June 25, 2024 • 49 mins
In this episode, we’re taking a very real look at how AI is changing the hiring landscape. Applicants are using ChatGPT to write job opening-specific resumes, which in turn is making applicants meld together and what this episode’s guest calls a sea of sameness. On the other side of the application, managers are turning to ChatGPT to help write job descriptions. This is creating job description templates that are not specific to the actual open position. So how do you cut through the AI “red tape” when it comes to job descriptions and applying?
To discuss this important topic, we’re delighted to speak with Kat Kibben. Kat is an award-winning writer and renowned keynote speaker known for helping hiring teams write inclusive, unbiased job postings that help them hire the right person faster.
Learn more about UC Berkeley Extension @https://bit.ly/3XB9bv9
Read this episode's transcript @https://bit.ly/3DAk1Ku
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[INTRO MUSIC]
(00:03):
KAT KIBBEN (00:06):
I understand the value
of that moment in which you kindof say everything you need to
and hope for something better.
And that's what people dowhen they open up the internet
and type in a job title.
They type in thesewords, and they're
praying that they canjust have something better
in their life, something thatcould truly change their life.
And they shouldn't be metwith buzzwords and cliches.
(00:28):
JILL FINLAYSON: Welcome to the Future (00:31):
undefined
of Work Podcast with BerkeleyExtension and the EDGE in Tech
initiative at theUniversity of California,
focused on expanding diversityand gender equity in tech.
EDGE in Tech is partof CITRIS, the Center
for IT Research in theInterest of Society,
and the Banatao Institute.
UC Berkeley Extension isthe continuing education arm
of the University ofCalifornia at Berkeley.
(00:54):
In this episode, we'retaking a very real look
at how AI is changingthe hiring landscape.
Applicants are usingChatGPT to write
job-opening specificresumes, which
is in turn makingapplicants meld together
in what this episode's guestcalls a sea of sameness.
On the other sideof the application,
managers are turning to ChatGPTto help write job descriptions.
(01:18):
This is creating jobdescription templates
that are not specific tothe actual job position.
So how do you cutthrough the AI red tape
when it comes to jobdescriptions and applying?
To discuss thisimportant topic, we're
delighted to speakwith Kat Kibben.
Kat is an award-winning writerand renowned keynote speaker
known for helping hiring teamswrite inclusive, unbiased job
(01:40):
postings that help them hirethe right person faster.
Before foundingThree Ears Media,
Kat was a CMO, technicalcopywriter and managing editor
for leading companies suchas monster.com, care.com,
and Randstad Worldwide.
Today, they are frequentlyfeatured as an HR and recruiting
expert in publications likeThe New York Times, Chicago
(02:01):
Tribune, and Forbes.
Kat travels thecountry in their RV
while dividing their timebetween North Carolina,
Colorado, and the dogs behindthe name, Three Ears Media.
Welcome, Kat.
KAT KIBBEN (02:12):
Thank you so much for having me, Jill.
I really appreciate it.
JILL FINLAYSON (02:16):
A great place to start
is to really talkabout job descriptions.
What do we know aboutjob descriptions,
and how have people beenwriting them over the years?
KAT KIBBEN (02:25):
Yeah, you know what's
interesting is, whenyou say, what do people
know about job descriptions?the answer is very little.
When I've spoken around theworld and I've asked a room,
whether there are 20 peopleor 2,000 people in that room,
to raise their hand if they wereever taught how to write a job
description, I have never seenmore than three hands go up,
(02:46):
never.
And I always joke, youknow, did you learn from me?
Because prior to this research,prior to really digging
into job descriptions,there were no experts yet.
Everyone in the worldwas using these postings
to interview and hire.
And my research has goneback 100 years to look at job
descriptions from the1920s until the 2020s.
(03:07):
And it fascinates me everytime I see these really obvious
parallels between 100-year-oldpostings and the exact same
postings we're sharing today.
JILL FINLAYSON (03:17):
So what is a job listing supposed to have in it?
KAT KIBBEN (03:22):
A great job posting gives you
three pieces ofinformation, and these
are psychologicaltriggers for people.
This is based on people, not HRbest practices or recruiting.
Those three things, thenumber one thing is impact.
What do I do?
Why am I there?
Because we don'thire people for fun.
We hire them because theyhave a business objective.
(03:43):
So what is that impact?
The second thing iseveryday activities,
actually giving them an idea ofwhat a day in the life means,
because a marketing managerat one company and a marketing
manager at another company couldmean entirely different work
from day to day.
And the final thing, and thisis where people get the most
misguided information, isaround mandatory requirements.
(04:08):
Let me remind everyonewho's listening
what mandatory means,because most people are not
very clear on that.
Mandatory means that withoutthe help of God, Google
and a really good mentor,you could not figure this out
without having done it atsome point somewhere else.
And it is directly aligned toan everyday task that you do.
(04:29):
It supports anddevelops your ability
to be able to dothose everyday tasks.
You know, and as I was sayingthat, there's a fourth thing.
It's salary, becauseno one picks a job
without knowing how muchmoney they're going to make.
But the reality is thatthe legal landscape
right now in the USis that, I believe
in the next five years, thatwill be nationally mandated.
JILL FINLAYSON (04:49):
Let's break these down,
because I think each one ofthese, there's more to unpack.
So the first one is, and Ireally like this, the business
objective.
What are you trying to doand what are you in aid of?
What do people do rightin the job description
about describing thebusiness objective,
and what do they do wrong?
KAT KIBBEN: Unfortunately, the thing (05:07):
undefined
they do wrong is theydon't talk about it at all.
This is about people who wantto have an impact on this world.
And what we're seeingin the research
is that impact is becoming oneof the most persuasive reasons
why someone wouldchoose you or your job.
And again, it'snot, you're going
(05:27):
to change the landscape of AI.
It is, you're going tocreate a database that
helps us createalgorithms that will
decide how people are hired.
It's, you're going to createmarketing materials that
allow us to help morepeople in this world.
And it's bringing togetherboth the action piece,
(05:47):
what is the primarydeliverable, but also,
how does that influenceyour business's ability
to be successful?
JILL FINLAYSON (05:55):
And why do you think
this is so motivating topeople to get this bigger
context rather than justwhat the job itself is doing?
KAT KIBBEN (06:02):
Because so many people
have toiled away in theworkplace for years and years
and years, andfelt like they had
no influence on that business.
And often, feelinglike you have no impact
is one of the reasonswhy you leave.
And I also believe thatthere's a shift in society
in which we want to haveinfluence on other people.
(06:23):
We want to impact andmake things better,
and there's a genuinehuman instinct.
It's probably in the hierarchyof needs somehow, right?
Very closely associatedwith that hierarchy,
because peopleneed to feel impact
to feel like they're valued.
And when people feel they'revalued, they don't leave.
JILL FINLAYSON (06:42):
What about the everyday activities?
How specific are we being here?
KAT KIBBEN (06:46):
Very.
The way that I tellpeople is, I want it
in the language you would use todescribe the work to your best
friend's child.
So you go to a restaurantand your best friend
brings their kid, because thekid's interested in something
that you do, and theyask you, what's it like?
What will I do?
The words that youwould use next,
(07:06):
that is the perfect language fordescribing everyday activities.
But it's not a laundry list.
I want the threethings that you're
going to do a lot because mostpeople's attention spans are
very, very short,and the research
shows that they are gettingshorter and shorter.
So we want to give them enoughinformation to close their eyes
(07:26):
and imagine thework, but also to be
able to see, again,how that aligns
with those requirementsand the impact,
and see the full circleof it, because that's
another reason whypeople leave work,
is because they want todo something a little bit
different.
JILL FINLAYSON (07:41):
So let's talk about the mandatory activities.
One of the stats is that womenlook at mandatory activities
and think, that is required.
Therefore, I will notapply if I do not have
these mandatory requirements.
Whereas men or some other peoplemight look at those and say,
I should apply regardless.
And so people have a differentdefinition of "mandatory,"
(08:01):
and they have a differentdefinition of how the game is
played.
What do you think mandatoryactually is, and how is it used?
KAT KIBBEN (08:08):
I think right now it is the center, the hub of bias
inside of job postings, becauseoften, it is greatly exaggerated
and not necessarilyaligned with the role.
It's also a place where a lotof that buzzword bingo happens.
And what's so fascinatingabout that to me
is it's very unconscious biasthat is centered in this.
(08:31):
And that was the motivationbehind my research,
because I knew therewas bias in there.
But people don't say we'rebiased towards someone
with this.
They just reemphasizeit three different ways,
or they say it in a certain way.
And all of the data like youjust mentioned in that study,
where they putmen and women side
by side to read job postings,has been replicated many times.
(08:55):
But what they've layeredon top of that now,
and I just read thisreport, is where
they started to put menand women side by side
and asked them, whydidn't you apply?
What I find most fascinatingabout that in particular
is that the metricson gender are
different on every single one.
So if you ask men andwomen, why didn't you
(09:16):
apply, they give them, youknow, those parameters of why
they didn't apply,the numbers are way
skewed one way or another.
There's no smallmargin of difference.
It is excessive.
This is also wherestructural bias comes in.
What I mean by structural biasis when a job posting goes
from 7 bullets to17 bullets, you
(09:36):
will get more male applicants.
It can literallybe your technique,
and mandatoryrequirements is where
both techniqueand infrastructure
bias of our history and ourknowledge of job postings
starts to show itsugly face, so to speak.
JILL FINLAYSON (09:53):
So the last thing you said was salary.
There's been a big movementtowards salary transparency.
What are you seeingas percentages?
Do you have data about whatwe're seeing in resumes?
KAT KIBBEN (10:04):
Right now, as far as salaries,
unfortunately, it's onlymandated in a few states,
and there's not been given alot of guidance around salaries.
And so you go to someplaces, and they're
giving very realistic ranges.
And they also provide contextof what the range means.
So the best-in-classexample is a range.
(10:26):
I don't care how wide therange is, but right below it,
you explain that there isa location differential.
And if you're seatedin San Francisco,
you'll make more money than ifyou're seated in rural Texas.
And they explain that theseare the requirements that
are aligned with thetop of our pay range,
because ultimately, givinga range without context
(10:46):
means we'll pay our bestnegotiators, not our best
talent.
The other reallynegative outcome
I'm seeing from thisshift without education
is that we're gettinga 0 to a number range.
And for any employers whoare listening to this right
now, no, no, no, no.
Please, no zero.
You're not goingto pay anyone zero.
(11:07):
It is a sign of how littleyou have knowledge into money,
into how pay works and payequity in your organization,
if you're posting zero.
JILL FINLAYSON (11:17):
So how did we get here?
Has there been a shiftin a change over time,
or are people just takingthe old job descriptions
and adding to it?
KAT KIBBEN (11:25):
No, that's the scariest part to me, right?
There's been no fundamentalchange since, honestly--
I'd say in the '20s, the bigfundamental change is that you
didn't necessarilyneed a resume,
because you'd justwalk in there,
and it was part of community.
And everybody was justhiring their brother's friend
or their uncles,whatever, and there
(11:46):
was that more familial element.
I know that still exists today,but at a far lower percentage
because of theintroduction of the resume.
