using AI." This distinction is crucial. While automation streamlines processes, the uniquely human capabilities of empathy, emotional intelligence, and contextual reasoning remain irreplaceable. When a candidate inexplicably declines an apparently perfect offer or a client has complex talent challenges requiring creative solutions, artificial intelligence alone cannot navigate these nuanced waters.
The conversation with host, Bill Banham explores VUCA leadership principles (Vision, Understanding, Clarity, Agility) that leaders need to master, plus the critical fifth element for our times: Emotional Intelligence. As jobs undergo "fractionalization"—being deconstructed and redesigned with AI integration—recruiters must shift from being aggressive hunters to relationship builders who can identify candidates with transferable skills for emerging roles.
For Gen Z candidates seeking authentic connections rather than hard sells, this evolution in recruitment approaches couldn't be more timely. Whether you're a talent acquisition leader, recruitment professional, or business executive navigating workforce transformation, this episode provides both strategic vision and practical insights for thriving in an AI-augmented future.
Connect with Ian on LinkedIn to continue the conversation about recruitment's exciting evolution in the age of AI.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's
most downloaded and sharedpodcasts designed for HR pros,
talent execs, tech enthusiastsand business leaders.
For hundreds more episodes andwhat's new in the world of work,
subscribe to the show, followus on social media and visit
hrgazettecom and visitHRGazettecom.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show.
Hello listeners, this is yourhost this time, bill Bannum, and
joining me on the show today isnone other than the wonderful,
fabulous, fantastic.
Ian Nelson, a recruitmentindustry nerd, growth coach and
business mentor who utilizes his40 plus years he must have
(00:46):
started when he was about 10, 40plus years experience
establishing and growingbusinesses in the recruitment
sector to assist his clientscreate, develop and deliver high
growth strategies and visionsfor their companies.
Ian, my friend, how are you?
Welcome to the show?
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I'm good, bill.
Thank you very much for havingme back on.
I you know, and it's alwaysgreat to talk to you.
We should.
I'm looking forward to the nexthalf an hour or so.
I've got no idea where we'regonna go.
Um, it's a little bit likegetting on a boat and just
seeing where we end up.
So let's, let's you know, let'scrack on let's have a bit of
fun.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Uh, I wish we'd hit record earlier, because all the
things that we were goingthrough before we hit record was
also terribly interesting.
Let's try and touch upon someof that.
Ian, for those listeners whoare not familiar with you beyond
my introduction just a momentago what can you add?
Give us a bit of a lowdown onyourself, your career,
background and, of course, whatgets you up in the morning.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
I spent 40 years in the recruitment space in the
morning.
I spent 40 years in therecruitment space.
I worked, finally, for thefinal 10, 15 years of my life
for the Hayes group ofbusinesses.
I was involved in running someHayes operations in Europe.
I worked in Germany, actuallyphysically went into Germany and
worked there for 12, 18 monthsand then came back to the UK
(02:02):
during the Tony Blair era andran a division of Hayes IT that
was basically in the publicsector and we took that division
from 2% of turnover to 52% ofHayes IT's turnover inside four
years.
Did a lot of work with talentacquisition with some government
departments, then went intomanaged service, sold some
(02:24):
managed service to variousgovernment departments NHS,
connected for Health, DWP, whoelse?
Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
So, yeah, all good stuff, but Ileft that world 15 years ago to
do what I do now.
And yeah, you touched onpassion.
That's what I'm passionateabout.
I'm passionate about.
I'm passionate about people.
I'm passionate about helpingpeople to transform their lives
(02:48):
and actually, yeah, it's I don'tlike using the word in a way,
but you are actually, whenyou're a coach, you're taking
people on a journey, you'retheir guide and support and you
know, that's why I get up in themorning and I'm, you know, in
my early sixties now, but Istill love what I do and, as you
can tell from what we weretalking earlier, I'm very
passionate about where we, as asrecruiters and as talent
(03:12):
acquisition teams, are going togo over the next 10, 15 years
which is a great lead into mynext question, which is
basically what's going to happenin that world in the next five
to ten years.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Uh, you've worked in the ta recruitment industry for
for 14 years and you talk aboutthe seismic changes that ai is
bringing to your recruitment.
We're all seeing it at themoment.
Uh, what do you see as thebiggest opportunity in for
recruitment leaders,specifically leaders?
Uh, in 2025 and beyond?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
that's a great question, um, and it kind of
brings me to where I am at themoment in my career, and that is
I'm heavily involved with theindustry body, apsco, which is
in the professional sector, andwhat I've realized over the last
couple of years is AI istouching every part of our
recruitment sector, of whetheryou're in-house, whether you're
(04:03):
working in agencies, and I thinkit's a time for leaders to well
, as I call it, reimagine theirrecruitment business.
The speed of change fromChatGPT 3.0 to 4.0 to now 4.5
(04:24):
and the next iterations in thatworld are quite powerful,
they're quite seismic andthere's a whole raft of other
plethora, really, of other toolsthat are moving forward at pace
, you know, and that movementfrom 3.0 to 4.5, which is two
iterations, is like 18 months,so in five years.
Five years as a growth, as achange, is phenomenal.
(04:44):
There's a lady I've forgottenher name and I should should
have brought her up, um, causeI'm going to just remember this
she's called Dr Nadia, she'scalled the reinvention queen.
You probably should get her onyour podcast.
She's amazing, she and her teamfrom I don't think it's
Stanford, but it's one of theAmerican universities.
She's done her research intochange and business models in
(05:07):
the 20th century and then to the21st.
And what she discovered, orwhat the team discovered, is in
the 20th century the averagebusiness model lasted 70 years.
So the Ford motor car andcabri's and 3M and all these
people, whatever this processand systems they were using to
build and sell their products,probably didn't change much for
70 years Since we've come intothe 20th century.