I worked at monster.com,right, the first major job
board in this space.
We moved the jobpostings online.
Honestly, Jill, if youlook back on the history,
(12:06):
that has been the biggestfundamental change.
Nothing else aboutthis relationship
has fundamentally changed.
JILL FINLAYSON (12:12):
Well, let's talk about that shift to online.
Did the job descriptions changewhen they were copied and pasted
online?
KAT KIBBEN (12:19):
Big time.
So what we saw isduring the newspapers,
you had a word count,and you had 50 words
or you were going to payanother, fill in the blank,
right, $50 to $100.
And so now they moveddigitally, and all of a sudden,
we went from 50-word jobpostings to 5,000-word job
postings.
(12:39):
But I don't think that weactually made it better
for anyone.
I don't think that those 4,950words came with more context.
They came with more bias.
JILL FINLAYSON (12:50):
Along with those words,
sometimes people are makingan effort to be inclusive,
and they'll saysomething at the bottom
like, please apply evenif you don't think you
meet all the requirements.
What do you think about that?
KAT KIBBEN (13:02):
I hate it.
I hate it so much.
I was working on some researchabout this just last night,
and the reason that I hate it isbecause of what actually happens
after you apply.
And this is thattransparency that I
think most job seekersdon't have, which is OK,
you're sitting inthe big bucket--
now what?
Most recruiters willnot give your resume
more than two seconds ifyou are not qualified,
(13:24):
and then you gointo the black hole.
And the beginningof most searches
does not start with thedatabase, which is silly to me.
Recruiters don't start theirhunt for the best candidate
by looking at their currentdatabase, especially
in-house recruiters.
The first thing they do islook at all of the people
that applied.
And so maybe in ahigh-volume role
(13:46):
where I hire 500 factoryworkers every year,
absolutely, go ahead and apply.
Director of marketing?
Absolutely not.
A niche role, a "there'sonly five of these
in the organization" type role,you should not apply anyway,
and it does not makeit more inclusive.
It makes the poollarger, and I feel
(14:08):
it removes therecruiters' ability
to have a connectionwith the job seekers
who apply in the first place,or any kind of human touch point
that makes someone feel valued.
JILL FINLAYSON (14:16):
Let's go back and maybe
do a day in thelife of a recruiter,
because I don't thinkpeople necessarily have sat
on the other side of the table.
So you put a job posting up.
What happens?
KAT KIBBEN (14:26):
So we'll put a job posting up,
and based on if you'rea government contractor
or if you're a privatebusiness, the length of time
that it's open can vary.
If you are agovernment contractor,
it has to be open for aminimum of three days.
So let's go with thatscenario, because it's
like the tightest timeline.
(14:46):
Let's say I openit for three days.
Right now, recruiters aregetting 400 to 700 applicants
on a role.
And that is a consequence of AI.
So job boards exist becauseemployers weren't getting
enough applicants,and so the job boards
created this auto-apply,where you could say,
(15:07):
I want to apply toall these businesses,
and it just shoots outyour resume to all of them.
But now we've createdthat pile of resumes.
So the recruiter, basedon role priority--
So maybe it's notthe three-day role.
They usually have--the most I've ever
seen someone have is about25 roles on their desk.
That's a little toomany, and they are all
(15:28):
at different stages.
So a lot of multitasking,a lot of managing
a lot of different pieces.
And so let's say they'reworking on that one role today.
They're going to takethat pile of resumes
and do this quick scan.
And this is whereall of those rumors
about the five-secondglance at your resume begin.
Recruiters who areusing technology
(15:50):
allow technology to do someof the five-second glancing.
But I got to tell you,the majority of businesses
don't even knowthat could happen.
And they're scared becausethey're watching the legislation
coming right now as far as,they're really trying to create
guidelines around selection.
They don't want AImaking the choice.
JILL FINLAYSON: So we were saying (16:08):
undefined
that the technology's scanningand it's reducing this pile,
but we still havethis recruiter who
has 25 roles in progressthat's been narrowed down
to some smaller poolof applications.
What does theirday look like now?
KAT KIBBEN (16:23):
Now they're making phone screens.
So they're calling you to do a10 to 15-minute conversation,
or they're schedulingit via email.
And we're doing aquick call to confirm
that the information on yourresume is actually the truth.
And I want to hearfrom your voice,
like the confidence,your ability
to actually convey whatyou've done in your own words
(16:44):
and not just to readyour resume to me.
Then I have to take this pile.
For me personally, I nevergo more than 30 to 50.
So we've just done acut from 300 to 30.
So now I have about 30people on phone screening.
I'm going to take thatdown to a slate that's
anywhere between 5 and 10,depending on the manager.
(17:05):
I'm going to take thatpile to the manager,
and the manager is goingto select three to five
to do the nextround of interviews.
And then we just cut and cutuntil we're getting to the place
where we have the personand we're making an offer.
And that processcan take, depending
on the manager andyour response times,
and a lot of bureaucracy thathappens behind the recruiter
(17:27):
that the recruiterhas no control over,
it can take anywhere between twoweeks and three to five months.
JILL FINLAYSON: On the flip side, (17:35):
undefined
what is the applicant seeingor hearing, if anything?
KAT KIBBEN (17:41):
That's the problem.
They're seeing andhearing very little.
I have aspirations.
I want to seeinterview dashboards
where job seekers could login and be able to actually see
what the status is.
Like, we have all that data.
We have all that information,and I don't actually
think that a recruiter iscapable of making those level
(18:02):
of micro-communications.
Communications.
But the ATS isn'tset up correctly
to be able to createtrigger messaging.
The messaging hasn'tbeen customized.
And so nine times outof 10, the only thing
the job seeker isgetting is the no.
JILL FINLAYSON (18:17):
So for folks who aren't familiar with ATS,
what is that?
KAT KIBBEN (18:21):
It's an Applicant Tracking System,
and it is a glorifiedspreadsheet.
And to any ATS creators who arelistening to this, I'm sorry.
Like, I know you havegreater intentions.
But ultimately, what used tobe, like in the '90s, people had
Excel sheets.
And all the applicationswould go into the sheet.
We would plug in allof the information.
We would write yes,no next to each person
(18:41):
and use that asthe pile of people.
Now we have the digital version,where you can scan resumes
by clicking throughthese prompts
where it'll pop up the nextresume, pop up the next resume,
next yes, no.
You can enter someof that information,
and then based onyour information,
you can set up triggersthat will communicate
what's happening next.
(19:02):
Again, most peoplehaven't done that.
And then it's kind of settingup the messaging system as well.
So they have this CRM,the relationship manager
that partners with the ATSthat will send messaging.
Some have their own, butbroadly, that's how it works.
JILL FINLAYSON (19:19):
When somebody's saying
yes or no, do theyhave to indicate
why they're saying yes or no?
KAT KIBBEN (19:25):
Only with the best ATS's.
I believe thatgreenhouse has an ATS,
and I think what they've donethat's really interesting is
creating a model where you canplug in a lot of other tools
as well.
But I believe inthat system, you
do have to indicateone way or another.
Again, if you're agovernment contractor,
there's kind of aseparate set, and you
have to indicate which ofthe mandatory requirements
(19:47):
they did not meet.
JILL FINLAYSON (19:48):
So this is the question that I would have,
is you point out inthe best-case scenario,
we do have information, butthat information is not being
shared with the applicant.
Is there a legal or policyreason why they're not sharing?
KAT KIBBEN (20:02):
Number one, they're not
sharing the reasonyou were disqualified
because they're scared.
Is there an actualpolicy that prevents them
from having that communication?
No.
Is there one specificthing that would get-- no.
But I think there isthis broad perspective
that if they givetoo much information,
(20:24):
it will create aliability issue.
And recruitersaren't often trusted
to have a conversationlike that with a candidate.
And so often, when acandidate asks for feedback,
a recruiter is instructednot to give it.
And it just adds to this reallybroken relationship where hiring
feels hopeless for candidates.
JILL FINLAYSON (20:44):
It really is frustrating,
because in an idealworld, if you're not
a fit for that job, that's fair.
But could youpoint me to a place
that I might bea better fit for?
Or could you let me know whereI have room for improvement?
That sort of thing would bevery helpful to your point
about the fear factorand the liability factor.
Do you see any way around that?
KAT KIBBEN (21:06):
If they actually wrote
requirements that were real.
So let me give an example,years of experience.
Well, we want 10years of experience,
but you only have eight.
That is an absolutelyuseless metric
to measure peopleon, because we all
know that even if youand your best friend
had the exact samejob, you would not
do the exact same work everysingle day, especially if you're
(21:28):
at different companies.
And years of experience,it'll quantify time,
but it does not qualifypeople on their ability
to complete theprojects, because again,
how long you didsomething is very
rarely an important measurementpoint as far as your ability
to do the thing.
There's only been onescenario in which I thought
(21:50):
that years of experiencemade a lot of sense,
and it was a scenario where Iwas working with an insurance
company who was hiringmedical doctors to review
patient profiles when theywere going on disability.
And here's the twist.
They never talk tothe patient, not once.
And they needed to have a wealthof visits with a lot of people
(22:13):
who had very similartypes of injuries
so that they could actually say,this is what I see happening,
this was the appropriatetreatment plan,
and this is the amount oftime they should take off,
for example, becauseagain, they're
never talking to the person.
And you have to have theexperience of saying,
like in my experience over10 years of seeing hundreds
of patients, and you neededthat repetition in order
(22:35):
to make that judgment call.
JILL FINLAYSON (22:37):
I've seen in cybersecurity
where they havethat requirement,
and yet the technologyused in cybersecurity
is changing every year.
And one of the speakerswe had at an event
said, I don't use anythingthat I used in college.
I don't use anythingmore than two years old.
And so the question becomes,then, why the requirement?
KAT KIBBEN (22:56):
Exactly.
And often, it's becauseof government contracts,
and because years of experienceis a really easy way to say,
well, you didn't havethis many, this number.
JILL FINLAYSON (23:08):
Well, the other thing the years of experience
has been doing is reallyhampering new graduates' access
to jobs.
A lot of entry level jobs say,"three years of experience
required," and I'm like, thenthat's not an entry level job,
is it?
KAT KIBBEN (23:24):
I tell employers, if it is an entry level
job, meaning I will teach youeverything you need to know,
that's what I want you to write.
No experience required.
We will teach youeverything you need to know.
And in that scenario, I'mgoing to spend a lot more time
on the everydayactivities, because it
is implied that ifthis is a new job
and it is an entry level job,you are not familiar with what
(23:47):
you'll be doing every day.
And ultimately, that would bethe most persuasive factor,
is that impact, and theeveryday activities,
on how do you wantto spend your life.
Because really, that'swhat we're asking people
when you post ajob, is do you want
to spend a chunk ofyour life hanging out
with us doing this thing?
JILL FINLAYSON (24:03):
So what's your advice to new graduates?
KAT KIBBEN (24:07):
I think the first is to actually try
to understand what youlove, to think about,
where you feel that you thrive.
So for me, it wasalways writing.
Writing came reallyeasy to me, and when
I went out andlooked for my career,
I looked for roles whereI had the opportunity
to embed writing, or for thatto be my primary deliverable.
(24:27):
I also think we need to thinkoutside of the box a little bit.
And recently, I actually createda free job title generator,
which I'll make sure you havethe link for the show notes.
And basically, what it does isyou can enter all the things
you love to do, hit, Enterand have it generate the job
titles back to you,because the biggest
mistake I see collegegraduates making
(24:48):
is they limitthemselves too much.
And I'm probablythe perfect example.
So I remember saying tomy advisor in college,
I want to work at an ad agency.
That was the coolmarketing job, right.
I'm a writer.
I want to go to an ad agency.
So I only searched"marketing associate."
The second I expanded my searchand I added three to five job
(25:09):
titles to my explorationand bringing information
in, that's when I startedto be able to find roles,
because not all jobtitles are linear,
and you can reallycut yourself off
by not allowing yourself accessto imagining different titles.
JILL FINLAYSON (25:26):
Well, even if you're not a new grad,
people are changing jobsevery two to three years,
so they're not staying withinone company's structure.
So knowing whatthe career path is
and what the title is thatyou should be looking for
is really hard to find.
So I'm excited to hear aboutthis job title generator.
But how else do you find outwhat is the job that I'm doing?
(25:47):
What's the next step up?
KAT KIBBEN (25:48):
So what I typically do
is I go look forsomeone who's already
had that job at that company.
And this is the best use ofLinkedIn, especially when you're
a new grad.
You can click onthe company name,
and then they have a listof every single person that
works there on LinkedIn.
And you can click Employees andyou can search the job title,
and go find people who workin that department, who
(26:11):
are more seniorto that role, who
are more junior to that role.
Best-case scenariois the company
gives you that information.
JILL FINLAYSON (26:18):
It seems like another opportunity for AI
to step in and createsome job pathing,
because that seemsvery valuable,
to see what arethe steps and how
long did people spend onaverage at each of those steps.
KAT KIBBEN (26:31):
It's also one of the most influential factors
for someone to leave or stay,is their view of their talent
mobility, meaning theirability to leave their job
and go to anotherparallel or higher role,
because the storywe were all told,
and I'm sure you wereincluded in this,
is if you want tomake more money,
if you want to get apromotion, you got to leave.
And that costs businessesa lot of money.
(26:53):
On a micro level, if someonequits within the first 60 days
and they make about $40,000,it costs your business about
$28,000 between onboarding,backfill, recruiter time.
It is a lot of money thatadds up very, very quickly.
And ultimately, you couldbe losing roles all together
(27:16):
because of poor retention.
JILL FINLAYSON (27:18):
There was one research study that
looked at namebrand universities
versus not namebrand universities,
and the people from not namebrand universities actually
stayed at the job longer.
So to your pointabout ROI on hiring,
there was some realdata there that
said, if you want somebodywho's going to be invested
in your company,don't necessarily
(27:38):
go with the bias for thename brand university.
KAT KIBBEN (27:42):
Exactly.
And so often when peopleare reviewing resumes,
that's what they're lookingfor, the name brand business,
the name brand university.
But that is not an indicatorof someone to be successful
or someone who will stay.
I mean, even job hoppingisn't an indicator
if someone will stayor not, especially now.
Like I always tellpeople, when people quit,
they quit for a reason.
(28:02):
No one wakes up in themorning and is like,
I think I'm going toquit my super great job,
this great executive role ata huge, well-known company.
You know, I think I'm goingto quit and go look for a job.
Like if you're at that point, alot of bad things have happened,
some out of your control,some in your control.
And you're probably ina place where you're
(28:25):
willing to change everything.
And that was a bigmotivation for me
around everything thatI do, is understanding
that someone is almost ata moment of confession.
I'm not a very religious person,but I understand the value
of that moment in which you kindof say everything you need to
and hope for something better.
And that's what people dowhen they open up the internet
and type in a job title, isthat they type in these words,
(28:48):
and they're prayingthat they can just
have something better in theirlife, something that could truly
change their life.
And they shouldn't be metwith buzzwords and cliches.
JILL FINLAYSON: You often hear, you (28:56):
undefined
should have left threemonths ago if you're
looking at that point.
KAT KIBBEN (29:02):
The mental health consequences
of staying in a role that is badfor you are not well measured,
but they are well reported on.
I mean, I could find you 100different articles right now
about how people's mentalhealth has suffered
and how that has maybe createda financial liability because
of health care.
They needed to bein more therapy
because they strugglewith their family.
(29:25):
We lose so much when wepour ourselves into work,
and we persist in rolesthat are bad for us.
As someone who has definitelystayed in roles longer
than I should have, and I'm justreflecting from my perspective,
the cost was too high.
It had impacts on my family.
It had impacts on my friends.
It had impacts on my life.
(29:46):
And it also impacted my abilityto show up at my next job.
And that's one of thoselagging indicators
that we don't oftenmeasure or talk about,
is the fact that when youshow up at your next job,
you show up with a wholedifferent set of insecurities,
fears.
If you've ever been laid offand you go to your next job,
your number onefear is that you're
going to get surprisedand get laid off again.
(30:08):
How do people thriveif they're constantly
worried they're goingto lose their job?
They don't.
JILL FINLAYSON (30:12):
So how do people recover and sort
of reboot themselveswhen they're
going to apply for ajob in that situation?
KAT KIBBEN (30:19):
That's a great question.
I think the answer isprobably a little bit
different for everyone.
The number one pieceof advice I give
everyone is to take at leastone week of nothingness,
to allow yourself spaceto just let it out,
because if you go toofast, which again,
personal experience here--
If you go too fast from a badsituation into the next one,
(30:39):
I think you struggle toconnect, to feel impactful,
to feel like you'redoing meaningful work.
And so one, break.
Number two, get really specificabout relational indicators
or anything that you kind ofsaw as your breaking point,
and ask questions during theinterview process about that.
(31:02):
Now, just to be very clear,often when I read a job posting
and it gets a littletoo specific, I'm like,
I know what happened here.
It's the same thing asa dating profile, right.
You're reading itand they're like,
I won't date anyone who doesthis, this, this and this.
And you're like, Iknow what happened
in your last relationship.
We don't need to gothere, but maybe you
could ask questions like, howwould you handle this scenario?
(31:27):
to the manager.
There, you get toask a questions too,
and we need to take moreownership of that opportunity
to engage using questionslike, on a scale of 1 to 10,
how confident are you in this?
And it's just startingto get those indicators
from the manager that help you.
(31:47):
But again, you need the timeoff so it doesn't come across
as emotionallycharged questions.
JILL FINLAYSON (31:53):
And a lot of people, of course,
are changing jobs because theywant to advance in their career.
So nothing wrong withtheir current job.
They just want togrow as a human being
or grow into areas they'remore excited about.
How do you readbetween the lines
to find the job that'sthe right fit for you?
KAT KIBBEN (32:11):
Trying to narrow down the everyday activities.
I think theunfortunate truth here
is that the job descriptionis often not the best
source of information,and it's often
our only source of information.
And that's when some ofthe backchannel work helps.
So maybe the job postinghelps get you interested,
(32:31):
and then yourfollow-up task would
be kind of going to the LinkedInprofiles of the current person
holding that role, or startingto investigate that team
and getting just a littlebit more information.
It's so unfortunate,truly, that people don't
know how to do these postings.
And it's even moreunfortunate to me
that we're starting to lean intoAI to do this, because to me,
(32:53):
having AI write your job postingis probably one of the biggest
mistakes a company can make.
And it's one of the easiestways to use AI right now,
but ultimately, Ithink it actually
stands in the way of yourability to create enablement.
JILL FINLAYSON (33:08):
So what happens when you use AI?
You say, here's the jobdescription, make it better,
or write a job description todo X. What do you get from AI?
KAT KIBBEN (33:18):
The most generic version of that role,
and it is often notyour job at all, right.
Whenever I interviewhiring managers,
the first thing I tell them isthe difference between my job
postings and whatever amachine could spit out
is, I'm going to tell the truth.
And you are the source oftruth, the hiring manager.
And so I'm not going to use AIto generate my first version,
(33:41):
because then I have toremove all the lies,
and that's very hard to do toremove all the exaggeration,
to remove all the mandatoryrequirements that aren't
applicable, to spill out allthe parts that aren't real,
especially for arecruiter who doesn't
do the job every single day.
It would be in amuch better position
to talk to the hiring managerand pull quotes straight out
(34:02):
of that conversation,ask really good questions
and create the postingfrom their perspective,
and edit down a transcript oruse that transcript as part
of the generative conversation,versus this generic world,
because that's what createsthe sea of sameness.
I mean, it bothersme that I talk
to companies everysingle day who tell me
they want to standout, and then they
(34:23):
do the exact same thingeveryone else is doing.
JILL FINLAYSON (34:26):
What is the sea of sameness?
KAT KIBBEN (34:28):
It's this interesting problem that's
coming up in that if everycompany asks the AI to write
a director of marketing role,and they copy and paste it
into the posting,how do you stand out
from the person next to you?
Why would they choose youover their other role?
We all talk about top talent,the most competitive talent
landscape, and allthese other buzzwords.
(34:50):
How do you expectto be competitive
if you're not even different,at least surface level?
JILL FINLAYSON (34:55):
So people are using AI to apply.
They're using AI towrite their cover letter.
They're using AI to matchtheir resume to the job skills
requirements.
What impact is that havingon their job chances,
and what impact is thathaving on the recruiter?
KAT KIBBEN (35:12):
I think this is a conversation that
we're just starting to have inthe world of HR and recruiting,
is OK, so now I have AI thatcan take the assessment for you,
AI that can writewhatever writing
sample you want in addition tothose resumes and cover letters.
And I think HR is scared,because for the first time,
(35:32):
this kind of Boolean,keyword-focused selection
process doesn't workanymore, because you
can plug in all the keywords.
You know, I can say,write me a resume
based on this job posting.
It'll grab everykeyword you want,
and we can't keywordmatch anymore,
so we have tocontextualize and match.
And that's what recruitersaren't good at right now.
(35:53):
They're very good at matching 1to 1, but not contextualization.
And it's a unique scenario.
And I would tellany job seeker who's
thinking aboutusing AI for this,
it's like, maybe that'sa starting place,
but it most surely is notyour finished version.
JILL FINLAYSON: It's interesting. (36:07):
undefined
There was an application ona State Department program
that was trying to find outhow would you help women
and girls in your country.
And the applicants were from allaround the world, and so English
not being their firstlanguage, they of course
would leverage ChatGPT.
And basically, every answerhad the word "mosaic" in it.
(36:29):
And they knew as soon asthey saw the word "mosaic"
that in fact, theapplicant had used AI,
and it kind of disqualifiedthem, because again,
it was generic.
It wasn't specific.
And so how do we ask betterquestions in the interview
or on the jobdescription itself?
KAT KIBBEN (36:46):
That's exactly the thing
people are trying tofigure out, because I ran
into one of the same scenarios.
So it was a health carecompany that provides
trans-specific health care.
The first questionthey ask everyone
is, why do you want to workwith the trans community?
And a friend ofmine, she said they
got 75 applications in about24 hours, and over half
(37:09):
had the exact same submission.