(05:30):
In the first decade, twodecades of the 20th century, the
average business model lasted10 years.
Now that's quite a change from70 to 10 years.
But what's even morefrightening is if you look at
the speed of change from wherewe are now, where we have been
in the last 10, 15 years, towhere we are now, the speed of
(05:50):
change is every three years.
So three years is probablyequivalent to 70 years in the
20th century and 10 years at thebeginning of the 21st.
That's kind of where we're at.
So what's the challenge of wherewe're at?
So what's the challenge?
The challenge is for leaders toget ahead of this, to
(06:11):
understand, and often when I runleadership programs I talk
about VUCA.
You understand the term VUCA Ican see you're nodding and
there's VUCA leadership whichgoes alongside that.
So for the listeners who arenot familiar.
Vuca stands for velocity ofchange, the uncertainty of the
world we live in.
Talk about complexity of changeand ambiguity.
Those are the four challengesthat leaders have, and VUCA
(06:32):
leadership is counteractingvelocity with a vision.
So all good leaders now need tohave a vision.
No-transcript and I think mostof us who were in leadership
positions during COVID willprobably remember that without a
vision, you know, we wentthrough a storm with COVID and
(06:54):
as you came out the other sideof it, you needed that vision so
you could recalibrate and resetyour course into the future.
You counteract uncertainty withunderstanding, so leaders need
to be able to bring anunderstanding and, for me, where
we get understanding and I'lllink this into AI in a minute is
from data.
You need data-drivendecision-making more now than
(07:16):
you ever did, so you need tohave good data.
And then you get on to withcomplexity.
The way to counteract that isgive clarity.
So clarity is how do you takethat understanding, link it into
the leadership, give direction.
And the final one is agility.
So those are the four ways thatyou counteract that world of
change that we're in, and Iwould actually add a fifth one,
(07:39):
which is probably the mostimportant because of AI, and
that is emotional intelligencebuild.
So pick up whichever of thosethreads you like, and we'll
happily go somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat
Podcast.
If you enjoy the audio contentwe produce, you'll love our
articles on the HR Gazette.
Learn more at hrgazettecom.
And now back to the show.
I mean one thing that I'd liketo pick up on.
There is this idea of abusiness lasting only a few
(08:13):
years now, compared to 70 yearsback in the day.
How does a potential employersell that to a candidate?
What does that conversationlook like if the promise is you
can come along on the ride withus, but that ride might only
last a few years?
(08:33):
This is this is not a job forlife.
What does that, what does thatconversation look like?
Does that mean equity.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Tell me more what um dr nadia says, and the reason I
can't remember her surname isshe's from uzbekistan and it's
not an easy word to put in a.
It's got zeds and x's in it,but if anybody wants to know
what it is, happily message meon LinkedIn.
I will send you a link.
She's the reinvention queen,they call it.
She's written a book about itand she says the solution,
(08:58):
therefore, is leaders need to beconstant, so you can't just
wait three years for your systemand your business model to
become redundant.
You have to be continuallyreinventing.
So, to answer your question, no, you can't bring somebody in
today and say this is a greatbusiness and we'll be here in 50
years time.
That doesn't exist.
What you can do, however, isyou can invite people to join
(09:22):
your business and your cultureand go on that journey, and I
remember talking a few years agoat a conference about the need
for businesses to have anoperating culture.
They talk about an operatingmodel, but you need an operating
culture.
Now.
It's the culture that you need.
So, whether it's innovation,it's about D&I in there, we're a
(09:43):
whole raft of other things inthat culture.
You need to be creative, youneed to be respectful, we need
to be collaborative, and nobodyhas a monopoly on bright ideas.
They come from everywhere.
So it's building that cultureand putting all those things
together in such a way that itbuilds.
You know, something that isunique, and I think you know if
(10:03):
we were to take it back a fewyears.
Jim Collins wrote books, didn'the?
Good to great and built to last, and they've got a little bit
of that in there.
So it's the same thing, butjust with a slightly different
emphasis.
I think.
What I'm saying is I think youcan't invite people to join your
business model, but you caninvite people to join your team,
to go on that journey with yourteam, and you've got a vision
(10:27):
of where your business wants tobe and what you want to be about
.
I mean, simon Sinek talks aboutstart with a Y, doesn't he In
his golden circle?
And I think he's right.
You know you've got to have a Y.
We're back to vision again.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Once in a while, an event series is born that shakes
things up, it makes you thinkdifferently and it leaves you
inspired.
That event is Disrupt HR.
The format is 14 speakers, 5minutes each and slides rotate
every 15 seconds.
If you're an HR professional, aCEO, a technologist or a
(11:03):
community leader and you've gotsomething to say about talent,
culture or technology, disruptis the place.
It's coming soon to a city nearyou.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Learn more at disrupthrco Shameless plug.
Please do check out theepisodes I've recorded with
Simon Sinek's right-hand man,Stephen Shedletsky.
He still holds the record, Ithink, for the most downloaded
episodes, Stephen, if you'relistening.
Hello, let's catch up sometimesoon.
Okay, let's switch thatquestion if you don't mind.
(11:35):
Why should a candidate take ajob anymore?
What I mean by that is here'ssome context.
Before you and I hit recordtoday you shared a story of a
conversation you had with ayoung person who, over the last
12 to 18 months, has actuallybuilt a whole new career for
himself, a new job for himself,by becoming some something of an
ai expert.
(11:55):
The rate of change at themoment, uh, caused by ai, the,
the different versions of chat,gpt you mentioned a little while
ago.
Um, is it actually a betteridea for someone who's a modest,
moderately intelligent savvy tonot go down the traditional
career route anymore and jump onall of this stuff and start
their own thing?