JILL FINLAYSON (37:12):
Wow.
So they didn't evencustomize it at that point.
KAT KIBBEN (37:15):
Not even.
They did not changeone word about it.
And so my advice is, again,I think it's a good place
to get infrastructure.
But you have tounderstand, everyone's
going to say theexact same thing.
And you also have tovalidate, because ChatGPT
is a reflection of biasthat exists in the country.
(37:36):
So there's a lot ofperspectives that
will come out of ChatGPT thatmay not be your own, even, even
about your own career.
And while it mightsound good, it
is not good becauseit's not going
to get you the result youwant, which is the job.
JILL FINLAYSON (37:51):
So what are we looking at?
Is the resume a thing ofthe past, an artifact?
Is the cover letterever looked at?
What do we need to bedoing to get a job?
KAT KIBBEN (38:03):
For me--
I'm so sorry totell people this--
I've never read acover letter unless it
was a writing role, becauseto me, that's not a benchmark.
If you do not spend at least 30%of your time writing reports,
writing documents,et cetera, I don't
want to see your cover letter.
I don't care howyou write, right?
(38:23):
We're going to have emailconversations back and forth,
and that's probably the levelof communication you need.
Many moons ago, Iworked at a company that
wanted to abolish the resume.
It was a competitorto LinkedIn, and we
had these online profiles.
The reality is thatthe resume still
exists because our technologystill relies on its ability
to use it.
(38:44):
The technology that prettymuch every HR department,
every recruitingdepartment in the world
uses still, that's the onlything they know how to use.
And so to me, if I'musing the resume,
it's like you need totake the generic version
and then add yourresults, add your numbers,
make it really specific toyou and the work you've done,
(39:05):
and the impact you've made.
And it kind of goes back, right,impact to everyday activities,
mandatory requirements.
In the job posting, I need tobe able to glance at your resume
and understand theimpact you made,
the things you did every day,and the mandatory requirements
that you meet.
JILL FINLAYSON (39:19):
So how do you write about your impact
better so that people likeyou who are doing the hiring
or looking at theseresumes for two seconds
will see somethingthat catches their eye?
KAT KIBBEN (39:30):
Voice to text.
So you need to add tone.
And a lot of times, that'swhat's missing from the resume,
and makes it looklike everyone else's,
even if you didn't useChatGPT to generate it.
And so what I tell peopleis, if you're struggling
to say something or you'refeeling that writer's block,
where you're like, this doesn'tsound professional enough,
I need to remind you there'sa person on the other side.
(39:52):
And the person wants tofeel like they know you.
And so the easiest way to addpersonality, to add your tone,
is to literally pick upyour phone and say it.
I worked at a companywhere I did this.
I helped this team do this.
And then take that into ChatGPTand say, make this shorter,
make this more specific.
Say this in 10 wordsinstead of 100.
(40:15):
That's a really gooduse for AI, but having
it write your firstdraft, in my opinion,
is rarely a really good use.
JILL FINLAYSON (40:22):
Like you said, giving it
more specificinformation to start with
is a better grounding thanjust giving it your resume.
So LinkedIn has made astatement that they're
helping recruiters by matchingpeople, not by the resume,
but by their skills.
What do you think about thisskills-focused matching?
KAT KIBBEN (40:41):
I don't know if skills-based hiring is
the equitable answer for what'snext, because ultimately,
what we're saying is,however you generated
this keyword is theonly definition of what
that word means, and there isno universal language of work.
The example I always like to useis "collaborative team player,"
because it's one of the mostcommon phrases that's used
(41:03):
in job postings.
Right now, I have a littlesearch tool where I searched it
this morning, 19,000 uses ofthe word "collaborative team
player," OK.
A collaborativeteam player to you
and collaborativeteam player to me
means somethingcompletely different.
So on my team, we worktotally autonomously.
You work whatever time youwork, whenever you want.
(41:23):
We just have deadlines.
So that's what a collaborativeteam player means to me,
is do your stuff on time.
In most places, it doesn'tlook like that at all.
It means showingup to the meeting.
And because we don't have thatuniversal definition of work,
I don't think wecan make this match.
And ultimately, Ithink it creates
more inequities, not fewer.
JILL FINLAYSON: Also, to your point (41:42):
undefined
is, what data is it trained on?
I've heard that peoplewho are veterans,
who have been in the militaryand use military terminology
to discuss the projectmanagement that they've done,
or the logisticsthat they've managed,
but it doesn't geteven seen by the AI,
because they use words thataren't the business terminology.
KAT KIBBEN (42:02):
Exactly.
There just is no universallanguage of work.
There never hasbeen, there never
will be, because we allcome from different places.
And to me, the more valuablething is experiences.
The experiences you have hadare another set of education,
and it's something universalthat people can understand.
(42:22):
So I can say "collaborativeteam player,"
And that means one thingto you and one thing to me.
But if I say, you've worked ona team of five or more where you
led team meetings, whereyou guided daily hustles
and provided one-on-one feedbackwith every person on that team--
that is easy for you to say,yeah, I did that, or no,
I didn't.
When I say "five yearscollaborative team player,"
(42:43):
you're like, sure.
JILL FINLAYSON (42:45):
So we know where you
stand on years of experience.
Where do you stand on requiringa bachelor's or a master's,
or an MBA versus amaster's of sociology?
What do you think aboutthese education credentials?
Are they a good qualification?
KAT KIBBEN (43:00):
No, I'm so sorry.
I know I'm on aneducation podcast.
I probably shouldn't be talking.
But listen, this ifyou did not learn
how to do your job at school,it is not a good requirement.
So like my doctor, mylawyer, my accountant,
please have adegree, all of you,
because you learned howto do your job at school.
My marketers, mycommunications leaders,
(43:24):
I can give you alaundry list of people.
It doesn't align 1to 1 to the role.
I mean, I went tocollege and I learned how
to do billboards and radio ads.
And let me tell you how manytimes I've written either
of those, because rightafter I left, it was .com,
and we just wentright into digital.
So that degree, yes, I have it.
But does it help me do thatmarketing job more effectively?
(43:47):
I don't know about that.
And what's more disturbing tome is both the historical data
and also the current data.
So when you lookback on job postings,
you don't reallysee requirements
for bachelor's degrees untilabout the '60s, specifically
centered in the Southeast.
I think it's prettyeasy to hypothesize
that we were using themas artificial barriers
to keep people out, becausethey knew this community did not
(44:09):
have broad access to education.
Fast forward to today.
If you look at the statisticsaround who does not
hold a college degree,you can very quickly
hypothesize that we arestill holding that line, even
though it does notultimately deliver either
a more inclusive workplace,if that's your goal, or a more
qualified one.
JILL FINLAYSON (44:30):
So let's go to some final words of advice here.
So let's take thedifferent audiences.
I'm looking for a job.
What do I do when I lookat that job description?
KAT KIBBEN (44:40):
So I want you to pull the information down.
I want you to putit into ChatGPT.
And here's whatI want you to do.
I want you to ask ChatGPT aseries of questions, questions
like, what interviewquestions would someone
ask based on this job posting?
She asks, what does thisperson do every day?
What is the impact of the work?
Going back, what are themandatory requirements?
(45:02):
Let ChatGPT tell you if thatinformation is available
and synthesize it for you.
Then take that informationas your preparation
for the interview and alsoto prepare your resume based
on that more simplified version.
The other thing Iwould tell you is,
plug it into a wordcloud generator.
(45:22):
What I like aboutthat is it just
does a quick count,because often,
if something is really importantto the person on the other side,
they will overemphasize it, andthey'll use the key word over
and over again.
And so even with ChatGPT, if yousay the same word over and over
again, it'll pop upinto your outcomes.
So I would start there.
(45:43):
Oh, and get reallygood at using LinkedIn.
JILL FINLAYSON (45:45):
And what does it take
to get really good at LinkedIn?
What are we trying to learn?
KAT KIBBEN (45:50):
I think you're trying
to learn how tosearch on the back end
and find people on LinkedIn,how to start conversations,
and honestly, how toengage an audience.
I think everyone should know howto do that, not just marketers
or people who workin social media,
because what ends up happeningis when you're looking
(46:11):
for your next job, yougo back to LinkedIn,
and you're looking for yournext job, and you go back,
and you're looking, right.
And you need a community there,because at a certain point
in your career, I feel that youshould have the network that you
can ask your network insteadof asking a job board.
And in order to buildthat, it means building
a lot of connections over time.
So anyone you meet, you shouldsend a LinkedIn connection.
(46:34):
It was great to meet you.
I want to learn from you.
JILL FINLAYSON (46:36):
All right, let's look
at the other side of the table.
I'm the job description writer.
So is that the HR person?
Is that the hiring manager?
And what can I think aboutwhen I'm putting together
a job description?
KAT KIBBEN (46:51):
So every company has a different process,
which makes it equallycomplicated and inconsistent.
So if you are writinga job posting,
I would say thevery first thing is
to brainstorm the everydayactivities of this person.
Just sit there andwrite out what do they
do every single day.
From there, you could takethose everyday activities
(47:12):
and maybe you plug it intothat free job title generator,
and you see whatjob titles pop up.
You plug in theeveryday activities
and ask ChatGPT, what would bethe mandatory requirements based
on this.
But always start byreally defining the role,
I think is a good place.
And I'm a littlebiased, but maybe
learn how to write a job post.
And that's my specialty.
(47:32):
And I have a free e-book youcan do to take some of that,
but make yourself reallyaware of the techniques that
don't work, becausewhat you know
is probably part of that basketof things that just don't work.
We've just alwaysdone it that way.
JILL FINLAYSON (47:46):
And what is your hope
for the future of work, thefuture of resumes and job
applicant hiring matchups?
KAT KIBBEN (47:54):
I truly hope we destroy the resume.
I think the resume is standingbetween people and their ability
to do work.
And so what I want to see is alot of growth in the assessment
space, a lot of growthin the information space,
because to me, it would createa baseline of knowledge.
(48:15):
We would actually be able tobuild a lot on top of that.
And so when youwent into a role,
it would already knowwhat your next four roles
are, because weassessed you correctly
and we know what your skillsare, and the skills of the roles
within our organization.
And truly, I just wantto remove the barriers,
allow people access,get them there,
because I thinkthat's ultimately
(48:36):
standing betweenour views and dreams
of inclusive and equitablehiring places, is the resume,
because it holds hundredsof years of bias.
JILL FINLAYSON: And do you think AI (48:46):
undefined
is going to play a rolein filling this new gap?
KAT KIBBEN (48:50):
I think it will.
I am concerned about ourability to mitigate bias
in that process, and so I'llbe watching that for sure.
JILL FINLAYSON (48:58):
Well, Thank you so much for joining us, Kat.
I've really enjoyedour conversation.
KAT KIBBEN (49:02):
Thank you for having me, Jill.
JILL FINLAYSON (49:04):
And with that, I hope
you have enjoyed this latestin a long series of podcasts
that we'll be sendingyour way every month.
Please share with friendsand colleagues who
may be interested in taking thisFuture of Work journey with us,
and make sure to check outextension.berkeley.edu to find
a variety of coursesto help you thrive
in this new working landscape.