Speaker 3 (12:16):
If it's your preference and that's what
floats your boat, then theanswer is yeah, do it.
Toby, who I was referring to.
Toby was in the same schoolyear as my youngest son and
there are certainly plenty ofyoung men who've gone off and
done, you know, or are going todo, what Toby's done.
But equally, there are plentyof young men and women who don't
want to do that.
(12:37):
It's not their thing.
They want to be a part ofsomething, they want to be a
part of a team and because theydon't you know personal
preferences we're talkingMyers-Briggs or insights or
whatever that's not their.
They're not solos, they're notleaders.
They want to be part of a groupand that's what floats their
(12:58):
boat.
And I do think, for mentalwellbeing reasons.
You know community and beingpart of the community is
fundamentally important, bill.
So yeah, and I'm, you know,more than happy to do that with
people that do, but equally, Itotally respect why some people
wouldn't.
I don't know more than happy todo that with people that do,
but equally, I totally respectwhy some people wouldn't.
I don't know if that's thequestion I think it probably has
.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
But you know what it's your wordsmith, sir, so
I'll take it.
I'll take it, okay.
So, before we hit record again,before we hit record today, uh,
we're talking about the, the,the recent uh comments from from
Bill Gates, who was saying thatpeople would only need to work
(13:34):
a couple of days a week in thevery near future.
You have a more optimisticoutlook on AI's impact on the
future of work than I do, andspecifically the future of
people within the workplace thatI do.
You've said that AI won'treplace the human touch and
recruitment.
Can you unpack which humanskills you believe will become
(13:57):
even more valuable in an AIdriven market?
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Absolutely To me.
This is.
This is where I mean.
I mean dancing around this forabout three or four years now,
when I really got under the skinwith working with Toby, and
what I realize is and I'm happyto be held accountable for this
AI will not replace people perse straight away, and I'll come
(14:21):
on and explain why in a minute.
What they AI will do is AI withpeople will augmented, or AI, as
we call it will replace thoserecruiters out there, those
talent acquisition people thataren't using AI.
And what AI?
There's certain things that AIcan't do, so let me give you 10
strengths that humans have.
So the first one is empathy.
(14:41):
Now, those of us who are in thetalent acquisition world know
how important empathy is when itcomes to getting candidates to
join a business or gettingclients to work with you.
Empathy comes from that humanconnection and whilst we are
moving humans from oneenvironment to another, humans
(15:04):
will want that human contact insome form.
They may not want them all theway through the process, but
they will want them in certainforms, particularly when
decision making comes along.
Emotional intelligence, whichis a second thing, which is
again you could argue.
Well, in fact, dan Goldmanwould argue, empathy is part of
it.
You know emotional intelligence, so I'm just kind of stretching
(15:25):
the truth a bit.
But, ei, you know why did thecandidate decline the offer?
Why was the client notparticularly, you know, taken
with a particular candidate?
It's an emotional connection.
Sometimes, you know, it'sunderstanding and deep
deconstructing that emotional,complex issue and contextual
(15:45):
reasoning is another skill thatwe as humans do.
Contextual reasoning and Iexplain that is understanding
how broader factors like thetiming of an offer or the
marketplace or the businessstage where it's at what were
you talking about a minute agohow that affects decisions.
Why is one hire more urgentthan another?
(16:07):
Why is the candidate hesitatingand not taking the offer?
You know, sometimes you look atan offer and you think salaries
more than they were earning,locations closer, the business
has got a great.
You know EVP sorry, not EVQ andyou you were saying, well, why
is the candidate not taking theoffer?
And you have to deconstruct andyou have to go deeper and you
(16:29):
find out well, there's, there'ssome personal stuff there.
There's some personal stuffthat picks up on experiences
I've had in the past and it'sfar more complex.
So those are another.
Those are things that for meyou can't replace.
So what you can replace is thatprocess.
Bit toby and I were talkingabout this only today and what
he was saying is he uses a notetaker and the note taker he's
(16:53):
slightly dyslexic he won't mindme sharing this with you
slightly dyslexic.
So when he's talking to acandidate on the phone without
the note taker, he's having touse a fair amount of his mental
capacity to write the notes downand put them into a crm.
With a note taker, he's havingto use a fair amount of his
mental capacity to write thenotes down and put them into a
CRM.
With a note taker, he justfocuses on the candidate.
You know, using Stephen Covey'slevels of listening, he's at a
(17:14):
much higher level of listening.
He can intuit what thecandidate is thinking back to
what we just talked about.
He can build empathy, can buildtrust and at the end of the
conversation, you know you canpress a button and all of that
summary of that conversationgoes straight into his crm.
That's how ai is supporting theprocess.
So, and there's a whole raft ofother things negotiation,
(17:35):
persuasion, creativity these arethings you know.
When a candidate, when a client,has a particular challenge or a
talent problem, you know yourta guys will.
Having worked in the in the umoutsource world, you know I
remember doing some fairlycomplex recruitment for the n
for the dwp and you know wecouldn't fill 20 jobs in the
(17:56):
northeast of england and um viajohn hutley was a minister at
the time we were asked to comeup with a solution that would
fill those 20 jobs and thesolution that we came up with
was we'll move them from thenortheast to the northwest
because there's a greater poolof candidates with those skills.
And it's like, well, how do youdo that and how do you do it in
(18:18):
such?
So it's that creativity which,you know, would a computer come
up with?
I guess it probably would, butsomebody would have to ask it to
point it in the right direction.
So that's why I'm more positive, because I see the laborious,
boring bits of recruitmentshrinking and that empowered
business owners and empoweredrecruiters can get to that
talent can help businesses moveit forward.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
My concern is with junior folks, regardless of
their role, whether it'srecruitment, um law, look at law
, look, all the solicitors thatweren't junior solicitors won't
have a job very, very soon.
Well, that's a good thing or abad thing, um, and that's.
That's because all of thosemore mundane things with more
junior level, paralegal.
I think you're talking aboutparalegals, yeah, and qualified
(19:06):
solicitors as well, coming outof university, who you know in
the first five years trying toget experience.
There's a whole bunch of thingsin terms of creating contracts
that could be done by ai todayyou know as an example to a
degree, but those are the folksthat I worry about.
Yeah, you spoke you.
You focused mainly on leadersthere.
The future is bright bright,maybe for leaders.
It's the more junior folk thatI do worry about.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Well, it's interesting you say that and I
don't necessarily disagree, bill, but there are jobs being
created all the time, you know.
So what I just talked about aminute ago is a whole set of
skills which are part of theprocess.
But let me give your audienceand you something to think about
.
If we're reshaping andredesigning jobs and a lot of
(19:53):
consultants in business aresharing this with me we, as
recruiters, are going to be atthe forefront of the AI
generation.
What they talk about is thefractionalization of work.
So by that what I mean is let'ssuppose you have two candidates
or two employees who leave abusiness.
The employer is probably notgoing to replace them with like
(20:15):
for like.
They'll deconstruct their jobsand look at all the tasks.
And yeah, you're quite correct,some of those tasks can be
performed by AI, some of themcan be performed by the human,
but with AI and augmenting it,they can be more efficient.
And so you come up with a newrole, a new job, and as this is
(20:35):
happening at pace and people arebeing displaced, not in ones
and twos, but in 20s and 30s,then you need consultants to you
.
You have, you have employmentarchitects, you know okay, in hr
we call that organizationaldesign.
But it's one thing to design arole, but if you don't know
where those skills exist, youknow and I worked in IT
(20:58):
recruitment for quite a longtime and the number of times a
new tech technology would comeon, the on, the on, the world
would actually come into placeand businesses would want to
recruit them and say, well, yeah, there's.
I can't remember NT Windowscame in in the late 90s and I
remember you know, everybodywanted, you know, windows NT
engineers and they couldn't getthem.
(21:19):
So what did they do?
Well, they had to get novelengineers or old Windows
engineers and retrain them andreskill them.
Now, if that happens at paceacross all of our sector, it's
where do we find these peoplewith, I don't know, two thirds
of the skills, or maybe a thirdof the skills, but has the
behavioral competencies?
For me, recruitment is going tochange because business owners
(21:43):
need to think about well,actually, if AI is going to
change, do I need these hungry,aggressive hunters that go out
there and are in the way thatthey do recruitment, or do we
need people that are good atbuilding relationships?
So I've talked about emotionalintelligence and I don't wish to
disrespect a high percentage ofthe recruitment industry, but
(22:06):
certainly from the side of thefence that I've worked on in
recruitment, maybe some of themost successful people are much
more aggressive, high-poweredsalespeople than they are
relationship builders.
Well now, if we're moving to aworld in which you might need
some of those people to acquirethe vacancies and the
relationship with the client inthe first place but no, that's
(22:27):
not the way it's going to work,your talent acquisition people
will know that it's aboutbuilding rapport with candidates
and hiring managers and thathiring community.
That's a different skill andwhilst that exists in the large
corporates and the RPO and theMSP businesses, I think that is
going to travel down to thesmall SMEs.
(22:47):
So, redesign, restructuring,rebuilding there are lots of new
jobs that are being created.
You know, we all know what avlogger is now, but it didn't
exist 10 years ago.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Yeah, and I think there's also just to add to that
, the generational differences.
I think you called me an oldcodger before we hit record.
Today I'm a millennial, me anold codger before we hit record
today.
Um, I'm a millennial, uh, bornin 83, and xenial is another
term somewhere in between, uh,the, the previous generation and
the millennials, um, but myunderstanding of these, uh,
these gen z's, is they arelooking for more authentic
(23:23):
relationships.
They don't want to be sold toyou know.
So if you've got thataggressive uh recruitment,
they're not going to resonatewith those folks, right?
So there's another reason to toadapt and to change anyway.
I could go on about this withyou for ages, but we are running
out of time.
So two more questions for youfor today.
Um, uh, last time you and Icaught up a couple weeks ago, uh
(23:46):
, we were chatting about allsorts of things.
I mentioned that we are doingan event in manchester, a
disrupt event in Manchester, andyou have kindly offered to be a
speaker there.
You and I are also talkingabout doing some exciting things
in the forms of meetups inManchester and Liverpool.
Watch this space on that list.
But just briefly, in 60 secondsor less, I'm going to challenge
(24:06):
you in 60 seconds or less.
What can attendees of DisruptManchester on September 24th
give us?
What can they expect from fromIan's talk at that event?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I think we'll be.
Well, I don't think I'm prettycertain.
We'll be talking about AI insome form or another.
We'll be talking about thetalent world.
We'll be talking about real,live, practical examples of
what's going on, and it'll be.
I would like to think it'll bean alternate audience
participation uh, talk if theywant to come and sit and just
listen with a beer and fallasleep.
(24:37):
That's not the way it's goingto work.
I'd like everyone to beinvolved and we can talk and
discuss these highly interestingtopics.
That's what I would like to beable to do.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
oh, you had like 30 seconds to spare here.
Very good, uh, just finally fortoday.
How can our listeners connectwith and learn more about you?
Speaker 3 (24:56):
please reach out with me on linkedin.
But do one thing just put anotice to why you're contacting
me.
Even if it's a friendshiprequest, I don't mind.
Just tell me why you'reconnecting with me.
And you heard me on on yourpodcast because, like everybody
else, I get hundreds ofinvitations a day, but it's
(25:16):
normally somebody selling mesome connection system or
software.
So if you say it's from this,I'll happily connect, happily
engage, happily talk.