And to see what's comingup at EDGE in Tech,
(49:25):
go ahead and visitedge.berkeley.edu.
Thanks so much forlistening, and we'll
be back next month with anotherlook at the future of work.
The Future of Work podcastis hosted by Jill Finlayson,
produced by Sarah Benzuly,and edited by Matt DiPietro
and Natalie Newman.
[INTRO MUSIC]
(00:03):
KAT KIBBEN (00:06):
I understand the value
of that moment in which you kindof say everything you need to
and hope for something better.
And that's what people dowhen they open up the internet
and type in a job title.
They type in thesewords, and they're
praying that they canjust have something better
in their life, something thatcould truly change their life.
And they shouldn't be metwith buzzwords and cliches.
(00:28):
JILL FINLAYSON: Welcome to the Future (00:31):
undefined
of Work Podcast with BerkeleyExtension and the EDGE in Tech
initiative at theUniversity of California,
focused on expanding diversityand gender equity in tech.
EDGE in Tech is partof CITRIS, the Center
for IT Research in theInterest of Society,
and the Banatao Institute.
UC Berkeley Extension isthe continuing education arm
of the University ofCalifornia at Berkeley.
(00:54):
In this episode, we'retaking a very real look
at how AI is changingthe hiring landscape.
Applicants are usingChatGPT to write
job-opening specificresumes, which
is in turn makingapplicants meld together
in what this episode's guestcalls a sea of sameness.
On the other sideof the application,
managers are turning to ChatGPTto help write job descriptions.
(01:18):
This is creating jobdescription templates
that are not specific tothe actual job position.
So how do you cutthrough the AI red tape
when it comes to jobdescriptions and applying?
To discuss thisimportant topic, we're
delighted to speakwith Kat Kibben.
Kat is an award-winning writerand renowned keynote speaker
known for helping hiring teamswrite inclusive, unbiased job
(01:40):
postings that help them hirethe right person faster.
Before foundingThree Ears Media,
Kat was a CMO, technicalcopywriter and managing editor
for leading companies suchas monster.com, care.com,
and Randstad Worldwide.
Today, they are frequentlyfeatured as an HR and recruiting
expert in publications likeThe New York Times, Chicago
(02:01):
Tribune, and Forbes.
Kat travels thecountry in their RV
while dividing their timebetween North Carolina,
Colorado, and the dogs behindthe name, Three Ears Media.
Welcome, Kat.
KAT KIBBEN (02:12):
Thank you so much for having me, Jill.
I really appreciate it.
JILL FINLAYSON (02:16):
A great place to start
is to really talkabout job descriptions.
What do we know aboutjob descriptions,
and how have people beenwriting them over the years?
KAT KIBBEN (02:25):
Yeah, you know what's
interesting is, whenyou say, what do people
know about job descriptions?the answer is very little.
When I've spoken around theworld and I've asked a room,
whether there are 20 peopleor 2,000 people in that room,
to raise their hand if they wereever taught how to write a job
description, I have never seenmore than three hands go up,
(02:46):
never.
And I always joke, youknow, did you learn from me?
Because prior to this research,prior to really digging
into job descriptions,there were no experts yet.
Everyone in the worldwas using these postings
to interview and hire.
And my research has goneback 100 years to look at job
descriptions from the1920s until the 2020s.
(03:07):
And it fascinates me everytime I see these really obvious
parallels between 100-year-oldpostings and the exact same
postings we're sharing today.
JILL FINLAYSON (03:17):
So what is a job listing supposed to have in it?
KAT KIBBEN (03:22):
A great job posting gives you
three pieces ofinformation, and these
are psychologicaltriggers for people.
This is based on people, not HRbest practices or recruiting.
Those three things, thenumber one thing is impact.
What do I do?
Why am I there?
Because we don'thire people for fun.
We hire them because theyhave a business objective.
(03:43):
So what is that impact?
The second thing iseveryday activities,
actually giving them an idea ofwhat a day in the life means,
because a marketing managerat one company and a marketing
manager at another company couldmean entirely different work
from day to day.
And the final thing, and thisis where people get the most
misguided information, isaround mandatory requirements.
(04:08):
Let me remind everyonewho's listening
what mandatory means,because most people are not
very clear on that.
Mandatory means that withoutthe help of God, Google
and a really good mentor,you could not figure this out
without having done it atsome point somewhere else.
And it is directly aligned toan everyday task that you do.
(04:29):
It supports anddevelops your ability
to be able to dothose everyday tasks.
You know, and as I was sayingthat, there's a fourth thing.
It's salary, becauseno one picks a job
without knowing how muchmoney they're going to make.
But the reality is thatthe legal landscape
right now in the USis that, I believe
in the next five years, thatwill be nationally mandated.
JILL FINLAYSON (04:49):
Let's break these down,
because I think each one ofthese, there's more to unpack.
So the first one is, and Ireally like this, the business
objective.
What are you trying to doand what are you in aid of?
What do people do rightin the job description
about describing thebusiness objective,
and what do they do wrong?
KAT KIBBEN: Unfortunately, the thing (05:07):
undefined
they do wrong is theydon't talk about it at all.
This is about people who wantto have an impact on this world.
And what we're seeingin the research
is that impact is becoming oneof the most persuasive reasons
why someone wouldchoose you or your job.
And again, it'snot, you're going
(05:27):
to change the landscape of AI.
It is, you're going tocreate a database that
helps us createalgorithms that will
decide how people are hired.
It's, you're going to createmarketing materials that
allow us to help morepeople in this world.
And it's bringing togetherboth the action piece,
(05:47):
what is the primarydeliverable, but also,
how does that influenceyour business's ability
to be successful?
JILL FINLAYSON (05:55):
And why do you think
this is so motivating topeople to get this bigger
context rather than justwhat the job itself is doing?
KAT KIBBEN (06:02):
Because so many people
have toiled away in theworkplace for years and years
and years, andfelt like they had
no influence on that business.
And often, feelinglike you have no impact
is one of the reasonswhy you leave.
And I also believe thatthere's a shift in society
in which we want to haveinfluence on other people.
(06:23):
We want to impact andmake things better,
and there's a genuinehuman instinct.
It's probably in the hierarchyof needs somehow, right?
Very closely associatedwith that hierarchy,
because peopleneed to feel impact
to feel like they're valued.
And when people feel they'revalued, they don't leave.
JILL FINLAYSON (06:42):
What about the everyday activities?
How specific are we being here?
KAT KIBBEN (06:46):
Very.
The way that I tellpeople is, I want it
in the language you would use todescribe the work to your best
friend's child.
So you go to a restaurantand your best friend
brings their kid, because thekid's interested in something
that you do, and theyask you, what's it like?
What will I do?
The words that youwould use next,
(07:06):
that is the perfect language fordescribing everyday activities.
But it's not a laundry list.
I want the threethings that you're
going to do a lot because mostpeople's attention spans are
very, very short,and the research
shows that they are gettingshorter and shorter.
So we want to give them enoughinformation to close their eyes
(07:26):
and imagine thework, but also to be
able to see, again,how that aligns
with those requirementsand the impact,
and see the full circleof it, because that's
another reason whypeople leave work,
is because they want todo something a little bit
different.
JILL FINLAYSON (07:41):
So let's talk about the mandatory activities.
One of the stats is that womenlook at mandatory activities
and think, that is required.
Therefore, I will notapply if I do not have
these mandatory requirements.
Whereas men or some other peoplemight look at those and say,
I should apply regardless.
And so people have a differentdefinition of "mandatory,"
(08:01):
and they have a differentdefinition of how the game is
played.
What do you think mandatoryactually is, and how is it used?
KAT KIBBEN (08:08):
I think right now it is the center, the hub of bias
inside of job postings, becauseoften, it is greatly exaggerated
and not necessarilyaligned with the role.
It's also a place where a lotof that buzzword bingo happens.
And what's so fascinatingabout that to me
is it's very unconscious biasthat is centered in this.
(08:31):
And that was the motivationbehind my research,
because I knew therewas bias in there.
But people don't say we'rebiased towards someone
with this.
They just reemphasizeit three different ways,
or they say it in a certain way.
And all of the data like youjust mentioned in that study,
where they putmen and women side
by side to read job postings,has been replicated many times.
(08:55):
But what they've layeredon top of that now,
and I just read thisreport, is where
they started to put menand women side by side
and asked them, whydidn't you apply?
What I find most fascinatingabout that in particular
is that the metricson gender are
different on every single one.
So if you ask men andwomen, why didn't you
(09:16):
apply, they give them, youknow, those parameters of why
they didn't apply,the numbers are way
skewed one way or another.
There's no smallmargin of difference.
It is excessive.
This is also wherestructural bias comes in.
What I mean by structural biasis when a job posting goes
from 7 bullets to17 bullets, you
(09:36):
will get more male applicants.
It can literallybe your technique,
and mandatoryrequirements is where
both techniqueand infrastructure
bias of our history and ourknowledge of job postings
starts to show itsugly face, so to speak.
JILL FINLAYSON (09:53):
So the last thing you said was salary.
There's been a big movementtowards salary transparency.
What are you seeingas percentages?
Do you have data about whatwe're seeing in resumes?
KAT KIBBEN (10:04):
Right now, as far as salaries,
unfortunately, it's onlymandated in a few states,
and there's not been given alot of guidance around salaries.
And so you go to someplaces, and they're
giving very realistic ranges.
And they also provide contextof what the range means.
So the best-in-classexample is a range.
(10:26):
I don't care how wide therange is, but right below it,
you explain that there isa location differential.
And if you're seatedin San Francisco,
you'll make more money than ifyou're seated in rural Texas.
And they explain that theseare the requirements that
are aligned with thetop of our pay range,
because ultimately, givinga range without context
(10:46):
means we'll pay our bestnegotiators, not our best
talent.
The other reallynegative outcome
I'm seeing from thisshift without education
is that we're gettinga 0 to a number range.
And for any employers whoare listening to this right
now, no, no, no, no.
Please, no zero.
You're not goingto pay anyone zero.
(11:07):
It is a sign of how littleyou have knowledge into money,
into how pay works and payequity in your organization,
if you're posting zero.
JILL FINLAYSON (11:17):
So how did we get here?
Has there been a shiftin a change over time,
or are people just takingthe old job descriptions
and adding to it?
KAT KIBBEN (11:25):
No, that's the scariest part to me, right?
There's been no fundamentalchange since, honestly--
I'd say in the '20s, the bigfundamental change is that you
didn't necessarilyneed a resume,
because you'd justwalk in there,
and it was part of community.
And everybody was justhiring their brother's friend
or their uncles,whatever, and there
(11:46):
was that more familial element.
I know that still exists today,but at a far lower percentage
because of theintroduction of the resume.
I worked at monster.com,right, the first major job
board in this space.
We moved the jobpostings online.
Honestly, Jill, if youlook back on the history,
(12:06):
that has been the biggestfundamental change.
Nothing else aboutthis relationship
has fundamentally changed.
JILL FINLAYSON (12:12):
Well, let's talk about that shift to online.
Did the job descriptions changewhen they were copied and pasted
online?