Or on my LinkedIn profile Ithink my email address and phone
number's there as well you canmessage me that way.
But it's fabulous to talk toyou again, bill Love being on
the show.
As always, we run out of time.
We definitely need that walk inthe Peak District Two or three
(25:39):
hours up Ludd's Church or overthe Roaches or down Dovetail.
We'll have a great time.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
That sounds like a cracking idea to me, but for now
, sir, thank you very much forbeing on the HR Chat Show
Pleasure and listeners as always.
Until next time, happy working.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show.
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some of the hundreds of episodespublished by HR Gazette and
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Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show.
Hello listeners, this is yourhost this time, bill Bannum, and
joining me on the show today isnone other than the wonderful,
fabulous, fantastic.
Ian Nelson, a recruitmentindustry nerd, growth coach and
business mentor who utilizes his40 plus years he must have
(00:46):
started when he was about 10, 40plus years experience
establishing and growingbusinesses in the recruitment
sector to assist his clientscreate, develop and deliver high
growth strategies and visionsfor their companies.
Ian, my friend, how are you?
Welcome to the show?
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I'm good, bill.
Thank you very much for havingme back on.
I you know, and it's alwaysgreat to talk to you.
We should.
I'm looking forward to the nexthalf an hour or so.
I've got no idea where we'regonna go.
Um, it's a little bit likegetting on a boat and just
seeing where we end up.
So let's, let's you know, let'scrack on let's have a bit of
fun.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Uh, I wish we'd hit record earlier, because all the
things that we were goingthrough before we hit record was
also terribly interesting.
Let's try and touch upon someof that.
Ian, for those listeners whoare not familiar with you beyond
my introduction just a momentago what can you add?
Give us a bit of a lowdown onyourself, your career,
background and, of course, whatgets you up in the morning.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
I spent 40 years in the recruitment space in the
morning.
I spent 40 years in therecruitment space.
I worked, finally, for thefinal 10, 15 years of my life
for the Hayes group ofbusinesses.
I was involved in running someHayes operations in Europe.
I worked in Germany, actuallyphysically went into Germany and
worked there for 12, 18 monthsand then came back to the UK
(02:02):
during the Tony Blair era andran a division of Hayes IT that
was basically in the publicsector and we took that division
from 2% of turnover to 52% ofHayes IT's turnover inside four
years.
Did a lot of work with talentacquisition with some government
departments, then went intomanaged service, sold some
(02:24):
managed service to variousgovernment departments NHS,
connected for Health, DWP, whoelse?
Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
So, yeah, all good stuff, but Ileft that world 15 years ago to
do what I do now.
And yeah, you touched onpassion.
That's what I'm passionateabout.
I'm passionate about.
I'm passionate about people.
I'm passionate about helpingpeople to transform their lives
(02:48):
and actually, yeah, it's I don'tlike using the word in a way,
but you are actually, whenyou're a coach, you're taking
people on a journey, you'retheir guide and support and you
know, that's why I get up in themorning and I'm, you know, in
my early sixties now, but Istill love what I do and, as you
can tell from what we weretalking earlier, I'm very
passionate about where we, as asrecruiters and as talent
(03:12):
acquisition teams, are going togo over the next 10, 15 years
which is a great lead into mynext question, which is
basically what's going to happenin that world in the next five
to ten years.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Uh, you've worked in the ta recruitment industry for
for 14 years and you talk aboutthe seismic changes that ai is
bringing to your recruitment.
We're all seeing it at themoment.
Uh, what do you see as thebiggest opportunity in for
recruitment leaders,specifically leaders?
Uh, in 2025 and beyond?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
that's a great question, um, and it kind of
brings me to where I am at themoment in my career, and that is
I'm heavily involved with theindustry body, apsco, which is
in the professional sector, andwhat I've realized over the last
couple of years is AI istouching every part of our
recruitment sector, of whetheryou're in-house, whether you're
(04:03):
working in agencies, and I thinkit's a time for leaders to well
, as I call it, reimagine theirrecruitment business.
The speed of change fromChatGPT 3.0 to 4.0 to now 4.5
(04:24):
and the next iterations in thatworld are quite powerful,
they're quite seismic andthere's a whole raft of other
plethora, really, of other toolsthat are moving forward at pace
, you know, and that movementfrom 3.0 to 4.5, which is two
iterations, is like 18 months,so in five years.
Five years as a growth, as achange, is phenomenal.
(04:44):
There's a lady I've forgottenher name and I should should
have brought her up, um, causeI'm going to just remember this
she's called Dr Nadia, she'scalled the reinvention queen.
You probably should get her onyour podcast.
She's amazing, she and her teamfrom I don't think it's
Stanford, but it's one of theAmerican universities.
She's done her research intochange and business models in
(05:07):
the 20th century and then to the21st.
And what she discovered, orwhat the team discovered, is in
the 20th century the averagebusiness model lasted 70 years.
So the Ford motor car andcabri's and 3M and all these
people, whatever this processand systems they were using to
build and sell their products,probably didn't change much for
70 years Since we've come intothe 20th century.
(05:30):
In the first decade, twodecades of the 20th century, the
average business model lasted10 years.
Now that's quite a change from70 to 10 years.
But what's even morefrightening is if you look at
the speed of change from wherewe are now, where we have been
in the last 10, 15 years, towhere we are now, the speed of
(05:50):
change is every three years.
So three years is probablyequivalent to 70 years in the
20th century and 10 years at thebeginning of the 21st.
That's kind of where we're at.
So what's the challenge of wherewe're at?
So what's the challenge?
The challenge is for leaders toget ahead of this, to
(06:11):
understand, and often when I runleadership programs I talk
about VUCA.
You understand the term VUCA Ican see you're nodding and
there's VUCA leadership whichgoes alongside that.
So for the listeners who arenot familiar.
Vuca stands for velocity ofchange, the uncertainty of the
world we live in.
Talk about complexity of changeand ambiguity.
Those are the four challengesthat leaders have, and VUCA
(06:32):
leadership is counteractingvelocity with a vision.
So all good leaders now need tohave a vision.
No-transcript and I think mostof us who were in leadership
positions during COVID willprobably remember that without a
vision, you know, we wentthrough a storm with COVID and
(06:54):
as you came out the other sideof it, you needed that vision so
you could recalibrate and resetyour course into the future.
You counteract uncertainty withunderstanding, so leaders need
to be able to bring anunderstanding and, for me, where
we get understanding and I'lllink this into AI in a minute is
from data.
You need data-drivendecision-making more now than
(07:16):
you ever did, so you need tohave good data.
And then you get on to withcomplexity.
The way to counteract that isgive clarity.
So clarity is how do you takethat understanding, link it into
the leadership, give direction.
And the final one is agility.
So those are the four ways thatyou counteract that world of
change that we're in, and Iwould actually add a fifth one,
(07:39):
which is probably the mostimportant because of AI, and
that is emotional intelligencebuild.
So pick up whichever of thosethreads you like, and we'll
happily go somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat
Podcast.
If you enjoy the audio contentwe produce, you'll love our
articles on the HR Gazette.
Learn more at hrgazettecom.
And now back to the show.
I mean one thing that I'd liketo pick up on.
There is this idea of abusiness lasting only a few
(08:13):
years now, compared to 70 yearsback in the day.
How does a potential employersell that to a candidate?
What does that conversationlook like if the promise is you
can come along on the ride withus, but that ride might only
last a few years?
(08:33):
This is this is not a job forlife.
What does that, what does thatconversation look like?
Does that mean equity.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Tell me more what um dr nadia says, and the reason I
can't remember her surname isshe's from uzbekistan and it's
not an easy word to put in a.
It's got zeds and x's in it,but if anybody wants to know
what it is, happily message meon LinkedIn.
I will send you a link.
She's the reinvention queen,they call it.
She's written a book about itand she says the solution,
(08:58):
therefore, is leaders need to beconstant, so you can't just
wait three years for your systemand your business model to
become redundant.
You have to be continuallyreinventing.
So, to answer your question, no, you can't bring somebody in
today and say this is a greatbusiness and we'll be here in 50
years time.
That doesn't exist.
What you can do, however, isyou can invite people to join
(09:22):
your business and your cultureand go on that journey, and I
remember talking a few years agoat a conference about the need
for businesses to have anoperating culture.
They talk about an operatingmodel, but you need an operating
culture.
Now.
It's the culture that you need.
So, whether it's innovation,it's about D&I in there, we're a
(09:43):
whole raft of other things inthat culture.
You need to be creative, youneed to be respectful, we need
to be collaborative, and nobodyhas a monopoly on bright ideas.
They come from everywhere.
So it's building that cultureand putting all those things
together in such a way that itbuilds.
You know, something that isunique, and I think you know if
(10:03):
we were to take it back a fewyears.
Jim Collins wrote books, didn'the?
Good to great and built to last, and they've got a little bit
of that in there.
So it's the same thing, butjust with a slightly different
emphasis.
I think.
What I'm saying is I think youcan't invite people to join your
business model, but you caninvite people to join your team,
to go on that journey with yourteam, and you've got a vision
(10:27):
of where your business wants tobe and what you want to be about
.
I mean, simon Sinek talks aboutstart with a Y, doesn't he In
his golden circle?
And I think he's right.
You know you've got to have a Y.
We're back to vision again.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Once in a while, an event series is born that shakes
things up, it makes you thinkdifferently and it leaves you
inspired.
That event is Disrupt HR.
The format is 14 speakers, 5minutes each and slides rotate
every 15 seconds.
If you're an HR professional, aCEO, a technologist or a
(11:03):
community leader and you've gotsomething to say about talent,
culture or technology, disruptis the place.
It's coming soon to a city nearyou.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Learn more at disrupthrco Shameless plug.
Please do check out theepisodes I've recorded with
Simon Sinek's right-hand man,Stephen Shedletsky.
He still holds the record, Ithink, for the most downloaded
episodes, Stephen, if you'relistening.
Hello, let's catch up sometimesoon.
Okay, let's switch thatquestion if you don't mind.
(11:35):
Why should a candidate take ajob anymore?
What I mean by that is here'ssome context.
Before you and I hit recordtoday you shared a story of a
conversation you had with ayoung person who, over the last
12 to 18 months, has actuallybuilt a whole new career for
himself, a new job for himself,by becoming some something of an
ai expert.
(11:55):
The rate of change at themoment, uh, caused by ai, the,
the different versions of chat,gpt you mentioned a little while
ago.
Um, is it actually a betteridea for someone who's a modest,
moderately intelligent savvy tonot go down the traditional
career route anymore and jump onall of this stuff and start
their own thing?
Speaker 3 (12:16):
If it's your preference and that's what
floats your boat, then theanswer is yeah, do it.
Toby, who I was referring to.
Toby was in the same schoolyear as my youngest son and
there are certainly plenty ofyoung men who've gone off and
done, you know, or are going todo, what Toby's done.
But equally, there are plentyof young men and women who don't
want to do that.
(12:37):
It's not their thing.
They want to be a part ofsomething, they want to be a
part of a team and because theydon't you know personal
preferences we're talkingMyers-Briggs or insights or
whatever that's not their.
They're not solos, they're notleaders.
They want to be part of a groupand that's what floats their
(12:58):
boat.
And I do think, for mentalwellbeing reasons.
You know community and beingpart of the community is
fundamentally important, bill.