KAT KIBBEN (12:19):
Big time.
So what we saw isduring the newspapers,
you had a word count,and you had 50 words
or you were going to payanother, fill in the blank,
right, $50 to $100.
And so now they moveddigitally, and all of a sudden,
we went from 50-word jobpostings to 5,000-word job
postings.
(12:39):
But I don't think that weactually made it better
for anyone.
I don't think that those 4,950words came with more context.
They came with more bias.
JILL FINLAYSON (12:50):
Along with those words,
sometimes people are makingan effort to be inclusive,
and they'll saysomething at the bottom
like, please apply evenif you don't think you
meet all the requirements.
What do you think about that?
KAT KIBBEN (13:02):
I hate it.
I hate it so much.
I was working on some researchabout this just last night,
and the reason that I hate it isbecause of what actually happens
after you apply.
And this is thattransparency that I
think most job seekersdon't have, which is OK,
you're sitting inthe big bucket--
now what?
Most recruiters willnot give your resume
more than two seconds ifyou are not qualified,
(13:24):
and then you gointo the black hole.
And the beginningof most searches
does not start with thedatabase, which is silly to me.
Recruiters don't start theirhunt for the best candidate
by looking at their currentdatabase, especially
in-house recruiters.
The first thing they do islook at all of the people
that applied.
And so maybe in ahigh-volume role
(13:46):
where I hire 500 factoryworkers every year,
absolutely, go ahead and apply.
Director of marketing?
Absolutely not.
A niche role, a "there'sonly five of these
in the organization" type role,you should not apply anyway,
and it does not makeit more inclusive.
It makes the poollarger, and I feel
(14:08):
it removes therecruiters' ability
to have a connectionwith the job seekers
who apply in the first place,or any kind of human touch point
that makes someone feel valued.
JILL FINLAYSON (14:16):
Let's go back and maybe
do a day in thelife of a recruiter,
because I don't thinkpeople necessarily have sat
on the other side of the table.
So you put a job posting up.
What happens?
KAT KIBBEN (14:26):
So we'll put a job posting up,
and based on if you'rea government contractor
or if you're a privatebusiness, the length of time
that it's open can vary.
If you are agovernment contractor,
it has to be open for aminimum of three days.
So let's go with thatscenario, because it's
like the tightest timeline.
(14:46):
Let's say I openit for three days.
Right now, recruiters aregetting 400 to 700 applicants
on a role.
And that is a consequence of AI.
So job boards exist becauseemployers weren't getting
enough applicants,and so the job boards
created this auto-apply,where you could say,
(15:07):
I want to apply toall these businesses,
and it just shoots outyour resume to all of them.
But now we've createdthat pile of resumes.
So the recruiter, basedon role priority--
So maybe it's notthe three-day role.
They usually have--the most I've ever
seen someone have is about25 roles on their desk.
That's a little toomany, and they are all
(15:28):
at different stages.
So a lot of multitasking,a lot of managing
a lot of different pieces.
And so let's say they'reworking on that one role today.
They're going to takethat pile of resumes
and do this quick scan.
And this is whereall of those rumors
about the five-secondglance at your resume begin.
Recruiters who areusing technology
(15:50):
allow technology to do someof the five-second glancing.
But I got to tell you,the majority of businesses
don't even knowthat could happen.
And they're scared becausethey're watching the legislation
coming right now as far as,they're really trying to create
guidelines around selection.
They don't want AImaking the choice.
JILL FINLAYSON: So we were saying (16:08):
undefined
that the technology's scanningand it's reducing this pile,
but we still havethis recruiter who
has 25 roles in progressthat's been narrowed down
to some smaller poolof applications.
What does theirday look like now?
KAT KIBBEN (16:23):
Now they're making phone screens.
So they're calling you to do a10 to 15-minute conversation,
or they're schedulingit via email.
And we're doing aquick call to confirm
that the information on yourresume is actually the truth.
And I want to hearfrom your voice,
like the confidence,your ability
to actually convey whatyou've done in your own words
(16:44):
and not just to readyour resume to me.
Then I have to take this pile.
For me personally, I nevergo more than 30 to 50.
So we've just done acut from 300 to 30.
So now I have about 30people on phone screening.
I'm going to take thatdown to a slate that's
anywhere between 5 and 10,depending on the manager.
(17:05):
I'm going to take thatpile to the manager,
and the manager is goingto select three to five
to do the nextround of interviews.
And then we just cut and cutuntil we're getting to the place
where we have the personand we're making an offer.
And that processcan take, depending
on the manager andyour response times,
and a lot of bureaucracy thathappens behind the recruiter
(17:27):
that the recruiterhas no control over,
it can take anywhere between twoweeks and three to five months.
JILL FINLAYSON: On the flip side, (17:35):
undefined
what is the applicant seeingor hearing, if anything?
KAT KIBBEN (17:41):
That's the problem.
They're seeing andhearing very little.
I have aspirations.
I want to seeinterview dashboards
where job seekers could login and be able to actually see
what the status is.
Like, we have all that data.
We have all that information,and I don't actually
think that a recruiter iscapable of making those level
(18:02):
of micro-communications.
Communications.
But the ATS isn'tset up correctly
to be able to createtrigger messaging.
The messaging hasn'tbeen customized.
And so nine times outof 10, the only thing
the job seeker isgetting is the no.
JILL FINLAYSON (18:17):
So for folks who aren't familiar with ATS,
what is that?
KAT KIBBEN (18:21):
It's an Applicant Tracking System,
and it is a glorifiedspreadsheet.
And to any ATS creators who arelistening to this, I'm sorry.
Like, I know you havegreater intentions.
But ultimately, what used tobe, like in the '90s, people had
Excel sheets.
And all the applicationswould go into the sheet.
We would plug in allof the information.
We would write yes,no next to each person
(18:41):
and use that asthe pile of people.
Now we have the digital version,where you can scan resumes
by clicking throughthese prompts
where it'll pop up the nextresume, pop up the next resume,
next yes, no.
You can enter someof that information,
and then based onyour information,
you can set up triggersthat will communicate
what's happening next.
(19:02):
Again, most peoplehaven't done that.
And then it's kind of settingup the messaging system as well.
So they have this CRM,the relationship manager
that partners with the ATSthat will send messaging.
Some have their own, butbroadly, that's how it works.
JILL FINLAYSON (19:19):
When somebody's saying
yes or no, do theyhave to indicate
why they're saying yes or no?
KAT KIBBEN (19:25):
Only with the best ATS's.
I believe thatgreenhouse has an ATS,
and I think what they've donethat's really interesting is
creating a model where you canplug in a lot of other tools
as well.
But I believe inthat system, you
do have to indicateone way or another.
Again, if you're agovernment contractor,
there's kind of aseparate set, and you
have to indicate which ofthe mandatory requirements
(19:47):
they did not meet.
JILL FINLAYSON (19:48):
So this is the question that I would have,
is you point out inthe best-case scenario,
we do have information, butthat information is not being
shared with the applicant.
Is there a legal or policyreason why they're not sharing?
KAT KIBBEN (20:02):
Number one, they're not
sharing the reasonyou were disqualified
because they're scared.
Is there an actualpolicy that prevents them
from having that communication?
No.
Is there one specificthing that would get-- no.
But I think there isthis broad perspective
that if they givetoo much information,
(20:24):
it will create aliability issue.
And recruitersaren't often trusted
to have a conversationlike that with a candidate.
And so often, when acandidate asks for feedback,
a recruiter is instructednot to give it.
And it just adds to this reallybroken relationship where hiring
feels hopeless for candidates.
JILL FINLAYSON (20:44):
It really is frustrating,
because in an idealworld, if you're not
a fit for that job, that's fair.
But could youpoint me to a place
that I might bea better fit for?
Or could you let me know whereI have room for improvement?
That sort of thing would bevery helpful to your point
about the fear factorand the liability factor.
Do you see any way around that?
KAT KIBBEN (21:06):
If they actually wrote
requirements that were real.
So let me give an example,years of experience.
Well, we want 10years of experience,
but you only have eight.
That is an absolutelyuseless metric
to measure peopleon, because we all
know that even if youand your best friend
had the exact samejob, you would not
do the exact same work everysingle day, especially if you're
(21:28):
at different companies.
And years of experience,it'll quantify time,
but it does not qualifypeople on their ability
to complete theprojects, because again,
how long you didsomething is very
rarely an important measurementpoint as far as your ability
to do the thing.
There's only been onescenario in which I thought
(21:50):
that years of experiencemade a lot of sense,
and it was a scenario where Iwas working with an insurance
company who was hiringmedical doctors to review
patient profiles when theywere going on disability.
And here's the twist.
They never talk tothe patient, not once.
And they needed to have a wealthof visits with a lot of people
(22:13):
who had very similartypes of injuries
so that they could actually say,this is what I see happening,
this was the appropriatetreatment plan,
and this is the amount oftime they should take off,
for example, becauseagain, they're
never talking to the person.
And you have to have theexperience of saying,
like in my experience over10 years of seeing hundreds
of patients, and you neededthat repetition in order
(22:35):
to make that judgment call.
JILL FINLAYSON (22:37):
I've seen in cybersecurity
where they havethat requirement,
and yet the technologyused in cybersecurity
is changing every year.
And one of the speakerswe had at an event
said, I don't use anythingthat I used in college.
I don't use anythingmore than two years old.
And so the question becomes,then, why the requirement?
KAT KIBBEN (22:56):
Exactly.
And often, it's becauseof government contracts,
and because years of experienceis a really easy way to say,
well, you didn't havethis many, this number.
JILL FINLAYSON (23:08):
Well, the other thing the years of experience
has been doing is reallyhampering new graduates' access
to jobs.
A lot of entry level jobs say,"three years of experience
required," and I'm like, thenthat's not an entry level job,
is it?
KAT KIBBEN (23:24):
I tell employers, if it is an entry level
job, meaning I will teach youeverything you need to know,
that's what I want you to write.
No experience required.
We will teach youeverything you need to know.
And in that scenario, I'mgoing to spend a lot more time
on the everydayactivities, because it
is implied that ifthis is a new job
and it is an entry level job,you are not familiar with what
(23:47):
you'll be doing every day.
And ultimately, that would bethe most persuasive factor,
is that impact, and theeveryday activities,
on how do you wantto spend your life.
Because really, that'swhat we're asking people
when you post ajob, is do you want
to spend a chunk ofyour life hanging out
with us doing this thing?
JILL FINLAYSON (24:03):
So what's your advice to new graduates?
KAT KIBBEN (24:07):
I think the first is to actually try
to understand what youlove, to think about,
where you feel that you thrive.
So for me, it wasalways writing.
Writing came reallyeasy to me, and when
I went out andlooked for my career,
I looked for roles whereI had the opportunity
to embed writing, or for thatto be my primary deliverable.
(24:27):
I also think we need to thinkoutside of the box a little bit.
And recently, I actually createda free job title generator,
which I'll make sure you havethe link for the show notes.
And basically, what it does isyou can enter all the things
you love to do, hit, Enterand have it generate the job
titles back to you,because the biggest
mistake I see collegegraduates making
(24:48):
is they limitthemselves too much.