So yeah, and I'm, you know,more than happy to do that with
people that do, but equally, Itotally respect why some people
wouldn't.
I don't know more than happy todo that with people that do,
but equally, I totally respectwhy some people wouldn't.
I don't know if that's thequestion I think it probably has
.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
But you know what it's your wordsmith, sir, so
I'll take it.
I'll take it, okay.
So, before we hit record again,before we hit record today, uh,
we're talking about the, the,the recent uh comments from from
Bill Gates, who was saying thatpeople would only need to work
(13:34):
a couple of days a week in thevery near future.
You have a more optimisticoutlook on AI's impact on the
future of work than I do, andspecifically the future of
people within the workplace thatI do.
You've said that AI won'treplace the human touch and
recruitment.
Can you unpack which humanskills you believe will become
(13:57):
even more valuable in an AIdriven market?
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Absolutely To me.
This is.
This is where I mean.
I mean dancing around this forabout three or four years now,
when I really got under the skinwith working with Toby, and
what I realize is and I'm happyto be held accountable for this
AI will not replace people perse straight away, and I'll come
(14:21):
on and explain why in a minute.
What they AI will do is AI withpeople will augmented, or AI, as
we call it will replace thoserecruiters out there, those
talent acquisition people thataren't using AI.
And what AI?
There's certain things that AIcan't do, so let me give you 10
strengths that humans have.
So the first one is empathy.
(14:41):
Now, those of us who are in thetalent acquisition world know
how important empathy is when itcomes to getting candidates to
join a business or gettingclients to work with you.
Empathy comes from that humanconnection and whilst we are
moving humans from oneenvironment to another, humans
(15:04):
will want that human contact insome form.
They may not want them all theway through the process, but
they will want them in certainforms, particularly when
decision making comes along.
Emotional intelligence, whichis a second thing, which is
again you could argue.
Well, in fact, dan Goldmanwould argue, empathy is part of
it.
You know emotional intelligence, so I'm just kind of stretching
(15:25):
the truth a bit.
But, ei, you know why did thecandidate decline the offer?
Why was the client notparticularly, you know, taken
with a particular candidate?
It's an emotional connection.
Sometimes, you know, it'sunderstanding and deep
deconstructing that emotional,complex issue and contextual
(15:45):
reasoning is another skill thatwe as humans do.
Contextual reasoning and Iexplain that is understanding
how broader factors like thetiming of an offer or the
marketplace or the businessstage where it's at what were
you talking about a minute agohow that affects decisions.
Why is one hire more urgentthan another?
(16:07):
Why is the candidate hesitatingand not taking the offer?
You know, sometimes you look atan offer and you think salaries
more than they were earning,locations closer, the business
has got a great.
You know EVP sorry, not EVQ andyou you were saying, well, why
is the candidate not taking theoffer?
And you have to deconstruct andyou have to go deeper and you
(16:29):
find out well, there's, there'ssome personal stuff there.
There's some personal stuffthat picks up on experiences
I've had in the past and it'sfar more complex.
So those are another.
Those are things that for meyou can't replace.
So what you can replace is thatprocess.
Bit toby and I were talkingabout this only today and what
he was saying is he uses a notetaker and the note taker he's
(16:53):
slightly dyslexic he won't mindme sharing this with you
slightly dyslexic.
So when he's talking to acandidate on the phone without
the note taker, he's having touse a fair amount of his mental
capacity to write the notes downand put them into a crm.
With a note taker, he's havingto use a fair amount of his
mental capacity to write thenotes down and put them into a
CRM.
With a note taker, he justfocuses on the candidate.
You know, using Stephen Covey'slevels of listening, he's at a
(17:14):
much higher level of listening.
He can intuit what thecandidate is thinking back to
what we just talked about.
He can build empathy, can buildtrust and at the end of the
conversation, you know you canpress a button and all of that
summary of that conversationgoes straight into his crm.
That's how ai is supporting theprocess.
So, and there's a whole raft ofother things negotiation,
(17:35):
persuasion, creativity these arethings you know.
When a candidate, when a client,has a particular challenge or a
talent problem, you know yourta guys will.
Having worked in the in the umoutsource world, you know I
remember doing some fairlycomplex recruitment for the n
for the dwp and you know wecouldn't fill 20 jobs in the
(17:56):
northeast of england and um viajohn hutley was a minister at
the time we were asked to comeup with a solution that would
fill those 20 jobs and thesolution that we came up with
was we'll move them from thenortheast to the northwest
because there's a greater poolof candidates with those skills.
And it's like, well, how do youdo that and how do you do it in
(18:18):
such?
So it's that creativity which,you know, would a computer come
up with?
I guess it probably would, butsomebody would have to ask it to
point it in the right direction.
So that's why I'm more positive, because I see the laborious,
boring bits of recruitmentshrinking and that empowered
business owners and empoweredrecruiters can get to that
talent can help businesses moveit forward.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
My concern is with junior folks, regardless of
their role, whether it'srecruitment, um law, look at law
, look, all the solicitors thatweren't junior solicitors won't
have a job very, very soon.
Well, that's a good thing or abad thing, um, and that's.
That's because all of thosemore mundane things with more
junior level, paralegal.
I think you're talking aboutparalegals, yeah, and qualified
(19:06):
solicitors as well, coming outof university, who you know in
the first five years trying toget experience.
There's a whole bunch of thingsin terms of creating contracts
that could be done by ai todayyou know as an example to a
degree, but those are the folksthat I worry about.
Yeah, you spoke you.
You focused mainly on leadersthere.
The future is bright bright,maybe for leaders.
It's the more junior folk thatI do worry about.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Well, it's interesting you say that and I
don't necessarily disagree, bill, but there are jobs being
created all the time, you know.
So what I just talked about aminute ago is a whole set of
skills which are part of theprocess.
But let me give your audienceand you something to think about
.
If we're reshaping andredesigning jobs and a lot of
(19:53):
consultants in business aresharing this with me we, as
recruiters, are going to be atthe forefront of the AI
generation.
What they talk about is thefractionalization of work.
So by that what I mean is let'ssuppose you have two candidates
or two employees who leave abusiness.
The employer is probably notgoing to replace them with like
(20:15):
for like.
They'll deconstruct their jobsand look at all the tasks.
And yeah, you're quite correct,some of those tasks can be
performed by AI, some of themcan be performed by the human,
but with AI and augmenting it,they can be more efficient.
And so you come up with a newrole, a new job, and as this is
(20:35):
happening at pace and people arebeing displaced, not in ones
and twos, but in 20s and 30s,then you need consultants to you
.
You have, you have employmentarchitects, you know okay, in hr
we call that organizationaldesign.
But it's one thing to design arole, but if you don't know
where those skills exist, youknow and I worked in IT
(20:58):
recruitment for quite a longtime and the number of times a
new tech technology would comeon, the on, the on, the world
would actually come into placeand businesses would want to
recruit them and say, well, yeah, there's.
I can't remember NT Windowscame in in the late 90s and I
remember you know, everybodywanted, you know, windows NT
engineers and they couldn't getthem.
(21:19):
So what did they do?
Well, they had to get novelengineers or old Windows
engineers and retrain them andreskill them.
Now, if that happens at paceacross all of our sector, it's
where do we find these peoplewith, I don't know, two thirds
of the skills, or maybe a thirdof the skills, but has the
behavioral competencies?
For me, recruitment is going tochange because business owners
(21:43):
need to think about well,actually, if AI is going to
change, do I need these hungry,aggressive hunters that go out
there and are in the way thatthey do recruitment, or do we
need people that are good atbuilding relationships?
So I've talked about emotionalintelligence and I don't wish to
disrespect a high percentage ofthe recruitment industry, but
(22:06):
certainly from the side of thefence that I've worked on in
recruitment, maybe some of themost successful people are much
more aggressive, high-poweredsalespeople than they are
relationship builders.
Well now, if we're moving to aworld in which you might need
some of those people to acquirethe vacancies and the
relationship with the client inthe first place but no, that's
(22:27):
not the way it's going to work,your talent acquisition people
will know that it's aboutbuilding rapport with candidates
and hiring managers and thathiring community.
That's a different skill andwhilst that exists in the large
corporates and the RPO and theMSP businesses, I think that is
going to travel down to thesmall SMEs.
(22:47):
So, redesign, restructuring,rebuilding there are lots of new
jobs that are being created.
You know, we all know what avlogger is now, but it didn't
exist 10 years ago.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Yeah, and I think there's also just to add to that
, the generational differences.
I think you called me an oldcodger before we hit record.
Today I'm a millennial, me anold codger before we hit record
today.
Um, I'm a millennial, uh, bornin 83, and xenial is another
term somewhere in between, uh,the, the previous generation and
the millennials, um, but myunderstanding of these, uh,
these gen z's, is they arelooking for more authentic
(23:23):
relationships.
They don't want to be sold toyou know.
So if you've got thataggressive uh recruitment,
they're not going to resonatewith those folks, right?
So there's another reason to toadapt and to change anyway.
I could go on about this withyou for ages, but we are running
out of time.
So two more questions for youfor today.
Um, uh, last time you and Icaught up a couple weeks ago, uh
(23:46):
, we were chatting about allsorts of things.
I mentioned that we are doingan event in manchester, a
disrupt event in Manchester, andyou have kindly offered to be a
speaker there.
You and I are also talkingabout doing some exciting things
in the forms of meetups inManchester and Liverpool.
Watch this space on that list.
But just briefly, in 60 secondsor less, I'm going to challenge
(24:06):
you in 60 seconds or less.
What can attendees of DisruptManchester on September 24th
give us?
What can they expect from fromIan's talk at that event?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I think we'll be.
Well, I don't think I'm prettycertain.
We'll be talking about AI insome form or another.
We'll be talking about thetalent world.
We'll be talking about real,live, practical examples of
what's going on, and it'll be.
I would like to think it'll bean alternate audience
participation uh, talk if theywant to come and sit and just
listen with a beer and fallasleep.
(24:37):
That's not the way it's goingto work.
I'd like everyone to beinvolved and we can talk and
discuss these highly interestingtopics.
That's what I would like to beable to do.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
oh, you had like 30 seconds to spare here.
Very good, uh, just finally fortoday.
How can our listeners connectwith and learn more about you?
Speaker 3 (24:56):
please reach out with me on linkedin.
But do one thing just put anotice to why you're contacting
me.
Even if it's a friendshiprequest, I don't mind.
Just tell me why you'reconnecting with me.
And you heard me on on yourpodcast because, like everybody
else, I get hundreds ofinvitations a day, but it's
(25:16):
normally somebody selling mesome connection system or
software.
So if you say it's from this,I'll happily connect, happily
engage, happily talk.
Or on my LinkedIn profile Ithink my email address and phone
number's there as well you canmessage me that way.
But it's fabulous to talk toyou again, bill Love being on
the show.
As always, we run out of time.
We definitely need that walk inthe Peak District Two or three
(25:39):
hours up Ludd's Church or overthe Roaches or down Dovetail.
We'll have a great time.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
That sounds like a cracking idea to me, but for now
, sir, thank you very much forbeing on the HR Chat Show
Pleasure and listeners as always.
Until next time, happy working.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show.
If you enjoyed this episode,why not subscribe and listen to
some of the hundreds of episodespublished by HR Gazette and
remember for what's new in theworld of work?
Subscribe to the show, followus on social media and visit
hrgazettecom.
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