And I'm probablythe perfect example.
So I remember saying tomy advisor in college,
I want to work at an ad agency.
That was the coolmarketing job, right.
I'm a writer.
I want to go to an ad agency.
So I only searched"marketing associate."
The second I expanded my searchand I added three to five job
(25:09):
titles to my explorationand bringing information
in, that's when I startedto be able to find roles,
because not all jobtitles are linear,
and you can reallycut yourself off
by not allowing yourself accessto imagining different titles.
JILL FINLAYSON (25:26):
Well, even if you're not a new grad,
people are changing jobsevery two to three years,
so they're not staying withinone company's structure.
So knowing whatthe career path is
and what the title is thatyou should be looking for
is really hard to find.
So I'm excited to hear aboutthis job title generator.
But how else do you find outwhat is the job that I'm doing?
(25:47):
What's the next step up?
KAT KIBBEN (25:48):
So what I typically do
is I go look forsomeone who's already
had that job at that company.
And this is the best use ofLinkedIn, especially when you're
a new grad.
You can click onthe company name,
and then they have a listof every single person that
works there on LinkedIn.
And you can click Employees andyou can search the job title,
and go find people who workin that department, who
(26:11):
are more seniorto that role, who
are more junior to that role.
Best-case scenariois the company
gives you that information.
JILL FINLAYSON (26:18):
It seems like another opportunity for AI
to step in and createsome job pathing,
because that seemsvery valuable,
to see what arethe steps and how
long did people spend onaverage at each of those steps.
KAT KIBBEN (26:31):
It's also one of the most influential factors
for someone to leave or stay,is their view of their talent
mobility, meaning theirability to leave their job
and go to anotherparallel or higher role,
because the storywe were all told,
and I'm sure you wereincluded in this,
is if you want tomake more money,
if you want to get apromotion, you got to leave.
And that costs businessesa lot of money.
(26:53):
On a micro level, if someonequits within the first 60 days
and they make about $40,000,it costs your business about
$28,000 between onboarding,backfill, recruiter time.
It is a lot of money thatadds up very, very quickly.
And ultimately, you couldbe losing roles all together
(27:16):
because of poor retention.
JILL FINLAYSON (27:18):
There was one research study that
looked at namebrand universities
versus not namebrand universities,
and the people from not namebrand universities actually
stayed at the job longer.
So to your pointabout ROI on hiring,
there was some realdata there that
said, if you want somebodywho's going to be invested
in your company,don't necessarily
(27:38):
go with the bias for thename brand university.
KAT KIBBEN (27:42):
Exactly.
And so often when peopleare reviewing resumes,
that's what they're lookingfor, the name brand business,
the name brand university.
But that is not an indicatorof someone to be successful
or someone who will stay.
I mean, even job hoppingisn't an indicator
if someone will stayor not, especially now.
Like I always tellpeople, when people quit,
they quit for a reason.
(28:02):
No one wakes up in themorning and is like,
I think I'm going toquit my super great job,
this great executive role ata huge, well-known company.
You know, I think I'm goingto quit and go look for a job.
Like if you're at that point, alot of bad things have happened,
some out of your control,some in your control.
And you're probably ina place where you're
(28:25):
willing to change everything.
And that was a bigmotivation for me
around everything thatI do, is understanding
that someone is almost ata moment of confession.
I'm not a very religious person,but I understand the value
of that moment in which you kindof say everything you need to
and hope for something better.
And that's what people dowhen they open up the internet
and type in a job title, isthat they type in these words,
(28:48):
and they're prayingthat they can just
have something better in theirlife, something that could truly
change their life.
And they shouldn't be metwith buzzwords and cliches.
JILL FINLAYSON: You often hear, you (28:56):
undefined
should have left threemonths ago if you're
looking at that point.
KAT KIBBEN (29:02):
The mental health consequences
of staying in a role that is badfor you are not well measured,
but they are well reported on.
I mean, I could find you 100different articles right now
about how people's mentalhealth has suffered
and how that has maybe createda financial liability because
of health care.
They needed to bein more therapy
because they strugglewith their family.
(29:25):
We lose so much when wepour ourselves into work,
and we persist in rolesthat are bad for us.
As someone who has definitelystayed in roles longer
than I should have, and I'm justreflecting from my perspective,
the cost was too high.
It had impacts on my family.
It had impacts on my friends.
It had impacts on my life.
(29:46):
And it also impacted my abilityto show up at my next job.
And that's one of thoselagging indicators
that we don't oftenmeasure or talk about,
is the fact that when youshow up at your next job,
you show up with a wholedifferent set of insecurities,
fears.
If you've ever been laid offand you go to your next job,
your number onefear is that you're
going to get surprisedand get laid off again.
(30:08):
How do people thriveif they're constantly
worried they're goingto lose their job?
They don't.
JILL FINLAYSON (30:12):
So how do people recover and sort
of reboot themselveswhen they're
going to apply for ajob in that situation?
KAT KIBBEN (30:19):
That's a great question.
I think the answer isprobably a little bit
different for everyone.
The number one pieceof advice I give
everyone is to take at leastone week of nothingness,
to allow yourself spaceto just let it out,
because if you go toofast, which again,
personal experience here--
If you go too fast from a badsituation into the next one,
(30:39):
I think you struggle toconnect, to feel impactful,
to feel like you'redoing meaningful work.
And so one, break.
Number two, get really specificabout relational indicators
or anything that you kind ofsaw as your breaking point,
and ask questions during theinterview process about that.
(31:02):
Now, just to be very clear,often when I read a job posting
and it gets a littletoo specific, I'm like,
I know what happened here.
It's the same thing asa dating profile, right.
You're reading itand they're like,
I won't date anyone who doesthis, this, this and this.
And you're like, Iknow what happened
in your last relationship.
We don't need to gothere, but maybe you
could ask questions like, howwould you handle this scenario?
(31:27):
to the manager.
There, you get toask a questions too,
and we need to take moreownership of that opportunity
to engage using questionslike, on a scale of 1 to 10,
how confident are you in this?
And it's just startingto get those indicators
from the manager that help you.
(31:47):
But again, you need the timeoff so it doesn't come across
as emotionallycharged questions.
JILL FINLAYSON (31:53):
And a lot of people, of course,
are changing jobs because theywant to advance in their career.
So nothing wrong withtheir current job.
They just want togrow as a human being
or grow into areas they'remore excited about.
How do you readbetween the lines
to find the job that'sthe right fit for you?
KAT KIBBEN (32:11):
Trying to narrow down the everyday activities.
I think theunfortunate truth here
is that the job descriptionis often not the best
source of information,and it's often
our only source of information.
And that's when some ofthe backchannel work helps.
So maybe the job postinghelps get you interested,
(32:31):
and then yourfollow-up task would
be kind of going to the LinkedInprofiles of the current person
holding that role, or startingto investigate that team
and getting just a littlebit more information.
It's so unfortunate,truly, that people don't
know how to do these postings.
And it's even moreunfortunate to me
that we're starting to lean intoAI to do this, because to me,
(32:53):
having AI write your job postingis probably one of the biggest
mistakes a company can make.
And it's one of the easiestways to use AI right now,
but ultimately, Ithink it actually
stands in the way of yourability to create enablement.
JILL FINLAYSON (33:08):
So what happens when you use AI?
You say, here's the jobdescription, make it better,
or write a job description todo X. What do you get from AI?
KAT KIBBEN (33:18):
The most generic version of that role,
and it is often notyour job at all, right.
Whenever I interviewhiring managers,
the first thing I tell them isthe difference between my job
postings and whatever amachine could spit out
is, I'm going to tell the truth.
And you are the source oftruth, the hiring manager.
And so I'm not going to use AIto generate my first version,
(33:41):
because then I have toremove all the lies,
and that's very hard to do toremove all the exaggeration,
to remove all the mandatoryrequirements that aren't
applicable, to spill out allthe parts that aren't real,
especially for arecruiter who doesn't
do the job every single day.
It would be in amuch better position
to talk to the hiring managerand pull quotes straight out
(34:02):
of that conversation,ask really good questions
and create the postingfrom their perspective,
and edit down a transcript oruse that transcript as part
of the generative conversation,versus this generic world,
because that's what createsthe sea of sameness.
I mean, it bothersme that I talk
to companies everysingle day who tell me
they want to standout, and then they
(34:23):
do the exact same thingeveryone else is doing.
JILL FINLAYSON (34:26):
What is the sea of sameness?
KAT KIBBEN (34:28):
It's this interesting problem that's
coming up in that if everycompany asks the AI to write
a director of marketing role,and they copy and paste it
into the posting,how do you stand out
from the person next to you?
Why would they choose youover their other role?
We all talk about top talent,the most competitive talent
landscape, and allthese other buzzwords.
(34:50):
How do you expectto be competitive
if you're not even different,at least surface level?
JILL FINLAYSON (34:55):
So people are using AI to apply.
They're using AI towrite their cover letter.
They're using AI to matchtheir resume to the job skills
requirements.
What impact is that havingon their job chances,
and what impact is thathaving on the recruiter?
KAT KIBBEN (35:12):
I think this is a conversation that
we're just starting to have inthe world of HR and recruiting,
is OK, so now I have AI thatcan take the assessment for you,
AI that can writewhatever writing
sample you want in addition tothose resumes and cover letters.
And I think HR is scared,because for the first time,
(35:32):
this kind of Boolean,keyword-focused selection
process doesn't workanymore, because you
can plug in all the keywords.
You know, I can say,write me a resume
based on this job posting.
It'll grab everykeyword you want,
and we can't keywordmatch anymore,
so we have tocontextualize and match.
And that's what recruitersaren't good at right now.
(35:53):
They're very good at matching 1to 1, but not contextualization.
And it's a unique scenario.
And I would tellany job seeker who's
thinking aboutusing AI for this,
it's like, maybe that'sa starting place,
but it most surely is notyour finished version.
JILL FINLAYSON: It's interesting. (36:07):
undefined
There was an application ona State Department program
that was trying to find outhow would you help women
and girls in your country.
And the applicants were from allaround the world, and so English
not being their firstlanguage, they of course
would leverage ChatGPT.
And basically, every answerhad the word "mosaic" in it.
(36:29):
And they knew as soon asthey saw the word "mosaic"
that in fact, theapplicant had used AI,
and it kind of disqualifiedthem, because again,
it was generic.
It wasn't specific.
And so how do we ask betterquestions in the interview
or on the jobdescription itself?
KAT KIBBEN (36:46):
That's exactly the thing
people are trying tofigure out, because I ran
into one of the same scenarios.
So it was a health carecompany that provides
trans-specific health care.
The first questionthey ask everyone
is, why do you want to workwith the trans community?
And a friend ofmine, she said they
got 75 applications in about24 hours, and over half
(37:09):
had the exact same submission.
JILL FINLAYSON (37:12):
Wow.
So they didn't evencustomize it at that point.
KAT KIBBEN (37:15):
Not even.
They did not changeone word about it.
And so my advice is, again,I think it's a good place
to get infrastructure.
But you have tounderstand, everyone's
going to say theexact same thing.
And you also have tovalidate, because ChatGPT
is a reflection of biasthat exists in the country.
(37:36):
So there's a lot ofperspectives that
will come out of ChatGPT thatmay not be your own, even, even
about your own career.
And while it mightsound good, it
is not good becauseit's not going
to get you the result youwant, which is the job.
JILL FINLAYSON (37:51):
So what are we looking at?
Is the resume a thing ofthe past, an artifact?
Is the cover letterever looked at?
What do we need to bedoing to get a job?
KAT KIBBEN (38:03):
For me--
I'm so sorry totell people this--
I've never read acover letter unless it
was a writing role, becauseto me, that's not a benchmark.
If you do not spend at least 30%of your time writing reports,
writing documents,et cetera, I don't
want to see your cover letter.
I don't care howyou write, right?
(38:23):
We're going to have emailconversations back and forth,
and that's probably the levelof communication you need.
Many moons ago, Iworked at a company that
wanted to abolish the resume.
It was a competitorto LinkedIn, and we
had these online profiles.
The reality is thatthe resume still
exists because our technologystill relies on its ability
to use it.
(38:44):
The technology that prettymuch every HR department,
every recruitingdepartment in the world
uses still, that's the onlything they know how to use.
And so to me, if I'musing the resume,
it's like you need totake the generic version
and then add yourresults, add your numbers,
make it really specific toyou and the work you've done,
(39:05):
and the impact you've made.
And it kind of goes back, right,impact to everyday activities,
mandatory requirements.
In the job posting, I need tobe able to glance at your resume
and understand theimpact you made,
the things you did every day,and the mandatory requirements
that you meet.
JILL FINLAYSON (39:19):
So how do you write about your impact
better so that people likeyou who are doing the hiring
or looking at theseresumes for two seconds
will see somethingthat catches their eye?
KAT KIBBEN (39:30):
Voice to text.
So you need to add tone.
And a lot of times, that'swhat's missing from the resume,
and makes it looklike everyone else's,
even if you didn't useChatGPT to generate it.
And so what I tell peopleis, if you're struggling
to say something or you'refeeling that writer's block,
where you're like, this doesn'tsound professional enough,
I need to remind you there'sa person on the other side.
(39:52):
And the person wants tofeel like they know you.
And so the easiest way to addpersonality, to add your tone,
is to literally pick upyour phone and say it.
I worked at a companywhere I did this.
I helped this team do this.
And then take that into ChatGPTand say, make this shorter,
make this more specific.
Say this in 10 wordsinstead of 100.
(40:15):
That's a really gooduse for AI, but having
it write your firstdraft, in my opinion,
is rarely a really good use.
JILL FINLAYSON (40:22):
Like you said, giving it
more specificinformation to start with
is a better grounding thanjust giving it your resume.
So LinkedIn has made astatement that they're
helping recruiters by matchingpeople, not by the resume,
but by their skills.
What do you think about thisskills-focused matching?
KAT KIBBEN (40:41):
I don't know if skills-based hiring is
the equitable answer for what'snext, because ultimately,
what we're saying is,however you generated
this keyword is theonly definition of what
that word means, and there isno universal language of work.
The example I always like to useis "collaborative team player,"
because it's one of the mostcommon phrases that's used
(41:03):
in job postings.
Right now, I have a littlesearch tool where I searched it
this morning, 19,000 uses ofthe word "collaborative team
player," OK.
A collaborativeteam player to you
and collaborativeteam player to me
means somethingcompletely different.
So on my team, we worktotally autonomously.
You work whatever time youwork, whenever you want.
(41:23):
We just have deadlines.
So that's what a collaborativeteam player means to me,
is do your stuff on time.
In most places, it doesn'tlook like that at all.
It means showingup to the meeting.
And because we don't have thatuniversal definition of work,
I don't think wecan make this match.
And ultimately, Ithink it creates
more inequities, not fewer.
JILL FINLAYSON: Also, to your point (41:42):
undefined
is, what data is it trained on?
I've heard that peoplewho are veterans,
who have been in the militaryand use military terminology
to discuss the projectmanagement that they've done,
or the logisticsthat they've managed,
but it doesn't geteven seen by the AI,
because they use words thataren't the business terminology.
KAT KIBBEN (42:02):
Exactly.
There just is no universallanguage of work.
There never hasbeen, there never
will be, because we allcome from different places.
And to me, the more valuablething is experiences.
The experiences you have hadare another set of education,
and it's something universalthat people can understand.
(42:22):
So I can say "collaborativeteam player,"
And that means one thingto you and one thing to me.
But if I say, you've worked ona team of five or more where you
led team meetings, whereyou guided daily hustles
and provided one-on-one feedbackwith every person on that team--
that is easy for you to say,yeah, I did that, or no,
I didn't.
When I say "five yearscollaborative team player,"
(42:43):
you're like, sure.
JILL FINLAYSON (42:45):
So we know where you
stand on years of experience.
Where do you stand on requiringa bachelor's or a master's,
or an MBA versus amaster's of sociology?
What do you think aboutthese education credentials?
Are they a good qualification?
KAT KIBBEN (43:00):
No, I'm so sorry.
I know I'm on aneducation podcast.
I probably shouldn't be talking.
But listen, this ifyou did not learn
how to do your job at school,it is not a good requirement.
So like my doctor, mylawyer, my accountant,
please have adegree, all of you,
because you learned howto do your job at school.
My marketers, mycommunications leaders,
(43:24):
I can give you alaundry list of people.
It doesn't align 1to 1 to the role.
I mean, I went tocollege and I learned how
to do billboards and radio ads.
And let me tell you how manytimes I've written either
of those, because rightafter I left, it was .com,
and we just wentright into digital.
So that degree, yes, I have it.
But does it help me do thatmarketing job more effectively?
(43:47):
I don't know about that.
And what's more disturbing tome is both the historical data
and also the current data.
So when you lookback on job postings,
you don't reallysee requirements
for bachelor's degrees untilabout the '60s, specifically
centered in the Southeast.
I think it's prettyeasy to hypothesize
that we were using themas artificial barriers
to keep people out, becausethey knew this community did not
(44:09):
have broad access to education.
Fast forward to today.
If you look at the statisticsaround who does not
hold a college degree,you can very quickly
hypothesize that we arestill holding that line, even
though it does notultimately deliver either
a more inclusive workplace,if that's your goal, or a more
qualified one.
JILL FINLAYSON (44:30):
So let's go to some final words of advice here.
So let's take thedifferent audiences.
I'm looking for a job.
What do I do when I lookat that job description?
KAT KIBBEN (44:40):
So I want you to pull the information down.
I want you to putit into ChatGPT.
And here's whatI want you to do.
I want you to ask ChatGPT aseries of questions, questions
like, what interviewquestions would someone
ask based on this job posting?
She asks, what does thisperson do every day?
What is the impact of the work?
Going back, what are themandatory requirements?
(45:02):
Let ChatGPT tell you if thatinformation is available
and synthesize it for you.
Then take that informationas your preparation
for the interview and alsoto prepare your resume based
on that more simplified version.
The other thing Iwould tell you is,
plug it into a wordcloud generator.
(45:22):
What I like aboutthat is it just
does a quick count,because often,
if something is really importantto the person on the other side,
they will overemphasize it, andthey'll use the key word over
and over again.
And so even with ChatGPT, if yousay the same word over and over
again, it'll pop upinto your outcomes.
So I would start there.
(45:43):
Oh, and get reallygood at using LinkedIn.
JILL FINLAYSON (45:45):
And what does it take
to get really good at LinkedIn?
What are we trying to learn?
KAT KIBBEN (45:50):
I think you're trying
to learn how tosearch on the back end
and find people on LinkedIn,how to start conversations,
and honestly, how toengage an audience.
I think everyone should know howto do that, not just marketers
or people who workin social media,
because what ends up happeningis when you're looking
(46:11):
for your next job, yougo back to LinkedIn,
and you're looking for yournext job, and you go back,
and you're looking, right.
And you need a community there,because at a certain point
in your career, I feel that youshould have the network that you
can ask your network insteadof asking a job board.
And in order to buildthat, it means building
a lot of connections over time.
So anyone you meet, you shouldsend a LinkedIn connection.
(46:34):
It was great to meet you.
I want to learn from you.
JILL FINLAYSON (46:36):
All right, let's look
at the other side of the table.
I'm the job description writer.
So is that the HR person?
Is that the hiring manager?
And what can I think aboutwhen I'm putting together
a job description?
KAT KIBBEN (46:51):
So every company has a different process,
which makes it equallycomplicated and inconsistent.
So if you are writinga job posting,
I would say thevery first thing is
to brainstorm the everydayactivities of this person.
Just sit there andwrite out what do they
do every single day.
From there, you could takethose everyday activities
(47:12):
and maybe you plug it intothat free job title generator,
and you see whatjob titles pop up.
You plug in theeveryday activities
and ask ChatGPT, what would bethe mandatory requirements based
on this.
But always start byreally defining the role,
I think is a good place.
And I'm a littlebiased, but maybe
learn how to write a job post.
And that's my specialty.
(47:32):
And I have a free e-book youcan do to take some of that,
but make yourself reallyaware of the techniques that
don't work, becausewhat you know
is probably part of that basketof things that just don't work.
We've just alwaysdone it that way.
JILL FINLAYSON (47:46):
And what is your hope
for the future of work, thefuture of resumes and job
applicant hiring matchups?
KAT KIBBEN (47:54):
I truly hope we destroy the resume.
I think the resume is standingbetween people and their ability
to do work.
And so what I want to see is alot of growth in the assessment
space, a lot of growthin the information space,
because to me, it would createa baseline of knowledge.
(48:15):
We would actually be able tobuild a lot on top of that.
And so when youwent into a role,
it would already knowwhat your next four roles
are, because weassessed you correctly
and we know what your skillsare, and the skills of the roles
within our organization.
And truly, I just wantto remove the barriers,
allow people access,get them there,
because I thinkthat's ultimately
(48:36):
standing betweenour views and dreams
of inclusive and equitablehiring places, is the resume,
because it holds hundredsof years of bias.
JILL FINLAYSON: And do you think AI (48:46):
undefined
is going to play a rolein filling this new gap?
KAT KIBBEN (48:50):
I think it will.
I am concerned about ourability to mitigate bias
in that process, and so I'llbe watching that for sure.
JILL FINLAYSON (48:58):
Well, Thank you so much for joining us, Kat.
I've really enjoyedour conversation.
KAT KIBBEN (49:02):
Thank you for having me, Jill.
JILL FINLAYSON (49:04):
And with that, I hope
you have enjoyed this latestin a long series of podcasts
that we'll be sendingyour way every month.
Please share with friendsand colleagues who
may be interested in taking thisFuture of Work journey with us,
and make sure to check outextension.berkeley.edu to find
a variety of coursesto help you thrive
in this new working landscape.
And to see what's comingup at EDGE in Tech,
(49:25):
go ahead and visitedge.berkeley.edu.
Thanks so much forlistening, and we'll
be back next month with anotherlook at the future of work.
The Future of Work podcastis hosted by Jill Finlayson,
produced by Sarah Benzuly,and edited by Matt DiPietro
and Natalie Newman.
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